Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: The countdown to new legislative districts

  The much-anticipated 2018 election contests have been pushed back by about three months due to the unanticipated race for Jeff Sessions’ Senate seat. This ongoing contest will dominate the news through late September.

  It was previously thought that June 6th would be the opening bell since fundraising for next year’s June 5 primary could begin at that time. However, the bell will probably start chiming in full force by Labor Day.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: State lawmakers wield more power than you might think

  In the literary classic, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” the author draws parallels to a nation that was on top of the world and because of perverse, grandiose and pompous behavior that dynasty destroyed itself. It was from reading this documentary that the Russian premier Khrushchev believed that we, the United States, would destroy ourselves, thus causing him to brashly declare, “We will bury you.”