Our former opinion page editor, Dianne Hardisty, wrote a great piece for us that ran Sunday on Assemblyman Danny  Gilmore's tough first year representing the 30th District.

Here's the top of her piece and a link to the full story.

The state budget was awash in red ink and legislators were bitterly battling over program cuts this spring when two Bakersfield mothers walked into Danny Gilmore's Sacramento office.

One mother pushed a frail young boy in a wheelchair. The other was accompanied by her autistic daughter. They begged the first-term Republican assemblyman from Hanford not to cut critical medical services for their children and others like them.

When the mothers left, "I closed my office door and cried," Gilmore recently recalled, noting that during the height of the budget battles, "every 20 to 30 minutes I had people coming in pleading with me not to cut programs."

Gilmore is no stranger to state government. He served more than three decades as an officer with the California Highway Patrol. And he is no stranger to making tough decisions. Before retiring from the CHP, he was the assistant chief of the Fresno district.

But what he calls the "horrid" cuts he and other lawmakers have had to make to education, fire and public safety, plus his frustration with partisan bickering and Democrats' response to California's economic problems, have driven Gilmore to prayer.

Here's the full story.