You have to hand it to the Democratic/Socialists in the Minnesota House of Representatives: they have long memories, they never forget even the worst ideas that were passed over by previous legislative leadership. Most importantly, they understand that when you have the opportunity to pass legislation, you’d better take it. And they do.
We’re a couple of weeks removed from the 2024 legislative session’s “sine die” adjournment, but we’re still sorting through the wake of the 2024 disastrous session. They’ve run out of other people’s money to spend so now the progressive left that appears to run the House is pulling out all of the stops to enact legislation that has been on their “to do” list for many years. Fearful that they might not have another opportunity to enact their “agenda”, they are passing legislation that has very little public support, few if any legislative hearings and more importantly, very little urgency or need expressed by the citizenry of Minnesota.
A great example of this happened in the Minnesota House last month: Minnesota resurrected a plastic/paper bag fee.
You may recall that nearly a decade ago, Minneapolis and Duluth enacted a five-cent fee on carryout or grocery bags. Not to be outdone, Edina quickly enacted their own fee for plastic, paper, compostable and reusable bags. Guess they think their good citizens don’t mind paying a fee to carry their cake to their cars.
You haven’t heard much about other Minnesota cities enacting a “bag ban” in recent years because in 2017, the legislature passed legislation that said that no additional cities or counties could enact “bag ban” fees. The purpose of this “preemption” was to stop the inequitable effect of a bag ban in one city while bags were “free” in the adjoining suburb. It not only causes confusion for the consumer but also has an inequitable effect on shoppers who have to pay the bag fee in one community but not the next.
More importantly, bag bans have been found to have little or zero effect on improving the environment in communities where there are existing fees associated with a retailer providing a carryout bag. Indeed, the Minneapolis bag fee stays with the retailer, increasing their modest profit margin rather than cleaning up polluted lakes and streams.
As is often the case, the repeal of the bag ban preemption passed easily through the Minnesota House of Representatives earlier this year where the progressive Left has a four-seat majority. The Senate, however, where the liberals have only a one-seat majority, did not pass similar legislation. In fact, there wasn’t even a Senate “companion” bill introduced this legislative session. That says a lot about the importance of this issue to 67 state senators: not one thought it important enough to introduce legislation that corresponds with the House version.
So, if you suddenly hear about a new bag ban in Minnesota, you’ll know that in the dark of night this week, the progressive left racked up another long-awaited victory that will make every trip to the grocery store cost you a little more.
And while other states and communities are repealing Ranked Choice Voting, the Minnesota legislature is trying to make it the law throughout the state – again with a partisan majority forcing their will and enacting a partisan and highly controversial election scheme.
It appears that the only advocates for legislation that allows every community in Minnesota to adopt RCV are the 14 well-paid advocates who are a paid by some of the most radical progressives seeking to eliminate the nation of “one person/one vote” in the world.
It’s interesting to see Minnesota progressives go all in on RCV while Alaskans are in the midst of a statewide repeal effort. It only took Alaskans one statewide election to realize the problems with RCV are numerous and not worth the effort. Alaskans’ biggest disappointment? 11% of all ballots cast in their 2022 RCV election were “spoiled” due to voter confusion. That means that 15,000 Alaskans voted in 2022 but their votes didn’t count.
Several states are working to restore public trust in our election process, so that when citizens cast a vote, they can be assured that their vote is correctly counted. Florida, Tennessee, South Dakota, Idaho, Kentucky, Montana—all have recently banned RCV in just the last two years. These state leaders understand what dozens of other local jurisdictions have found out the hard way: RCV is a broken voting system that undermines our confidence in the democratic process. And yet the Minnesota legislature defies all of the evidence and will enact what other states are running away from. Like I said, bad ideas never go away in Minnesota.
And single-payer health care? While U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and his fellow travelers in the Minnesota House of Representatives continued their quest for Minnesota to adopt single-payer health care, those who are forced to live under the Canadian health system have quite a different view of the system.
A recent poll by Ipsos found that “four in 10 Canadians said they’d be willing to travel to America and pay out of pocket for routine care” rather than endure the excessive waiting period that occurs routinely for many Canadians. In a separate poll, “over one-third of 18- to 29-year-old Canadians don’t have access to a family doctor or nurse practitioner.”
The basic lesson in economics that our Democratic/Socialist legislators don’t want to face is the difference between “having coverage” under a Canadian single-payer system is very different than actually accessing care when you’re sick. Because when I’m sick, I don’t want to live in a “Medicare for All” system like Canada where, in some providences, “patients can wait well over a year for treatment from a specialist.” And now we know that many Canadians don’t want to live under a system like this, too.
Finally, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the never-say-die crowd is attempting to resurrect the proven and failed internet policy known as “Net Neutrality.”
Minnesotans have come to depend on the strong and reliable broadband network that exists in almost all areas of the state. Yet some on the Left want us to become like our neighbors in Europe and adopt Net Neutrality policies that were eradicated for good reason by the Federal Communications Commission during the Trump Administration.
Many Europeans suffered during the COVID-19 shutdowns with depressed investments in broadband networks, a real-world contrast with the massive private and government investments in broadband that kept Americans well-connected with attainable and affordable service nearly everywhere. And when internet usage was at an all-time high, “our network systems held without issue” in the US. That fact, alone, should alarm any prudent government agency or legislative leader to leave well-enough alone.
Yet leave it to the Minnesota progressives to seek legislation requiring greater government regulation over internet service providers as well as the resurrection of a really bad idea — Net Neutrality.
One more thing to consider: the radicals in charge at the Minnesota legislature were enacting laws based upon testimony from paid advocates with little or no input from the general public or the business community. A prime example of this happened last year when the legislature passed and Gov. Walz signed into law a new “paid family and medical leave program” that will take effect in 2026. This will require a massive new state bureaucracy and will be funded by a 0.7% payroll tax. That will likely mean that every employee in Minnesota will be paying a new tax in less than two years that will lower their take-home pay. Until now.
Thousands of highly controversial laws have been proposed last year and in 2024; business entities and other concerned citizens are sometimes “granted” two minutes to testify before the relevant House/Senate committee on their opposition to a proposal. And if you want to testify, you better be a registered lobbyist so that the legislature can keep tabs on you, regulate your speech and your expenditures. And even if you do all of the above, you. like many others this week, found out a year after enactment of the paid family and medical leave bill that the causes and concerns you weren’t able to testify about are becoming a reality.
As we said: bad ideas really never go away in Minnesota. While some of the responsible adults left in the legislature held off most of these in the waning days of this horrible legislative session, we’ll continue to watch what the single-party controlled legislature is doing.
We hope for balance to be restored before they gavel in next January.