Kansas State Rep. Vince Wetta, D-Wellington, has put his hat in for another two years of service in office. Wetta officially filed for re-elected last week in Topeka with the office of the Secretary of State, he said. The primary election for this position will be held in August. Wetta said his first term in office have been a whirlwind ride, and his work gained him official recognition from the 14th Annual Bowhay Institute for Legislative Leadership Development, which named Wetta as a 2008 fellowship winner. There are 11 states involved in the midwest conference, which will be held Aug. 8-12 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Wetta was supported in his application for the fellowship with letters of reference by Minority Leader Dennis McKinney, D-Greensburg, and Assistant Minority Leader Jim Ward, D-Wichita. He also had to write a personal essay on his first two years in office and his goals for future terms. Wetta said the fellowship is open to freshmen legislators in their first four years of office, and from what he has heard of other attendees, “this is the best legislative conference they’ve ever been to.” Issues discussed at the conference will be geared towards the midwest, including transportation, energy, health care and education. Wetta said he is looking forward to the event and learning more on all these issues and more. “This year people are understanding I’m not just the casino,” Wetta said of his second year in office. “Energy was the main thing this year, and people understood that there is more to me than just the gaming issue.” Wetta said from gambling to coal, the legislative process got even meaner this year, with him finally falling in support of the coal issue. “I could argue either side, but I came down on the side for it and am glad I voted the way I did,” Wetta said. Wetta compared the coal energy issue this year to the expanded gaming issue of last year and said with both, there needs to be a way to do the best thing for both the state and the people. “I keep going back to that, to the people. My slogan when I ran last year was ‘We The People still matter,’” Wetta said, drawing a small copy of the U.S. Constitution from his wallet. “We still matter.” But he said he was not pleased with the final vote on the energy bill, which included other issues in the bill the state needs and will not get because they were lumped into the coal bill. Wetta said the final version of the healthcare bill was also “watered down and not what we wanted, but it did help some people so I voted for it.” Wetta was in support of an immigration bill that came out of the House, but eventually cast a vote against the bill because he said it was “gutted.” “Although we need to do something for immigration, that bill created more problems than it solved,” Wetta said. Wetta said he was also involved in many discussions on transportation issues, Payday Loan facilities, planning future meetings between farmers and industries capable of producing biofuels, BNSF highway infrastructure, a proposed gas tax, and several other hot button issues through the year. “The thing I’ve enjoyed the most is being able to help constituents who have problems that they’re unable to get resolved,” Wetta said. As he looks to the future of the expanded gaming issue, Wetta says it’s going to come down to a business decision for the state, following the law and meaning of Senate Bill 66. “We’ve followed the process and we continue to do that. And in the end, I think we stand head and shoulders above the competition — in both what we’ve done to get this far and how we’ve conducted ourselves,” Wetta said. He is still in awe of the remarkable change of attitude from his first days in office two years ago, when Sumner County was told it had no chance of being included in the gambling bill, to the negotiations of being brought in and possibly taken out, to the vote against gaming in Sedgwick County, to Sumner County now being three and a half months away from learning which of four leading casino companies in the nation will build a destination resort in Sumner County. “The people on that committee are going to make a good decision of the four choices,” Wetta said. “I’m ready to know how this will all play out.”