Democratic state legislators across the country made enormous progress on health care reform in 2009, and that trend is set to continue in 2010. Here are some of the state-level reform bills that made headlines this week:

• Idaho: The Idaho House and Senate -- with unanimous support from both Democratic caucuses -- have both passed HB432, a new plan to provide universal access to vaccinations for all Idaho children. Funded entirely by insurance companies and administered by a board of experts, the plan will allow vaccines to be purchased more cheaply and reduce the “free-rider” problem that creates an economic disincentive for insurance companies to cover childhood vaccinations.
  
  
• New Mexico: Democratic-sponsored HB12, which mandates that insurance companies spend at least 85% of their budgets on direct medical care, has been approved overwhelmingly and now awaits the governor’s signature.
  
  
• Ohio: The Ohio legislature has unanimously approved a three-month extension of COBRA health insurance for workers who’ve lost their jobs. The extension will allow Ohioans to take advantage of a 65% CORBA subsidy provided by the federal government for the full 15 months approved by Congress.
  
  
• Wisconsin: The Democratically-controlled Wisconsin Senate has narrowly approved the creation of a limited, state-run insurance program to provide basic coverage for uninsured adults on the waiting list for a more extensive, Medicaid-funded program. BadgerCare Plus Basic would be paid for through individual premiums of $130 per month and would not be supported by tax dollars. The bill, SB484, now moves to the Assembly.

In North Carolina, GOP State Sen. Jim Forrester is in hot water over a set of remarks he made this week. His speech at a Iredell County Young Republicans seemed like it contained nothing but insults:

He said:

"Slick city lawyers and homosexual lobbies and African American lobbies are running Raleigh."

He told the crowd that the reason Republicans didn't win back the legislature in 2008 came down to one thing:

Forrester said that then-presidential candidate Barack Obama's 2008 campaign invigorated an erstwhile disconnected bloc of the electorate.

"It brought a lot of blacks out who don't normally vote," he said.

And as the News & Observer reports, he also used the occasion to insult his colleagues:

Forrester cited Sen. Julia Boseman, a Wilmington Democrat and the first openly gay lawmaker, as evidence of a liberal agenda in Raleigh. Forrester dropped a thinly veiled reference to Democratic state Sen. R.C. Soles as someone who Forrester said is rumored to be gay.

Boseman and Soles do not plan to seek re-election.

"And I say good riddance to them," Forrester said.

The remarks were so out of line that even Sen. Mitch Berger -- the chamber's GOP Leader -- won't stand by them:

I don’t agree with the remarks that have been attributed to Sen. Forrester,” Berger said. “I have not talked to Sen. Forrester about that. You probably need to talk to him about whether he should apologize or not.

Though Sen. Berger won't call on Sen. Forrester to apologize, the North Carolina Democratic Party has done just that.

Many states have old laws still on the books that would be wrong and outrageously offensive if proposed today. Progressive California is no exception, which is why Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal introduced legislation to right one such wrong:

AB 2199's targeted section, which was placed into law in 1967, requires the Department of Mental Health to "plan, conduct and cause to be conducted scientific research into the causes and cures of sexual deviation, including deviations conducive to sex crimes against children, and the causes and cures of homosexuality, and into methods of identifying potential sex offenders."

The genesis of Assemblywoman Lowenthal’s bill is also interesting, and it proves once again how important it is for citizens to contact their state legislators about issues that matter to them:

"The fact this language has survived this long is pretty amazing," she said in a news release. "We need to blot it out and make it clear we're moving forward as a society, not backward."

Lowenthal's chief of staff, Will Shuck, said the section was brought to Lowenthal's attention by Equality California, the state's largest gay-rights group.

"This section of the code is deplorable," said Geoff Kors, the group's executive director, because it implies both that homosexuality is an illness and that gays are a threat to children.

Indeed. And one can only hope that no state money is being wasted in search of a so-called “cure” for being gay.

