Archive for the ‘Mark Ritchie’ Category
Tuesday night, the Executive Committee of the CD-8 Republicans unanimously passed a resolution calling for Speaker Zellers to start impeachment proceedings against Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. First, here’s what the Minnesota Constitution says about impeachment:
ARTICLE VIII
IMPEACHMENT AND REMOVAL FROM OFFICE
Section 1. Impeachment powers. The house of representatives has the sole
power of impeachment through a concurrence of a majority of all its members. All impeachments shall be tried by the senate. When sitting for that purpose, senators shall be upon oath or affirmation to do justice according to law and evidence. No person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the senators present.Sec. 2. Officers subject to impeachment; grounds; judgment. The governor,
secretary of state, auditor, attorney general and the judges of the supreme court, court of appeals and district courts may be impeached for corrupt conduct in office or for crimes and misdemeanors; but judgment shall not extend further than to removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit in this state. The party convicted shall also be subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment according to law. [Amended, November 2, 1982; November 3, 1998]Sec. 3. Suspension. No officer shall exercise the duties of his office after he has been impeached and before his acquittal.
Sec. 4. Service of impeachment papers. No person shall be tried on impeachment before he has been served with a copy thereof at least 20 days previous to the day set for trial.
Here’s the text of the resolution:
Speaker Zellers:
Pursuant to the provisions of Article VIII of the Minnesota Constitution (reproduced below), the 8th Congressional District GOP Executive Committee urges the Minnesota House to initiate impeachment proceedings against Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie.
Of the two causes of impeachment action identified in Section 2, Mark Ritchie seems clearly to have been, and continues to be, participating in corrupt conduct in office.
Mr. Ritchie exceeded his traditional, legal and constitutional authority by manipulating the title of the two legislatively placed ballot initiatives scheduled for the November 2012 election. When the title of amendments is determined by legislative action, the wording of such amendments remains within the solid purview of the Legislative Branch. We view Secretary Ritchie to be politically motivated. We view these actions to be against the best interest of the people of Minnesota. We view these actions to clearly constitute corrupt conduct in office.
Secretary Ritchie has campaigned aggressively with numerous public appearances against the content of the voter ID amendment. We view these actions as corrupt conduct in office.
With a Republican majority in the Minnesota Senate for the first time in 38 years, the corrupt conduct of the Minnesota Secretary of State regarding amendments becomes an issue for the first time. Previously, the Senate was able to block all conservative amendments regardless of which party held the majority in the House. Suddenly the idea of an activist Secretary of State with an agenda becomes a problematic and immediate problem.
Note that between the House impeachment and the Senate trial, the constitution forbids Mr. Ritchie to serve as Secretary of State. Keeping Mr. Ritchie from further mischief and corrupt conduct in office would be of value to the people of Minnesota regardless or the ultimate outcome of the Senate trial.
I attended a meeting of the Stearns County county commissioners about a month ago. Secretary of State Mark Ritchie was an invited guest. Randy Schreifels, Stearns County’s Auditor/Treasurer, introduced Ritchie as “Secretary of State Mark Ritchie.”
After the introduction, Secretary Ritchie quickly turned the event into a campaign event, telling the commissioners and guests that the Photo ID amendment was complicated and expensive to the counties.
Most of Ritchie’s statements were opinions. Mr. Ritchie’s intent was clear. He sought to influence the opinions of the commissioners. Secretary Ritchie didn’t attempt to highlight anything positive about Photo ID.
It’s improper for a constitutional officer to use their office to campaign. This isn’t different in principle from Mike Hatch using official OAG stationery to talk about his runningmate in 2006:
“There are a lot of subtleties about the line separating official function from campaigns,” Nobles said on Monday. “But this one was not subtle. It was an official document, and a reference to a running mate has no place in it.”
Just like that instance, there wasn’t any attempt on Ritchie’s behalf to hide the fact that he was campaigning against the constitutional amendment.
Constitutional offices aren’t political offices. They aren’t given latitude to stray into politics and policies. It’s clear that that’s what Secretary Ritchie did in this instance.
That’s why Secretary Ritchie should be impeached.
