Not the Worst MN Legislature Ever

Certainly, the most incompetent, ideologically extreme, and idiotically farcical.  But, in my opinion, the 2011-12 GOP-controlled Minnesota legislature doesn't qualify as the worst ever, simply because few of its priorities became, or are in any position to become, settled law.

Don't get me wrong;  the proposed Marriage Discrimination and Photo ID Amendments are horrific travesties of what government "for the people" is supposed to be about.  But, even if the first squeaks through this time, it will be repealed before long, and replaced with explicit constitutional protections for the rights of all Minnesotans. And, with a DFL governor and legislature, there will be ways to mitigate the impact of vote suppression - what I'd like to see, is a program providing cost- and hassle-free photo ID for everyone, at the rich man's expense.

I am hugely relieved that the proposed "Destroy Minnesota" Amendment, which would have required 60% legislative majorities for any sort of state tax increase, went nowhere.  Its purpose for GOPers, of course, was to protect tax code welfare for the wealthy.  Its effect would be a mess akin to California's.  I still don't know why it didn't happen.  The proposal only got as far as one committee action. Certainly, its passage as a proposed amendment was far from certain;  this is the state where residents agreed (by a 58-42% margin, if memory serves) to tax themselves more for the sake of the environment and (I love typing this, because it infuriates the righties so much) the arts.  But a lot of out-of-state money would have poured in, presenting such a scheme  to the voting public as something akin to "Let's just make sure legislators really know what they're doing, before they raise your taxes."  And that sort of approach has unfortunately been proved to be effective, among a largely un- or misinformed electorate.

I regard the 1999-2000 Legislature as having been the worst of my lifetime, because, despite the fact that DFLers held the Senate, albeit barely, it passed two rounds of tax cuts that, in absolute dollar terms, overwhelmingly benefited the wealthiest Minnesotans.  And the quality of life in the state has been on a downhill track ever since.  Minnesota is, in fact, a textbook example of how wrongheaded handouts for the haves, as settled public policy, are;  it should be taught as such, in every economics and political science course.  Anyone that still doesn't get that, and instead still goes around spouting off to the contrary, would do well to finally get his or her head out of the rich man's backside.  And in electoral terms, it's long past time to move such people, to permanent (and permanently diminishing, to a limit of zero) minority status.