Nearly two years to the day after a twelve-year-old boy literally died of a toothache because of poor access to dental care, a new report by the non-partisan Pew Center on the States grades all 50 states on their success providing dental care to children. 5 of the 6 states that earned Pew’s highest grade have solidly-Democratic legislatures:

Only six states merited A grades: Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island and South Carolina. These states met at least six of the eight policy benchmarks—that is, they had particular policies that met or exceeded the national performance thresholds. South Carolina was the nation’s top performer, meeting seven of the eight benchmarks. Although these states are doing well on these benchmarks, every state has a great deal of room to improve. No state met all eight targets.

The benchmarks measured each state on various preventive techniques, encouragement for providers to accept Medicaid patients, expanding the number and availability of dentists, and innovation in delivering care more efficiently.

Childhood dental care is often overlooked in the healthcare debate, but it’s also critically important. Early care can help prevent major (and costly) dental problems later in life, and it could have prevented the tragedy two years ago that shocked the nation.

As the Pew report states, all states have room to improve in this area, but we are deeply encouraged by the fact that the six leading states are so diverse. States from every region of the country are represented, as are states with and without large minority populations, rural states, urban states, and states at both the high and low end of the median income scale.

In fact, with the exception of South Carolina, Democratic state legislatures are about the only thing some of these states have in common.

Almost a year after he was indicted on felony charges of corruption, former Florida GOP Speaker Ray Sansom is finally leaving the legislature.

He resigned on Sunday:

The move, rendered in a letter hand-delivered by Sansom's attorney to the Capitol shortly before 8 p.m., ends a legislative career that once put Sansom near the apex of Florida politics but unraveled in scandal as he took a job at Northwest Florida State College on the same day in November 2008 that he was sworn in as House speaker.

Sansom, R-Destin, did not acknowledge wrongdoing, but said he was stepping down out of love for the House. The resignation was effective immediately.

Despite Sansom's refusual to acknowledge wrongdoing, the House Ethics committees was prepared move forward with a hearing which would have laid out the case against him in full.

That's off now that Sansom has resigned -- which is probably good news for lots of Republicans (like former Speaker Marco Rubio, who made Sanson his budget chief).

One GOP lawmaker it doesn't help is the next Speaker -- Rep. Chris Dorworth. Dorworth made news this week for dipping into his campaign funds to pay for a $600 flight to the Super Bowl and a $527 visit at the luxury Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables.

The reason the future Speaker is using campaign funds to pay for personal expenses? He owes $2.7 million in legal fees for a bad business deal.

The Rose Institute at Claremont McKenna College has published another in-depth guide to redistricting, this time focusing on the Florida. With a non-partisan redistricting ballot measure in 2010, Voting Rights Act requirements, and the addition of at least one new congressional seat, the Sunshine State is expecting one of the most interesting redistricting battles anywhere in the country:

An initiative called FairDistricts will be on the ballot in 2010 proposing a constitutional amendment to restrict gerrymandering. It would require the legislature to draw compact districts that conform to pre-existing political and geographic boundaries. Currently the only restrictions on redistricting in the state are that all districts must be contiguous and the map must follow federal law and the Voting Rights Act. (…) If the Fair Districts initiative passes, it will leave control of redistricting in the Legislature’s hands but impose significant restrictions on how it can draw the lines. The degree of that control will almost certainly be the subject of multiple post-redistricting lawsuits.

In addition to the legal and constitutional issues, Florida is also a very diverse state, politically, ethnically, and geographically. The Rose Institute report delves into all these factors, in every major region of the state. It’s well worth a read.

For a primer on how Florida conducts redistricting, a state-by-state fact sheet is available over at Redistricting Facts.

Something unprecedented happened over the weekend in Virginia when a Republican former Delegate, who served in the legislature for over 30 years, endorsed the Democratic candidate he once defeated in one of his re-election campaigns:

Former Republican delegate James H. Dillard II, who served as Virginia's 41st District House delegate from 1972 to 2005, endorsed Eileen Filler-Corn, a Democratic lobbyist who served as an adviser to two former Virginia Democratic governors.

Dillard defeated Filler-Corn in 1999 in a hotly contested race for the 41st House District, which is in Fairfax County and includes the areas of Burke, Fairfax Station and Springfield.

The 41st House seat opened up again when Sen. David W. Marsden (D-Fairfax), who succeeded Dillard in 2005, defeated Republican Stephen M. "Steve" Hunt by 324 votes in a Senate special election in mid-January. He resigned his House seat a day later.

