Category Archives: Minnesota Legislature

The Morning After

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After yesterday’s enactment of Minnesota’s gay marriage law, I was pleased to wake up this morning to see that:

1)   The sun rose, Armageddon had not arrived, and fire, brimstone and locusts appeared to be in short supply;

2)   I was still married, despite the unsuccessful defense of my marriage;

3)   Thousands of Minnesotans had not converted to gayism, as per the alleged “Gay Agenda.”

This had to come as a relief to opponents of same-sex marriage, who had long feared the aforementioned.  With those concerns allayed, I hope they’ll now be less stressed out about marriage equality.   If you’re a gay marriage supporter, today’s a new day.  If you’re not, life goes on.

If the DFL Wants To Impress, Leave Early

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The new DFL majority in the Minnesota State Legislature is anxious to prove to voters that it is better equipped to lead than the previous Republican majority.  The DFL agenda has essentially been the polar opposite of the Republican agenda.  Whatever Republicans did, DFLers are undoing.  Republicans used Minnesota schools as their personal ATM to “balance” their budget.  DFLers are rushing to pay school kids back. Republicans used budget gimmicks instead of fixing the long-term structural deficit.  DFLers are increasing taxes and cutting spending to close the long-term structural deficit. Republicans tried to restrict the freedom to marry.  DFLers are expanding it.

Those are all good and important changes.  But of all the things that DFLers could do to impress Minnesota the swing voters who will determine in 2014 which party remains in control of the Legislature, I submit that the most memorable and impressive achievement would be to adjourn early.

I’m serious.  Declare victory and vamoose early.  Voters would adore legislators for it.

While  complex policymaking is sometimes difficult for voters with busy lives to appreciate, all voters appreciate the keeping of deadlines. We had deadlines in school.  We have them at work.  We have them for our taxes and fees.  Our spouses give us deadlines.  We have them for our household bills.   Every Minnesotans has to relentlessly meet deadlines throughout our lifetime, or we will face serious punishment.  Like it or not, deadlines shackle our lives.

Regular citizens appreciate deadline-making at a gut level.  For this reason, it makes us absolutely bananas when the Legislature regularly and cavalierly blows deadlines.  At school meetings, church gatherings, youth sporting events and backyard barbeques, I hear more complaints about this legislative habit than any other substantive issue.  Missed deadlines, or even nearly missed deadlines, make incumbents look like irresponsible and incompetent children.

I understand why pushing policymaking decisions to the last moment or beyond can be an advantageous move for a legislative strategist.  They employ brinksmanship to achieve their policy goals.  “Nothing focuses the mind like a deadline,” the saying goes.

This makes perfect sense inside the walls of the State Capitol, but leaders need to understand the optics outside the walls of the Capitol.  Voters get punished for missing deadlines, so they have a visceral feeling that legislators should as well.

Imagine how surprised and delighted Minnesotans would be to awake next weekend to news headlines like this:

“Legislature Surprisingly Finishes Work A Day Early.”

This news would be a stunner, one of those unlikely “man bites dog” type stories that voters never see.   Such a headline would disarm the perennial political challenger critique: “Legislators spent all their time on X, which prevented them from getting their  work done on time.”  It would send a signal that the grown-ups had arrived in Saint Paul at long last.

With the news this weekend that legislative leaders have reached agreement about the broad outlines of the fiscal end-game, finishing on time might seem more feasible than usual.  Still, legislative leaders are refusing to let go of pet initiatives that fall outside the agreement, so it still seems likely that negotiations will go right up to the deadline abyss.  Legislators probably will finish on-time, but just barely.  Just as they do nearly every year, they will look like children turning in half-assed assignments at the very last minute, and swing voters’ eyes will collectively roll.

If DFL legislators want to survive difficult mid-term elections in 2014, they should heed the sage advice of Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Bobby Womack about when to exit the stage:  “Leave them wanting more and you know they’ll call you back.”

- Loveland

The Real Heroes Of The Gay Marriage Debate

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As the Minnesota House debates legislation to extend the freedom to marry to gay people, I’ve been reflecting on my own journey on this issue.  I suspect I’m not alone.

My first exposure to homosexuality was being called a “fag,” “queer,” “homo” or “mo” on the playground of my Catholic elementary school.  Before I alarm people, this isn’t a confession, at least not the kind you may be thinking.

I was never accused of having romantic or sexual interests in boys.  In the 1970s, those epithets were liberally used by boys on the playground to describe general displeasure for wide variety of sins, such as when a classmate had poor performance in kickball.   In the language of the playground, those slurs, in that place in time, translated roughly to “you suck,” in the non-sexual sense.

At that tender age, there was nothing sexual about the anti-gay slurs. But there was nothing positive about them either.  The lesson we were teaching each other, and passing on down the grades, was clear:  Being called a homo was an insult, so being a homo obviously must be a really horrific thing.

