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Sen. Senjem’s Freudian Slip
After Governor Dayton’s State of the State speech, conservative Minnesota State Senate Majority Caucus Leader Dave Senjem reacted to Dayton’s vision. “We weren't called incompetent to govern or anything like that, so that kind of rhetoric was absent and thank goodness it was. I think he extended a spirit of cooperation to us, and we'll certainly reach back to him and certainly work with him towards a successful session."
Hmm. Where to begin?
Whenever I hear someone refute an unalleged allegation—in this case, “you’re incompetent to govern”—I immediately assume the affirmation. In other words, when Leader Senjem goes out of his way to deny that conservative policy leaders are incompetent to govern, that tells me that, at some Freudian level, Leader Senjem believes that conservative caucus members are incompetent to govern.
To be fair, coming off of eight years of the Pawlenty Administration, conservatives can govern. I whole-heartedly disagree with their public policy orientation and believe that many of Pawlenty’s choices have dug Minnesota deeper into a hole but, clearly, Pawlenty met the minimum governance standard. The world did not end during Pawlenty’s terms and the sun rose after his final day in office.
I would, however, like to correct Leader Senjem. The legislature’s role is to legislate, not to govern. Sure, broadly, governance can refer to our entire tri-partite system of government, that unique separation of powers structure designed to ensure that not too much can go wrong too quickly. Specifically, Governor Dayton’s job is to govern; the State House and State Senate legislate. Legislating is a big, important job—a pillar, in fact, of representative democracy—but the legislature isn’t the executive branch. Leader Senjem’s comments suggest something different.
If Minnesota’s public policy leaders are serious about toning down the rhetoric and focusing on shared values leading towards legislative session accomplishments, this would be a good place to start. If Minnesota’s elected leaders focus on what really matters—education, jobs, healthcare—Minnesota moves forward. If the distractions, bickering and sniping continue, Minnesota falls behind. And, I really mean it.
Posted in News & Notes | Related Topics: Minnesota Legislature
Read the Truth! Minnesota’s Past in Print
Minnesota has an important protest tradition. Mostly, it’s been a left-of-center fight but Minnesota has had right-wing protest movements, too. We are, as a result, a better, stronger and more prosperous state because of our popular willingness to challenge the status quo, seeking equality and justice.
Given this rich experience, why don’t my kids know more about the Farmers Holiday Association?
Learning and telling those stories—sharing Minnesota’s powerful protest narrative—is less clear cut than we’d like it to be. At a basic level, Minnesota has never had a single book attempting to tell the protest tradition story. Thanks to historian Rhoda Gilman, that’s changed.
Gilman’s new book, “Stand Up: The Story of Minnesota’s Protest Tradition,” has just been published by the venerable Minnesota Historical Society Press. Finally, Minnesota has a single, accessible history telling the protest tradition story over our state’s entire timeline.
Gilman is a retired archivist with the Minnesota Historical Society. She’s professionally labored in this material’s vineyard. She’s also a political activist. Her book is informed by the latter perspective but it’s not an ideological rant. It’s a deeply thoughtful attempt to craft a single historical narrative in a way that’s accessible to all readers. Gilman the historian, much more than Gilman the activist, championed this project.
“Stand Up!” is a quick read. That’s a good thing. If you’re deeply engaged by agrarian protest movements—and who among us shouldn’t be?—Gilman leads you to the academic sources. But her goal is to introduce Minnesotans to an important part of our collective past. Read “Stand Up!” and then reconsider both the Occupy and the Tea Party movements. You’ll understand both phenomenons better.
This book is overdue. Minnesota’s protest tradition is the regular subject of academic dissertations, journal articles, history conference paper topics and deeply contemplated monographs. We’ve been missing a single, engaging and absorbing introduction. Gilman’s book fills that need and then some.
Pick it up. Read it. Then, share it with your kids or a friend. Minnesota’s past is much too important to let it go unlearned. Or worse, forgotten.
Posted in News & Notes | Related Topics: Progressive Community
Starting Right
Since starting improv classes a few weeks ago, I've tried hard not to find a political lesson in every improv lesson. I'm already a political nerd and an improv nerd, so I figure that if I combine the two there's no way girls will be able to resist me.
