{"id":22126,"date":"2017-05-05T16:14:03","date_gmt":"2017-05-05T22:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=22126"},"modified":"2017-05-05T16:14:03","modified_gmt":"2017-05-05T22:14:03","slug":"blood-brings-municipal-view-to-the-legislature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=22126","title":{"rendered":"Blood brings municipal view to the Legislature"},"content":{"rendered":"

Above: Sen. Carol Blood takes a ride in a hot air balloon near Sisters, Oregon, in 2014. <\/em><\/p>\n

Visitors to the Capitol watching Sen. Carol Blood address a full legislative chamber would never guess that public speaking used to make her uncomfortable. <\/p>\n

In high school, she decided to do something about it. Blood joined the debate team, got the lead role in a school play and eventually took a job as an actor in a summer theater troupe that traveled the central U.S. giving performances in parks. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always tried to put myself outside of my comfort zone,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you never push yourself, you never make mistakes, and then what lessons are there to be learned?\u201d <\/p>\n

Blood grew up on a farm outside Hastings and moved to Bellevue in 1992 with her husband Joe, a radio personality. In 2008, after watching Bellevue City Council meetings on cable, Blood decided to step outside her comfort zone again by running for a seat on the council. As someone who ran her own business and marketing consultancy, Blood said, it was frustrating to see that the state\u2019s third largest city had no strategic plan. <\/p>\n

\u201cWithout strategic planning, you\u2019re just writing checks,\u201d she said. \u201cIt sets the foundation to get things done.\u201d <\/p>\n

Blood won the election and spent eight years as the council\u2019s only at-large member. She helped secure funding for a new police station, update city ordinances and fix other problems with simple policy changes. <\/p>\n

\u201cPolicy makes me giddy,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Blood decided to run for a seat in the Legislature because she felt that her experience at the municipal level would be useful at the state level. She understands how state law affects cities and has already built relationships with local officials as well as police and fire chiefs whose advice she knows she can trust. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I have a bill that I look at and I question whether it\u2019s going to be right for my district, there are people I can pick up the phone and ask,\u201d Blood said.<\/p>\n

Like most senators, Blood rarely has a free minute, but she still makes time for what is most important to her: her family and her community. She spends as much time as possible with her three children and eight grandchildren and serves as volunteer chairperson of the Bellevue farmer\u2019s market. <\/p>\n

Blood said that a few months in office have strengthened her belief in how important it is for her to represent the views in her district, not necessarily her own. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some bills that \u2014 for me personally \u2014 I might support, but I know that the people in my district don\u2019t want me to support it,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m here to be their voice, not my personal voice.\u201d <\/p>\n

To ensure her constituents\u2019 views inform her legislation, Blood answers all of her own emails and she and her staff have called more than 2,000 constituents since January, asking for feedback. And she drafted all but two of the dozen or so bills she introduced, which she turned in on the first day of session. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople said, \u2018You have [a legislative aide] to do that,\u2019\u201d Blood said. \u201cYeah, but where\u2019s the fun in that?\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Visitors to the Capitol watching Sen. Carol Blood address a full legislative chamber would never guess that public speaking used to make her uncomfortable. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22119,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[179],"class_list":["post-22126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senator-features","tag-sen-carol-blood"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/MeetBlood_blog.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22126"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22144,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22126\/revisions\/22144"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}