I can’t begin to imagine how hearing that barrage of slurs must have felt to gay kids, and how many young straight minds it warped, like mine.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

 Through my childhood, I honestly never really thought that gay people existed in my home state of South Dakota.  I’m not joking or exaggerating.  I literally thought gay and lesbian people only existed in a few isolated parts of the world.  Maybe those people were in Paris and San Francisco, but not in the “normal” parts of America, and certainly not in my circle of family, friends and neighbors.  For that reason, I was indifferent about how gay people were being mistreated.

This wasn’t as parochial and mean as it sounds now.   Gay people in my life weren’t coming out of the closet, and I was neither a mind reader nor socialized in a way that would give me even a rudimentary “gaydar.”  So, out of sight, out of mind.

The Power of Personal Connection

That mindset slowly began to change when two astoundingly courageous guys in my hometown went to the senior prom in 1979.  This was big national news, a highly unlikely first to come out of a place like Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  I don’t remember making cruel jokes about it, but I’m quite sure I did.  I didn’t hate the brave gay couple.  But I certainly didn’t stick up for them either.

But this teen couple’s coming out did slowly start to shift my thinking.   I remember thinking:  “Could there be a few more gay people in South Dakota that I don’t know about?”

Not too long after that in a college psychology class, I read that as many as 10% of humans were homosexual.  The fact that it might even be half true rocked my worldview a bit.  But even knowing that, as incredible as it seems now, it still never really dawned on me that there were gay people in my midst.

When I moved to Washington, DC after college, gay culture was more prominent.  There was a neighborhood that straight people made snarky jokes about. There was the AIDS crisis, which struck me as horrible, but in an impersonal way.  Again, no one in my immediate circle of friends was saying they were gay, so I didn’t get too concerned about issues impacting “those people.”

Until I had a close friend who was gay, I didn’t once stick up for gay people.  I’d like to come up with even one heroic story for you, but I have none.  The golden rule was sitting right there to guide me, but I ignored it.

But again, part of the reason I couldn’t get sufficiently motivated about the injustice all around me was that the issue wasn’t close and personal to me. When that changed, I changed.  When some of my favorite people had the courage to tell me and the rest of the world that they were gay, I suddenly cared a lot about how American society was treating gay people.

Quite suddenly, it was no longer about gay rights.  It was about friends’ rights, co-workers’ rights, parents’ rights, and relatives’ rights.  Then, after a little flirtation with the notion of civil unions, it all became very clear what needed to happen.  My friends, co-workers, and relatives obviously needed to be treated equally and fairly.

The important point here is that I didn’t change myself.  My gay friends’ courage changed me.

The Real Heroes of the Marriage Movement

As the freedom to marry legislation is debated at the State Legislature this week, a lot of straight people will be congratulating ourselves about how righteous and courageous we are for fighting for LGBT freedom and equality.

We need to get over ourselves.   Heterosexuals clearly wouldn’t be where we are today if gay people hadn’t had the unfathomable courage to stand up and tell a hostile world who they were.  Straight people like me failed the courage test for decades, and it took dauntless gay people to finally get us to change.

Straight leaders, activists and constiuents are playing a role in the history being made at the State Capitol this month.  Good for us.  Finally.  Good for us.

But let’s be honest with ourselves, heterosexuals.  We are playing a small supporting role in this freedom to marry movement.  The real heros are not the heteros.  The real heros are the people who had the courage to speak truth to power when it was difficult and dangerous:  “We’re here, we’re queer, get over it.”  That, much more than straight people’s belated courage, is at the core of what is changing America.

- Loveland

 

Note:  This post was also featured as a “best of the best” in MinnPost’s Blog Cabin.

Conflicted About the Tobacco Tax? Listen to the Tobacco Lobby

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The debate at the State Capitol over increasing the tax on tobacco has played out the same way year after year.   It goes like this:

Public Health Claims.  Public health advocates point to price elasticity research showing that taxing cigarettes, and thereby increasing the cost of cigarettes, is the most effective way to motivate smokers to quit and prevent teens and young adults from starting down the path to addiction.  Consequently, increasing the tax on tobacco is the single most effective way to reduce tobacco-related death and suffering, and the related costs.

Smokers’ and Political Reporters’ Claims.  But smokers, and political reporters, portray the tobacco tax very differently.  They describe the tobacco tax as nothing more than a politically expedient way to raise money.  Because only about 19% of Minnesotans smoke, they say politicians are just picking on an oppressed minority.  Moreover, smokers’ rights advocates scoff at arguments about the tobacco tax reducing tobacco use, saying “people will continue to smoke regardless of the tax.”

What About The Tobacco Industry Experts?

 But what about  tobacco industry officials themselves?  In their private unguarded moments, what do they say about the impact of the tobacco tax on smoking behaviors?  After all, probably no one has studied this issue more carefully and thoroughly than them.

Fortunately, we don’t have to speculate.  We know.  The answer can be found in an office park in north Minneapolis.  As absurd as that sounds, I’m not kidding. To be precise, the answer is at 980 East Hennepin Avenue.  This is the entirely underwhelming home of something called the “Minnesota Tobacco Document Depository.”

