What if your kid went off to college and decided to major in ... everything?

Nope, not just one or two subjects, but everything.

That's essentially what legislators do when they come to Topeka. The farmer needs to learn the complexities of banking, the banker needs to figure out highway building, the teacher needs to get up to speed on insurance.

When you vote for a legislator, you're sending someone to Topeka who will at sometime during his/her term have to deal with virtually every issue that involves living, working, learning, even dying in Kansas.

It's a big plate, and it requires some pretty decent sizing-up skills by voters to figure out whether the candidate -- newbie or incumbent -- is up to learning all that he/she will need to know on your behalf as your legislator arriving in Topeka.

And, of course, right in the middle of the flying short course in managing the state are lobbyists, dreaded lobbyists who generally show up in hazy black and white photos in campaign commercials. We're generally led to believe that lobbyists are the problem with government, both in Washington and in Topeka. Well, maybe yes, but probably no.

Because lobbyists -- representing unions, chambers of commerce, banks and farm groups, educators, doctors, corporations, utilities, insurance companies -- virtually live in the Statehouse during the legislative session they come under scrutiny at election time when people wonder what they want for their clients and what they're doing to get deals for those clients.

It's easy to forget, and hardly any legislative candidates mention when they're promising not to hang out with lobbyists, that those lobbyists have a pretty important informational role for legislators who come to Topeka not knowing the complexities, the industry norms, and the intersection of state law, federal law and even local government ordinances.

There's a lot more going on than just passing laws that you read about in the newspaper. There are complexities that legislators need to know about and why something that on its face seems simple might not be.

For example, you probably didn't read much about the small, complicated issue of "one call" to get utilities to identify where their water and natural gas pipes, electric wires and water and sewage lines are. That's a big deal if you add onto your home or build a shopping center or even just want to dig a hole to plant a tree and don't want to cause an explosion or a massive power outage or cut the water or sewer line for your neighborhood.

It was a festival of lobbyists, all with their own clients' interests to protect -- from the contractors to the gas companies to the municipalities and water districts and even to the lawyers who want to make sure that liabilities for foul-ups don't become unreasonable.

Think your candidate for House or Senate understood the complexities without the assistance of lobbyists, without talking to people who are affected by the "one-call" bill? Probably not. That's what lobbyists do.

For some voters, their legislators are going to be a long way from home, and they're going to be trying to learn everything they can about complexities of state government, about issues that just don't come up at home. They'll learn much of what they need to know from lobbyists.

And they'll probably attend receptions when the legislative day is over and go to lunches or dinners with lobbyists. But those are generally low-key -- it is bad manners to browbeat legislators or lie to them, and lobbyists who do that are quickly identified and become useless to their employers.

That's the Statehouse/legislative culture at work.

Syndicated by Hawver News Co. of Topeka, Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver's Capitol Report. To learn more about this statewide political news service, visit the Web site at www.hawvernews.com.