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MN COLLEGE REPUBLICANS RELEASE END OF SESSION WEB VIDEO TITLED “SILENCING THE MINORITY”
By Michael B. Brodkorb | May 24, 2007
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“The people of Minnesota deserve to be made aware of the DFL’s tactics on the House floor in the name of pushing forward their own political agenda. The Minnesota College Republicans feel that the DFL’s destruction of years of legislative precedent in the final hours of session is unacceptable,” said MNCR State Chair Bethany Dorobiala. “We put this video together to highlight the DFL’s disregard for fair and open debate.”
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27 Responses to “MN COLLEGE REPUBLICANS RELEASE END OF SESSION WEB VIDEO TITLED “SILENCING THE MINORITY””
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May 24th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Killiher should be removed for ethics violations.
Holy crap, this is beyond imagination the contempt of the rules by a person in power.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:01 am
Wonderful job.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Wow. I know that democrats, generally as a group, are normally quick to change the rules to give themselves a better chance to win, but this was ridiculous!
I’ll admit I haven’t bothered checking to see if the republicans ever did this sort of stuff, but what a biatch “madam speaker” is. And husky!
May 24th, 2007 at 10:31 am
I don’t know the House Rules and I doubt that most of the people who read this blog do (obviously some do). I cannot imagine anyone but the most partisan wonkish voter getting upset about this. If you think about your average swing voter out there who sort of picks up a headline here or there in betwenn living their life, this whole debate seems like the Republicans are complaining about the Democrats shutting things down to finish on time. I can’t imagine anyone flipping their vote one way or another or being more inclined to vote in 18 months because of this. Maybe there’s an issue here, but I doubt anyone but people with the most unhealthy fascination with politics (like me) care about this. Parlimentary strong-armedness is not a sexy issue.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Otterscrubber cleary explains the abject (albeit perhaps unconscious) corruption of the left.
Speaker Kelliher violated her oath of office by intentionally circumventing the rules of parliamentary procedure. It’s her primary job to oversee fair and civil debate in the House.
Speaker Kelliher violated the code of ethics of the legislature by bringing disrespect on herself and the body. Never in the history of the House has there been such a violation of process by the Speaker Of The House.
Keep scrubbing Otter. However I doubt these stains are going to come out.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Just because most people won’t care but that does not make it alright. Current DFL leadership is willing to lie (The plan to reduce property taxes was a scam), cheat (The parliamentary maneuvers seen here), and steal (Not calling out Julianne Ortman for billing the county while on the house floor) in order to get their way.
Because most people don’t pay attention I think those of us that do are obligated to hold our government responsible for its actions. This is especially true of the party or officials we support.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Well, otter, the fact that the press has picked up on how the Kelliher and the Dems stifled discussion of the bills at the end of session probably means that the public will too.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Otterscrubber,
You are right as rain. There is not a soul out there who will switch their vote because of this. As a matter of fact, thanks to the Soak from South St. Paul, most have already forgotten what happened in the Legislature.
But what does fascinate me is that it appears the Dems waited until the last minute to pass all these bills, forcing them to “silence the minority” as the movie title indicates.
This seems odd because we heard all year how the Dems were going to change the way business is done in St. Paul. If these are the results (that and a measly one percent increase in education funding according to one of the editorials I read), I’d call that a change for the worse. And poor management. Hadn’t they been there since January for heavens sake?
May 24th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Kerosene,
Ortman is a Republican, you do know that right? I don’t care if she has a Hennepin County job, my only concern is that she should not be able to be on the clock at Hennepin County and on the floor fo the Senate as well.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:53 am
she herself points out that the previous question was only called 5 times in 149 years prior to Monday, when it happened twice. Everytime she ignored the voices you heard asking to be recognized and called on the sertich puppet when he didn’t have the floor, she stiffled the voice of 35,000 Minnesotans. That’s a dispicable way to treat the people of Minnesota who count on their government to be fair and open. Why should someone bother to vote now if Margaret Almighty can just decide who does and does not get represented.
Really, it wasn’t a good night for DFL leadership. Kelliher brought shame on the House and Metzen brought shame on the Senate.
Shame on them and anyone who tries to defend their actions.
May 24th, 2007 at 11:10 am
I don’t care what party Ortman is from. Leadership, senate in this case, needs to handle this kind of thing if people are to have any confidence in the system.
May 24th, 2007 at 11:44 am
Let’s also not forget that this is just one example of the way Kelliher, Sertich et al corrupted the system this year. Remember the bill to affect every teacher in Minnesota that never got heard in the education committees? Something about chairs opposed to the bill and millions of campaign dollars comes to mind. Or how about the hundreds of amendments not allowed to be offered on the House floor and in committee? Or the bills crafted behind closed doors in the middle of the night.
In five months this new crew managed to undo decades of good government progress in Minnesota. Our legislature is now run by a mob of urban DFLers and Big Money donors. As this video proves, the rest of us don’t stand a chance.
Shame on the DFL.
May 24th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
If you want to talk about tricks and games, talk about when Sviggy ruled an anti-abortion bill attached to a bill concerning circuses and called it germane! The Republicans pulled all kinds of s#$t in their 8 years controlling the House, so to complain about this is pitty. Rep. Seifert is always telling people to “grow some balls”, maybe he should look in the mirror…
May 24th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
If the last minutes of the session were the travesty that the Minority alleges, they can ask the Governor to veto the bills they wanted to debate and debate them in a special session.
May 24th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
This whole episode demonstrated that the Democrats cannot govern — they were unwilling to reach a compromise with the Governor and didn’t have the cojones to go to special session to fulfill all of the campaign promises they made. To then ram-rod the bills through because of their poor planning is not the fault of the minority.