A little background might be helpful.  A few years back, you may recall that Minnesota went after the tobacco industry over violations of Minnesota consumer fraud and anti-trust laws.  As a result of that action, the tobacco industry agreed to pay Minnesota a $6.1 billion settlement.

Unfortunately, Minnesota state legislators have shamelessly frittered away most of the lawsuit proceeds like drunken sailors.  However, we do have something left over from that lawsuit settlement — a mountain of internal tobacco industry documents that tell us precisely what the tobacco industry has learned about a wide variety of subjects.

So, I looked back at some of those documents.  It turns out that tobacco industry experts  know a lot about the impact of tobacco taxation on smoking behavior, probably more than anyone in the Minnesota Legislature could ever know.

So, let’s let the industry experts speak for themselves:

“When the tax goes up, industry loses volume and profits as many smokers cut back.” – Philip Morris, 1994

“Of all the concerns, there is one – taxation – that alarms us the most. While marketing restrictions and public and passive smoking [restrictions] do depress volume, in our experience taxation depresses it much more severely…” – Phillip Morris, 1985

“If prices were 10% higher, 12-17 incidence [youth smokng] would be 11.9% lower.” – RJ Reynolds, 1982

“It is clear that price has a pronounced effect on the smoking prevalence of teenagers, and that the goals of reducing teenage smoking and balancing the budget would both be served by increasing the Federal excise tax on cigarettes.” – Philip Morris, 1981

“A high cigarette price, more than any other cigarette attribute, has the most dramatic impact on the share of the quitting population…price, not tar level, is the main driving force for quitting.” – Philip Morris, 1993

There you have it.  If Minnesota legislators want to motivate more smokers to quit and discourage young people from starting, increasing the tobacco tax works like a charm.

On the other hand, if  legislators want to keep the price of cigarettes lower — in the name of gallantly “protecting smokers” — more Minnesotans will remain smoking, become addicted to smoking, and ultimately suffer and die from smoking-related diseases.

That’s not some public health do-gooder’s earnest claim.  That’s not some political reporters’ cynical analysis of legislative gamesmanship.  That’s straight from the camel’s mouth.

Loveland

Note:  The author was the communications director for the Minnesota Attorney General’s office during part of the tobacco lawsuit referenced in this post.

Note:  This post was featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs and MinnPost’s Blog Cabin.

The Real Problem With Vikings Stadium Financing

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Albert Einstein said “anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”  In the wake of reports that new e-gambling revenue is proving to be insufficient to fund the new Vikings stadium, Governor Mark Dayton and other stadium proponents recently have been heard mumbling similar sentiments.

With any mistake, and this one was a doozy, the important thing is to learn the correct lesson to carry into the future.  This is how that debate currently is playing out in Minnesota:

 What is the lesson(s) State leaders should learn from this revenue shortfall episode?

A. Never rely on private sector vendor input for fiscal note estimates.
B.  Never rely on huckster billionaire owner-endorsed revenue sources.
C.  Never believe anything that any lying stadium supporter says.
D.  Be patient, the revenue will be there eventually.

Over the last few weeks, all of these answers have been aggressively pushed in the news media, legislative arena and blogosphere.   Stadium opponents tend to go with one or more of the first three answers, while stadium supporters mostly go with answer D.

As Minnesotans try to identify the correct lesson to guide future decisionmaking, I’d argue for the addition of another option:

E.  If you really need a definite amount of revenue right away, don’t choose a never-before used revenue source.

Let’s be honest:  There is a very good reason why the e-gambling vendor, the Wilfs, the Governor and legislative stadium supporters were all fantastically wrong about the amount of revenue e-gambling could raise in the short-run:  There was no consumer demand history to guide estimates.  Zero. Zilch. Nada.

Nobody could possibly know if these games would be a boom or a bust, because the games had never been put in front of consumbers elsewhere.  They didn’t even exist yet.

Because of that lack of consumer demand history, the fiscal note for the Vikings Stadium bill was not an estimate.  Estimates are based on real world data and observations.  The fiscal note was not even a hybrid “guesstimate.”  It was, out of necessity, a flat-out guess.

Now, you may believe that the guessing that happened during the 2012 legislative session was ignorant, misleading, naïve, or utopian.  But the core problem here is that leaders never should have chosen a revenue source that necessitated 100% data-free guesswork.

If we learn that lesson from this historical episode, we will be a wiser people than if we delude ourselves that this was all some vast Wilf/Dayton/vendor/Legislature conspiracy.

I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy.  But in this case, the conspiracy theories make absolutely no sense.  After all, why would Wilf, Dayton and a bipartisan group of legislators intentionally choose a revenue source that they knew would be inadequate to pay for something that they really, really wanted to build as soon as possible?  Why would they intentionally do something that they knew would force them to return, hat in hand, to a legislative arena that has proven for over a decade to be a hell-scape for stadium supporters?

