By Warren Wolfe

Caught fishing without a license during the shutdown? Driving after revocation because there the state officials to process your paperwork were laid off? Rep. Tony Cornish, R-Good Thunder, wants to forgive you, and he's going to ask the Legislature to join in.

"This is meant to help ordinary folks who would have been legal except for the state government shutdown," Cornish said Friday. He's drafted a bill he'll try to get approved while legislators are in special session acting on budgets to end the shutdown, probably next week.

"Normally law-abiding people shouldn't have to suffer just because the Legislature can't get its work done on time and we got into this big shutdown mess," said Cornish, a former state game warden and now Lake Crystal police chief and chairman of the House Public Safety and Crime Prevention Committee.

"My bill says no civil fines or penalties, no citations, no criminal penalties during the shutdown if you get in trouble just because the state isn't functioning," he said. "I'm thinking individuals here, probably not companies."

Cornish wants to introduce another bill that he said has resulted in supportive e-mail s and phone calls: He would prohibit legislators from collecting any pay, expense reimbursement or health insurance subsidies from the state in any future state government shutdown.

"I was at a parade [Friday night, after announcing that bill] and I was the most popular guy there," he said. "I think the general public will be for both of these ideas. We'll see if my fellow legislators agree with the people."