Well, I have spent the last three days relegated to the library desperately trying to get all of my reading done. It’s not pleasant, but it’s coming along. I just wanted to dispel any ideas out there that I’m getting lazy with the postings. Believe me, I’d much rather tend to the site.
My readings have yielded a piece of fruit, however, in the form of an interactive guide to the U.S.’s torture policies. It really is a marvelous summary of what has happened to date. Feel free to check it out over at Slate magazine (also feel free to read the 200 odd pages of torture memos which I had to do for my class).
I really loved my free pretzels! The meals were very nice and I felt like I was missing out when they took those away, but at least then there was only about a 50% chance anyway that your flight was going to correspond with a meal time. But free pretzels! Those were everytime! I’m upset… From the StarTribune:
There’s a new twist in the financial woes of Northwest Airlines: no more free pretzels on U.S. flights.
The airline will stop handing out pretzels to domestic coach-class passengers on June 9. Instead, fliers will be offered a bag of trail mix for $1.
“What we’re trying to do is rationalize our product offering within the context of the current fare environment,” Northwest spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch said.
Translation: Northwest has lost nearly $3.3 billion since 2001, and the airline expects to save about $2 million a year by forgoing free pretzels.
I know that Minnesota Democrats Exposed hasn’t exactly been the most honest or integrity driven blog on the ‘net, but this is a new low. In response to the news that Kelley is running for Governor the sleuth (or whatever you want to call the guy, I hate it when bloggers stay anonymous, what are you hiding from!?) just copied the article from the Associated Press (which he got from the Star Tribune) wholesale and pasted it to his post. No mentioning it was from the StarTrib, just a little mention of the AP at the end. Now those couple words at the end excuse the guy from being called a plagiarist, but this is pretty damn lazy. At least say, “From the Star Tribune:” and mark it off in a blockquote or something. Man, are there no personal standards in this community?
Senator Dayton is coming back to Minnesota next week to make the rounds but he is stopping at a few gas stations to pump up on ethanol and talk to the locals. From the Star Tribune:
Dayton, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said he will drive his “ethanol-friendly” Ford Explorer to “E-85″ gas stations in Minneapolis, Austin, Luverne, Mankato, Marshall, Rochester and Worthington over three days beginning June 1. E-85 is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent petroleum.
Dayton said he will pump gas and wash windshields “at no additional cost” as he talks with local residents about rising gas prices and environmental damage that could be lessened if more motorists used E-85.
Dayton is really a great guy, I know sometimes he doesn’t come across well on TV, but he is incredibly sincere and friendly. I definitely recommend going a little out of your way to stop by and see him. If I weren’t relegated to taking finals, I would.
To the long list of things that make Minnesota the best state, highest voter turn-out can now be added. According to the Census Bureau 79.2 percent of Minnesotans votes in November, beating number two Wisconsin by one percent. The national average, according to the Census Bureau, was 63.8 percent. Also, Minnesota had the highest turn-out among young voters and the second highest among blacks. To be noted, however, is that the Census data is survey based and seeing how more people say they voted than actually did, the numbers are slightly exaggerated. Still, according to ballot numbers, a more accurate count, Minnesota was number one as well. Summary: we rock!
National issues are heavily addressed by national blogs so I’ll keep this short, but I just can’t help myself when it comes to getting cheap jabs at DeLay in. Seems some of the people connected to him weren’t so forth-coming in their public disclosures of funds… where does the buck stop? From the AP:
The treasurer of a political action committee formed by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay broke the law by not reporting hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions, a judge ruled Thursday in a lawsuit brought by Democratic candidates.
State District Judge Joe Hart said the money, much of it corporate contributions, should have been reported to the Texas Ethics Commission.
The judge ordered Bill Ceverha, treasurer of Texans for a Republican Majority, to pay nearly $200,000 in damages. It will be divided among those who brought the lawsuit against Ceverha Â? five Democrats who lost state legislative races in 2002.
Is it possible that DeLay knew nothing about this? Absolutely. Is it probable? Well… who knows. I’d love to pin this one on Delay, and I still think he’s a scum-bag, but this alone doesn’t necessarily pin him on being in-the-know on this stuff. Regardless of whether or not he knew, however, it is clear that he should have known. So now DeLay and the conservatives have two options in how to paint the Speaker: a crook or just plain incompetent. I’ll take either.
From the Star Tribune:
A proposal to let Minnesota’s local governments pay their top officials more than the governor’s salary awaits Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s signature.
The state House, in its final act before adjourning Monday night, voted 83-50 to increase the maximum amount that local officials could be paid, from the current 95 percent of the governor’s salary to a new ceiling of 110 percent, plus inflation.
On the surface salary caps seem like a good thing but when it gets right down to it they’re just like any price ceiling: a huge economic inefficiency. This is a step in the right direction but, really, all caps should be tossed. I am not advocating that public officials get exorbitant salaries, citizens will always punish extreme behavior, but merely that a competitive market demands flexibility. Caps don’t offer that.
Wait, you mean the whole rebranding taxes as a “fee” thing isn’t going over well!? Who saw that one coming? Oh, wait… everyone. From MPR:
Pawlenty’s plan has raised the ire of anti-tax groups like Americans for Tax Reform. The group’s president, Grover Norquist, says a governor who has been heralded by fiscal conservatives for his no-new-taxes stance has just proposed a tax increase.
“There is no way to put lipstick on that tax-increase pig,” he said.
Pawlenty insists his proposal is a fee. It increases an existing cigarette distributor fee, and will be collected at the wholesale level, not by retailers. And some lawmakers argue that any charge on cigarettes is a user fee, because only people who smoke pay it.
