Congrats to Mark Miller

Our State Senator Mark Miller has been named co-chair of the legislature's Joint Finance Committee by the new Democratic majority leader Russ Decker. (This at least is good news after Decker started out by withdrawing leadership support from indoor smoking restrictions and his support for the godawful cable TV bill. (John Nichols: Decker off to bad start with cable bill push).

It's hard to overstate the importance of being co-chair of Joint Finance. To be frank, the legislature doesn't do a whole lot other than pass the budget and Joint Finance controls the budget process. Here's a story from WBAY-TV

Miller named new co-chair of powerful budget-writing committee