UPDATE: Follow this link for more on this breaking story.
Tags: Impeachment, Mark Ritchie, Secretary of State, Corruption in Office, DFL, Kurt Zellers, MNGOP
When Mark Ritchie makes an unexpected ‘educational visit’ to your city, it’s always accompanied by a slew of articles about voter fraud. When Secretary Ritchie visited St. Cloud, he didn’t hold a townhall event open to the public. Instead, he met with the area’s city councilmembers, mayors, county commissioners and government bureaucrats.
According to this article, multiple plaintiffs filed a lawsuit alleging that election officials didn’t verify people getting ballots were entitled to those ballots:
“Public records reveal that after the November 2008 election there were 48,545 EDRs found to be unconfirmable; nevertheless each had their vote counted for that election contest. Each EDR who was found to be unconfirmable as entitled to vote after the election, upon information and belief, was also not entitled to vote on the preceding election day for that November 2008 contest.
People that can’t verify they are who they say they are shouldn’t get the same ballot that verified voters get. They should get a provisional ballot. If the person doesn’t return to verify their identity within 2 weeks, their ballots shouldn’t count.
Right now, the procedure is that a person using EDR gets a regular ballot. That’s a major problem because thousands of postal verification cards got returned as undeliverable in 2008 and 2010. When the cards were researched, many cards were sent to addresses that were empty lots or nonexistent entirely.
Though Secretary Ritchie won’t admit it, that’s what voter fraud looks like.
One of the DFL’s favorite chanting points is that photo ID “is a solution in search of a problem.” The problem has been located.
One commenter to LFR suggested that this wasn’t proof of voter fraud, that this might be the result of data entry error or that the people just filled their EDR form wrong.
That’s spin.
In 2008, a total of 715,000 people used EDR. Over 6,000 PVCs were returned as undeliverable. That’s an error rate of nearly 1%. That sounds like a reasonable error rate but it isn’t.
Most companies require their data entry operators maintain an error rate of less than .05%. If that corporate standard was applied to these EDRs, that would mean there shouldn’t be more than 357 PVCs returned.
Requiring photographic identification would solve this crisis. Yes, crisis is the right term. People who work hard and play by the rules shouldn’t have their votes negated by a person committing voter fraud.
Secretary Ritchie and his corrupt allies say that every vote is precious. I agree with him on that. Legally cast ballots shouldn’t be negated by people committing voter fraud.
That’s why Photo ID must be required in Minnesota.
Tags: Photo ID, Voter Fraud, Election Day Registration, PVCs, Mark Ritchie, Corruption, DFL, Elections
Mark Ritchie must go. He was considered the thought leader for the bloody WTO protests in Seattle in 1999. In recent court filings, he’s said that he doesn’t have the affirmative responsibility of preventing felony voter fraud. Prior to that, it’s been proven that he hasn’t faithfully updated Minnesota’s SVRS, which he’s required to do according to HAVA.
We know this because felons have been convicted of voting illegally. Had the voter rolls been updated in a timely fashion, they couldn’t have gotten a ballot.
Now, the Pioneer Press Editorial Board is accusing Mark Ritchie of attempting to suppress the vote:
Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has changed the Legislature’s voter ID amendment title, “Photo identification required for voting, ” into the following: “Changes to in-person & absentee voting & voter registration; provisional ballots.” Ritchie, who is well read and well spoken, clearly had to go deep into the Orwellian playbook to come up with that one.
But what explains this bizarre formulation that obviously seeks to obscure the initiative and confuse the voter? One of the best explanations we’ve heard is that Ritchie hopes to so confuse the voters that they simply throw up their hands and skip this ballot item altogether. Remember, by law in Minnesota, a nonvote on a constitutional amendment question has the same effect as a “no” vote.
Mark Ritchie’s cumulative actions have sent the unmistakable message that he won’t enforce parts of Minnesota’s election laws that he disagrees with. I wrote here about the lengths Mr. Ritchie will go in refusing to enforce the parts of Minnesota’s election laws he doesn’t agree with. Here’s what Mr. Ritchie said about enforcing Minnesota’s election laws:
There is nothing in the words “any election,” in art. VII, § 1, or elsewhere in Minnesota law that places upon Defendants [Mark Ritchie, Lori Swanson and Joe Mansky] an affirmative obligation to prevent such persons from committing felony voter fraud.
