Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire talks to reporters, editors, and journalism executives about issues that lawmakers will face in the upcoming legislative session on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

There are some influential political blogs in Washington state - most notably Sound Politics and Horse's Ass - but only us goold ol' mainstream media types were invited to the Associated Press Legislative Preview Day in Olympia on Tuesday.

Some 50 editors, reporters, columnists and photographers crammed into Hearing Room 1 in the John A. Cherberg Building this morning to hear about the focus of the upcoming legislative session (which begins Monday). They came from their newspapers, radio stations and TV operations to ask questions of a handful of state senators and representatives and hear their talking points. They also heard from Gov. Christine Gregoire and listened to the Associated Press describe how they plan to cover the session.

I wondered why bloggers didn't get inside the velvet rope? Apparently no one asked.

I talked to Rachel La Corte, the AP state bureau reporter who organized the event, and she said that it's customary to invite AP member newspapers and broadcast outlets. She said that no one else - political bloggers, for example - asked to attend. (She also said she didn't know what AP would do if they did ask.)

The News Tribune followed the Seattle Times and Tri-City Herald in launching a political blog for this session, so the flow of information directly from the legislative session will increase. And we've assigned one of our best bloggers - Grit City's Niki Sullivan - to the beat to see how much we can get out of it.

But it would be interesting to see how much differently these "sneak preview" sessions would feel if there were independent - and blatantly biased - political bloggers in attendance, live-blogging the sessions and asking questions. I'm not sure it would be better, but it certainly would be interesting.