No, there was no conspiracy here.  The foundational problem was that leaders picked a revenue tool that was a) voluntary and b) had no track record, and these two things made a reliable fiscal note impossible, for a project where we really needed a reliable fiscal note.

That is the genesis of this mess, not conspiratorial leaders.

- Loveland

Note:  This post was  featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs.

Wayzata and Edina Become Ghost Towns

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Two of the nation’s wealthiest suburbs, Wayzata and Edina, have become almost entirely vacated ghost towns in recent days, as Minnesota’s rich and famous have fled their homes to avoid paying a penny more in taxes to make Minnesota’s tax system more fair.

Psst, it’s April 1. Get it.  It’s a joke.  You know,  like all of the tall tales being told at the Minnesota State Capitol about rampant tax flight occuring every time a state raises taxes on rich people.

This well-researched New York Times article lets us in on the joke:

 It’s an article of faith among low-tax advocates that income tax increases aimed at the rich simply drive them away…

That, at least, is what low-tax advocates want us to think, and on its face, it seems to make sense. But it’s not the case. It turns out that a large majority of people move for far more compelling reasons, like jobs, the cost of housing, family ties or a warmer climate. At least three recent academic studies have demonstrated that the number of people who move for tax reasons is negligible, even among the wealthy.

Cristobal Young, an assistant professor of sociology at Stanford, studied the effects of recent tax increases in New Jersey and California.

“It’s very clear that, over all, modest changes in top tax rates do not affect millionaire migration,” he told me this week. “Neither tax increases nor tax cuts on the rich have affected their migration rates.”

The notion of tax flight “is almost entirely bogus — it’s a myth,” said Jon Shure, director of state fiscal studies at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit research group in Washington. “The anecdotal coverage makes it seem like people are leaving in droves because of high taxes. They’re not. There are a lot of low-tax states, and you don’t see millionaires flocking there.

…Professor Young said his study looked at every millionaire tax record filed in California over the last 20 years, and “neither tax increases nor tax cuts on the rich have affected their migration rates.” He said that the two major tax overhauls before the recent increase didn’t have any effect on migration rates of millionaires. “Among the very richest, people making more than $2 million, out-migration actually declined slightly after the 2005 millionaire tax,” he said.

Why didn’t they move? Professor Young said that for most people, even the very affluent, it’s not that easy, since most successful businesses and high-paying jobs are tied to specific locations…

His research in New Jersey found that, while some people left, any lost revenue was more than made up for by added revenue from people who stayed. He estimated that New Jersey’s 2004 tax increase on incomes over $500,000 raised nearly $1 billion a year, “with little cost in terms of tax flight.”

Mr. Shure added, “I can say flatly that no state has ever raised taxes and lost money.”

Yet the tax flight myth remains surprisingly persistent, fanned by media coverage of celebrities, who are among those most likely to have the means and motive to choose a home based on tax considerations. “You can always find an anecdote.” Mr. Shure said. “Many people want this to be true as a way to discourage tax increases. The rich are always trying to find ways to make the middle class make their arguments for them.”

 

Note:  This post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs.

Why Wealthy Minnesotans Can Pay More

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Taxing millionaires.  Surcharging millionaires.  Raising the minimum wage.

For the casual observer who hasn’t done their homework, I can see how this might be confused with “class warfare” waged by mean DFLers intent on punishing rich people.

But here’s the thing about warfare.  You can’t take a quick glance at a battlefield and identify the aggressors.  For instance, an observer flying over Normandy Beach on June 6, 1944 couldn’t reasonably conclude “those mean Americans storming that beach down there are obviously wreckless war mongers.”

After all, what about the blitzkreig and Pearl Harbor, right?  You have to know at least a bit about the prelude to an event to be able to make informed conclusions about the event.

So it goes with the  “class warfare” charges flying around the 2013 Minnesota Legislature.   Observers who say the DFL has launched an all-out “class war” against wealthy Minnesotans need to look at the prelude to the policy.

Context

As the following chart shows, in recent years the wealthiest Minnesotans have been doing very well, thank you very much.  At the same time, poor and middle-income Minnesotans have been doing relatively poorly.

“The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer” isn’t just a cheap slogan.  In Minnesota right now, it’s the demonstrable truth.

As billionaire Warren Buffet put it:

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

That little piece of historical context explains why wealthy Minnesotans are being asked by DFL legislators to do the most to address Minnesota’s structural deficit problem. Wealthy people are being asked to pay more, because they have by far the most capacity to do more.  This terrific infographic video explains the breathtaking degree of concentration of wealth in America:

This is important context for understanding the DFL proposals to increase taxes on the rich and raise the minimum wage, just as the blitzkrieg is important context for understanding the storming of Normandy.

Perspective

Along with reporting the context, we also have to keep the proper perspective about what the DFL’s proposals would, and would not, do.

