Public pressure slacks due to the increase in war attention, allowing some legislators to breathe a sigh of relief.

“Like everybody else in the world, the big story is the war and some of our attention is diverted to the news,” said Sen. Gary Nodler (R-Joplin).

He said to some extent the war has helped turn the public’s attention away from the budget problems at hand and has thus relieved some pressure.

“The public attention is a bit less focused on these budget problems, which seem smaller, in comparison, to the war,” Nodler said. “The pressure’s a little less on us.”

He said the decrease in attention at the Capitol has helped the legislators focus more easily on the task at hand.

“In a time of peace, I’m sure the focus on these huge budget cuts would have been much greater,” Nodler said. “It’s probably made this process a bit easier.”

Rep. Marilyn Ruestman (R-Joplin) said the House is still focused on the same things it was prior to the war.

“I haven’t taken any time away from the legislature to participate in anything related to the war,” Nodler said.

Support for the war has not been a partisan decision in the Senate, he said. The Senate passed a resolution to support President George W. Bush and the soldiers 30 to 2. The two who voted against the resolution were Democrats.

“That also means 11 of the 13 Democrats voted with the Republicans and that’s a pretty heavy show of support from the other party,” Nodler said. “I don’t detect any political division of any significance on support for the war here.”

“We’re all pretty much cemented in the fact we all support our service people,” Ruestman said. “We have people on both sides of the aisle who have relatives in Iraq and I believe we’ve all been very supportive across both aisles.”