The thought that Mr. Ritchie won’t accept responsibility for preventing voter fraud speaks volumes about his governing philosophy. It says that Ritchie thinks it isn’t his job to prevent honest people from having their votes negated by dishonest people who are gaming the system. It’s as if Ritchie’s say it’s just his job to make sure as many people vote even if there’s substantial voter fraud happening.
Most importantly, it’s his statement that Article VII is meaningless. If he won’t enforce Minnesota’s Constitution, what’s his responsibility? Does Mr. Ritchie think that it’s his job to make sure as many people as possible? Does he think that enforcing the Constitution is unimportant?
At a time when voter fraud is happening, when tens of thousands of PVCs are returned because the address doesn’t exist, Minnesota needs someone who’s interested in protecting legal voters.
Minnesotans love high voter turnout. They also demand that ther election laws be consistently applied. Mr. Ritchie fails that final part badly.
That’s why he’s got to go.
Tags: Felony, Corruption, Mark Ritchie, Photo ID, Voter Fraud, Constitution, DFL, Elections
In 2006, Mark Ritchie received tons of money from the now-defunct Secretary of State Project, aka SOSP, while campaigning as “nonpartisan Mark Ritchie.” The partisan hack that’s changing the titles to the constitutional amendments passed by the legislature isn’t neutral:
Ritchie on Monday announced that he changed the title of the amendment, which would require photo identification to vote, to appear on the ballot as, “Changes to In-Person and Absentee Voting and Voter Registration; Provisional Ballots.” Republicans had previously titled the amendment, “Photo Identification Required for Voting.”
This is part of Sec. Ritchie’s campaign against the proposed Photo ID constitutional amendment. That isn’t Ritchie’s worst transgression, though it exposes him as opposing election integrity.
The purpose behind Ritchie’s title change is his anti-Photo ID Chanting Point is the unsubstantiated implication that Photo ID is wildly expensive to counties. Mr. Ritchie knows that the cost of state-required Photo IDs would be borne by the state, not the counties.
Another thing mentioned in Ritchie’s title change is the use of provisional ballots, which Ritchie insists excessively complicates the election process. While any additional requirement creates more work, it doesn’t complicate life for election workers.
If a person who isn’t registered to vote requests a ballot, that person is required to register before getting a ballot. That’s true in our current system. That’s true in a Photo ID system.
The only change to the system is that an unregistered voter in a Photo ID environment is required to present their state-issued Photo ID. If they don’t product a state-issue ID, they’re given a provisional ballot instead of getting a regular ballot.
If the person doesn’t return to verify their identity, the provisional ballot isn’t counted. That’s why they’re called provisional ballots.
Finally, the only change made to absentee ballot voting is that a person would be required to show their state-issued Photo ID before their ballot is counted. Again, it’s an additional step in the process but it hardly complicates things.
Mr. Ritchie is attempting to make the case that any changes made will make Minnesota’s election system unnecessarily complicated. While he’s made that argument, he hasn’t offered proof that Minnesota’s election system would be that complicated in a Photo ID world.
It’s important that Mr. Ritchie enforces state and federal election laws. It’s equally important that he’s impartial in enforcing those laws. Whether he likes certain parts of the laws or whether he thinks they’re terrible isn’t relevant.
Most importantly, Ritchie’s blatant political activism makes it clear that he won’t impartially enforce Photo ID if it’s part of Minnesota’s Constitution.
Tags: Photo ID, Provisional Ballots, Absentee Ballots, Mark Ritchie, Secretary of State Project, Partisanship, Election Enforcement, DFL, Elections
When I first read this article, I thought I was seeing things. Unfortunately, I hadn’t. Here’s what I’m talking about:
But the state has no obligation to verify eligibility before counting votes, nor would doing so be practical, countered Assistant Attorney General Nathan Hartshorn, representing Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and Attorney General Lori Swanson.
