Fantasy Legislature update

There doesn't appear to be a lot of opposition to our trying out the Fantasy Legislature concept that I first talked about upstream. I'm working on putting together a small Web site with rules (much of it I've already discussed) and a sign-up page. I hope to have it by the end of the week. I'm also building a spreadsheet to determine the point awards and standings. I hope to have that done by the end of the week.

What needs to happen now? You know, in a perfect world, I'd book the MPR Forum space for a "live" draft of legislators. You know, like the NBA. The "rookies" (that would ..at least this year... all

210

201 legislators) would be there, waiting to be chosen. And the commissioner would announce each selection, the lawmaker would bound onto the stage to hold up a jersey and get a cap from the team, while the undrafted legislators hope they don't slip much further. It would be Webcast to the world.

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But, of course, that's my fantasy.

Instead, I think what we'll do is just have everyone submitted a draft list of legislators 1-201 (or, 1-whatever) and I'll get them on the living room floor, flip some coins to determine an initial draft order, and make the teams based on what you submit. We don't have a lot of time to get this thing going, we're doing it on the cheap this year, and so we need to have the teams all selected by next week.

So, what do you need to do:

-1- Decide if you want to play. We need at least 20 teams. If we get more than that -- significantly more than that -- we'll just break it up into various leagues . Theoretically, we could have leagues of individual offices where people all enter a team. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

-2- Determine a team name. Make it good.

-3- Write down (prefereable in electronic form) a draft list of lawmakers. You can get the House roster here and the Senate roster here. Don't submit it yet, though, but keep monitoring mpr.org and Polinaut for the go ahead.

-4- Spread the word. I think we had about 14 people here who said they were interested. I posted on Gather too but I haven't checked the feedback there. You know, if I taught a civics class in high school....

-5- Review the rules when they're posted.

-6- Plan on being involved and engaged during the season so it can be a competitive league.

What else?