Next week, the 87^th General Assembly will convene for an exciting 60, make that 90-120, days of session business.  As our readers probably know, Rep. Robbie Wills, D-Conway, will be the House Speaker.

Wills will give an address on Monday when the General Assembly convenes, the day before Gov. Mike Beebe presents his state-of-the-state address.

Look for Wills to be a different kind of House Speaker.  For starters, he plans to launch a web site for the session, www.robbiewills.com.  The site is not up presently, but is expected to be functional on Friday, January 9^th.  Political junkies may want to bookmark it.

It will include regular policy statements, video updates (ala Obama on YouTube) and will host support information and other research, such as powerpoint presentations, House memos, etc.

Talk Business has learned that you can also expect Wills to “tweet” through his Twitter account.  Folks can sign up for RSS feeds as well, we’re told.

On Monday, Wills will call the 87^th General Assembly into session at noon.  Expect him to do more than just say, “welcome” and “let’s get to work.”  Wills will also set forth a couple of ambitious legislative goals related to the lottery, health care, and economic development.  And, he'll name his selections for the coveted chairmanships of key legislative committees.

If you want a refresher on the comments that Speaker Wills shared with us for our upcoming edition of Talk Business Quarterly, click here.