Peace At Planned Parenthood On Good Friday

For 27 years there has been a pro-life demonstration at the Highland Park, St. Paul office of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota. In December 2011, Planned Parenthood moved from the Highland Park office to a new building on Vandalia Street in St. Paul.

The pro-life demonstration and the counter demonstration supporting Planned also moved. There have been violent confrontations between Planned Parenthood and pro-life groups, but the Good Friday event has been a peaceful event. Iron barricades separate the groups and for the most part they ignore each other, competing only in volume of sound.

Additional picture … Continue Reading

Somali Money Transfer Problem a Federal Issue, Says MN DFL

Somali Minnesotans are stuck in limbo because the U.S. Government has pressured banks not to let them wire money home to their families in the war-torn East African nation — ostensibly out of fears that money could fall into the hands of terrorists. Many of those Somali families depend on the remittances for survival.

Local Somalis have set a deadline of May 11 before they begin to pull their money out of Wells Fargo Bank as a protest. But they aren’t getting much help from their elected leaders at the State Capitol in St. Paul. House Minority Leader Paul Thissen says that fellow DFL Rep. Karen Clark is working on a resolution to call on the federal government to take action (see the status of House File 1902 here) , but she has received only three co-sponsors to her legislation.

“At the end of the day, I think this is a federal issue,” said Thissen. “We actually can’t change the law that would change that. We can just encourage our federal representatives to move in that direction … and that we strike the right balance between the humanitarian interest of actually getting money back to families while not getting that money into the hands of terrorists, and I think striking that is Secretary of State Clinton’s ultimate decision.”

GOP Claims Responsibility For MN Surplus: DFL Calls Claim “Laughable”

Minnesota Senate Majority Leader David Senjem (GOP) says his party will claim responsibility for the state’s surplus. House Minority Leader Paul Thissen (DFL) calls that claim “laughable” since most of the money contributing to the surplus has been borrowed.

MN Braces For Voter Photo ID Lawsuits, Election Chaos

Before Minnesota’s proposed voter photo ID constitutional amendment appears on the ballot it will probably appear on a court docket.

“I will be sued by a lot of people” says Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. He expects lawsuits over the ballot question language which doesn’t mention the provisional balloting explicitly spelled out in the constitutional amendment and the end of same day registration which is implicit in the amendment language.

“Some people call this the chaos amendment,” says Ritchie. More than a 500,000 people used same day registration in Minnesota during the last Presidential election. Under voter photo ID most of those people trying to register the same day they vote will need to vote provisionally. Ritchie says that would force local election officials to process 540,000 provisional ballots and voter registration forms ” after a really, really long day.”

“That kind of chaos is the kind of thing that has pushed local election officials to come out very strong, so far, against this,” says Ritchie.

Photo ID 18th century, not 21st century technology. … Continue Reading

Occupy Minneapolis Plans to Reoccupy on Saturday

Six months after their campout in front of City Hall began, Occupy Minneapolis protestors plan to reoccupy the city on Saturday, April 7. This time, they’ll pitch tents at two locations — Peavey Plaza on Nicolet Mall in downtown Minneapolis, and in Loring Park south of downtown. After they set camp, the demonstrators will march to the home of U.S. Bank CEO Richard Davis.

Occupy Minneapolis activists Ben Egerman and Sam Richards held a press conference at Peavey Plaza Wednesday to outline their plans. They insisted that the re-occupation of Minneapolis is necessary because “things are much as they were in the fall. In the last six months the need for a more equitable and just society hasn’t disappeared. People are still being foreclosed upon and thrown out of their homes.”

They hope that over 100 occupiers will join them at the two locations this spring and summer and that the Minneapolis Police Department will not kick them out. An ordinance currently states that Loring Park is closed between midnight and 6 a.m. … Continue Reading

GOP, DFL Hold Weekly News Conference

This morning, the Minnesota Republican and Democratic leadership held their weekly news conference before breaking for Easter. Topics discussed included a bonding bill and the GOP’s passage of a controversial Voter Photo ID constitutional amendment that will now appear on the November ballot. Watch the GOP press conference above, and the DFL address below:

MN Voter Photo ID Is A Cut And Paste ALEC Creation Says Common Cause

A right-wing corporate funded organization essentially wrote Minnesota’s proposed constitutional amendment requiring a photo ID to vote says Minnesota Common Cause Executive Director Mike Dean.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has written 60 bills that have been introduced into the Minnesota legislature according to a Common Cause report. That’s more bills than any other state.

Dean says beyond comparing the language with ALEC’s model bills and what is introduced, the other evidence that these proposed laws are written by corporate lobbyists is the supposed legislative authors of the bills don’t really understand them.

For example, Dean points to the recently passed voter photo ID amendment. The bill’s legislative authors couldn’t explain or refused to explain what the proposed laws really meant. In one hearing Representative Mary Kiffmeyer defined a key phrase in her bill “substantially equivalent” as “equivalent, substantially.”

Dean isn’t alone in his criticism. During debate on the bill Democrats repeatedly complained about Representative Kiffmeyer’s refusal to directly answer questions about what the bill would do. Kiffmeyer has defended her authorship of the bill saying that she did write it. She is a member of ALEC, but downplays her membership.

Dean says teacher gives lawmakers “F” for plagiarism in writing laws.

Plagiarism Or Research By Minnesota Legislators?

ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) has been revealed as the actual author of many bills wending their way through state legislatures. These bills are often very close to verbatim “cut and paste’ entries from the ALEC playbook.

Minnesota Common Cause Executive Director Mike Dean says a teacher who looked at one of the bills said she would have given the author an “F” because “this is plagiarism.”

Dean says that is why authors of the Minnesota photo ID constitutional amendment, such as Representative Mary Kiffmeyer, were not able to answer some very basic questions about the bill.

According to Dean, ALEC is a secretive organization that creates legislation in cooperation with legislators to benefit its corporate members and then provides lobbying support to pass them. The bills are often given a benign sounding name that obscures the real intent of the bill. Minnesota apparently leads the nation with 60 ALEC authored bills, Virginia has 50 to be the presumed second.

What ALEC is doing in Minnesota and who is behind it. … Continue Reading

Gov. Dayton Responds to Voter Photo ID Passage

This morning Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton vetoed a Republican legislative effort to raid the state’s budget reserves to buy back part of the remaining school shift and also responded to yesterday’s passage of the GOP’s Photo Voter ID constitutional amendment, which will now appear on November’s ballot.

Governor Dayton’s Veto Letter (PDF)

EBT Card: Fraud or Confusion?

Can someone cheat Minnesota’s welfare system as described in a recent Minnesota House hearing?

No says Angel Buechner of the Welfare rights committee. “It’s such a myth. There’s no way a person can have more than one EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer) card”

Buechner says “It was a cop who brought this up (to the legislature), saying he’s arrested people and found more than one EBT card on a person and he figures that a potential for fraud.”

There are already safeguards in place preventing a person from being issued more than one card. The card is issued by the county and it is a replacement for the old paper food stamps and the monthly welfare check. The card is issued by the county upon proper determination of eligibility and the monthly amount is set in the central computer record. This includes the monthly “food stamp” allowance and a cash amount if appropriate. The recipient does nothing to renew the monthly benefits, they are posted to the computer record.

Buechner says one person might have more than one card in possession if he or she were shopping for other members of the household.

“Poor bashing” bills … Continue Reading