Tennessee Gov. Bredesen Blogs

Does your governor blog? Tennessee's Phil Bredesen does, sharing some of his thoughts over the Internet. On his July 18 entry, he reflects on the National Governors' Association Conference (NGA) in Des Moines, Iowa. "NGA is about the only remaining organization of senior elected officials around that is still officially and practically non-partisan," said Bredesen, "and so it has the potential to play a pivotal role in debates like those around health care and homeland security."

Bredesen goes on to discuss the RealID program, saying: "There was an excellent discussion in a governors-only session on homeland security with Secretary Chertoff, with a lot of it revolving around the RealID program, which has governors worried about implementing it. Tennessee is ahead of the curve on this one due to the legislation from last year which established the two classes of licenses (regular and a "not for identification" certificate). We are already doing many of the things that this would require, and so if it comes to pass should not affect us as severely as many of our neighbors."