MFL Commissioner's Blog: April 28, 2008 Archive

Gov. Pawlenty vetoed three bills over the weekend. HF3220/SF2929, the bill that would allow political subdivisions to make nonprofit grants. The governor includes a veto letter sent to leadership in the chambers that explains why he vetoed the bill. In this one, he said that "Instead of granting local elected officials the power to make charitable contributions and grants to nonprofits using taxpayer money, political subdivisions should be focusing on ways to lower property taxes."

He also vetoed, no surprise here, HF1351, the transportation policy bill. This one was vetoed, as he had warned, because it included provisions explicitly banning REAL ID compliance unless the Feds hand over the money to pay for the "security improvements to IDs. T-Paw wrote that if our licenses are not in compliance with REAL ID requirements after Dec. 31, 2009, Minnesotans won't be able to use their license as ID for domestic flights. Seventeen other states have voted to explicitly ban the changes for REAL ID. Here's how a report from KARE put it.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has been quoted recently as saying lack of a REAL ID state driver's license won't keep anyone from flying. It will, however, add extra hassle to getting through airport security.

Travelers without REAL ID driver's licenses should expect to provide other forms of ID such as passports, or go through a second, more rigorous layer of scrutiny by TSA officers. That could include the pat-down and more baggage checks.

HF828/SF599 the Cuba trade resolution, was the last bill he vetoed. In it, he states that "The Cuban government is totalitarian. Most of Cuba's economy is state-owned, private property rights are essentially disregarded, and Cuba's human rights record is poor[...]Providing more economic opportunity for Cuba through trade will enable and empower the current regime."

It is interesting that the opposite argument is usually made about how free markets will affect China. The letter also goes into some wonky stuff about the Organization of American States you can check out here if you wish. Is the governor dropping knowledge to burnish his VP credentials? Number 45, anyone? Check out Bob Collins over at NewsCut on the possibility of Pawlenty as the veep.

The House should be taking up the omnibus education policy bill this afternoon, and we're going to have a floor-a-palooza I will be liveblogging. If you're wondering why the House is subject to more floor-a-paloozas than the Senate, it's because Senators are cleaning up in the point totals, with only two Reps in our top ten. Also, the House Republican caucus is more feisty than the Senate one, and the Commish likes to see lawmakers with 'tude.

Watch the session here.

The House has begun session and we're still waiting on SF3001, the omnibus education policy bill, for your lawmakers to earn some floor-a-palooza points - watch the session here - but there's another interesting bill to chew on while we wait for debate on that one to begin. SF3455, carried by Rep. Joe Atkins, would make it illegal for refillable beer kegs to be sold to scrap metal dealers, unless its being sold by the manufacturer of the keg or the brewer who filled it. Seems like an odd piece of legislation, right? Well, maybe not. With metal prices going way up, people are increasingly turning around and selling empty kegs to scrap metal dealers instead of returning them to the liquor store. Here's a story on it from ABC news.

Kegs can go from anywhere between $15 and $55 at scrap yards, and the cost for liquore stores to replace them is around $150 each, while the usual deposit for a keg is about $5 or $10, so its easy to see how somebody's been making a buck here.

The new law doesn't say exactly what kind of identification would be necessary for the manufacturers or fillers of kegs to resell them though. Here's the language:

Subd. 2a. Purchase or receipt of beer kegs. A scrap metal dealer, or the dealer's agent, employer, or representative, shall not purchase or receive a refillable metal beer keg from anyone except the manufacturer of the beer keg, the brewer of the beer that was sold or provided in the keg, or an authorized representative of the manufacturer or brewer.

Also, Minority Leader Seifert announced his birthday was last week, and that he has Schwans ice cream treats for lawmakers. Now that's the way to build bipartisan good will.

HF3376, the Minnesota Family Investment Program policy bill, is being heard on the floor right now. That's the name for public assistance, or if you prefer, welfare, according to our state's own unique jargon. Sounds like most of the bill is updating provisions, and establishing a child care advisory task force, nothing too controversial, but Minority Leader Seifert has just offered an interesting amendment.

It would prevent people receiving MFIP from using their EBT cards from to buy alcohol, tobacco, and lottery tickets.

Rep. Neva Walker, who authored the bill, is explaining how it works, and it sounds like according to her, people aren't able to use their EBT debit cards to buy alcohol, tobacco, and lotto tickets, but that if they use the card to withdraw cash, there's nothing that can be done about that.

Rep. Seifert says that EBT cards, the debit cards foodstamp money is stored on, also have some cash on them. Rep. Seifert says that alcohol, tobacco and lottery tickets can't be purchased under the foodstamp money, but can under the cash part.

Don't look for a Commissioner's whistle here, I don't know enough about the MFIP program to know whether buying this stuff is possible with the cards or not, but I'll get to work on an answer for you.

Rep. Tina Liebling (DFL-Rochester) said she will vote for the amendment, but doesn't like the stereotypes being perpetuated on the floor.

"We're talking about people who are poor, we're talking about people who need our help, mostly mothers and children."

