I get the feeling that Republicans in the Minnesota Legislature know that their majority will not last very long. Why else would they put forward amendment after amendment to the state constitution, trying to ensconce their beliefs into permanence while at the same time avoiding the veto pen of Governor Dayton? Their creativity when it comes to these amendments leaves much to be desired, since they are mainly the same old issues that they yearn for year after year, but even though they are the same old retreads, the cost to the state should these amendments pass would be very real.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
First, I\u2019m going to ignore the anti gay marriage amendment, about which much has already been said. I\u2019ll also ignore some of the more fantastic amendments, such as replacing<\/a> all state taxes with a sales tax on every good and service in the state. That, however, still leaves plenty to talk about. And why not start with the amendment requiring a three-fifths majority<\/a> to raise taxes? Because you know who else requires a supermajority to raise taxes? That\u2019s right, California. Even people from California will admit that the state is hardly a paragon of good governance, what with its constant budget crises caused by that very rule<\/a>. I\u2019d also throw into that same pot bills that limit spending<\/a> to some arbitrary amount<\/a>. Colorado went down that road until they suspended it because of the trouble it caused<\/a>. The last thing this state needs, considering all of the special sessions and shutdowns in recent years, is an amendment that makes it even harder to balance the budget.<\/p>\n Photo ID is the next big one. Because Dayton vetoed the statute that the Republicans passed, they are trying to evade him and put it directly to the voters<\/a>. Such an amendment has broad support<\/a> in the public, meaning that it if were on the ballot, there\u2019s a good chance it would pass. It\u2019s still unclear which voting problems it would solve, aside from the problem that people who don\u2019t have current IDs, like the elderly, poor, and students, can vote. It wouldn\u2019t solve the non-existent problems of non-citizens voting, or dead people voting<\/a>, or even people voting twice. If such an amendment had a requirement for a comprehensive, year-round government effort to get to every person in the state and ensure they had a free ID, then perhaps it wouldn\u2019t be a problem. But of course it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Nullification<\/a>? It looks like a number of state legislatures need to go back to high school civics class and re-learn what that Civil War was fought over.<\/p>\n Of course, we can\u2019t forget \u201cRight to Work<\/a>\u201d. Unions have been losing power for decades and union membership is at a level not seen since the Great Depression<\/a>. Thus, I really don\u2019t see much point to this one; the actual economic record when it comes to whether these laws attract business development is decidedly muddy<\/a>. As with most of his statements, I tend to agree with Martin Luther King Jr.<\/a> on this one.<\/p>\n Taking a look at all these amendments, it would appear that the goal is to turn Minnesota into a cross between California and Mississippi. I\u2019ll pass, and I believe that most of the people in Minnesota would agree. There are a lot of thing that make this a great state: the community, the belief that government should work well and not in a dysfunctional manner, and that everybody deserves a chance. These amendments would do a lot to remove what makes Minnesota great.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I get the feeling that Republicans in the Minnesota Legislature know that their majority will not last very long. Why else would they put forward amendment after amendment to the state constitution, trying to ensconce their beliefs into permanence while at the same time avoiding the veto pen of Governor Dayton? Their creativity when it… Continue reading Amendments A-plenty<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[204],"class_list":["post-643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-amendments","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nathanhunstad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nathanhunstad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nathanhunstad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nathanhunstad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nathanhunstad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nathanhunstad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":645,"href":"https:\/\/www.nathanhunstad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions\/645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nathanhunstad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nathanhunstad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nathanhunstad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}