If not talking about the role of money and special interests in politics--but focusing on rules--is your idea of reform, then op-ed commentary by Winona DFLer Rep. Gene Pelowski in Monday's Grand Forks Herald, Minnesota's 2015 session shows need for reform:
The recently concluded legislative session was chaotic, ended frantically and will produce a special session where the outcome is negotiated with little input from the public or even elected representatives. . . .
As the past chairman of the committees that oversaw government operations and reforms, I held committee hearings to study and reform the legislative process. That led to a report—which Herald readers can find on my Minnesota House website—titled "Committee Report on Legislative Process Reform."
Here's the report:
2008 Report on Legislative Reform
It's worth a read, though we're not sure that procedural changes are what our neighbors talk to us about when they talk about the need for reform. Instead, our neighbors tell us about how they feel that the legislators only talk to those with money or the lobbyists that they hire to spend quality time with the state legislature.
Moreover, we find that the abstract world of Pelowski's 2008 Report sharply contrasts with the behavior of Pelowski The Lawmaker in 2015. For instance, there's ES4 on page 18:
End of session agreements should be made far enough in advance so that legislative staff have adequate time to prepare final drafts of conference reports and other bills, and members, the executive branch, and the public have time to review these documents (and if necessary make suggestions to correct unintended results) before the legislature takes final action.
Bluestem (and a number of Pelowski's colleagues) would have loved to have had that chance with the Jobs and Energy Omnibus Bill, which Governor Dayton fortunately vetoed (though who know what is in the new budget deal Dayton and Daudt claim to have reached).
One unintended result was taken up by Senate Transportation Committee Chair Scott Dibble (DFL- Minneapolis) as we reported in Vetoed jobs bill would have blown $1.3 million hole in MN Highway User Tax Distribution Fund.
Or that closing gavel chaos itself that Pelowski decries in his lede. The Uptake provides a Youtube of the moment in a longer post, Special Session Likely As House Ends In Chaos. Here's the clip:
On page 17 of the embedded report, Pelowski's committee recommended this path for conference committee reports:
Conference committee reports should always be available to members and the public for at least 12 hours before being considered for adoption by the House and Senate.
In the video, we hear Garofalo tell members that he'd emailed the report to them a half hour before.
And at that moment, Pelowski--who now struts across the stage of the op-ed pages of the Grand Forks Herald as a bold reformer--voted yes on the Jobs and Energy Omnibus bill (HF1437), which passed on a 75-9 vote.
Many Democratic state representatives didn't vote on a bill that they received while they were in the last hour of the session. But not Pelowski, who now rides in to the save the process, touting model reforms he first starting advocating in 2008.
The May 18, 2015 Gene Pelowski voted yes on a dead-of-night bill so bad that among House DFLers, only David Dill (Crane Lake) and Jeanne Poppe (Austin) joined him. When you've lost Jason Metsa (Virginia) and Carly Melin (Hibbing) on a bill to bad environmental consequences, you know it's a real stinker.
Update: We forgot the reform he proposed about how budget bills (like the Jobs & Energy Omnibus and the Ag & Environment Omnibus) shouldn't have major policy changes in them. But jeepers, Rep. Pelowski sure likes to vote for them.
Photo: Rep. Gene Pelowski.
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