Filler-Corn is now the Democratic nominee in the special election to fill Sen. Marsden’s House seat, to be held March 2nd.

Cross-party endorsements are rare but not unheard-of, especially in state politics. But none of us can ever remember a situation like this happening before. In a statement announcing the endorsement, Dillard praised Filler-Corn for her honesty, civic commitment, and her strong support for Virginia’s public schools:

“As a Republican I am willing to cross party lines to support a moderate who cares strongly about providing excellent educational opportunities for our children in our public schools and institutions of higher learning. Unlike her opponent, who believes we spend 'excessive' amounts on public education, Eileen will fight to get our fair share of education dollars…”

For more information about Eileen Filler-Corn or to help with her campaign, visit eileenfordelegate.com.

We've become accustomed to hearing ridiculous statements from the likes of Virginia Republican State Delegate Bob Marshall. After all, this is a man who last year compared the federal economic recovery package to slavery, and who once said "[S]ometimes incest is voluntary" when talking about abortion.

But Marshall's newest rant is shockingly offensive, even for him:

State Delegate Bob Marshall of Manassas says disabled children are God's punishment to women who have aborted their first pregnancy.

Speaking at a press conference over the weekend, Marshall told reporters:

"The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children."

"In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There's a special punishment Christians would suggest."

At the event, Marshall announced that he would sponsor a bill to eliminate state funding for Planned Parenthood in Virginia.

Perhaps we should have said this more directly when we told you about an Oklahoma legislator who wants to ban divorce for many couples: The government forcing people to stay married when they no longer want to be is a very, very bad idea:

[Republican State Senator Michelle] McManus is the sole sponsor of SB 1127 which would eliminate ‘no fault divorce’ for couples with children or where one member does not consent to the divorce. (…)

Under the McManus bill those seeking divorce would be required to allege specific problems such as adultery, physical abuse, imprisonment, physical incompetence at time of marriage, or that a spouse had sex with an animal or dead human body.

McManus and the bill’s culture-warrior supporters claim it will help reduce divorce rates in Michigan. But people who study the issue of divorce say the bill’s passage “would be an unmitigated disaster” for families -- and especially children -- caught up in a divorce:

Family law experts, however, say the legislation will only make divorces harder on families and children because parents will be forced to invent allegations of abuse and mistreatment in order to justify the divorce.

Michael A. Robbins is current President of the Michigan Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

Robbins said that Michigan repealed fault divorces in 1972 because the process created needless hostility, collusion and perjury — people would make up stories of abuse to get out of their marriages.

Indeed.

When will Republicans learn to stop forcing government into the middle of people’s personal lives?

Like many state governments, Utah is grappling with a budget shortfall. That will require lawmakers to make tough choices when it comes how to spend taxpayer money.

But one proposed cut seems particularly absurd, even by Republican standards.

GOP State Sen. Chris Buttars actually pitched the idea that the state should stop paying for 12th grade.

Predictably, the suggestion has caused something of an uproar:

Buttars has since toned down the idea, suggesting instead that senior year become optional for students who complete their required credits early. He estimated the move could save up to $60 million, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

This isn't the first time that Buttars has made national news. The Republican senator also made headlines for suggesting that gay men and women are "the greatest threat to America."

We would say that Republicans ought to move on to other matters, but apparently, that's not such a good idea either.

Iowa isn’t the only place where Democrats are holding strong on equality. Over in New Hampshire, whose legislature established civil marriage equality beginning on New Year’s Day, 2010, the Democratically-controlled State House voted down two bills aimed at repealing the new law:

The House voted by a wide margin, 201-135, against a constitutional amendment that defined marriage as between one man and one woman. It later defeated a proposed repeal of the state's new marriage, 210-109.

New Hampshire's gay marriage laws passed last year and took effect Jan. 1, two years after civil unions became legal. The laws allow same-sex couples in civil unions to convert their relationship to marriage this year, or wait until the conversion becomes automatic on Jan. 1, 2011.

Sadly, the debate over these bills was marred by several Republican legislators who called the existing same-sex marriages in New Hampshire “a cruel joke,” a violation of “natural law,” or who argued that “homosexuals can change their sexual preference at any time.”