That’s an odd interpretation of Article VII of Minnesota’s Constitution:
ARTICLE VII
ELECTIVE FRANCHISESection 1. ELIGIBILITY; PLACE OF VOTING; INELIGIBLE PERSONS. Every person 18 years of age or more who has been a citizen of the United States for three months and who has resided in the precinct for 30 days next preceding an election shall be entitled to vote in that precinct. The place of voting by one otherwise qualified who has changed his residence within 30 days preceding the election shall be prescribed by law. The following persons shall not be entitled or permitted to vote at any election in this state: A person not meeting the above requirements; a person who has been convicted of treason or felony, unless restored to civil rights; a person under guardianship, or a person who is insane or not mentally competent.
Article VII, Sect. 1 specifically says that people who don’t meet the Constitution’s requirements “shall not be entitled or permitted to vote at any election in this state.”
The Secretary of State is known as the chief election official in Minnesota just like the Attorney General is known as the chief law enforcement official in Minnesota. They, along with the state auditor, the governor and the leiutenant governor are the 5 “constitutional offices.”
What Assistant Attorney General Hartshorn just said in U.S. District Court is that Minnesota’s constitutional officers, specifically the Secretary of State and the Attorney General, aren’t required to uphold Minnesota’s Constitution.
That argument wouldn’t work in a Minnesota court. If it wouldn’t work in here, it certainly won’t fly in any US appellate court with the exception of the Ninth Circuit.
Hartshorn isn’t going beyond the bizarre statements in Mark Ritchie’s memo in favor of dismissal motion:
In their responsive memorandum, Plaintiffs once again proceed from the premise that the Minnesota Constitution imposes an obligation on Defendants to “confirm” or “verify” voter eligibility before counting votes. This time, Plaintiffs repeatedly assert that that obligation is contained in the phrase “any election” in Minn. Const. art. VII, § 1.
(See 2d. Pls. Mem. 3, 7, 13, 16, 17, 19.) As Plaintiffs concede, however, that section of the state constitution merely provides that a “person not entitled to vote cannot vote in ‘any election.’” (2d. Pls. Mem. 7 (emphasis added).) There is nothing in the words “any election,” in art. VII, § 1, or elsewhere in Minnesota law that places upon Defendants an affirmative obligation to prevent such persons from committing felony voter fraud.
What Mr. Hartshorn is arguing is that the chief election official doesn’t have a responsibility for upholding Minnesota’s election laws. What he’s arguing is that a) the Secretary of State’s office is a ceremonial office devoid of official constitutional responsibilities and b) Minnesota’s constitution doesn’t require that the Constitution be upheld.
He’s also arguing that the chief law enforcement officer in the state isn’t responsible for enforcing the requirements codified into Minnesota’s Constitution.
These are absurd arguments that attempt to shirk the Secretary of State’s and the Attorney General’s responsibilities. It’s absurd to think that the Constitution requires something but Minnesota state statutes doesn’t compel anyone to enforce those requirements.
Last weekend, the DFL held its annual state convention, at which time many of their elected officials spoke to the faithful. Mark Ritchie was one of those speakers:
On May 30,2012, a number of the DFL’s special interest allies filed a lawsuit with the Minnesota Supreme Court requesting the proposed Photo ID constitutional amendment not be allowed on the ballot this November. Here’s the description of their lawsuit:
In Supreme Court
League of Women Voters Minnesota;
Common Cause, a District of Columbia nonprofit corporation;
Jewish Community Action, a Minnesota nonprofit corporation;
Gabriel Herbers, Shannon Doty, Gretchen Nickence;
John Harper Ritten; and Kathryn Ibur, Petitioners
vs.
Mark Ritchie, in his official capacity as Secretary of State of the State of Minnesota, and not in his individual capacity, Respondent.
The way that last part is written caught my attention because of the way Ritchie was introduced at the DFL convention:
INTRODUCTION: He wants to talk with you today, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie.
RITCHIE: Thank you, everyone. I’m honored to serve you and all Minnesotans as your Secretary of State. But today, I’m here in my personal and passionate compassion as a social studies teacher.
