U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen was back home in Eden Prairie last week, his first extended time in the Third Districts during his first six weeks in Washington D.C., where he lives with three other representatives.

The Sun Current had a chance to catch up with the freshman congressman, who talked about the hectic pace of life as a legislator, surprises he's had and his decision to vote against the economic stimulus bill signed into law last week.

What follows is an edited version of that conversation.

Paulsen waged a hard-fought battle with opponent Ashwin Madia for the Third District seat. In retrospect, was there anything he would change about the way he ran his campaign?

Well one of the challenges about the campaign is just having more time, if you spend so much time and effort raising money and doing events and traveling around the district. But the thing I really enjoy the most is connecting with the people at community events.

So just having more time to do those types of events and really connect with people, I think, is important. And I want to be able to do more of that and I wish we could have done more than that during the busy time of the campaign season.

What's been the biggest surprise since you've been in Washington?

The biggest surprise is also part of the biggest frustration. Having been there only six weeks, everything has been so fast and so big. That's a little bit of a surprise, because usually it's expected that the first month, month-and-a-half, you kind of get to get up to speed. You have committee hearings, some overviews. You really get the lay of the land before you actually move to pass legislation.

This year it's been a little bit different given the nature of the economy, the challenging times that we face. So we had really big bills come really quick.

What's your average day been like?

Well it's been hectic in the sense that I usually try to get up early in the morning to go maybe work out for an hour, and then I'll catch a breakfast meeting ... There will be orientation meetings still with freshman both on the republican side and then bipartisanly, like last Tuesday. We had a meeting down at the pentagon with all the new members. So we got to meet some key people in the Joint Chiefs of Staff and really get kind of a primer on the pentagon, the defense background, which was very nice.

So, I typically have meetings like that, and then constituents are already coming through that not only have issues before congress from a lobbying standpoint ... but also just constituents that might be visiting.

And they're will be lunch meetings that come up, like with the conference, just talking about the issues that are coming up in the floor or in committee ... It generally will go into the evening before we have our votes that occur at 6:30. I'll get home at maybe 10:30 or 11.

Have you had lots of feedback from constituents thus far?

Actually we've had a lot of feedback in the last two, two-and-a-half weeks because of the stimulus package was driving so much attention in terms of the news media. So we had a lot of calls that weren't precipitated by groups urging their members to contact congress.

I think they were more people that were reading what they saw in the paper and calling in, and by and large mostly opposed and wondering is it really going to help them in terms of actual stimulus, in terms of is it going to make sure I'm able to keep my job or help someone get a job, a lot of skepticism on that front, I think.

Talk about your decision to vote against the stimulus bill?

I'll start out by saying I really do understand that people are hurting and it's an absolute necessity for congress to act. Some would argue that it's not the role of government to act and to take a role in stimulating the downturned economy. I take a view that it is important to act.

The stimulus package moved in the direction of just becoming kind of a supplemental spending bill. Only about six percent of the bill is actually geared toward infrastructure spending, which is really a small percentage.

And then about 18 percent is now geared toward tax relief for individuals and business and I would prefer that most of that go towards helping individuals and businesses. Again 18 percent is a small percentage.