JEFFERSON CITY - When I began in the Senate I immediately knew that I was representing a much larger and more populous district than I did in the House. One of the first goals I set out for our office was to survey the district on the important topics of the day and get input on how our entire community feels about these issues.

Today, I am glad to announce that surveys are being mailed across the district. All told, over 50,000 surveys will be mailed to constituents and I encourage everyone that receives a survey to please fill it out and mail it back so I can hear your voice. The surveys should be hitting many mailboxes this week and next. Because of fiscal restraints, we could not print a survey for every household nor for every voter in a household, but technology allows us to reach constituents that will not receive a survey as well.

My Senate website at www.senate.mo.gov/D26Q15/ZipValidation.aspx is hosting the same survey with the same questions online for any resident of the 26th. If your home has more than one voter, you did not receive a survey, or you would just prefer to save on postage, please visit the link above to fill out the survey. You can also get to that page by going to www.senate.mo.gov/schatz and clicking on “Legislative Survey” on the left side of the screen.

The survey is only 17 questions long and should only take a few minutes to complete. But it is important that I hear your voice on a wide variety of topics important to the state, including healthcare, education and transportation.

Representatives and Senators are elected to lead and make tough decisions, but it is vitally important that we listen to our constituents at all times, especially on emerging issues. I hope you will take the time to fill out our mailed survey or to go online and fill out our survey.