Last week's lesson was on how to "start right" and, as my teacher explained, it's one of the most important lessons any beginning improver will learn. Setting the narrative and the tone early goes a long way in creating a well-done show. My improv teacher has a few suggestions for what to think about as you are walking on stage to begin a skit:
Be positive (something I've already talked about on this blog) this is especially important early on in a skit when saying: "Yes it is great to be in Kansas and I love your dog Toto," does so much more to build a narrative than looking at your partner and saying "That's not where we are."
Give details early on, "nice to still be in Kansas" is so boring compared to: "The weatherman says there's a chance of tornado's in central Kansas today."
Set an emotion early on, be it happy, sad, scared or hopeful. Give your character the chance to set a tone that can be built upon throughout the rest of the show.
Connecting all this to politics is just a little too easy to ignore.
We're now a few weeks into the 2012 legislative session and it is becoming increasingly clear that conservative members of the legislature would fail improv class. Progressives attempted to build a narrative early on around job creation by traveling the state to promote their proposals like a bold new bonding bill and tax credits for job creators. Instead of continuing to build on a session based on job creation with their own set of proposals, conservatives have made their priorities clear: Controversial and unproductive ballot amendments, attacking well qualified commission appointees, and playing politics with legislative staff positions.
Whether you support their ideas or not, you have to give progressives credit for understanding improv 101 and for creating a positive start to a legislative session that was bound to become contentious anyway. They started with a narrative that encouraged both sides to focus on improving the economy, and moving Minnesota forward.
In improv, not starting off a skit well will lead to a bad show and a disappointed audience. Of course in politics, starting off wrong will lead to a legislative session that puts politics over the people of Minnesota. If I went to a bad improv show I'd want my money back, or at least the feeling that the improvers learned from their mistakes. Unfortunately, I think we can all assume that conservatives will only spend the next year building on their mistakes.
Something tells me the next few months aren't going to be much of a laugh.
Posted in News & Notes | Related Topics: Progressive Community
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It’s Spelled Bemidji
Dear Conservative Presidential Candidates,
Welcome to Minnesota!
The moment was bound to happen but it doesn't make it any more fun: The reality TV show that some are charitably calling your 2012 presidential primary season has reached Minnesota. We're glad to have you and your traveling cohorts spending time (and money) here, but I wanted to clear up a few things because, just like in Iowa, the picture of Minnesota that you are trying to paint in order to fit us into your conservative rhetoric is not the real Minnesota.
For one thing, it's spelled Bemidji.
If you are going to insist on bringing your hateful rhetoric and deeply flawed policy proposals to Minnesota (not to mention those super stylish sweater vests) you can at least have the dignity to spell the name of our cities right. Chief Bemidji didn't bring his tribe to the banks of a beautiful lake and struggle through harsh winters only to have your race baiting candidacy misspell his name not once, not twice, but 6 times.
For another thing, don't come to a state that has historically been on the forefront of smart health care policy that increases affordable, effective coverage to its citizens and tell us that a new national law that expands coverage to millions of people using progressive and conservative policy proposals is "socialism."
Now, I get it. Watching conservatives in our state legislature this past year might make you think that divisive politics sells in Minnesota. After all, we're the state that shutdown government so conservatives wouldn't have to compromise on a balanced approach to balancing the state budget. But they're wrong and you're wrong. Minnesota became a national model for good government, attracting numerous Fortune 500 companies to our state with a well educated workforce and world-class quality of life because, for decades we were "the state that worked." Divisiveness might win conservative primaries but it hasn't made Minnesota great and it won't put America back to work.
We've got enough problems in Minnesota with conservative members of our legislature favoring divisive amendments over honest solutions without you coming in and giving them more bad ideas.
I hope you enjoy your visit, I really do, if you want to stop by a few more restaurants and spend a bit more money please feel free to do so. But when you leave, please know that nothing will have changed. Most Minnesotans will still know the truth about the immensely positive impact that progressive policy has had for our state. And you better believe that we'll still know how to spell Bemidji.
