After meeting with the McLeod County Board of Commissioners in Glencoe on Tuesday, ALEC member Representative Ron Shimanski may be asking himself why he ever came back from the corporate bill factory's annual meeting in New Orleans.
It's not just ALEC's corporate sponsors who are asking the friendly apple grower to carry bills. The locals have an idea for some model legislation, too.
The McLeod County Chronicle reports in Bayerl in mood to 'rattle some cages':
McLeod County Commissioner Ray Bayerl is in a mood to "rattle some cages."
Bayerl told his fellow commissioners Tuesday morning that he recently attended an Association of Minnesota Counties (AMC) meeting, where a great deal of frustration was expressed over the shutdown of state services this summer when the Legislature and the governor failed to reach a budget deal in May.
Bayerl has a solution: if the Legislature and governor can't get their work done by the deadline, they should all be booted out of office and a special election held to re-elect or replace them.
Bayerl would like to propose that as an amendment to the state constitution - which would need the approval of voters on a general election ballot - and to work with the AMC to bring such an amendment to the Legislature.
Shimanski was at the board meeting and took some ribbing from the board member, as well as former state representative Bob Ness, a Republican who now works as a constituent outreach workers for Congressman Collin Peterson. The paper reports:
State Rep. Ron Shimanski, R-Silver Lake, was at the meeting and Bayerl invited him to speak to the proposal.
"I appreciate what you're trying to do," said Shimanski. But he noted that other proposals for amendments also are in the works - in particular, a "lights-out" amendment that would keep government running at a "scaled-back 75 to 80 percent function" while a budget is worked out.
Shimanski also indicated that Bayerl's proposal could backfire.
"You know somebody is going to play politics with this," said Shimanski, saying that some legislators would stall on a budget agreement in hopes of forcing a special election to get rid of other legislators.
Bob Ness, an "eyes and ears" worker for U.S. Congressman Colin Peterson, said that throwing out the government "carte blanche" would mean that "you would have no government at all."
"Some people would say that we have that already," Bayerl shot back.
Ness also jokingly asked Shimanski if he would carry the proposed amendment to the state Legislature.
"I guess it depends on how it is worded," said Shimanski.
Board members turned the tables on Shimanski's "lights on" amendment. The article concludes:
County Commissioner Paul Wright said . . . legislators may use the "lights-out" amendment as another way of delaying a final decision.
"There still has to be a heavy consequence" if a budget is not adopted by the original deadline, Wright said.
Wright indicated he also supports Bayerl's effort.
"Whether it (the amendment) ends up as final or not, it sends a formal message that we were not happy," said Wright.
"It's very vague yet, but it is meant to rattle some cages," Bayerl agreed.
The board asked County Administrator Pat Melvin to work with the AMC to develop language on the amendment to bring before the AMC's next regional meeting. If the region adopts the resolution proposing the amendment, it will be forwarded to the AMC's annual meeting.
Bluestem suspects we'll never see that one on a list of ALEC model bills.
Photo: Rep. Ron Shimanski (R-Silver Lake and ALEC)
Local elected officials--be they county commissioners, city councilors, township supervisors, school board members, whomever--need to step up and really tell their legislators what they think. No more Midwest nicey nicey crap. Spell it out for them in blunt terms.
Yes we all have to work together, but that does not and should not mean that those downhill should continue to sit idly by while the doodie rolls onto them. It is fundamentally unfair and they need to speak up about it!
Kudos to Commissioners Bayerl and Wright for at least trying to do just that.
Posted by: Mike Worceser | Aug 20, 2011 at 11:10 AM