To: The New GOP Majority in the Legislature<\/p>\n
From: Mitch Berg, once-bitten Conservative<\/p>\n
Re: The 2011 Session Agenda<\/p>\n
Dear GOP House and Senate Caucuses:<\/p>\n
Congratulations on the big win two weeks ago.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, we gotta talk.<\/p>\n
You have a historic opportunity here; not only do you have the most power of any group of Republicans in recent Minnesota history, but you got there for all the right reasons – atop a swave of populist conservative discontent over the policies of Barack Obama and the Minnesota DFL.<\/p>\n
Better still, even if we lose the recount, we’re up against a governor that’d be in a weak position even if he were Hubert H. Humprhey.\u00a0 And Mark Dayton is no Hubert H. Humphrey.\u00a0 I’ll be frankly amazed if we’re not reverring to “Governor Prettner-Solon” by 2014; in any case, you have the opportunity to drive this car.<\/p>\n
So drive.<\/p>\n
I’m just a schlemiel voter.\u00a0 But since the holidays are coming up, I’d like to give you my legislative wish list.<\/p>\n
Go Deep<\/strong>.\u00a0 Tom Emmer ran on a zero-based budget promise.\u00a0 It was a great idea; follow through on it.\u00a0 Pass a budget – over the (rhetorically)\u00a0dead bodies of the DFL left in the Legislature, if need be – that slashes the fat, initiates zero-based budgeting for the big entitlement programs, guts the pork, and holds the line on spending.\u00a0 Freeze state worker employees’ salaries until the revenues start picking up (meaning all the rest of us are getting raises again).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n And then, let Dayton – or whomever – veto it.\u00a0<\/p>\n And pass it again, with just enough changes to make it fly.<\/p>\n And let him veto it again.\u00a0<\/p>\n And pass it again.<\/p>\n And let him veto it, and risk shutting down state government.\u00a0<\/p>\n Because the people who sent you to office aren’t the ones that are going to rebel over a government shut-down.<\/p>\n But the ones that sent Dayton to office – real or imagined?\u00a0 They will.\u00a0 So when that happens?\u00a0 Dayton loses<\/em>.<\/p>\n So do it.<\/p>\n Fix The Election System<\/strong>:\u00a0 Adopt Voter ID; require some <\/em>form of identification.\u00a0 You know the drill – make identification safe, cheap and available – but require every voter to present an ID<\/em>, and make sure that ID is enterered as part of their signing-in process.<\/p>\n And kill off vouching.\u00a0 Now.<\/p>\n Wanna appear “bipartisan”?\u00a0 Keep same-day voting.\u00a0 With a valid, cross-referenceable ID<\/em>.\u00a0 Because if accessible same-day voting is what the DFL really wants, provided we can keep it accountable and fraud-proof, why not?<\/p>\n I don’t think that’s what they really value in same-day voting, but that’s just my opinion.\u00a0 So far.<\/p>\n And if Dayton wants to get into a fight over the right to carry out invalid, fraudulent elections, so be it!\u00a0 Let him veto that <\/em>bill too! Let the DFL stand and fall, statewide, over the right to game the electoral system.<\/p>\n You have a huge opportunity here.\u00a0 Let’s use it.\u00a0<\/p>\n That’s why we sent you there, after all.<\/p>\n UPDATE:\u00a0 A highly-placed GOP source whom I will not name at the moment writes:<\/p>\n NO Photo ID until every name on the voter registration list is checked for citizenship. There are names on the list of people who are not citizens. They are supposed to be challenged: \u201cChallenged: Citizenship\u201d is stamped right next to their name. Make everyone who gets a voting photo ID card prove citizenship; make it a renewable card every 5 years; the renewal cannot be tied to a driver\u2019s license renewal. The Dept. of Public Safety must clean up all citizenship issues: temporary (those who are supposed to have \u201cstatus check\u201d on their ids; permanent residents who are not citizens). MN Constitution requires citizenship to vote<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u00a0Yes, eliminate vouching and eliminate same-day registration \u2013 zero compromise here…\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Yes, play hardball; show backbone; appeasement doesn\u2019t work \u2013 the Dems will never appease \u2013 we hold the majority, use it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Well, it was <\/em>a rough draft.\u00a0<\/p>\n Like everything else on this blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To: The New GOP Majority in the Legislature From: Mitch Berg, once-bitten Conservative Re: The 2011 Session Agenda Dear GOP House and Senate Caucuses: Congratulations on the big win two weeks ago.\u00a0\u00a0 Now, we gotta talk. You have a historic opportunity here; not only do you have the most power of any group of Republicans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,119,2,72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatism","category-election-integrity","category-minnesota-politics","category-mngop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15385"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15513,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15385\/revisions\/15513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}