That’s total BS. The DFL didn’t invite him to speak at their convention because he’s a social studies teacher. He wasn’t introduced as a social studies teacher. He was introduced as Minnesota’s Secretary of State. He was invited to speak because he’s, regrettably, the most hyperpartisan Secretary of State in Minnesota history.
Here’s part of what he said during his speech at the DFL convention:
Ritchie: I want you to go into your packets and get out this yellow sheet of paper that has the actual language of the proposed constitutional amendment dealing with elections…Today, we face the same opportunity to defend liberty and justice for all. Take that yellow sheet of paper out of your packet. Go while I read the four lines that matter in this proposed constitutional amendment. The first line says “All voters voting in person must present valid government-issued photographic identification before receiving a ballot.”
That’s all voters. This is in the Constitution. Every other state that has debated Photo ID has always exempted military voters, absentee voters, the Amish, people with religious objections.
Other states like Alabama and Mississippi and Indiana have exempted people with disabilities, senior citizens. In this proposal, there are no exemptions. It’s in the Constitution forever. It is an affront to us to put this in front of the public.
That hyperpartisan rant calls into question Ritchie’s ability to defend the right of the legislature to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot.
Ritchie expressed his disdain for the proposed Photo ID constitutional amendment in plain-spoken terms. He said that it’s “an affront to us to put this in front of the public.”
Though he claimed that he was saying this as a social studies teacher, that isn’t a credible statement because he was introduced as Minnesota’s Secretary of State. Whenever he speaks in public, he’s recognized because he’s Minnesota’s Secretary of State.
On May 15, Ritchie spoke to the Stearns County commissioners about the proposed Photo ID amendment. Again, he was introduced as Minnesota’s Secretary of State. Again, he specifically ranted about what a terrible idea the constitutional amendment was.
Did Ritchie cross a line? I’ll let the legal eagles decide that. Can he be trusted with passionately arguing that this constitutional amendment be put on this November’s ballot? I don’t see how after this weekend’s partisan diatribe.
Tags: DFL State Convention, Constitutional Amendment, Photo ID, Lawsuit, Mark Ritchie, Partisanship, Secretary of State, DFL, Elections
The ACLU of Minnesota, the League of Women Voters-Minnesota, Common Cause MN and Jewish Community Action filed suit yesterday to keep the Photo ID constitutional amendment off of November’s ballot:
The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, the League of Women Voters Minnesota, Jewish Community Action and Common Cause Minnesota are petitioning the state Supreme Court to strike down the voter ID ballot question, because they claim it would create one of the most restrictive election laws in the country.
Chuck Samuelson, executive director of the ACLU Minnesota, said during a news conference at a downtown Minneapolis law office that the proposed constitutional amendment would do far more than what the question describes. Samuelson said there’s no mention of a new provisional ballot system or the potential end of same-day registration.
“We believe that the voters of Minnesota have a right to know what they’re voting on,” Samuelson said. “This petition is about ensuring that all Minnesota voters know the full extent of what this amendment could do and the impact it could have on hundreds of thousands of Minnesota voters.”
This isn’t unexpected. In fact, DFL legislators started laying the groundwork for it during floor debates this session.
Rep. Ryan Winkler and other DFL legislators insisted that the real intent of the constitutional amendment was to eliminate same day registration. That’s nothing more than the DFL’s typical fearmongering.
Rep. Mary Kiffmeyer frequently informed DFL legislators that eliminating same day registration wasn’t part of the constitutional amendment.
Eliminating same day registration isn’t planned. If it were, why would there be a need for provisional ballots? Secretary of State Mark Ritchie admitted as much during a visit to St. Cloud recently.
Pentelovitch also believes that the proposed voter ID requirement would essentially end Minnesota’s tradition of same-day registration. He said that’s because election officials will face too many complications at polling places trying to verify the identification of voters. But voter ID supporters firmly disagree.
“That is not true. That is absolutely not true,” said Sen. Scott Newman, R-Hutchinson, a chief sponsor of the voter ID constitutional amendment bill.
Newman said the practice of vouching for the identity of other voters will end. But he insists eligible Minnesotans will still be able to show up at their polling place on Election Day and register to vote, even without an identification.
