Our view: Vote no: Amendments wrong way to legislate
October 22, 2012 at 7:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
Constitutions are all about the structuring of government; they offer overall guiding principles and framework to help make sure our rulers don’t trample on our personal rights and liberties. They’re big-picture documents. Continue Reading
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Olaf said:
“Nice try DNT…Since 1858 there have been 118 Constitutional Amendments adopted by the citizens of Minnesota.”
Did you happen to notice that all of those amendments had two things in common?
The amendments all either expanded certain rights or removed previous restrictions.
None of them INCREASED restrictions to personal liberty/freedoms.
And none of them were written to include one group’s religious beliefs over another.
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Our View: The DNT should refrain from publicly announcing an opinion on political issues. This makes it impossible for the newspaper to report the news “fairly” and “without prejudice”. Your are in the business of reporting the news, not telling citizens how to vote.
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Funny….I didn’t see you saying this yesterday when the DNT endorsed Cravaack. I guess conservatives forget how evil the liberal media is when they are endorsing Republicans.
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Right on Tom. I couldn’t agree more. I have never understood why newspapers endorse anybody or anything and yet expect us to think they are objectively reporting the facts in all areas.
I don’t think they should be endorsing Cravaack (or anybody else period !), nor should they be endorsing a “no” vote on this constitutional amendment.
Funny though how many nasty comments came from the left on the Cravaack endorsement and how the newspaper is nothing but a conservative rag…..but haven’t seem much from the same group here regarding a more liberal endoresement with regard to these two issues. Come on everyone…..a spades a spade whether it supports your cause or not right ?
Unfortunately, I think objectively is almost a thing of the past with regard to most any political discussion these days. I don’t like floating standards depending on who or what we’re talking about.
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jessica….from the content of your post….did you mean to address Mike Hockerts…..instead of Tom?
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Vern…..Specificially I was replying to Tom’s post, but I see it goes along with Mike’s too.
Mike’s post is absolutely true, in my opinion. Tom’s post was what I was really commenting on. It just seems strange how a paper can be two things at once… a liberal rag when they endorse a liberal, and a conservative rag when they endorse a conservative. Perhaps there is a third idea. Maybe they try to igore the R or DFL and try to figure out which candidate is best for the office at this point in time ? I know it’s a stretch in these times….but not everybody reads the menu from the right to the left.
That being said, I still don’t like endorsements from a supposedly objective news organization who should report the news, not make it.
If my memory is correct the DNT endorsed Oberstar (and other democrats over the years) many, many times, but they endorse Cravaack a time or two and suddenly it’s a conservative rag ?
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I fail to see a problem with anyone in the media having and expressing an opinion or endorsing someone/thing. Jess, have you read our first amendment? “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. ” You can’t deny the freedom of the press, even if you don’t agree with them. If gov’t can take away our first freedoms, what can’t they take away?
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Oh my! I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with Hugh J on something. Freedom of speech is an extremely precious right. I do agree with jessica, however, in that it might not always be prudent for a company that tries to sell something to make endorsements when politics have become so divisive. Freedom of speech comes with a price. It means that people who don’t like what you say ALSO have the right to speak (or speak with their money by boycotting a product). I think the kerfuffle around the Susan G. Komen Foundation is a perfect example. They took a charity that just about everyone supported, politicized it, and then people on both sides of the aisle lost respect for the organization. I would add that newspapers endorsements have been around since the beginning of our democracy, so I doubt they’re going anywhere and they don’t really bother me. Some newspapers are liberal, some are conservative, and some blow whichever way the wind is blowing! There’s a difference between suggesting that something might not be a good idea and legally banning people from doing it. I don’t think jessica was saying they shouldn’t be allowed to endorse candidates, just that it might not be a good idea.
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Two J/jessicas! Who knew!
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Mike, what an odd statement. Newspapers across the country have, since forever, published opinion pieces and editorials, and have made endorsements on political races. Are you just figuring that out now?
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Hugh J, nowhere in my post(s) have I said I thought it should be prohibited by law for any news organization to endorse anybody or anything. I simply said I didn’t think it was a good idea, and I don’t. I firmly support all our rights as American citizens, but that doesn’t mean that everyone who does something within their Constitutional rights is doing the prudent or “right” thing in all circumstances.
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and thus by definition, you apparently don’t think the freedom of the press is a good idea. Think about it.
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You’re kidding right ?