All the best,
Jake
Posted in News & Notes | Related Topics: 2012 Election Minnesota Elections Progressive Community
All Politics is Local
If all politics is local, policies, laws and regulations pertaining to state and local government information are hyperlocal.
What matters to most citizens is the right to access to information by and about state, regional and local government information—state agencies, county boards, advisory committees and regulators, every entity from the Governor’s office to the local school board. A citizen who wants to know about a dump sight or school bullying or a state agency budget doesn’t—and should not—have far to go.
The spirit, if not the letter, of the state statute that establishes state information policy is clear:
All government data collected, created, received, maintained or disseminated by a government entity shall be public unless classified by state, or temporary classification.... The responsible authority in every government entity shall keep records containing government data in such an arrangement and condition as to make them easily accessible for convenient use. Photographic, photostatic, microphotographic, or microfilmed records shall be considered as accessible for convenient use regardless of the size of such records.
The twin pillars of access in Minnesota are the Data Practices Act and the Open Meeting Law. Essential guides to each include these: Open Meeting Law, Government Data Practices Act. The Legislative Reference Library also offers a comprehensive list of guides and information about parallel laws and regulations in other states.
Still, real life agencies have a way of setting their own procedures in light of the laws and regulations on the books. Concerned citizens need to be aware of the agencies’ responsibilities to assure compliance with the spirit and the letter of the law. In this day of rapidly changing technologies, access can be determined by everything from the assumption that everyone has web access to outright bureaucratic resistance to officials’ failure to know either their responsibilities or the public’s right to know. Many local officials and state agency staff have had no orientation to the ways in which state access regulations relate to their work.
As the legislators unpacked their laptops, there was talk among bureaucrats and advocacy groups of review and possible revision of state statutes relating to information practices. A draft prepared by the Information Policy Advisory Division (IPAD), the state office that addresses such matters, is generating blog reaction before it goes on stage.
Prognosticating what will happen during any legislative session is ill-advised; this season it is downright foolhardy. Still, open discussion of open government may shed light on the law, its implementation, the need for clarification, simplification or more stringent sanctions and ways to assure that Minnesotans know and exercise their information rights.
During the legislative session the place to go for information on the status of legislation relating to information policy and practice is the Bill Search and Status site fed diligently by overworked legislative staffers. In addition to the latest information on the status of individual bills the site provides excellent guides including “How to Follow a Bill” and “How a Bill Becomes a Law” as well as a handy look-up feature if you want to reach your representative.
Posted in News & Notes | Related Topics: Government Policy Minnesota Legislature
We “Deserve” Better, Minnesota
How we think of poverty and homelessness as American social problems has certainly ebbed and flowed throughout the last 200 years. We’ve achieved a national standard of living that allows the wealth of our poorest to “exceed that of many an African king,” as Adam Smith aptly noted in 1776, and Minnesota’s improved social welfare systems reflect positive shifts in the ways that we collectively view and serve our state’s poorest residents.
In the 1800s, for example, the poor were separated and served according to “worthy” poor and “unworthy” poor statuses, whereas today we…
Wait. Are we doing the exact same thing?
A piece of legislation recommending that MFIP and General Assistance (GA) recipients undergo drug testing has once again reared its head in Minnesota. This legislation includes problematically vague grounds for testing—including “bizarre behavior,” "twitching," and “inability to verbalize”—that could allow it to circumvent Fourth Amendment protections prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures.
Those failing screenings would be given hearings, referred to treatment, and excluded from benefits for three years.
In other words, proponents once again want to label who is deserving. This is another conservative distraction from what really matters. It's also dangerous on many levels, especially because so many people in our society still hold the belief that there are deserving and undeserving poor.
While the bill has an exemption for those whose root need for disability assistance is a substance abuse, it's not clear whether or not people with mental illnesses that lead to chemical dependency would be exempt.
Even if that exemption is clarified, this is still bad policy.
This is another one of those conservative solutions in search of a problem. Contrary to popular belief, welfare recipients are NOT statistically more likely to abuse controlled substances than other economic groups or even politicians, and in some states are even LESS likely.