Despite the hyperventilation on the right, nobody is proposing communist-style income equality.  Not even close.  The DFL legislators are talking about a very modest  adjustment for the wealthiest Minnesotans, an adjustment that will still leave them, far-and-away, the wealthiest Minnesotans.

To summarize, if there is a class war going on, poor- and middle-income families didn’t start it.  But I reject the assertion that there is a “war” of any type going on.  What the DFL proposes is a modest adjustment to a system that has gotten badly out-of-whack.

That’s not war.  That’s wisdom.

- Loveland

Note:  This post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs.

“Democrat Party:” The GOP’s Childish Name Game

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We all remember those times on the playground when kids’ names would be twisted into teasing word play.  Private parts and mental health were common themes, as I recall.  Woe be unto the unfortunate child born with a name like “Seymour Butz.”

During childhood, the motives behind the name-oriented word play varied from benign to bullying.  But whatever the motive, it was rarely welcomed by the recipient, and was, above all else, childish.

So surely adults have left all that infantile behavior behind, right?

Well, take a look at recent blog posts on leading Minnesota conservative blog aggregator “True North:”

  • Bill Blahn refers to “the new Democrat majority.”
  • Matt Abe complains about “constant attacks from the Democrat Party.”
  • Nancy LaRoche speaks of “hypocrisy in the Democrat party.”
  • Mitch Berg suggests :  “the best thing the Democrat Party can do is bar its members from being on Twitter unless they pass an intelligence and literacy test.”
  • Jeff Kolb writes of “contemporaries in the Democrat Party.”
  • Former GOP gubernatorial nominee Tom Emmer and Bob Davis refer to “the leadership of the Democrat party.”

Notice a trend?  You’ll find the same trend coming from conservative talk radio guru Rush Limbaugh, former Minnesota GOP Chair Tony Sutton, GOP House Speaker John Boehner and other issuers of Republican talking points.

This practiced use of the epithet “Democrat Party” isn’t correct, and it usually isn’t a mistake.  Instead, this is a remarkably jejune name game that adult Republicans have been playing for decades.   Type the words “Democrat Party” into Google, and you will get 3.4 million hits to peruse, and many of them are Republicans intentionally misusing the name of the “DemocratIC Party.”

The motive behind this language misuse?  It is no different from the motive of the name-oriented word play on the playground, and it is no less childish.

I’ll leave it to grammarians and editors to debate whether, in this particular usage, the D-word in front of “Party” should be a noun or an adjective.  I’m not the least bit interested in that debate, because the only thing that really matters is what the owners of the name prefer to call themselves.  The members of the Democratic Party have made it abundantly clear that they chooses to call themselves the Democratic Party, so that is what mature adults should call them.  (See Golden Rule.)

Think I’m overreacting ?  What would Minnesotans think if Governor Dayton started calling the Republican Party the “Republic Party,” long after Republicans had repeatedly pointed out the actual name of their party?  What if President Obama referred to the “Republic Party” in a solemn State of the Union Address, as George W. Bush did when he said “Democrat Party” in his 2007 address?  Wouldn’t that seem more than a little puerile?

At a time when the national Republicans are taking stock of the things that are sullying their “brand” with moderate voters who are tired of infantile political game-playing, I’d suggest they do some soul-searching about this silly little party custom.

There are a lot of things that are curious about this “Democrat Party” usage, not the least of which is that it’s not a particularly clever insult.  In fact, I have never been entirely sure what was even meant by it.  Perhaps Republicans wish to point out that the Democratic Party is not the embodiment of “democracy,” because “democracy” is a popular notion?

New Yorker commentator Hendrik Hertzberg observed “There’s no great mystery about the motives behind this deliberate misnaming. ‘Democrat Party’ is a slur, or intended to be—a handy way to express contempt. Aesthetic judgments are subjective, of course, but ‘Democrat Party’ is jarring verging on ugly. It fairly screams ‘rat.’”

At the end of the day, I don’t even think a lot of Republicans know why they are habitually dropping the “-ic,” other than they know that it annoys their foes.  In other words, the dropping of the “ic” is motivated by the same thing that motivated the name game insults when we were churlish children on the playground.

Ick indeed.

- Loveland

Note:  This post was also featured as a “best of the best” in MinnPost’s Blog Cabin.

 

Norm Coleman To Return To His DFL Roots?

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Former St. Paul Mayor and U.S. Senator Norm Coleman is nothing if not flexible.

  • When  leftist radicals were de rigueur in the 1960s, Norm 1.0 was a leftist radical.
  • When Skip Humphrey and Bill Clinton were on top of the political world, Norm 2.0 clung to them and the rest of the Democratic establishment.
  • When the easier path to higher office appeared to be through the GOP, Coleman retrofitted into GOP Norm 3.0.
  • When the Tea Partiers became power brokers, Norm 3.0 dutifully donned a tri-corner hat, formed a Super PAC to fund Tea Party-backed candidates, and endorsed Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann for, I kid you not, Vice President.

