(Anchorage) - Rep. Lesil McGuire (R-Anchorage) has been named the new Chair of the Western Legislative Futures Forum for the Council of State Governments-West (CSG-West). At a ceremony on October 17th in Colorado Springs, the outgoing chair of that committee, Sen. Bart Davis of Idaho (R-Idaho Falls), assumed his new position as the Chair of the entire organization. Rep. McGuire has served as Sen. Davis's Vice-Chair since February of this year.

The next time the group meets will be during the CSG-West Annual meeting that will be held here in Anchorage during the week of September 25th, 2004. As chair, Rep. McGuire will have final approval of the Forum's agenda and topical discussion. Currently, she is considering several topics including how recalls and ballot initiatives have impacted the political process in the West.

The Western Legislative Futures Forum is tasked with addressing broad-based, systemic, institutional and process-oriented policy issues that have far-reaching effects on how Western legislatures do business and manage their work internally. In recent years, the forum has considered issues such as legislative term limits, election law reform, growth in legislative workload and legislative ethics.

Rep. McGuire began her association with CSG-West in 2001 when she was selected to attend their Western Legislative Academy in Colorado Springs. Since then, she has remained active with the organization most recently attending the Henry Toll Fellowship in Lexington, KY. Her position as Chair of the Futures Forum also includes her as a member of the CSG-West Executive Committee.

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