This fall, the Lede is reaching out to your elected representatives and asking what they’re anticipating for the 2024 session and what they’re doing to stay in touch with constituents until then.

District 47 Rep. Mike Shaw, R-Hoover, recently answered some questions about what’s on his mind for the upcoming session.

Was there anything in your first legislative session that was surprising to you?

The pace was surprising. Just how much stuff we had to look at and vote on very quickly. And I’ve heard it was a little unusual to look at that much legislation. In city government things are just as intense [Shaw served as a Hoover city councilor for 6 years], but the pace is slower throughout the year. So, if you have an ordinance coming up, you have two or three weeks to get familiar with it. But with this, you might have two or three pieces of legislation in a day. That is different than what I’m used to. So just the pace and the amount of information you have to process quickly.

And I’m used to getting emails from people with questions but in this role, I was surprised how few people knew what was in the bills. People tended to rely on TV or media or chainmail or something like that. And so, I was surprised at just how many constituents would talk to me about a bill and what they said wasn’t in there at all. I spent a lot of time digging through bills when people had questions on something and cutting and pasting this is what it actually says, you know. So that was a little surprising. There’s a lot of different places where people get their information. And so, a lot of times, what’s actually in the bill gets lost. So that was an interesting thing.