But since equality was the real victor today, we’ll let Democratic State Rep. Robert Thompson have the last word:

"We already have loving, committed same-sex marriage couples in New Hampshire. There has been no detrimental impact to anyone," he said.

Thompson, who married his gay partner on Jan. 2, asked the House, "How has my marriage impacted upon your marriage, or how has it diminished the value of your marriage?"

As DLCC Chairman Mike Gronstal says, it hasn’t – quite the opposite, in fact.

The Republican-dominated legislature in Utah has found yet another particularly stupid way to waste its time.

This month, the state House of Representatives debated and passed a resolution, disputing the scientific basis for climate change:

The original version of the bill dismissed climate science as a "well organised and ongoing effort to manipulate and incorporate "tricks" related to global temperature data in order to produce a global warming outcome". It accused those seeking action on climate change of riding a "gravy train" and their efforts would "ultimately lock billions of human beings into long-term poverty".

The final resolution toned down some of the more overheated rhetoric, but still managed to insist climate science was "questionable" and demanded that the federal Environmental Protection Agency abandon its efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The move by the EPA has conservatives across the country in a tizzy.

In recent days, GOP policymakers in Texas and Virginia have issued similar requests, asking that the federal agency reconsider its very basic finding that greenhouse gases cause climate change, which in turn poses a major threat to public health.

Republicans occasionally like to introduce wacky legislation. That's no secret, and for the most part, we simply don't have the time to cover every ridiculous-never-had-a-chance-to-make-it-to-the-the-floor bill they sponsor.

But this one's too good to ignore.

South Carolina Republican Mike Pitts, a state representative, has introduced a bill that would ban the "the unconstitutional substitution of Federal Reserve Notes for silver and gold coin" in the state:

If the bill were to become law, South Carolina would no longer accept or use anything other than silver and gold coins as a form of payment for any debt, meaning paper money would be out in the Palmetto State.

This is a fight that we as a nation have had before. Unfortunately for Rep. Pitts, it is a fight that his side lost more than a century ago. In cases stretching from 1871 to 1884, the Supreme Court repeatedly ruled that paper dollars issued by the federal government are, in fact, legal tender for all debts, public and private.

Even if constitutionality weren't a hurdle, practicality would be. The worth of gold or silver coins would constantly fluctuate with market values for the precious metals. At best, Pitts would be reintroducing the barter system to South Carolina.

Pitts has no problem with that:

"To me, something I can hold tangible in my hand I can put more value in, especially under the current rate of inflation,” Pitts said. “In the case of total economic collapse, a barter tool is going to be worth a whole lot more value than paper with ink on it."

Luckily, even Pitts doesn't think this bill has any chance at becoming a law:

"I don’t see the intestinal fortitude of this legislative body to test the federal government on Constitutional issues. One that has this much teeth in it I don’t think has the ability to pass."

But of course, that begs another question. Why is he wasting everyone's time?

Kansas’ Republican State House Speaker is currently the lead attorney in a lawsuit against the state government. But what’s fishy is that the case revolves around the state budget – the same state budget Speaker O’Neal was intimately involved in writing:

O’Neal represents 17 professional groups, including the Kansas Bankers Association and Kansas Association of Realtors, challenging a 2009 legislative decision to take money from the funds of professional regulatory bodies. The groups’ members pay dues that support the regulatory agencies.

Democrats contend it is a conflict of interest. (…)

“Using his position as House speaker to drum up business for his law firm … I don’t see how he can reconcile it,” said House Minority Leader Paul Davis, a Lawrence Democrat.

While O’Neil voted against the particular funds transfer at issue here, we have no idea what went on behind the scenes or what sort of back-room deals were involved. So Kansas voters have no idea if their Republican leader secretly helped engineer this legislation just so he could turn around and sue the State of Kansas.

All we know for certain is that the Republican House Speaker, instead of representing his constituents, is representing the banking industry and 16 other trade groups as they literally try to pry money away from Kansas taxpayers in this lawsuit.

