Tag Archives: Mark Ritchie

Ballot Language Ruling Easily Could Come Back To Bite Minnesota GOP

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In the wake of yesterday’s Minnesota Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the GOP Legislature’s ballot wording for two proposed constitutional amendments, endzone-dancing Republican leaders should keep something in mind.

The Supremes did not rule in favor of the Republican Party.  They ruled in favor of the legislature branch.   Important difference.

Here is what the Court said:

The proper role for the judiciary, however, is not to second-guess the wisdom of policy decisions that the constitution commits to one of the political branches.

…

The Secretary of State exceeded his authority … when he provided titles different from those passed by the Legislature.”

Granted, that’s good news for Republicans this year, because they’re the ones currently controlling  the legislative “policy decisions” of which the Court speaks.

But in future years, the same ruling could easily turn out to be very bad news for Republicans.  After all, the way Minnesota’s long-term demographics are trending – with the most rapid population growth happening in demographic groups historically more supportive of DFL candidates – the prospect of permanent GOP control of the Legislature is far from certain.

Future DFL-controlled Legislatures, stinging from the constitutional word games Republicans have played during their leadership reign, could do something equally absurd, or even more absurd.

For instance, a DFL-controlled Legislature could propose a constitutional amendment to require an enormous tax on the wealthiest Minnesotans to finance, let’s say, vacation homes for DFL leaders, or something else completely reckless.  Furthermore, taking a page out of the GOP’ 2012 playbook, the DFL-controlled Legislature could then deceptively present this proposal to voters on their ballots in benign-sounding euphamisms:

“Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to support fairness in housing financing in Minnesota, effective July 1, 2015?”

As I understand yesterday’s ruling, the Supremes wouldn’t overrule that kind of a hypothetical ballot wording scam.  Not their job.  I exaggerate in my example, for I am a blogger and exaggeration is what we do, but you get the general idea.

This is not a problem that is going to go away under the status quo approach to wording ballot questions.  The majority party in the Legislature will probably continue to play word games in their drafting, and, again, the majority party may not always be to Speaker Zellers’ liking.

A few days ago I proposed what seems to me to be a more fair way of drafting ballot questions.  Whether the reform comes off of my cocktail napkin, or from someone who actually knows what they’re doing, reform of the current ballot initiative drafting system is needed.   If Minnesota politicians are going to persist in continually trying to amend the State Constitution to tickle their political fancy — and it seems pretty certain that they are — we need to at least get the proposals described to voters clearly and fairly.

– Loveland

A Better Way to Write Minnesota’s Ballot Questions?

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Frankly, I don’t know what to make of the debate over the wording of Constitutional Amemdment summaries appearing on Minnesota ballots.   Secretary of State Ritchie’s wording seems significantly more clear and descriptive of the actual amendment content.  But I’m not sure if a Secretary of State has authority to change the language that the Legislature passes.  Soon, the Minnesota Supremes will clarity that question.

But regardless of what the justices say about authority, I wonder if there is a better way to draft clear and accurate ballot language in the future?

I have a rough idea that I recently developed over a few adult beverages.  What, you think the Founding Dads didn’t scribble on the occasional ale house napkin?

Anyway, here is my idea:  The Legislature and Governor could pass a statute to create a “Ballot Initiative Commission,” or some such proper sounding name. The Commission’s job would be to develop the wording of ballot summaries, which means neither the Legislature nor the Secretary of State would have drafting authority in the future.

Sample Commission details:  The Governor could appoint three members, and legislative leaders could appoint three members.  None of the members could be current elected officials or government employees, or have served as an elected official or government employee for the past 10 years.

To help get the focus on clarity, the first draft of the ballot language would be developed by whoever is the current head of the University of Minnesota’s Department of English.  The English Department Chair’s role would be advisory only.

The Commission could alter the draft however it collectively wanted.  There would need to be a majority vote of the Commission supporting the final wording before the language would be conveyed to the Secretary of State for inclusion on the ballot.  There would be deadlines to ensure they got their work done in a timely fashion.

The Commission’s wording obviously could still be challenged in the courts, as is happening now with the status quo system.  But the big change would be that the language would originate from this less partisan Commission that is structurally required to compromise, not elected officials in either the Legislature or the Secretary of State’s office, or their staffs.

I don’t feel especially strongly about the details of the proposal.  The pointy-heads at the Capitol can add all the “whereases,” “in lieu ofs” and “heretofores” they want.  The underlying principles are what matter:

REDUCE THE POLITICIZATION OF THE DRAFTING PROCESS.  Get ballot language drafting out of the hands of elected officials, who will always be tempted to be more concerned about partisan advantage than clarity or accuracy.   Instead, get the drafting into the hands of less partisan Minnesotans.

BAKE THE NEED FOR BIPARTISAN COMPROMISE INTO THE PROCESS.  Numerically speaking, structure the Commission so that the Legislature’s appointees can’t attain a majority without winning over at least one vote from a gubernatorial appointee, or vice versa.

PUT MORE INITIAL FOCUS ON CLARITY.  At least begin the process with a writer who is paid to be clear, not a writer who is paid to win elections.

A perfect process?  Of course, not.  Games would still be played.  But it would be much better than the current process that is currently in the throes of a messy food fight in the State Supreme Court.

Anyway, if anyone out there is interested, I think I still have the napkin.

– Loveland

 

This post was also featured as a “best of the best” on MinnPost’s Blog Cabin feature.