Then in 2012,  the going got tough for Senator Coleman and Tea Partiers, so the tough got a poll. In a St. Paul Pioneer Press commentary this week, Coleman advises Minnesotans  that he is in possession of scientific evidence indicating that “Minnesotans are not anti-government.”

New Norm

Accordingly, Senator Coleman is now telling his fellow Republicans that they should be more like him, Norm 2.5, center-right Norm.  Specifically,  Coleman’s commentary calls for his conservative followers to adopt a brand of conservatism that is “intent on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of government,” while “ensuring that those who most need help in our society are able to have the support they need.”

This evolution is welcome news.  In the past Senator Coleman and his party often chose to perform his government repairs with a wrecking ball rather than WD-40.  For instance, in a 2005 vote Senator Coleman, according to www.ontheissues.com, voted to “reduce federal spending by $40 billion over five years by decreasing the amount of funds spent on Medicaid, Medicare, agriculture, employee pensions, conservation, and student loans.”

“It’s time to listen to what Minnesotans want”

But now Coleman’s commentary tells his followers that “it’s time for conservatives to listen to what Minnesotans want.”  Recent public opinion surveys tell us in no uncertain terms “what Minnesotans want:”

(Incidentally,  opinions’ on guns, marriage equality, voting restrictions, abortion, stem cell research and other social issues also are leaning decidedly left these days, but Coleman wants conservatives to de-emphasize social issues, so we will ignore “what Minnesotans want” on social issues for the purposes of this discussion.)

In other words, “listening to what Minnesotans want” leads Senator Coleman, after all these years in the political wilderness, back to the Democratic Party agenda.

Welcome home, Senator Coleman.  Welcome home.

- Loveland

Note:  This post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs and MinnPost’s Blog Cabin.

Star Tribune Survey Delivers Mixed News for Dayton Tax Package

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For Governor Dayton’s bold package of tax increases, there was more good news than bad in the Star Tribune’s Minnesota Poll, released yesterday.

Bad News for Dayton

  • Bye Bye Professional Services Tax.  Only 28% of Minnesotans support a sales tax on business services.  With only 36% of DFLers supporting this idea, and an army of special interests mobilized against it, this part of the Governor’s budget is in deep political trouble.

So-So News for Dayton

The news is not universally awful on the services sales tax front, though:

  • Personal Services Tax?  Maybe.  While a sales tax on professional services is unpopular (28% support), a sales tax on “personal services such as haircuts and auto repair” has considerably more support (45% support, 48% oppose).  Interestingly, the difference between the DFL (44% support) and GOP (40% support) is nearly within the poll’s 3.5% margin of error.  To me, this is the most surprising finding.  This is politically difficult, but it may not be out-of-reach yet.

Good News for Dayton

On most other issues where the Governor and the GOP are battling fiercely, Minnesotans are siding with the Governor:

  • Wealthy Tax Rallies the Base.  A  majority (54%), though not an overwhelming one, support “raising state income taxes on married couples with taxable income over $250,000 and single filers with taxable income over $150,000.”  There is a ginormous partisan gap on this issue – 82% support among DFLers, and 37% support among GOPers.  Independents are in a statistical dead heat – 43% support and 45% oppose.  This is the defining partisan issue of our times.
  • All Over It Like A Cheap Suit.  About half (49%) of Minnesotans support instituting a sales tax on clothing items costing more than $100, while 42% oppose.  Even 44% of Republicans support this strategy, along with two-thirds of DFLers.  Interestingly, women (57% support) are much more likely to support the clothing sales tax proposal than men (40% support).
  • Last Call for Alcohol.  If Dayton, who has been open about the fact that he is a recovering alcoholic, needs to backfill for the loss of revenue from the demise of the services sales tax , an alcohol tax is a popular alternative that Dayton has not yet embraced.  Six-out-ten (61%) Minnesotans support “raising the state tax on alcohol in place of other proposed tax increases.”  Interestingly, there is a two-to-one gender gap on this issue, with women more likely to say “cheers” to the idea.
  • Tobacco Tax Support A Foregone Conclusion.  The Star Tribune didn’t even bother to poll on the Governor’s lifesaving tobacco tax proposal, probably because the public has been so overwhelmingly supportive in past polls.

Bottom line:  While part of the services sales tax looks to be toast, Dayton has pretty solid  support for most of the rest of his tax package.  In a state where tax increases have been considered politically radioactive for many years, Dayton has  reason to feel good about that.  At the moment, the data suggest Minnesota is a fairly progressive place.

- Loveland

Teacher LIF0 Reform: Weirdest. Politics. Ever.

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Minnesota remains one of the few states in the nation that requires decisions about which public school teachers to hire, promote or  lay off to be made solely based on seniority, and not teacher performance measures, such as student progress or principal evaluations.  DFL Governor Dayton and the DFL-contolled Legislature want to keep it that way.

