Occasionally a politician is not full of himself, and we like that. When Nebraska’s former lieutenant governor, Dave Heineman, stepped in to fill the shoes of governor Mike Johanns — who left to head up the Department of Agriculture — it was Heineman himself who broke the news to a restless Nebraska press corps. And then, earning the love of envelope-enviros everywhere, Heineman noted that he was going to instruct state offices to use up all of Johanns’ old stationery rather than chucking it. “They can just put ‘Dave Heineman’ on the bottom [of letters],” Heineman told the Lincoln Journal Star. “We’re not going to waste that paper.” The Student Conservation Association jumped all over that, giving Heineman its Call of Conservation award and proclaiming his decision “letter-perfect.” And when he submitted a budget that included a 10 percent increase in education funding? Well, let’s just say swooning occurred.