“If they show up on Election Day without the requisite identification, they will be allowed register,” he said. “They will be allowed to vote. But their vote will be provisional, and it will not count unless and until they come back with the necessary identification.”
It’s time to get rid of the voter fraud in Minnesota. Yes, there’s voter fraud here. It’s just that people like Mark Ritchie and Joe Mansky haven’t been looking for it.
Tags: Common Cause MN, League of Women Voters-MN, ACLU MN, Mark Ritchie, Chuck Samuelson, Ryan Winkler, Provisional Ballots, Same Day Registration, Vouching, DFL, Mary Kiffmeyer, Election Integrity
Gov. Dayton and the Executive Council must’ve figured they can’t keep postponing mineral lease auctions:
Minnesota’s Executive Council is set to act on 77 mineral exploration leases next week that have been delayed for a year because of concerns by private landowners that their rights could be infringed.
The council, composed of the governor and the state’s other top elected officials, twice considered the leases in 2011 but delayed action.
On Tuesday, however, notice came that the council will hold a special meeting May 31 to consider the leases. It’s expected the leases will be approved.
“My understanding is that the governor and some other members of the council wanted to move this away from their regular June meeting because of the interest. But DNR didn’t ask for this specific date or anything. The council set this,” said Larry Kramka, director of the Department of Natural Resources division of Lands and Minerals Division.
He said he knows of no changes to the original plan. “We haven’t been asked to remove any of the specific (leases). We haven’t changed anything,” Kramka said.
This is purely a political decision. Now that the election is nearing, the DFL can’t afford to look like they’re the lunatic fringe environmentalists. That would drive a wedge between the miners and the DFL.
Make no mistake, though. The Twin Cities Executive Council care more about the environmentalists than they care about the miners on the Range.
Kent Kaiser wrote a stinging editorial in October, 2011 about the Executive Council delayed the lease auctions for 6 months:
This month, Minnesota’s State Executive Council, which includes the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general and state auditor, voted to delay 77 leases to explore for copper and nickel on private lands in northern Minnesota.
This short-sighted action was initiated by Gov. Mark Dayton and Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. It was unfortunate for the job situation in the Northland, and I know many Minnesotans are terribly disappointed.
After all, the people of Minnesota own the rights to minerals in the state, including those under private land. Anyone from Northeastern Minnesota knows this; I remember learning this fact in elementary school.
At the time, a handful of private property owners tried pushing the legislature into passing legislation changing the mineral rights. The legislature refused to take them seriously because it was apparent that they were stooges of the environmentalists.
This is rather telling:
Indeed, Dayton’s actions this month were more consistent with his actions two decades ago. At that time, when he was on the State Executive Council as state auditor, he called for the postponement of mining lease votes so he could consult first with the Sierra Club.
Gov. Dayton didn’t agree with miners then. He’s still fighting against them. When Prof. Kaiser wrote this editorial, it was after the Executive Council postponed taking action on lease auctions a second time.
Clearly, Gov. Dayton doesn’t care about the economy on the Iron Range. He’s just worried that the Iron Rangers will abandon the DFL in greater numbers this November.
According to the DNR, they didn’t change anything on the leases since the Executive Council voted to postpone the lease auctions:
He said he knows of no changes to the original plan. “We haven’t been asked to remove any of the specific (leases). We haven’t changed anything,” Kramka said.
It’s only a matter of time before the Iron Range abandons the DFL. What’s in it for them when the DFL is a wholly owned subsidiary of the treehuggers that inhabit the Arrowhead and the urban strongholds of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
Iron Rangers are predominantly pro-life, pro-Second Amendment and natural opponents of the anti-mining, pro-marxist treehuggers.
The DFL might’ve been the right fit for the Iron Range a generation ago. The DFL isn’t a good fit thanks to the treehuggers’ domination of the DFL.