Last month, we alerted readers to a Republican-sponsored survey claiming to be an official Census questionnaire. Census officials worry the fake mailers will reduce participation in the actual Census, but now Republican officials have admitted a much more insidious goal: defrauding potential donors:

"Of course, duping people is the point. ... That's one of the reasons why it works so well,” said one Republican operative familiar with the program, who said it’s among the RNC’s most lucrative fundraising initiatives. “They will likely mail millions this year [with] incredible targeting.”

Any voter needs to remember two things if they receive one of these fake “Census” forms from the Republican Party:

1. Your official U.S. Census questionnaire will NEVER ask you to send money, pin numbers, or credit card information with your completed survey.

2. If the Republican-sponsored survey “duped” you (their word) into thinking you had to pay to be counted in the U.S. Census, and you sent a donation because of it, you have been defrauded. Contact the Republican Party immediately to demand a refund.

For more tips on avoiding scams and other fraudulent Census questionnaires, please visit this U.S. Census Bureau fact sheet.

Congratulations are in order for Providence Democrat Gordon Fox, who has been overwhelmingly chosen by his fellow Representatives to be the next Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives.

Interestingly, Speaker-Elect Fox will break more than one barrier when he takes the lead in the State House:

Besides being the first openly gay lawmaker to preside at the speaker’s rostrum, members of the House minority caucus say that Fox, the child of an Irish-American and a mother of Cape Verdean descent, is the first minority lawmaker to hold what is arguably the state’s most powerful political post.

He will preside over a veto-proof Democratic majority and have wide sway over which bills come to a vote and which bills die.

During a closed-door caucus, Democratic lawmakers also picked Nicholas Mattiello of Cranston as their majority leader and J. Patrick O’Neill of Pawtucket as the party whip.

Congratulations to all the newly-elected leaders in Rhode Island, and we wish them the best of luck solving the challenges Rhode Island faces in this tough economy.

After a court ruling established marriage equality in Iowa, Democrats (lead by State Senate Majority Leader and DLCC Chairman Mike Gronstal) promised to block any bill to ban same-sex marriage in Iowa. A few days ago, Iowa’s Democratic legislators delivered on that promise, effectively blocking a Republican-sponsored marriage ban for the rest of the legislative session:

What Republicans wanted was the right to pull House Joint Resolution 6 out of a committee so that it would be placed on the debate calendar and avoid a legislative deadline this week.

The effort failed in the Senate where a vote was not taken. However, all 18 Senate Republicans signed a petition circulated by Sen. David Johnson, R-Ocheyedan (…)

The House spent almost 30 minutes on a rarely used “call-of-the-House” in which each of the 100 members were ordered into the chambers to vote unless they were previously excused. The House measure ultimately failed in a 45 to 54 vote that was mostly along party lines.

What’s most striking is that each chamber had just a single Democrat willing to go on record supporting the ban. Every other rank-and-file legislator, including many Democrats facing tough re-election campaigns in conservative districts, stood with Majority Leader Gronstal and House Speaker Pat Murphy on the right side of history.

The good folks over at Bleeding Heartland took a moment to acknowledge the role Leadership played in both results:

Murphy and Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal strongly supported the Iowa Supreme Court's Varnum v Brien ruling, and they deserve a lot of credit for holding their caucuses together today. As Gronstal has promised, Republicans will not succeed in writing discrimination into our state's constitution.

Hear at the DLCC, we couldn’t be more proud of our Chairman and all the Iowa Democrats who stood up for equality this week.

In North Carolina, both political parties are paying particularly close attention to this year's state legislative elections:

That is because the legislature, as required by the U.S. Constitution, will draw new district maps for the legislature and for Congress in 2011 based on the census that will be conducted this year. Whether those maps are drawn by Democrats or Republicans - or jointly by both parties - could go a long way in deciding who holds power in Raleigh and who goes to Washington.

Democrats currently control both houses of the legislature, and leaders like Speaker Joe Hackney aren't downplaying the stakes for 2010:

"The conventional wisdom is that the election preceding redistricting is the most important one of the decade. I would not quarrel with that. We have seen redistricting make a big difference in legislative bodies."

For their part, Republicans are telling reporters that they are optimistic about their chances in this year's legislative races. But Democrats aren't taking the threat lightly. They're already hard at work recruiting strong candidates and laying the groundwork for victories this fall.

While the Washington State Senate considers a Democratic-sponsored jobs initiative, Democrats in the State House are stepping up to support working families in other ways.

