-----Original Message----- From: Jennifer Heiser While this bill looks like "good" democracy on the surface, it is clearly aimed at stultifying grassroots democracy gains in Minneapolis by a political party other than state Rep. Kahn's. Thus Kahn's introduction of this legislation in the MN House, once again, and Linda Higgins' sponsorship in the Senate, is disingenuous in the least and down right antagonistic to true grassroots politics in reality. It is mean-spirited; likely to fail in getting out of whichever Senate committee it is sent to, just as it failed last year.
Do not be hoodwinked into thinking that this particular piece of legislation represents "good" democracy. If the enactment date for this legislation was timed to the next municipal election cycle I could be persuaded to believe that Rep. Kahn had only the best of intentions for the citizens of Minneapolis, our local commonweal. But it is not. What Rep. Kahn and Sen. Higgins in essence wish to accomplish is an overturning of the 2001 municipal election results with an election mandated to take place this year, 2003. [TB] I'm not willing to accept the pure political motivation that Ms. Heiser applies to Rep. Kahn's proposed legislation. That we wait until 2006 for councilmembers elected from wards based on the 2000 census to take office is insane. That's only 4 years away from the next census. Granted part of the problem is that the legislature previously passed laws that prohibit the city from drawing new ward lines until after the legislature does its district lines (which a court had to do because the legislature couldn't agree on it) prevented new lines from being drawn prior to the 2001 election. This legislation is hardly a surprise. Like much legislation it has been introduced before. If it does pass it will be far from the first time that it took more than one legislative session to get a piece of legislation passed. One of the reasons that we have a census every 10 years is so that we can draw lines that provide for equal representation. Current state law has the exact language that Rep. Kahn has proposed for counties (and I think cities that are not governed by city charters) which is the reason that we elected the entire Hennepin County Board in 2002. We shouldn't have to wait half way through the decade to get representation based on the most recent census. That is essentially what a Hennepin County court told the City of Bloomington when the same issue was raised in a lawsuit asking for new elections there. Yes, Rep. Kahn has at times introduced some interesting legislation, but this time she is right on the mark. Terrell Brown Loring Park terrell at terrellbrown dot org __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