It's a conservative ploy to divert services from where they could be most beneficial—investing in our schools, repairing our roads and bridges and widening access to mental health services. It also puts an undue burden on already underfunded local governments.
Rather than cutting the cord on the poorest in a costly, ineffective way that is more likely to criminalize stigmatized individuals than produce economic gains to the state, Minnesota should better invest in the programs that help people stand on their own--better access to health care and education.
Not only would doing so pay off vastly more in the long-run, but it would propel Minnesota back on track – out of the 1800s and into a stronger future for all of us.
Posted in News & Notes | Related Topics: Social Services Poverty
We Should Have a Dream
Last week was Martin Luther King’s birthday. That got me thinking critically about his “I Have a Dream Speech,” in which Dr King said:
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.
“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”
In the first paragraph we hear Rev. King speak of the country honoring the Declaration of Independence claim that all men are created equal. In the second paragraph, he talks of all our people sitting in brotherhood. As a minister I would expect Rev. King to long for a dream of brotherhood, and certainly I would like to see us all promote and strive for brotherhood and sisterhood.
While we have advanced in race relations since that speech, America is still far from truly recognizing King’s dream. In addition to it being the right thing, now there is a pragmatic economic reason to achieve equality.
To make the 21st century another American Century; we need to use all our resources. When many people think of resources, they think of iron, coal, gold, oil and other riches found in the earth. When I think of resources I think also of our people. The United States has become a great nation because of its mineral wealth and its rich farmland, but most of all because of its people.
For much of the 20th century, the world seemed bigger because of older transportation, communication, and production technologies. That made it easier for the U.S. to be among the most competitive nations without getting the most from our people resources.
Today, our world has shrunk because of the advances in those technologies. We face steep competition from all countries worldwide—developed and undeveloped.
While we’ve had an excellent education system in the U.S., those who’ve benefited most from it were typically able bodied, white, male, and not poor. This left several groups behind, creating an education achievement gap. Think of all the great minds that were wasted over the years because of that education gap.
Today things are better, but because generations were excluded from the system, an education gap for the poor, the non-white, and those with disabilities remains. As a nation that needs input from every citizen, we can no longer afford to let those minds miss out on a good education. That waste will make us less competitive, and in today’s environment we cannot afford to be less competitive.
To honor Dr. King we need to work to reduce the education gap, but we also need to work to reduce that gap for our children, our grandchildren, our nation’s future and ourselves.
Posted in News & Notes | Related Topics: Minority Issues Achievement Gap
No Dogs Allowed… Until After the Public Meeting
Someone tried to take public policy into their own hands here in Duluth, trying a line-item veto on the rules protecting the lovely pine forest of Minnesota Point. It’s not going to work.
Minnesota Point is one of Duluth’s more unusual natural areas. It’s a seven-mile-long natural sand bar that crosses the mouth of the St. Louis River and forms the harbor of Duluth and Superior. At the end of the Point is about two miles of undeveloped dunes, beaches and a dramatic tall pine forest.
In 2011, much to the surprise of the dog walkers and bike riders who frequent the end of the Point, signs went up in the pine forest marking off the boundaries and rules of the Minnesota Point Pine Forest Scientific and Natural Area (SNA). It was especially surprising to read the rules that said, among other things, dog walking and bike riding were no longer allowed.
SNA designation is one of the highest levels of protection the State of Minnesota can apply to land. It’s plants first, people second.
So what about those dog walkers? Was this a replay of the creation of the BWCA? Was Big Government coming in and taking away traditional uses of this fabulous natural area, all in the name of the public good?
Within a few weeks of the signs going up, someone took matters into their own hand. On the sign that listed all the prohibited activities, someone had taken a jackknife and carefully scratched out both “dog walking” and “picnicking.” That’s a little like plugging your ears and singing “La la la la la, I can’t HEAR you” when your parents told you to clean your room. Making the text illegible doesn’t change the rule; public process does.
As it turns out, the administrators of the SNA program within the Minnesota DNR are not dog haters. They fully intend that on-leash dog walking will be allowed, and they even admit that the rule was a mistake. They will go through a public process to change the general SNA rules for this specific property. They’ve done the same thing to allow everything from berry picking to shorefishing in other SNAs. There will be a public meeting. And a comment period.
