More fine reporting on the Minnesota Legislature from the Minnesota Reformer.
I think it's a good move--especially turning the "rule" about retiring legislators becoming lobbyists as soon as they've cleaned out their offices. That would halt headline like Bluestem's old post from 2015, Who is served by the lobbying? Clients of Ann Lenczewski's new government relations team
The potential for a year-round legislature? Not so much my favorite.
DFL lawmakers propose redistricting commission, 2024 ballot question to modify constitution
By Michelle GriffithKey Democratic lawmakers want to place a question on the 2024 general election ballot that would create an independent redistricting commission to prevent the common practice — including in neighboring Wisconsin — of majority parties drawing highly favorable legislative and congressional district maps that can lock in those majorities for a decade or more.
The proposed constitutional amendment would also seek to prohibit lawmakers from becoming lobbyists within one year of leaving office and give the Legislature more leeway to determine its calendar — including potential year-round sessions.
Every 10 years, the Legislature is tasked with redrawing the boundaries of Minnesota congressional and legislative districts to reflect population growth and shifts based on the decennial census. The Legislature has failed to redraw the state’s maps for over 140 years, relying on court intervention instead. Democrats want an independent commission to take up the redistricting responsibility.
House Majority Leader Jamie Long, DFL-Minneapolis, is lead author of the bill (HF4598/SF4785). The 15-member commission would include five people who support the state’s first political party, five who support the second — essentially five Democrats and five Republicans — and five people unaffiliated with either party. None of the members, within the immediate six years of their appointment to the commission, could have served as any federal, state or local elected official, legislative or political party staff member or a lobbyist, among other criteria.
A three-member panel of retired state, federal or tribal judges would choose the commission’s members from a pool of applicants. One judge would be affiliated with the first party, one with the second party and a third who is nonaffiliated would be the panel’s chair.
Long said Minnesota over the past 50 years has had nonpartisan congressional and legislative district maps thanks to divided government and judges overseeing relatively fair maps. But that has “basically just been by luck,” he said.
“We have a system that is not set up for having fair maps be the default. It’s set up for having legislators draw their own districts,” Long said. “In Minnesota, we really value our democracy and having a fair election system, so it seems like it’s time that we institutionalize the practice that’s been in place for decades.”
Minnesota is among the majority of states in which state legislatures draw district maps, but lawmakers have for decades been unable to agree on district maps in a timely fashion, so the courts have intervened. In 2021, the Minnesota Supreme Court appointed a special redistricting panel because the Legislature was unable to come to an agreement on the final maps.
In the latest redistricting cycle, at least four states had their maps drawn by independent redistricting commissions — Arizona, California, Colorado and Michigan, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Critics of Minnesota’s current maps say they have not properly granted legislative and congressional representation to emerging racial and ethnic groups. The bill includes a requirement that the members draw districts that include the “equal opportunity of racial, ethnic and language minorities to participate in the political process and to elect candidates of their choice.”
The ballot question proposed in the bill also asks voters to amend the constitution to include other “good government” provisions, Long said. Here’s what else would be included in the ballot measure:
Closing the Capitol’s revolving door
The state House has a rule — which is unenforceable as law — saying members can’t register as a lobbyist within one year of leaving office. In fact, Minnesota doesn’t have a law on the books that bans lawmakers from being employed as lobbyists while serving.
Long said it’s important to amend the constitution to include a lobbying ban because it helps ensure Minnesotans trust their government.
“We know that the revolving door for lobbying is something that can erode public trust and having that one-year break at least means that the legislator won’t be working on a bill that they potentially were the lead author of the month before,” Long said.
The U.S. Congress has enacted its own one-year lobbying ban.
The ballot question would ask whether voters support prohibiting “members of the Legislature from serving as lobbyists while in office and for a period of one year after leaving office.”
The Legislature’s quick turnover and the DFL majority’s break neck speed last year saw companies and interest groups seeking out lawmakers who are still plugged into the game. For example, the University of Minnesota last year hired former Senate Minority Leader Melisa López Franzen as its chief lobbyist.
Giving lawmakers more flexibility to call sessions
The ballot question includes a clause asking voters to amend the constitution’s requirements relating to “the timing and process for convening regular legislative sessions.”
This would eliminate the provisions in the constitution that say the Legislature may not exceed 120 legislative days each biennium and remove the requirement that during regular sessions lawmakers cannot meet after the Monday following the third Saturday in May.
Lawmakers would no longer be bound by the mandatory adjournment date, and it removes the cap on the number of legislative days.
The Legislature would determine what their schedule looks like, and this theoretically allows lawmakers to become full-time legislators.
Lawmakers don’t currently have an appetite for convening a year-round Legislature; last month during a Minnesota Chamber of Commerce event all four leaders from both parties rejected the idea.
Here is the bill’s proposed ballot question in full:
“Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to require an independent redistricting commission to adopt boundaries for congressional and legislative districts following a decennial census; to prohibit members of the legislature from serving as lobbyists while in office and for a period of one year after leaving office; and to amend requirements related to the timing and process for convening regular legislative sessions?”
This Minnesota Reformer article is republished online under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
Photo: Minnesota Capitol. Courtesy of Minnesota House Public Information Services.
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