“That means a property tax is a user fee because only homeowners pay it, and the income tax is a user fee because only people with jobs pay it,” according to Norquist. “No. You cannot do that. This will not fly. I have had many attempts to sell tax increases as something else. No one’s even tried that with a cigarette excise tax.”
When he ran for governor three years ago, Pawlenty signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge sponsored by Norquist’s group. Norquist says Pawlenty would violate that pledge, and thus alienate anti-tax groups, if he signed a cigarette tax increase into law. He says that would also hurt Pawlenty’s chances for higher office, should he seek it.
Mark Dayton came out today and said that the compromise reached on the filibuster didn’t really help out anyone. In his own words:
I think that moment of truth for both sides has just been postponed. If the Republican leadership had won the vote, our caucus would’ve accepted that outcome and would’ve proceeded to do our nation’s business.
Senator Dayton is, of course, right about this. The compromise does leave many things wide open, essentially just pushing the issue down the road. But… I’m still happy. Let me tell you why. If it came to a vote the likelihood of the rule change going through was pretty dang near 50-50, without it coming to a vote the likelihood goes down to 0. Yes, this is an untenable position and Dayton is 100% correct in saying so, but it delays something potentially terrible. I’ll always take delaying the horrible over succumbing to it, even if the showdown is inevitable.
State Senator Steve Kelley
Two more candidates are throwing their hats in the “potential runners” camp for Minnesota Governor. The two who announced interest today are the Independence Party’s Peter Hutchinson and DFL state Sen. Steve Kelley both having recently filed their papers.
These two make this run slightly more interesting and by “these two” I of course mean Kelley because no Independence Party candidate without a WWE record is going to make a difference. State Attorney General Mike Hatch, Senate majority leader Dean Johnson, and State Sen. Becky Lourey are the other three big Democrat names. The assumed Republican candidate, Pawlenty, has not committed to a run as of yet, but it is widely assumed that he will (everyone needs back-up plans once a presidential run fails).
Mike Hatch comes with his own set of baggage after failing to win the Governor’s seat after three attempts and then promising that he wouldn’t run again. My advice: give it up Hatch, I know it’s painful but it’s the best for the party. I mean it, please don’t run again Hatch, just don’t do it. Hatch has a real chance at getting the endorsement again, so he’s not out of this race by any means, but he should take himself out.
Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson
The real race, as I’d like to see it, is between Johnson and newcomer Kelley, and maybe Lourey. Johnson has more political capital than does Kelley because he is the Senate majority leader, but that doesn’t leave Kelley that far behind. In a race like this the individual personality of the candidates is going to be the key factor more than any other element. Plus, all three are better looking than Hatch.
Boo.
Well it’s that time of the year in Hanover, New Hampshire. Frat basements are hauntingly empty, the green has no sun-bathers, at the cafeteria the coffee always seems to be out, but the there are no free seats in the library. Yes, it is time for finals. For the next week and a half my postings will probably be few and far between. But don’t fret! I’ll be back soon enough, I just need to devote some time to the books. I’ll try to post some things as they come in, but it won’t be with any regularity. Expect things to get back to normal around June 3rd or so.
The site can now be accessed through “www.mnpublius.com” but this merely forwards you to the blogspot address anyway (I’m too cheap to move everything right now) so no need to change your bookmarks. Kind of fun anyway though.
As I was perusing my site stats, looking where people are coming from to get into my site, I discovered an oddity: I’m the number one return on a Google search when “mnpass” in entered. There is an “www.mnpass.org” but somehow, and I agree, I am a way better source of information on it than is the official site. Other Google oddities: I’m #2 when searching for “Scarborough County”; #3 when searching for “proud of myself”; and #5 when searching for “Tinklenberg”. I come up on the top ten returns for a bunch of other entries, but these are the top contenders. I still think the mnpass thing is pretty hilarious. But, whatever, more traffic for me, I guess.
So I’m reading this book Heavy Lifting: The Job of the American Legislature by Alan Rosenthal for my “State Politics” class and I came across a portion of the text that may be helpful in reminding us what Minnesota was like just 7 years ago:
In Minnesota the Republican house majority leader, Tim Pawlenty, had unsuccessfully sought his party’s endorsement for governor in 1998. To win the endorsement for the 2002 gubernatorial race, he had to appeal to a Republican Party with a platform more conservative than his personal image and voting record. That is one reason, explains a senate Democrat, why he took the lead in negotiating a twenty-four-hour waiting period for abortions when the issue had been dormant for years. It is also why he took a key role in the negotiations to repeal Minnesota’s education standards that were opposed by conservative christian groups. On these issues Pawlenty took public and private negotiating positions that were more hard line than those taken by the more conservative house speaker.
It is very interesting how the Bush administration (read: Karl Rove) has managed to push the nation’s Republican candidates so much further right. This has clearly happened with Coleman as well who not so long ago was a Democrat, not to mention a New Yorker. Minnesota is fundamentally a fairly liberal state and its politicians generally reflect that. This is somewhat reassuring since it seems that once this far-right bubble bursts, the equilibrium may shift back towards the center. But maybe that’s just the bright-eyed optimist in me speaking…
It really is a very interesting book, I sincerely recommend it to anyone interesting in state politics. It has the added bonus of largely focusing on the Minnesota legislation, although it does not do so exclusively.
Image from DFL.org
To be honest I really don’t know anything about Melendez. Apparently he has served as the chair of the Minneapolis DFL since 1999 and is originally from Florida, but either than those tid-bitsd (provided to me by the state DFL website) I’ve got nothin’.
I wish him the best of luck.
People are Shouting