I was talking last week to Lionel Waxman who has been writing a column for Inside Tucson Business pretty much since its inception in 1991. He said he’s been through two owners and a half-dozen editors in that time. As readers of his column know, he’s told the story of how he died in 2007.

“While I am in remarkably good condition for a dead man, I have not been everything I was previously,” he said as he explained he was finding it tougher to find local things to opine about.

That led to a decision but more on that later in this column. As I thought back on what Waxman told me, my mind flashed on the fact that this year has been an odd one when it comes to issues other than the state of the economy. And, as far as that goes, what can you say? The economy is bad. Got a different point of view?

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One of our sources of amusement through the first few months of the year normally comes from the state Capitol. But faced with a projected budget shortfall of $3.3 billion for the 2009-2010 fiscal year, the leadership in the state Senate has refused to hear any bills until after the budget mess is settled.

While the state House hasn’t the same restriction on bills, the fact is without the Senate not much appears to be getting done in Phoenix.

So not a lot is happening at the Capitol. New Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, who once championed the idea of temporary tax has backed away from that. And the minority Democrats talk of the need to maintain services. But the majority Republicans in the Legislature seem to have held both at bay, though when it comes to pushing their budget through, they haven’t made much progress.

So maybe this is the year of the Legislature so many of us wanted to see, if only once — a do-nothing legislature. No new laws about license plate frames. No additional bureaucratic hoops to jump through.

Somehow, though, I think we’re going to pay for it. We just don’t know how or why yet.

In the meantime, people like Lionel Waxman are having a tough time finding fodder for column material. On that score, readers will note that for a second consecutive week his column does not appear in this issue of Inside Tucson Business.

At Waxman’s request, we’ve decided his column will go on hiatus.

That now leaves me in the position of trying to find another columnist. That’s on top of my search that was already underway to try to fill the space left by the death of Steve Emerine in February.

Lately, and again this week, we’ve had some contributions from former Tucson City Councilwoman Carol West. Agree or not, I like to read columns that get me thinking about local issues.

If you’ve got something you’d like to contribute or know of somebody who has something to add to the debate, please let me know. My e-mail address is at the bottom of this column. 

 E-mail comments for publication to editor@azbiz.com. Contact David Hatfield at dhatfield@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4237.