Tags: Mineral Lease Auctions, Private Property Rights, Executive Council, Mark Dayton, Mark Ritchie, Treehuggers, Arrowhead, DFL, Iron Range, Mining, Pro-Life, Second Amendment, Jobs, MNGOP, Election 2012
Earlier this week, Gov. Dayton joined DFL lawmakers in Duluth to pretend that building a new Vikings stadium was all that was needed for a great Minnesota economy:
“Thousands of people are going to be working on that stadium, and on the transit center in Duluth. Those aren’t just words, those are real jobs,” Dayton said, referring to $6 million included in the state bonding construction bill for the $27 million downtown transit hub supporters say will link bus, taxi and train passengers with hikers and bikers.
Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, said Republicans seemed content the past two years with passing little or no legislation to create jobs or move the state forward.
“We saved the Republicans from what would have been the largest do-nothing session in state history,” Bakk said, noting DFLers in the minority put up more votes than Republicans to get the Vikings’ stadium bill passed, 22 compared to 16 for Republicans who hold a 37-30 majority in the Senate.
Notice how the DFL was quick to tout the need to go into debt to create jobs that won’t help the Iron Range? Apparently, the Executive Council isn’t interested in creating good-paying jobs on the range. Prof. Kent Kaiser criticized the State Executive Council for not creating jobs on the Iron Range:
This month, Minnesota’s State Executive Council, which includes the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general and state auditor, voted to delay 77 leases to explore for copper and nickel on private lands in northern Minnesota.
This short-sighted action was initiated by Gov. Mark Dayton and Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. It was unfortunate for the job situation in the Northland, and I know many Minnesotans are terribly disappointed.
After all, the people of Minnesota own the rights to minerals in the state, including those under private land. Anyone from Northeastern Minnesota knows this; I remember learning this fact in elementary school.
Dayton and Ritchie said they were responding to the complaints of a handful of Isabella-area landowners who supposedly didn’t know about the state’s century-old mineral laws. Yet most of the people testifying against the leases actually live in the Twin Cities area or are only transplants to the Northland. I think most Northlanders would agree: It’s inconceivable that someone from the Twin Cities or elsewhere would buy property in Northeastern Minnesota without being astute enough to learn the laws relevant to that land. If they didn’t: well, tough.
Gov. Dayton and the other DFL politicians on the Council caved to the militant environmentalists rather than doing what’s right for the mining families that live on the Iron Range.
That’s becoming typical thinking for anti-industry progressives. Think President Obama shafting the construction unions in not approving the Keystone XL Pipeline project.
In fact, it’s becoming apparent that the GOP cares more about getting construction workers employed than does the DFL, the party that continuously talks about putting construction workers to work.
Prior to his becoming the Senate Minority Leader, I thought that Sen. Bakk was a semi-intelligent man. I even held out hope he might resemble a capitalist. Now that he’s in a position of leadership, his true colors shine through. He’s just like the other DFL politicians who think that jobs come from creating debt.
When HF1 was signed into law, it streamlined the permitting process, which made it easier to expand businesses and create jobs. Apparently, Sen. Bakk doesn’t think that making it easier to expand companies creates jobs.
When Rep. Abeler, Rep. Gottwalt and Sen. Hann reformed HHS, they shrunk the HHS per biennium spending increases from 16% to a mere 5%. That’s a per biennium savings of $1,100,000,000.
That politicians think of saving the taxpayers $1,100,000,000 per biennium as not being a major accomplishment is stunning. That the DFL didn’t figure out how to save the taxpayers $1.1 billion per biennium should be enough to seal their fate of being the minority party for the next decade.
Bakk noted that the governor was sent only 245 bills over the two years of the biennial legislative session, the fewest of any Minnesota Legislature since 1869 when lawmakers met only every other year.
“They just didn’t think anything was important. They didn’t care if they passed any bills,” Bakk said of Republicans who control the state House as well as the Senate.
The first thing that came to mind when I read that was that Sen. Bakk said he didn’t see the need for the DFL to propose a budget. Let’s remember that the DFL didn’t put a set of redistricting maps together, either.
Think about that because it’s stunning. Redistricting is a once-in-a-decade responsibility. Sen. Bakk and Rep. Thissen thought it was so unimportant that they didn’t put a set of redistricting maps together even though it’s required by law to do so.
Think about the DFL hiring some redistricting specialists at the cost of $66,000 per specialist, then not putting a set of redistricting maps together.