The DFL has faired well at the polls recently, but Minnesotans aren’t tracking with the DFL on this “last in, first out (LIFO)” issue.  The education reform group MinnCan commissioned a poll which put the following statement in front of a random sample of Minnesotans: “If teacher layoffs are required, seniority should be considered, but the primary factor in deciding which teachers to layoff should be based on teacher performance.”  An overwhelming 91% of Minnesotans support that notion (68% strongly support, 23% somewhat support), while just 9% oppose it (4% strongly oppose, 5% somewhat oppose).

The DFL majority in the Legislature  not only rejects making teacher performance the “primary factor” in layoff decisions, as the previously mentioned survey statement phrased it, it rejects making teacher performance even one of the factors considered in such decisions.

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration’s Education Secretary of Education Arne Duncan agrees with 91% of Minnesotans:

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said seniority alone shouldn’t determine which teachers are let go during budget cuts. But he wouldn’t say whether seniority should be among several factors when it comes to layoffs.

“You have to make sure the teachers that are having the biggest impact on students’ lives have the opportunity to do that work,” he said.

Duncan was responding to a direct question from WNYC about whether, all things being equal, a teacher with 10 years’ experience should stay over a teacher with one year in the event of layoffs.

Think about this odd, odd political scenario for a minute.  I can’t name another issue where the DFL leaders are simultaneously at odds with over 90% of their constituents and the popular Obama Administration. Politically speaking, that simply does not happen very often, if ever.  In fact, if anyone can name another issue in recently memory that mirrors this scenario, I’d love to hear it.  Weirdest.  Politics. Ever.

Note:  This post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs and MinnPost’s Blog Cabin.

Snow Birds, Not Snowed Birds

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In his 2013 budget proposal, Governor Mark Dayton proposed a “snow bird tax” as a matter of fairness:

“It’s one of the unfairnesses that somebody can spend six months and one day out of the state and pay no state personal income taxes and come back here and take advantage of all the state has to offer for five months and 29 days. So, yes, there’s a snowbird tax.”

As Fox News dutifully reported, Florida GOP Congressman Trey Radel wrote a snarky rebuttal letter a few weeks back to Governor Dayton:

“Dear Governor Mark Dayton,” Rep. Trey Radel wrote Friday (February 1, 2013). “I’m writing today to thank you. As a Floridian, I am overjoyed to hear about your plan to raise taxes on Minnesotans, most especially the so-called ‘snowbirds.’  Your proposal gives us a chance to shine here in the Sunshine State.”

Radel, argues in the letter, which appear (sic) written with pointed sarcasm to skewer higher taxes, that southwest Florida would welcome more entrepreneurs and philanthropists investing in the region. And he cited such incentives as no income taxes, investment incentives for big and small businesses and “great” public, charter and private schools.

“It’s my sincere hope your plan has just driven many Minnesotans to become year-round residents of our great state,” he wrote. “I thank you for your policy.  It draws the contrast of what is happening not only in United States today, but the world.”

It may shock you to learn that our little Pensacola pen pal is a Tea Party favorite who has called for President Obama’s impeachment over the President’s  popular gun control proposal (Note: Only 29% of Americans oppose it).

Political extremist or not, my mamma taught me that it is rude to not respond to your mail, so:

Dear Congressman Radel:

Good luck trying to draw Minnesotans to Florida year round.  After all, loyal Minnesotans know that:

Yes, we Minnesotans are pale, cold and taxed (MN is 7th highest, FL is 27th).  But Minnesota snowbirds care deeply about their health, neighbors, environment, communities, infrastructure, quality of life and grandkids’ futures. 

And every winter when they visit Florida, they are reminded that, well, you get what you pay for.

In other words, while migrating Minnesotans may be called snow birds, they’re not  easily snowed. 

Thanks for the invitation, though!

- Loveland

Note:  This post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs and MinnPost’s Blog Cabin.

Really, Pioneer Press?

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When South Dakota Governor Bill Janklow and Minnesota Governor Rudy Perpich were taking verbal shots at each other in the early 1980s about business climate, that was news, mostly because Janklow and Perpich were the highest ranking elected officials of their respective states, and because in those days neighboring Governors  were typically genteel with each other.  This was something new.

But today the St. Paul Pioneer Press ran a breathless piece on its front page, above the fold, about a relatively obscure Tea Party-backed state legislator, Wisconsin State Rep. Erik Serverson (R-Osceola), who wrote a little letter taking a shot at Minnesota about taxes.

A Tea Partier griping about taxes.  Gee, I’ve never heard that before.  Seriously, this is news, Pioneer Press?  It would have been news if this Tea Partier wasn’t opposing Dayton’s tax reform plan.

If the Pioneer Press wants to put something like this in its political blog, an editorial, a Soucheray snark-o-gram or as a News Brief item, fine.  But front page news?  Above the fold?  Twenty-seven column inches?  Wow.