Speaker Frank Chopp -- a DLCC Board Member –- kicked things off a few weeks ago by leading the charge against a new ballot initiative to privatize the state-run worker’s compensation insurance system:

House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, said it would be "an absolute tragedy" to privatize the state-run workers' comp system, which has been in place for decades.

"That would be a disaster, and I hope to God the public also agrees on this," Chopp said Thursday.

Washington’s labor leaders prefer the state-run system because it provides more generous benefits than some private plans would, and the plan’s low overhead and efficient operation make it much cheaper compared to costs in other states.

Then late last week, the State House voted to grant collective-bargaining protections to workers at some childcare centers receiving state subsidies:

This measure, House Bill 1329, stirred much controversy in 2009. It passed the House but died after the majority there rejected changes made by the Senate.

House Democrats expect the outcome will be different this time because they are apparently willing to accept revisions pushed by senators a year ago.

If passed by the Senate, this bill would fulfill a promise that slipped through the legislative cracks last year.

Democrat Terry Mills won a special election last night to capture the formerly Republican 24th State House seat in central Kentucky. With all counties reporting, Mills leads in unofficial returns by 54.4%to 46.6%, or a margin of 489 votes:

Of the four Republican legislative seats contested in Kentucky special elections since 2008, Kentucky Democrats have now picked up three of them – all in districts which supported John McCain by enormous margins.

Last night’s victory was a true regional showdown. Mills and Republican nominee Leo Johnson both carried their respective home countries (Marion and Casey) by wide margins, but Mills was clearly able to excite more of his supporters than Johnson.

Mills’ showing is especially impressive because Marion County went for John McCain in 2008, and it supported the Republican candidate by a 2-1 margin in a State Senate special election just two months ago. Last night, it supported the Democrat Mills by nearly 8-1.

Congratulations to the Mills campaign and the Kentucky Democratic party!

This year’s award for craziest Republican legislator might go to Washington State Senator Pam Roach, who was just expelled from the GOP caucus and ordered to not to have any direct contact with GOP Senate staffers after a serious altercation:

According to [Senate staff attorney Michael] Hoover’s account to an investigator, several senators opposed Hoover in caucus when he questioned whether it would be ethical for Sen. Janéa Holmquist to post pictures from a political rally on an official Web site. Roach went much further, Hoover reported, pointing her finger at him and telling him he didn’t do his job and was plotting against senators.

“It was like meat in front of a Rottweiler, she went crazy. She was so focused on the encounter,” one anonymous staff member is quoted as saying by the investigator, attorney Chris Farias of law firm Stokes Lawrence.

Other anonymous staff members described the verbal attack as typical. “We call it being ‘Roached,’” one said.

As witnesses explained, this is not the first time Roach has gotten in trouble for abusive behavior, up to and including pulling a gun on a Senate staffer back in 2003:

The reprimand is the fifth disciplinary action by the Senate against Roach for her treatment of staff, according to the documents associated with the investigations.

Roach has been barred from direct contact with caucus staff since 2008 for one of the incidents. In 2003 she was reprimanded and asked to seek counseling after staffers accused her of illegally obtaining employees’ e-mails, driving some to quit and brandishing a handgun at one.

Roach, for her part, believes the pattern of reprimands is just persecution by the Republican leadership. And as you’ll see in her defense, it would have been impossible for her to act the way witnesses claimed:

Roach told the investigator she did not remember yelling and could not have pointed her finger at Hoover because both her hands were full of M&Ms.

Clearly, Roach’s colleagues have decided she’s a couple M&Ms short of full bag. But at least she left her handgun at home this time.

Senate Democrats in Washington are focusing on an agenda designed to boost job creation and put the economy back on solid footing in the state:

The plan zeroes in on five elements: Helping small businesses, putting people to work on infrastructure projects, retraining an additional 6,000 workers for high-demand jobs, green jobs and attracting investment in research.

Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown told reporters, "Our strategy is like a bull's-eye, putting the existing jobs and businesses that are essential to our recovery at the center, and rippling steadily outward toward the jobs of the future that are the key to our competitiveness over the long term."

The 2010 regular session began in the state on January 11th.