The ethanol bill is a win-win for this area, a win-win for Missouri's economy and a win-win for the nation as a whole.

I was pleased to see Mid-Missouri Energy send two busloads of people to the capitol in Jefferson City to keep the ethanol bill in front of lawmakers.

Legislatures are funny animals. When a bill such as the ethanol measure gets in the hopper, you and I may think the idea is a win-win and a common sense approach to helping solve our needs when it comes to fossil fuels, the environment and the way we look at buying fuel for our vehicles.

Gov. Matt Blunt even came out in his annual State of the State address and backed the measure.

That means it is a lock to pass, right?

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Even the best-intentioned piece of legislation can get caught up in a logjam in a legislative body. Believe me, I know, having covered state legislatures in Ohio and West Virginia.

The key to getting a bill through the legislature and signed by the governor to place it into law is keeping the pressure on. Public pressure, not the pressure that envelopes lawmakers as the paid lobbyists skirt around the halls of the capitol.

Quite frankly, about the only thing that lawmakers truly respond to is the voices from home -- regular people taking time out of their busy schedules to travel to the capitol and re-emphasize what the rest of us consider to be common sense.

I've seen doctors -- all dressed in their white lab coats -- descend en mass on a legislature to re-emphasize the importance of legislation affecting the medical community. I've seen teachers travel to state houses to lobby for educational reforms. And, I've seen farmers, riding to state houses in their tractors, travel to a state capital to re-emphasize the importance of legislation that affects the farming communities.

And, despite all those expressions of public support, I've seen lawmakers completely ignore the concerns of the general population of a state and go off and do something on their own.

The legislative process should be one of quality, not quantity, and I've a firm believer that the fewer number of changes approved to a state's constitution or legal framework the better. We don't need laws for everything and I am a firm believer that common sense, not politics or personal agendas, should guide these deliberations.

That's why state houses, and the Capitol in the District of Columbia, are called "the peoples' houses." These elected officials are doing the work of the people, the people who elected them, and not the work of this special interest group or that.

So, even though the signs are encouraging, we need to keep the pressure on Jefferson City to make sure the ethanol bill is approved by both the state House of Representatives and the state Senate and that a final bill lands on the governor's desk for that final act of the legislative process -- his signature -- so that the bill becomes law.

To that end, if you have a spare minute -- especially if the issue is important to you -- I advise that readers contact their lawmakers to tell them how you feel about the ethanol bill. At The Marshall Democrat-News on this page we run contact information for our lawmakers in Jefferson City and also the congressional district that serves this area.

It doesn't hurt to touch base with these lawmakers to let them know you are aware of important legislation that, if approved, could change the economic face of Missouri forever.

I think it was wonderful that the FFA kids got to go on the recent trip to Jefferson City. I especially thought it was poignant that, even with their limited experience in the legislative arena, they caught the gist of what goes on.

"We learned people are told different things," noted Marshall FFA President Brittaney Wade. Yep, Brittaney, the disinformation campaigns that are conducted in legislative arenas can be quite masterful.

I would echo what state Rep. Joe Aull, D-Marshall, told the group traveling to Jefferson City: "There are a lot of issues that people aren't either in favor of or opposed to. They just don't know that much about it. If they get a lot more people in favor of it then they are likely to vote for it."

Well said, Mr. Representative. The key is receiving support from lawmakers who might be sitting on the fence on the ethanol issue.

Let's not have any mixed signals here. We support the bill and the sooner that it becomes law, the better.

Keep the pressure on. Let's get this bill approved so that the lawmakers can then concentrate on other important issues for the state of Missouri.

Mason is the editor of The Marshall Democrat-News. Spectrum appears on Friday.