I know that the Pioneer Press is trying soooo hard to make itself into the conservative alternative to the Star Tribune.  (See it’s shameful editorial last fall in favor of banning gay marriage.)  That strikes me as an curious business decision for a publication serving one of the most liberal areas of the state — Obama won Ramsey County by 35 points in 2012, and won in neighboring Washington and Dakota Counties as well.

Still, taking a highly predictable pot shot from a low-level Tea Party-affiliated legislator and making it into front page news strains the bounds of journalistic credibility.

- Loveland

Note:  The post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs.

 

The Five Best Things About Dayton’s Budget

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Governor Mark Dayton went big and bold this week.  He took on the most powerful special interests in order to fix Minnesota’s chronic structural budget deficit problem.  Recent Minnesota Governors haven’t had the guts to do that.  This governor did.

The nitpickers are busily picking nits in Dayton’s proposal, and it’s not a perfect proposal.  But when you focus on the big picture, there is much to admire:

  • It Balances.  No gimmicks.  No shifts.  No one time revenues.  No smoke.  No mirrors.  The revenue and spending sides apparently balance.  Don’t you dare yawn about this accomplishment, because that has been a rare feat at the State Capitol in recent years.
  • It’s Balanced.  This budget does not embody  the extreme right wing’s “no new taxes,”  or the extreme left wing’s “all new taxes.”  It’s a moderate package of “some spending cuts, some spending increases, some tax increases and some tax decreases.”  While that may not play to the extremes, it’s the kind of balance that, according to polls, the vast majority of Minnesotans have been wanting.
  • It Saves Lives.  The Governor has historically worried that tobacco taxes are regressive.  This is a worthwhile thing for any lawmaker to consider.  But the flip side of that coin is that the benefits of a tobacco tax also disproportionately flow to smokers.  Because the tobacco tax is proven to lead to much more tobacco cessation and prevention, and tobacco cessation and prevention leads to much less tobacco-related suffering and death, raising the tobacco tax causes smokers to pay more, but suffer less.   It ends up being a “cruel to be kind” proposition.  The Governor dug below the surface to consider the public health implications of the change, not just the fiscal implications, and that caused him to do did right by smokers.
  • It’s Fair.  Wealthy Minnesotans pay a lower share of their incomes in state and local taxes than citizens of any other income quintile.  Dayton, a wealthy man, is righting that wrong by increasing income taxes on Minnesota’s wealthiest citizens.  To have a credible tax system, we must have everyone paying their fair share.  That’s not “soaking the rich.”  That’s unsoaking the non-rich.
  • It’s Good Government (Not Good Politics).  “Broaden the base and lower the rate” has been the mantra of non-partisan good government advocates for years.   An astute politician like Dayton understands that taxing new things is always a tough political sell.  But he did it because broadening the base and lowering the rate is the right “good government” thing to do.  I know that observation probably comes across as pollyanna-ish to cynics, but it just happens to be true in this case.

Dayton didn’t pick the easy political path.  This budget takes on a lot of special interest groups, and therefore seems likely to get pretty thoroughly shredded under the Capitol dome.  I can’t think of many Minnesota politicians with the political courage and integrity to propose a budget like Governor Dayton just did.  It’s a terrific starting point, and if even half of the major components of the Dayton budget survive the legislative kondirator on John Ireland Boulevard, that would constitute major progress.

- Loveland

Note:  This post was also selected as a “best of the best” for MinnPost’s Blog Cabin feature.

Will There Be Payback for the Bakk Brodkorb Broadside?

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WCCO-TV’s Pat Kessler tweets that Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk (DFL-Virginia) wants to reduce Republican payrolls because of the over $200,000 in legal expenses associated with the contested firing of  Senate staffer Michael Brodkorb after Brodkorb had an affair with Bakk’s predecessor, then Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch.

 This raises Golden Ruley questions, such as:

  • Were DFL staff payrolls reduced in order to cover legal expenses associated with the DFL-heavy Phonegate scandal?
  • Would DFLers support a local school board Education Minnesota members’ salaries to pay for legal expenses associated with anti-gay bullying lawsuits?
  • Would DFLers have been comfortable cutting the salaries of workers at the EVTAC mine in Eveleth to pay legal expenses associated with the sexual harassment charges against that company?

The point:  Most rank-and-file Repblican staffers presumably were not making decisions about the Brodkorb affair and firing, so explaining the payroll cut as an en masse punishment for the lawsuit doesn’t seem fair.

To be clear, the issue is the explanation, not the action.  Majority Leader Bakk is justified in reducing Republican staff payrolls, just as Republicans reduced DFL payrolls when they became the majority party.  When electoral shifts cause changes in party majorities, political staffing levels shift accordingly.  As long as the staffing shift is proportional to the electoral shift, there’s nothing nefarious about such adjustments.

But if Senator Bakk insists on using the Brodkorb suit as his rationale for the Republican payroll cuts, that rationale may well be used against him or his party some day.  And paybakk could be a bitch.

- Loveland

Note:  This post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs and Minnpost’s Blog Cabin feature.