Rep. Walker is saying that the state should look at the reasons why people are on public assistance and that they only receive $432 a month, a pretty impossible amount to live off of. She's giving a very spirited defense of her bill as it stands.

Here's the vote: 102-28 it is adopted.

The floor-a-palooza for SF3001, Rep. Mariani's omnibus education policy bill starts now. Watch here.

3:49 - Rep. Mariani, the chair of the Education Committee, is giving shout-outs right now for all the hard work people did on the bill. The amendments are being passed out as he speaks. There's an awful lot of white paper floating around in this chamber, not a good sign for lawmakers looking to make it home for dinner.

3:53 - Rep. Garofalo racks the first points.

3:57 - Rep. Seifert is offering an amendment to say that schools can't shorten school day any more than it already is. He's saying that one of the pages told him that the school buses leave at 1:55 p.m.

4:00 - Rep. Seifert is telling lawmakers to think about all the stuff that's happened since they were in school, and that kids now need to learn all that in addition, so they shouldn't be leaving earlier. "We're gonna ask our kids to have a 21st century education, but we're going to let them out at 1:55 in the afternoon?"

4:09 - There will be a roll call on it. Rep. Mariani said local school districts should have control over this. Reps. Lyndon Carlson and Bud Heidgerken just gave speeches, points for their teams.

4:17 - Minority Leader Seifert's really hammering away on this one. I'll be interested in seeing what this vote ends up like.

4:24 - Rep. Otremba asked whether it applies to home schools. Sounds like it doesn't affect home schools, according to Rep. Seifert. Points for her.

4:28 - Rep. Wardlow is saying that when he was a teacher, he wanted more time with his students, not less, and to support the bill. Rep. Haws, also a former teacher, got up and earned himself some points for his team too.

4:33 - Here's the vote: 59-72 not adopted. The Commish actually thought this one was going to be closer than that.

4:39 - Rep. Demmer is asking to amend the School Finance Reform task force provision of the bill to find out what inequities that cause schools to hold referendums to raise money and recommend state financing changes to eliminate these inequalities. Seems like this one might be going somewhere.

4:55 - Reps. Hilstrom and Greiling are on the board, giving speeches about the task force. The amendment was defeated though, 56-75.

5:03 - Rep. Holberg is targeting turf. She just offered an amendment to use schools health and safety revenue fund to evaluate the health and environmental impact of astroturf. I'd assume this means injuries that people suffer while playing on it. Interesting. The House adopted it on a voice vote.

5:08 - Rep. Brod is offering an amendment that would allow schools to charge a fee for the transportation of charter school students participating in extracurricular activities in their regular schools. For example, if a charter school has no basketball team, and a student wants to play, then they could play with the regular school in their area, but would have to pay a fee to the regular school. There's a roll call on this one, and it passes 69 to 62.

5:22 - Rep. Garofalo just offered an amendment banning state funding for sexual education on abortions for couples in same sex relationships. No, no, he was just kidding. He actually wants to withdraw the state's participation in No Child Left Behind. The Commish likes jokes in the form of amendments, so Rep. Garofalo is earning his points today.

5:30 - Okay, they're voting now on an amendment to Rep. Garofalo's amendment that would have the state withdraw from No Child Left Behind by August 1, 2009. Offered by Rep. Kalin, it would require the commissioners of education and finance determine that the state would save money by not participating before withdrawing. It is approved, 69-62, and then the whole amendment to pull out of No Child Left Behind was approved by a whopping 122-9. Now that's what I call a healthy margin.

5:39 - Rep. Mark Olson that would require schools to "allow instruction in competing scientific theories" and would let parents appeal to school boards on what kind of competing theories may be in absence. Hmm, he couldn't be referring to evolution, or intelligent design, could he? No matter, it fails by a vote of 29-102.

5:45 - There's an amendment being offered by Rep. Neva Walker, that would basically roll in her "Responsible Family Life and Sexuality Education Program" from HF3731 that she introduced a few weeks ago. Click there for specifics on what it would do. It sounds like parents would have to opt-out of the program if they didn't want their kids to participate, and some lawmakers don't like that. Rep. Demmer is offering a one-word amendment that would change "must" to "may" which Rep. Walker says, rightly, would basically gut her proposal.

6:00 - Rep. Madore said in her district, of 1,672 students, only 9 opted out. Rep. Buesgens is mighty mad this sex ed proposal, and said "I don't know why you think you're so much smarter than the people in Litchfield" in reference to Rep. Madore's statistics. Ouch. She's standing to respond.

6:10 - Rep. Madore: "As far as me thinking I'm smarter than anyone else, that's not the facts. The facts are that 1,663 thought this was a good thing."

6:15 - Rep. Walker has the floor, and she's mad that Rep. Buesgens is saying this is only a problem that they have in the "inner city" and that the rest of Minnesota shouldn't have the same requirements as the cities do. She's got statistics to prove this is a problem all over the state.

6:18 - The vote to change "must" to "may" and gut Walker's amendment was voted down. Rep. Kohls is rising to call the Walker amendment not germane, so this is a good time for the Commish to take a break. I'll be keeping track of which lawmakers speak, so check your scores tomorrow, folks.