If this law passes, you will be able to march down to the County Recorder and pay $46 to have them record your Affidavit of Virtue.
Well, that’s not the exact title. It’s called “Discharge of Restrictive Covenant Affecting Protected Classes.” It has no legal effect. Restrictive covenants which discriminate against protected classes already are unenforceable, but by recording this form you can proclaim to the world that unenforceable restrictive covenants on your land are now double-plus-ungood. You and your virtuous neighbors might want to put up lawn signs, get t-shirts printed, have block parties. You could invite city council members and legislators to attend and congratulate you on your virtue.
In addition, I suspect the newspapers will publish names of people who have signaled their virtue by recording these forms, and also the names of racist, hateful curmudgeons like me who won’t spring $46 to record a document that does absolutely nothing. So you’ll have that going for you.
I can hardly wait.
Joe Doakes
Sort of a like a PC loyalty oath.
You cover a lot of examples of MN government waste in this blog, but this one has to be near the top IMO. I cannot believe we have wasted taxpayer dollars drafting, debating (potentially?), and passing this silly legislation. Wouldn’t it be funny if this law simply allowed foreign investors to quickly sort properties into ‘easy pickings’ categories as the homeowner has signaled they (more than likely) would wish to sell to a ‘protected class’? I guess St Paul in general is trying to move toward higher density neighborhoods anyway, so the DFL must not be against foreign nationals sweeping up properties and turning single family homes into multi-units. Just a thought.
The left might want to rethink outlawing discrimination against religion, I mean… that includes Catholics and Evangelicals.
Just say’n.
I didn’t see anything about sexual orientation, or number of genders.
This law is being pushed by people who are horrified that their land once was subject to racial restrictions. They seem to believe Minnesota real estate developers hung sheets in their closets, same as their KKK cousins in the Jim Crow South. Nonsense. I’ve worked with real estate developers and the only color they care about is GREEN. They wouldn’t intentionally limit their pool of customers for mere principles.
The reason for the restrictions was worse than that. The federal government insisted on it as a condition of federally guaranteed home loans.
http://reason.com/archives/2019/01/21/washington-forced-segregation
This isn’t new news. The Atlantic wrote about it during the Obama administration, when racial reparations were the hot topic.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/the-racist-housing-policy-that-made-your-neighborhood/371439/
And the policy wasn’t limited to California. I ran across a deed in the Ramsey County land records that contains this provision:
“Whereas, this corporation has completed the platting of . . . and has agreed with the Federal Housing Administration to place upon the lots . . . substantially the same restrictions as were placed upon all lots in [plat name omitted] . . . Now, Therefore, Be It Resolved . . . none of the lots in said Addition shall ever be sold to or occupied by a colored person, but this restriction shall not prevent occupancy by such persons if employed as domestic servants.”
Liberals smugly assure me that everybody is racist, conservatives most of all. But in this case, the evidence points at Liberals themselves, the people running the government to implement The New Deal. Recording an affidavit won’t erase that history.