{"id":19279,"date":"2011-04-08T11:59:24","date_gmt":"2011-04-08T17:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=19279"},"modified":"2011-04-08T11:59:24","modified_gmt":"2011-04-08T17:59:24","slug":"what-is-at-stake-on-tuesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=19279","title":{"rendered":"What Is At Stake On Tuesday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday is the special election in SD66.<\/p>\n

Greg Copeland is running against former DFL Rep Mary Jo McGuire.<\/p>\n

What’s at stake?<\/p>\n

If McGuire wins, not much will change; Saint Paul will go from being represented by a whackdoodle liberal to an arguably less whackdoodle liberal.\u00a0 There’ll be a net\/net zero change in the minority caucus.<\/p>\n

But some of the things McGuire stands for deserve scrutiny – especially in the wake of the Wisconsin situation.<\/p>\n

McGuire introduced a bill that would have made state judgeships appointed, rather than elected, positions:<\/a><\/p>\n

McGuire was Chief Author in 1997 of HF 1077 which\u00a0 Proposed\u00a0 a Constitutional Amendment Requiring that ALL Minnesota Judges To Be APPOINTED by the Governor!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why is this a bad thing?<\/p>\n

Of course, if you’re worried about special interests dominating judicial elections, the OSI\/JAS alternative is even worse. That’s because state bar associations and legal groups are dominated by trial lawyers. Lawyers and law firms are the seventh biggest political donors of “all time,” according to Opensecrets.org, and dominate state politics in parts of the country.<\/p>\n

The judicial system should maintain a necessary degree of impartiality, but America’s founders certainly didn’t intend for judges to be unmoored from democracy. About 95 percent of America’s civil disputes end up in state courts. That’s an enormous amount of power, which needs checks and balances. There’s a reason why 87 percent of America’s judges are elected.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are so many reasons to vote for Copeland next Tuesday; he opposes the Central Corridor (even now!) and public taxes for the Vikings; he’ll push for a $10K\/jerb tax credit, and advocate a two year property tax freeze.<\/p>\n

But perhaps the best reason is that the DFL elite, which treat Saint Paul like they do all of their other special interests – as a milk cow for votes and support – deserves <\/em>the setback.\u00a0 They think they own <\/em>Saint Paul – it’s their own words.\u00a0 This sort of arrogance shouldn’t be rewarded.<\/p>\n

So please help Greg out.\u00a0 Money’s good (donations page<\/a>), although it’s getting late for that.\u00a0 What the campaign needs right now – today through the election – is volunteers<\/a>.\u00a0 Volunteers on the phone bank, and out door-knocking.\u00a0 If you can spare an hour or two, please check in.<\/p>\n

Every campaign says they can win.\u00a0 Every campaign must believe it on some level, or nobody would try to run at all (as, in some parts of Saint Paul, indeed, no Republican does; we’re working on changing that).<\/p>\n

This special election race is going to be a tough one.\u00a0 But if every Republican turns out, it’s doable.\u00a0 So if you’re a Republican – or a Democrat who is sick of the way your party is abusing the taxpayer – and you live in SD66…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

…please come out on Tuesday.\u00a0 And if you know <\/em>someone in SD66 who should be voting, make sure they <\/em>turn out on Tuesday!<\/p>\n

We can do this!<\/p>\n

I am, of course, a volunteer on the Copeland campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday is the special election in SD66. Greg Copeland is running against former DFL Rep Mary Jo McGuire. What’s at stake? If McGuire wins, not much will change; Saint Paul will go from being represented by a whackdoodle liberal to an arguably less whackdoodle liberal.\u00a0 There’ll be a net\/net zero change in the minority caucus. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,132,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-minnesota-politics","category-mn-legislature","category-st-paul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19279","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=19279"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19282,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19279\/revisions\/19282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}