Better to attend a public hearing than to try your own jackknife line-item veto.
Posted in News & Notes | Related Topics: Environment State Parks Government Policy
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Minnesota’s National Headlines
It looks like Minnesota’s presidential caucus might actually matter in 2012.
While most times, I’d welcome the well-lit national news live shots showcasing downtown Minneapolis or the State Capitol, this year I worry what the national media will say about the Land of Lakes.
After all, they’ll be hitting Minnesota just as our legislative session heats up. While coverage will focus on the presidential contenders, national reporters like to provide the rest of the country with the local political flavor. This time they'll focus on conservative issues with Romney, Gingrich and Paul in the race.
Back when Minnesota’s conservatives worked on policy that mattered, you could count on serious discussions of health care, education, transportation and broad economic development.
Now, I fear conservative caucus goers will highlight the social distractions, constitutional amendments and the false rhetoric that Minnesota’s taxes are driving away businesses. No doubt this will be mixed in with a heavy dose of Bachmann and Pawlenty bashing the state they helped govern.
If Right to Work, anti-education or middle-class busing legislation is moving thorough the Capitol come caucus time, you’re likely to see stories comparing Minnesota to Walker’s Wisconsin and file video of Minnesota’s summer shutdown.
This is in stark contrast to when progressive values took center stage during 2008’s tightly contested primary between then-candidates Obama and Clinton. That race complimented Minnesota’s progressive policy vision, focusing on affordable health care, a green energy economy, and expanding access to higher education, among other public policy issues.
Debate about such ideas and policies has always worked to benefit all Minnesotans. When conservative presidential contenders come to town, however, you’ll hear the two big talking points about limiting government and cutting taxes for the rich.
As the last decade has taught Minnesota, that’s not a policy for prosperity. It’s conservative cronyism.
The national reporters who really do their homework for the caucus will highlight a historically progressive state that leveraged natural resources, invested in hardworking people, and established a fair regulatory framework to produce a prosperous Minnesota.
Posted in News & Notes | Related Topics: 2012 Election Conservative Policy Minnesota Elections
It’s Cold, but We Need Open Windows
As Minnesota opens another legislative session, it is time to examine our Data Practices Act and the Open Meeting Law, if for no other reason than the issue of open government demands public attention. For me, the details of the law are somewhat less important than the airing itself.
Remember those images of a closed Capitol, sequestered policy making, and debates in the dead of night? That didn’t bode well for our confidence in the resulting policies.
We are in especially complex times. The internet grants ordinary citizens tremendous government access. We can sift through bills, data and government reports from our laptops and living rooms. However, few of us have time to sift through read in depth, analyze, interpret the basics; and sort it all out, and even fewer can accurately contextualize it all. Some of us don’t have easy internet access or skills.
Also consider that the policymakers we want to keep an eye on implement the rules governing what’s collected, how it’s organized, and in what medium it flows to the public. When used for the greater good, easy access to information helps renew our trust in government. When used to preserve power, it undermines public access.
A free, robust and aggressive news media is critical. Information-seeking Twin Cities residents are fortunate; the major metro news outlets have a strong Capitol presence.
But what are rural residents to do? With Minnesota’s population concentrated in the metro area, many countryside issues tend to barely get a mention, let alone a critical media examination. Away from the Capitol, what’s in place to ensure quality coverage of our school boards, county commissions or municipalities?
Bloggers and advocacy groups also serve a vital role in augmenting policy coverage; however, most are underfunded, understaffed or espouse a particular view.
We the people want to know more, not less. Contrary to belief, we are able to attend to, retain and act on solid information we trust.
This demands time on task, collaboration and a clear vision of the meaning and strength of an informed democracy. It is a near certainty that issues of transparency and open government as manifest in the laws and regulations of the State of Minnesota will surface, if quietly, on the legislative agenda in 2012.
May the voice of Minnesota residents be heard in the ensuing deliberations.
Posted in News & Notes | Related Topics: Government Policy Minnesota Legislature