Politics CAN be interesting . . . and maybe even fun!

If you are even remotely interested in long-term public policy issues, this legislative session will be one for the record books. Politics seems boring to many, but mostly it comes down to what you pay attention to. This year, the size of the “budget deficit” distracts too many people from watching the real political maneuvering. As always, the significant and interesting issues are those occurring behind the scenes. If you want to appreciate my demented view of “fun” here are three epic battles that I will be watching this year:

1. Clean Water: In November, 2008, with a 56% yes vote, Minnesota approved a constitutional amendment adding 3/8% to the State-wide sales tax for Habitat, Clean Water, Parks and Trails and the Arts. For too many years, most of these issues were limited to policy discussions, always short on money. For the first time ever, clean water has some real funding coming in. I was recently at the Capital and there was a marked difference in the rooms where the new sales tax stream of revenue was being discussed (the “Happy Rooms”) and the rest of the Capital (the “Doom and Gloom Rooms”). There are two battles worth watching in this area. The first is the so-called “hook and bullet crowd” who have fought hard for many years to obtain funding for outdoor habitat and sports related issues. For them, this issue is about using the money for the objectives that they fought so hard for. They are vocal and almost militant about their objectives. The other power play is between the agencies (DNR and Board of Soil and Water Resources) and the non-profit, locally driven projects. The bureaucrats effectively argue that they have the experience and the infrastructure in place to put the money to good use. Argued just effectively, the locally driven organizations are lean and can quickly implement “shovel ready” projects that provide job creation and immediate environmental benefits.

2. Classrooms: What funding source provides the best education for our children? The powerful teacher’s union ($850,000 in expenditures in the 2008 election and in excess of 50 registered lobbyists) argues that increasing the existing funding formula is the answer. More funding provides better opportunities for all, they argue. In contrast, others argue that focusing the funding on classroom activities and teacher performance provides more bang for the buck.

The Governor’s Q-comp program is one example of an attempt to target resources towards teacher performance. In an opening salvo in this battle, the legislative auditor’s office recently released a report reviewing this program. http://www.auditor.leg.state.mn.us/ped/pedrep/qcomp.pdf
While the report reads like constructive criticism, many are holding up the report to suggest that Q-comp is a bad program. What appears to be the most quoted conclusion of the report, “There is not sufficient evidence to determine the impact of Q Comp on student achievement”. Likewise, there is little to correlate increased teacher pay, or increased health benefits with better education for our children. As acknowledged in the State Auditor’s report, "it is difficult to disentangle the effects of Q Comp from other initiatives."

It appears that so long as criticizing the “teacher’s union” is associated with being against kids, little classroom reform will occur. There are now more teachers that are legislators than any other profession. When lawyers ruled the roost, all jokes were fair game. I long for the day when I can tell a good-hearted teacher joke and not be labeled a “bad dad”.

3. Welfare Reform: The largest spending category and the second largest general fund expenditure in the State Budget should be hard pressed to come out unscathed in this budget cycle. http://budgetforum.senate.mn/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/slide9.gif. The reform advocates have presented many proposals that they consider low hanging fruit; outright fraud, people moving to Minnesota to take advantage of programs and those using benefit cards in other states. Ending Minnesota’s “welfare magnet” label: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/01/21/welfare_reform/

Those against any reform argue that lowering our standards will allow people to fall through the cracks. They seem to argue that a few bad apples are worth it -- provided no one in need to goes without. So far, they seem to have maintained the moral high ground and continue to roll out more programs that will likely find popular support in today’s flailing economy and high unemployment.

The risk is that too many good intentions may cause the entire system to go bankrupt. It is unreasonable to expect ever increasing spending to be sustainable. Somehow, we must find a way to weather the storm and allow our economy to regain its health as quickly as possible. Finding middle ground in this area is necessary for this to occur. If you have an opinion or want to follow a true grass roots discussion – look here. http://budgetforum.senate.mn/?p=157

If you have an issue of interest, find the bill or proposed legislation you are interested in. There are then some tricks to following this legislation. First, go the State House or State Senate website at http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/ or http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/. There, you will find many great tools to assist you. For example, you can look up education related bills introduced in the House – 53 separate bills. You can read any of the bills, a research summary and the current status of the bill. Try this link.
https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/revisor/pages/search_status/status_results.php?body=House&search=basic&session=0862009&location=House&bill=&bill_type=bill&rev_number=&keyword_type=all&keyword=&keyword_field_short=1&keyword_field_long=1&keyword_field_title=1&topic%5B%5D=1186&submit_topic=GO&titleword=

If you want to get updates on the status of your area of interest, you can subscribe to receive email updates from the committees themselves, or subscribe to email updates from key legislators on each of the committees. You will be surprised how much push and pull is occurring on each of these issues. Often, you can even watch the debates unfolding on-line. By following some of the key players and knowing their names and issues, you will also begin to recognize their names in the newspaper and can watch for in-depth coverage on issues that previously would have caused your eyes to glaze over.

If you really become a junkie, you can subscribe to the session weekly or session daily and get on-line updates. Likewise, there are countless blogs and special interest organizations that follow the details of many of these issues.

The long and short: politics can be interesting if you know how to identify and follow something that interests you. Good luck and have fun!