May 24th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
The DFL had since January to do their jobs well, it was their responsibility and they failed. Even most Democrats I talk to were not happy on how the session was handled.
May 24th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Earth to Ted, Please lay out any example how Sviggum ever circumvented the rules of parliamentary procedure.
Until you come up with an answer, your post was nothing but a bad attempt to excuse your parties bad behavior.
May 24th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Ted,
I think the point that could be made is that the Democrats at least got the opportunity to complain about Sviggum’s rulings. This video seems to show that Republicans weren’t allowed that same opportunity.
May 24th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Whether one circumvented the rules of parlimentary procedure is a matter of debate.
When Sviggy ruled that an anti-abortion amendment was germane to a bill which dealt with elminating an arcane state law saying that you can not have a circus in St. Paul 14 days prior or after when the Minnesota State Fair takes place it was clearly a violation. It was complete baloney and anyone in their right mind knew it. But in the end the majority party, if they have the votes, generally gets what they want.
It is quite clear that Seifert and his buddies were stalling knowing that the House had to adjourn by midnight. If they were allowed to talk on and on, they would have run out the clock, prevented votes on the gas tax overide and prevented th vote on the tax bill. The Speaker did what she had to do to get the bills before the body for a vote. It wasn’t pretty, but the end of session never is. It’s also tradition for the minority to whine about how they got screwed over by the majority… The only thing that matters is what the public thinks and the truth is the last hour of the House debate will have no impact on how people vote in 2008. Although if they make an ad out of Seifert’s whining the Democrats may pick up a few votes.
May 24th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Ted –
Is it customary for the majority to whine and blame the minority… that is what is occuring? I thought the Democrats wanted to Govern – but unfortunately they want to claim the successes and point fingers at Republicans for the failures and the utter mismanagement by the House Democrats of the last few hours and the entire session. What happened is the Democrats tried to push through over 60% of the state’s budget without even letting their Democrat members or the Republicans time to even see what was in the bills. That is irresponsible! By laying the blame on Republicans, the Democrat majority is showing tremendous weakness… and a sincere inability to govern MN properly. This video just proves it!
May 24th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Ted – the wonderful thing about the internet is that one can go back into the audio/video archives for the House to validate your claims.
Clock management is a red herring. The proceedures are in place for a reason – so that the majority can not stifle the speech of the minority – AS WAS DONE HERE.
I sat through this travesty live and then went back and watched the archives twice because I just could not believe what I was seeing.
LL
May 24th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
“Whether one circumvented the rules of parlimentary procedure is a matter of debate.”
If after watching that video (and I watched the last hour of the session, not just this video) you don’t think rules were not only ignored but completely overrun, then you’re a hopeless partisan. In the years I’ve been watching these clowns, I’ve never seen anything like this.
Large Marge needs to get fitted for her brown shirt. (Hoigaards, perhaps?)
May 24th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Uh, Ted, in case you missed it, Sviggum dressed down Kelliher somewhere in the last half-hour of session for not allowing the minority to air its views on the bills precisely because he never did that when he was Speaker. So, no, Sviggum never stifled the minority like Kelliher did.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Ted,
“Whether one circumvented the rules of parlimentary procedure is a matter of debate.†Uh, that is for the most part simply not true. The rules are the rules adn MAK decided to ignore them. Debate on the rules is more than the minority was given.
The end of the session may never be pretty but this was the ugliest one in memory for most people still able to dress themselves.
May 25th, 2007 at 8:53 am
“clock management” that’s funny. That tub of goo and Denny Green are about the most incompetent “clock managers” in Minnesota history.
May 26th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
[...] UPDATE #3: This is the video I mentioned during today's broadcast. [...]
June 1st, 2007 at 11:15 am
The DFL flat out blew it this session, and any other revisionist mythology is just whistling in the graveyard by a pack of liberals who are unwilling to look in the mirror (or in their campaign coffers where their special interest groups’ grand & greedy ambitions died). The DFL kicked Pawlenty out of the discussions in the last day of the session. Still, in a show of grace under pressure, the lowly minority signaled that if the huge, last-minute spending bills came forward largely as they had been presented and without “poison pills,” there would be appropriate but limited debate. If not, the lowly minority promised extensive and open debate. The DFL leadership, as it had throughout the session, ignored the opportunity to work cooperatively, and shoved billions of dollars in spending bills to the House floor in the final hours of the session with new provisions and poison pills included. So, if the lowly minority was then compelled to delay action on legislation to which they objected so that it never passed, the DFL majority has no one to blame but themselves. The blame lies clearly with the bumbling, stumbling, clumsy, blunt, overbearing, overreaching, overspending, special interests pandering, arrogant and hopelessly liberal DFL majority. And now they want to blame Pawlenty or the lowly minority??!! Give me a break! If the DFL had half a brain, they would’ve pitched Poggy weeks before the close of the session, worked out a compromise with the Governor and lowly minority, and brought the bills to the floor with plenty of time for debate, or, if necessary, adjustment and reconsideration. Instead, they chose a high stakes game of “chicken” and ran the Legislature out of time. Make no mistake: The lowly minority was not debating at length to force a special session; they were debating to stop bad bills from passing. The DFL leadership utterly failed! They went for $5 billion in new spending — a 17 percent increase! The Governor and lowly minority stuck together and held state spending to a responsible 9.6 percent, well within our surplus. How can any DFLer claim their leadership did a great job this session? How can they possibly blame the Governor or the lowly minority when they run the show at the Capitol? You wanted it; you got it; you blew it. Next player please.