One year anniversary of Republican shutdown

Cast your minds back to the winter of 2011. Minnesota Republican legislators promised that now that they had the majority, they'd create jobs. They used catchphrases like "laser focus" to indicate how serious they'd be.

I warned y'all about their environmental agenda. Rachel Nygaard told the story of how sole focus was going to be on gun rights. In late January 2011, Joe Bodell wondered when the jobs bill would be written.

House Minority Leader Paul Thissen warned us that the MNGOP wasn't properly focused. In the end, I counted 32 bills that Republicans introduced rather than working on the budget.

They didn't get around to creating their budget bills until very late in the session.

In the final hours, they never negotiated in good faith. They inserted far right, poison pill policy items into final drafts guaranteeing Gov. Mark Dayton would veto their bills.

So its entirely apropos that Alliance for a Better Minnesota remind everyone of how the Republicans shut down our state government:

Click on the image above or this link to see information about each MNGOP legislator. Maybe you'll see a few facts you might want to tweet ... ABM have a cool little widget that cycles through facts about every MNGOP legislator and how they contributed to the shutdown.