John Hinderaker over at Powerline, posted a great synopsis of this year’s legislative session.
From Powerline:
As I wrote earlier today, Minnesota’s legislative session ends at midnight tonight. Despite the Democrats’ large majorities in both the Minnesota House and the Minnesota Senate, the session is shaping up as a huge victory for Republicans and conservatives. This is due mostly to Governor Tim Pawlenty, the only man standing between Minnesota and economic irrelevance. Pawlenty vetoed a billion dollar tax increase sponsored by the Democrats. Moreover, when the Democrats foolishly sent final spending bills to Pawlenty’s desk for action, they forgot that, having vetoed the tax increase, and the state being constitutionally bound to balance its budget, they had put Pawlenty in a position to essentially write the state’s budget for the next two years, via line item vetoes and “unallotments.”
All of this worked because a rock-solid Republican House caucus, under the leadership of Minority Leader Marty Seifert, consistently marshaled enough votes to block the Dems’ efforts to override Pawlenty’s vetoes. In fact, when it came to the billion dollar tax increase, House Democrats were peeling off to join with the Republicans in upholding Pawlenty’s veto.
So, with the end of the session only hours away, a group of anti-excessive taxation, anti-wasteful spending conservatives assembled on the Capitol steps to celebrate the victory and encourage Republicans to hold firm. The gathering was much smaller than the tea party in the same location a few weeks ago, as the organizers started planning it just last Friday. But it was a good time on a stunningly beautiful spring evening.
I was one of the first speakers; the quality is pretty good, so you may need to pause it for a bit before you play it:
A few minutes later, I was followed by House Minority Leader Marty Seifert:
It was a fun event, and Governor Pawlenty’s rout of the Democrats might, indeed, turn out to be a sort of turning point, not just for Minnesota but for the nation. Let’s hope so!
This excerpt from a newsletter I receive clearly demonstrates just WHY I refuse to call the “Democrat” Party the “Democratic Party”:
“The Democrats were fixed on raising our taxes right to the last minute this session. They presented a $1 billion tax increase just 30 minutes before adjournment. Many of us in the minority no idea what was in the bill and were given no opportunity to debate the legislation. The Democrats were so bent on getting it through they used parliamentary tactics to stop the debate and rammed the bill through in the last minutes of session.”
Any political party that wishes to LIMIT OR ELIMINATE DEBATE ON THE MERITS OF ITS PROPOSALS and wants legislators or citizens to simply ACCEPT THEIR PROPOSALS WITHOUT DUE EXAMINATION is NOT “DEMOCRATIC” — they are OLIGARCHIC and ANTI-DEMOCRATIC. This precisely coincides with statements by influential Democrats like Tom Daschle who tells his party that the way to get things done is “write as vaguely as possible and move as quickly as possible.” This is not a fluke; this is becoming the Democrat Party’s standard operating procedure on an array of anti-democratic legislation nationwide.
Our thanks should go to all of the Republicans and Governor Pawlenty who stood up against such ANTI-DEMOCRATIC activities in our legislatures.
By the way, I am talking about a nationwide mode of operation by the Democrat Party that has become increasingly blatant over the last couple of decades. Tom Daschle described the modus operandi publicly and Obama’s “new era of transparency” is anything but transparent!
Frankly, this mode of operation is just plain ANTI-DEMOCRATIC as are other things the Democrat Party openly support such as a willingness to look the other way KNOWING that illegal immigrants (NOT U.S. citizens) are being allowed to VOTE — a right the Constitution grants ONLY to CITIZENS. And a willingness to see the VOTE of our citizenry corrupted and degraded in other ways through fraud, abuse and/or intimidation promulgated by organizations like ACORN or the unions while the Democrats see to it that these organizations are well-funded using taxpayer dollars. The incestuous relationship between unions and the Democrat Party is both sickening and legendary.
Just a reminder to Democrats in our legislatures around the nation and in Washington, DC: Taxes are NOT the only way to balance a budget. We citizens out here have to balance OUR BUDGETs without getting a chance to simply levying a new tax on our neighbors. You should try it some time.