In a report earlier this year, You elected them to write new laws. They’re letting corporations do it instead, there's this bit about the leader of the Minnesota New House Republican Caucus, Mazeppa state representative Steve Drazkowski:
It’s even harder to pin down what problem the American Laws for American Courts bill is solving.
The model bill, which was introduced in legislatures 53 times during the past eight years, mandates judges' rulings be void if based on a foreign law or doctrine that violates the rights granted to U.S. citizens under the Constitution or state law.
Even backers struggle to identify situations where this has occurred.
“This is a solution looking for a problem,” said Ahmed Abdelnaby, an engineer who testified against the bill last year at the Idaho Legislature because he felt it fomented hate against his Muslim faith.
While proponents are unable to cite court cases where U.S. law has been supplanted by Sharia or some other doctrine, those lobbying for it collected about $206 million in donations between 2008 and 2013, according to a study released by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Race and Gender.
“They wouldn’t be doing it if they weren’t making a buck,” said Robert McCaw, government relations director for CAIR.
Minnesota state Rep. Steve Drazkowski, who co-sponsored similar legislation in 2016, said some people fear Sharia law will be applied in the U.S., but he does not.
Drazkowski also pushed a bill in 2011 to declare English as the official language of Minnesota and prohibit conducting routine business in foreign languages, including driver’s license exams. The bill was strikingly similar to model legislation by a group called ProEnglish, which calls itself the “nation's leading advocate for official English.”
The Saint Paul Pioneer Press editorialized that Drazkowski was using it to ensure his reelection by “pandering to the mostly conservative and card-carrying residents of … the paranoid states of America.”
Drazkowski said he is aware of ProEnglish but couldn’t remember where he got the language for his English-only bill.
“The use of these model bills is not the end of the world,” he said, noting that immigrants are more successful when they learn English. “The idea that one organization or group is somehow controlling legislation or legislators or states, that’s a fallacy.”
Drazkowski has introduced other copycat bills. Common Cause's Legislating Under the Influence report features two Draz bills, listed in ALEC Exposed's wiki page for Minnesota:
- HF 3830 (2010): (Author: Rep. Drazkowski) The bill "is copy-cat legislation of Arizona's controversial SB 1070 also called the "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act." After it was introduced, the bill was subsequently defeated in the House Public Safety Policy and Oversight Committee.[1]
- HF 0065 (2011) (Author: Rep. Drazkowski) "This legislation proposes a Right-to-Work constitutional amendment, which would stop employers and employees from negotiating an agreement (also known as a union security clause) that requires ll workers who receive the benefits of a collective bargaining agreement to pay their share of the costs of representing them." It draws from ALEC's "Right to Work Act as well as the "Public Employee Freedom Act."[1]
However, Bluestem should point out that Drazkowski was attracted to anti-immigrant ideas before he was elected to office. In a 2006 letter to what was then the Red Wing Republican Eagle, State should lead in securing border, Draz suggested that the Minnesota National Guard should join a private para-military group, the "Minuteman fence building effort,' which he shamelessly compared to the valor of the First Minnesota at Gettysburg:
We must continue to welcome people who follow the laws by immigrating to our country legally. However, those who break our laws and immigrate here illegally provide a huge concern. Terrorists continue to take advantage of our weak border security.
To provide true security to our homeland, we must first stop the bleeding. For every illegal alien arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol at the Mexican border, three to four make it through. There have been calls for the federal government to secure our southern border and they have failed to act.
Current volunteer efforts of the Minuteman Project (http://www.minutemanproject.com) are focused on building a security fence along the border. The fence design, which will provide the border security we need, can be seen at http://www.weneedafence.com. These volunteers have begun to build a fence on private land along the border. [links as per copy]
Just as the First Minnesota regiment provided crucial leadership in securing our country's freedom during the Civil War, I believe that it is time for Minnesota to be the leader in securing our border with Mexico.
Now is the time for Minnesota to commit resources to our nation's security by committing our people to help with the Minuteman fence building effort. This could include Minnesota National Guard members and/or private citizens.
Our state's delegation to this fence-building project would become our present-day First Minnesota. Yes, Minnesota can once again be first -- and we should then ask our neighboring states to fall in line and help us get this mission accomplished.
Steve Drazkowski
Wabasha
Steve Drazkowski is a former candidate for Minnesota Senate District 28.
According to the Library of Congress archived web site, Jim Gilchrist's Minuteman Project, was a "a militia-based organization seeking to stop illegal immigration into the United States." Apparently, not all of Draz's ideas come for ALEC and its kindred.
Yeah, the Minnesota National Guard wanted a piece of that. Vice had more in March 2016's Whatever Happened to Arizona's Minutemen? and Business Insider's Vigilantes have been obsessed with a border wall long before Trump proposed it.
Other than these sorts of things, Draz seems nice.
Photo: Long before he crossed paths with Ilhan Omar, Draz advanced other ideas from interesting sources.
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