If that’s got you furious, think about this: One of the people that the DFL hired was Jaime Tincher. If Ms. Tincher’s name rings a bell, it’s possible you remember that she ran then-Speaker Kelliher’s gubernatorial campaign.
Not only did the DFL think putting a set of redistricting maps wasn’t important. Not only didn’t they think it was important to not piss away $188,000 of the taxpayers’ money. No, it’s that the DFL pissed away that amount of money one political cronies that didn’t do a damn thing.
And Sen. Bakk has the chutzpah to say the GOP didn’t think anything was important? Sen. Bakk is a joke. To put it politely, he’s full of the stuff that makes plants grow.
Tags: Minnesota Executive Council, Mark Ritchie, Lori Swanson, Rebecca Otto, Mark Dayton, Tom Bakk, President Obama, Keystone XL Pipeline, Mining, Stimulus, Debt, DFL, Steve Gottwalt, Jim Abeler, David Hann, HHS, Unions, MNGOP, Election 2012
Tuesday night, Mark Ritchie travelled to St. Cloud to talk about the photo ID constitutional amendment. His presentation lasted approximately 20 minutes, which was followed by a 15 minute Q and A period.
During his presentation, Secretary Ritchie talked about the great expense of a photo ID system. Ritchie also spoke about how people lose their drivers licenses, then don’t get their replacement license for “sometimes up to 3 or 4 weeks.” Ritchie made the point that, if we went to a provisional ballot system, people who had lost their license just prior to that election “would have to do this”, at which point Ritchie crossed his fingers.
First, the odds of a person losing their drivers license right before the election are tiny. Further, if it’s taking the DMV 3-4 weeks to process a drivers license, then the DMV needs a top-to-bottom overhaul. Either that or that function needs to be privatized immediately.
Prior to his presentation, Secretary Ritchie handed out an information packet to everyone in the audience. Part of that information packet was an op-ed written by Randy Maluchnik, the president of the Association of Minnesota Counties.
In his op-ed, Mr. Maluchnik states that “Minnesota’s counties currently do an excellent job of administering fair and open elections across a state with significant geographic challenges. The lack of any significant voter irregularity for decades supports this assertion.”
With all due respect to Mr. Maluchnik, the fact that Minnesota’s counties haven’t noticed “any significant voter irregularity for decades” doesn’t prove anything except that counties haven’t detected significant amounts of voting irregularities. It’s quite possible that it’s happening. It’s equally possible that it hasn’t been detected because it’s impossible to find the things that people refuse to look for.
Another of Secretary Ritchie’s stories was about a felon who’d just gotten released from prison. According to Secretary Ritching, the newly-released felon had “turned his life around” and was living in Warroad, MN. Ritchie then said that Warroad was “near the North Dakota border.” According to MapQuest, Warroad is over 75 miles from North Dakota.
Again, according to Secretary Ritchie, the just-released felon didn’t know that he couldn’t vote. Again, according to Secretary Ritchie, this man called his parole officer. He left a message on the parole officer’s voicemail saying that he was going to vote. By the time the parole officer responded, the felon had voted, requiring him to be charged with a felony.
According to former Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer, prisoners that are about to be released are instructed that they aren’t eligible to vote until they’ve finished parole and the Secretary of State’s office informs them that their voting rights have been reinstated.
When asked about felons voting, Secretary Ritchie almost squirmed out of his skin. He talked about the felon in Warroad. He talked about how the laws in North and South Dakota are different than Minnesota’s election laws.
What’s striking is that he never addressed how hundreds of felons had voted illegally and had gotten convicted of voter fraud. According to Rep. Kiffmeyer, it’s almost impossible to convict a felon for committing voter fraud because it requires proving that the felon voted knowing that he or she wasn’t eligible to vote.
According to Rep. Kiffmeyer, that’s why few cases are even brought to trial.
UPDATE: Follow this link to read more aboout Secretary Ritchie’s visit to St. Cloud.
Tags: Photo ID, Voter Fraud, Felons, Mark Ritchie, Warroad, MN, Randy Maluchnik, Association of Minnesota Counties, Op-ed, Elections