Jeff Rosenberg Posts

Yesterday, The Big E referenced the city of Minneapolis's analysis of the 2012 election (PDF). There's a lot of interesting information contained in that document. To me, the most striking was this map, which compares early voting options in all 50 states. It's readily apparent that Minnesota is one of a handful of states that's fallen behind.

Conservative economic thought is based on a single simple premise, which just so happens to be wrong. The premise is that if you make sure businesses have as much money as possible, they'll hire more workers. One easy way to do that, they claim, is to lower their taxes.

Minnesota Majority's Dan McGrath wants to make it much harder for people to vote. He's so enamored of the idea that he brought it before the people of Minnesota, using the flimsy pretext that we need protection against non-existent voter fraud. Minnesotans rejected McGrath's idea soundly.
So it must gall him that Secretary of State Mark Ritchie is proposing to make voting even easier, by instituting early voting. Early voting would greatly reduce barriers to votin...

For once, the State canvassing board had a relatively low-key meeting to certify the results from the 2012 election. The board approved two hand recounts in close legislative races, but this year there are no high-profile statewide recounts. The board also notes that there was no evidence of fraud in the 2012 election:
Minnesota Elections Director Gary Poser says there is no evidence of voter fraud in the state's 2012 general election. Poser made the comments as the State canvassing board ...

Harry Reid and Democrats in the Senate are considering passing rules to drastically reduce -- but not eliminate -- the filibuster.
Here's what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is considering: banning filibusters used to prevent debate from even starting and House-Senate conference committees from ever meeting. He also may make filibusters become actual filibusters - to force senators to carry out the nonstop, talkathon sessions. (Politico, via

There's been a lot of excitement on the left over the supposed weakening of anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist's influence, as two Republican Senators have publicly announced their willingness to break their pledge not to raise taxes. I wouldn't get too excited yet, though. Lindsay Graham's (R-SC) conditions, for example, are absolutely unacceptable:
When you're $16 trillion in debt, the only pledge we should be making to each other is to avoid ...

There's a sensible way to both stimulate our economy and handle our long-term deficit, and I'm glad to see that it's steadily gaining support. The gist is stimulus now, deficit-reduction later. The latest to espouse the idea is The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn:
...a better approach might be to preserve tax breaks on incomes up to $250,000, and to renew anti-recessionary programs like extended unemployment insurance and a payroll tax holiday, b...

In the wake of the defeat of the Voter Restriction Amendment, Minnesota Majority's Dan McGrath has been doing some soul-searching. Yesterday, he posted a lengthy apology at True North to share some of his conclusions:

A few days ago, I wrote about how the DFL can use an ambitious agenda to run on in 2014. That's just the beginning, though; a far-reaching agenda could actually benefit the DFL for decades. If the DFL develops and implements an agenda that truly embodies the party's values, Minnesotans will look back at the upcoming session for years and say "that's what the DFL stands for."
For a decade now, DFLers have grudgingly voted for policies like school shifts and cuts to healthcare, all the while tryin...

Hamline University professor David Schultz, a go-to figure for political analysis in Minnesota, sees four different routes the DFL could take on equal marriage. The whole piece is worth a read, but I don't want to get into the details of any of Schultz's scenarios at the moment. Instead, I want to highlight a simple point he made in summing up his analysis:
All four options carry risks and the DFL cannot avoid making a choice.
That's exactly right. The DFL must m...

One analysis you'll hear frequently about the 2012 legislative election is that the MNGOP was handed its comeuppance for "overreach." I think there's some truth do that reading. So does that mean the DFL can't advance a bold agenda next year?
No, it doesn't. The DFL shouldn't feel worried about enacting a far-reaching agenda, as long as they do it right.
Where the GOP went wrong is that it came into office with a simple, coherent philosophy that won the election for them, but their legislative agenda didn't reflect that agenda. They were swept into office on a platform that claimed t...

It should always be our goal to extend the rights and freedoms of all Americans. We haven't always done a good job of that, but over the long the course of history, we have always erased those disparities and extended equal rights to all. When any group is denied to others, we should consider ourselves obliged to end that disparity.