If I don’t think it’s a good practice to point (not shoot….just point) loaded guns (legal to own and use) at people they don’t like the hair color of, are you saying I don’t support the 2nd Amendment ?
I also have the right to a speedy trial…..so if I think people should be law abiding citizens, do I, by your same logic, not support the right to a speedy trial ? If you’re not breaking the law, being charged and brought to trial….you’re not excercising your right to a speedy trial thereby you must not support this important right….right ?
With all rights come responsibilities. We always seem to talk about our “rights”, and it’s a good thing to know our rights and excercise them as needed in our daily lives…..but regarding those same rights should come responsibilities to use them wisely.
Yes, these rights can and are in most cases absolute, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use them in a sane manner. I have the right to do a lot of things I choose at times not to do, either because it may be harmful to myself or those around me either in the short term….or the long term.
Sorry…I didn’t think advocating the responsible use of any of our rights, property or resources as American citizens in our daily lives would be controversial.
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Our Mr Dicklich also has gotten involved and should be prosecuted for spending our tax dollars to push his person opinions. I have yet to find an acual person who would be “disenfanchised” by having to have the same ID you need to live to vote. Please stop minimising the importance of my vote.
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You might want to read the whole op-ed he wrote. He presented facts, and did not give an opinion.
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You need that ID to live, do you?
Don’t lean on hyperbole and then act surprised when people think your arguments are ridiculous.
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One voter, one vote. It’s beyond me how anyone can oppose this principle.
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Burntsider, one person one vote is already the law of the land. That’s not the “principle” behind the voter ID amendment.
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I oppose the Voter ID bill BECAUSE I want one person to have on vote. And that includes people who have really F’ed up their lives but who remain their own legal representatives and who remain enfranchised.
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In principle I agree with the theme of the editorial.
In practice, with courts acting more and more like a veto-proof legislature, the only alternative is to lard the Constitution with amendments that represent the will of the people, not the will of the courts.
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For heaven’s sake. It’s not “the left” that says there’s no voter fraud. Everyone without a political ax to grind has said there’s no real voter fraud. Norm Coleman’s lawyers specifically agreed that there was no voter fraud in the Franken/Coleman election. And in case you’re not aware, the most recent voter *registration* fraud (which is very different from voter fraud, which is extremely rare by any objective measure) was carried out by a Republican organization in FL.
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read the link!
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Hugh~ If you read what I wrote it was directed at the DNT editorial board. It was about the fact they floated a essentially non-story castigating Nolan in morning, then at midnite, posted this glowing endorsement of Chip. They were manipulating the news was my issue because clearly the editorial board didn’t vote to give Chip the endorsement on Sunday nite at midnite. The other issue had was the piece was so blatantly tainted trying to portray Chip as the virgin mary regarding attack ads and again castigating Nolan for his, I took that as beyond an endorsement and bias, to pure BS and with the Nolan story, clear manipulation.
Forum Communications is a corporation and is conservative biased and in fact think the CEO got in trouble for wife working for GOP while was tainting stories so I always cracked up when YOU and the parrot patrol hollered about liberal media. The general media was liberal…like 40 years ago before they all became run by corporate empires. But that wasn’t my issue with the Chip endorsement, so get it straight and not twisted.
On voter fraud, I’ve asked you about 20 times? To provide proof of your wild stories of voter fraud and will so again, do you have a link to back up your recent claim? Or is this another Faux News fabrication like the dead people voting in South Carolina and the Franken election, and ACORN involved in voter fraud and Chicago has always had voter fraud, which all proven false?
“See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.” –George W. Bush, May 24, 2005
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Yaaaawn.
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My bad! It was Merv that was whining. Sorry.
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Thank you.
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LMAO…only on DNT forum does a thank you get a thumbs down…ROFLMAO..
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……or an apology. What would happen if we were to do lunch? The peanut gallery would have our heads.
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A wonderful satire site, not just for misstatements on election issues, but other stuff, too. The stuff on illegal immigration is wonderful, but the sex education stuff is really funny.
True, its not on the level of The Onion, but Hugh J, this site is definitely a gem.
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~”we found evidence of nearly 100 cases in which voter registration and voter history records strongly indicate that a single voter MAY have voted more than once in a single election.” In other words, they HAVEN’T been able to prove even ONE case of voter fraud! NOT ONE!!
~“VACANT AND NON-DELIVERABLE ADDRESSES:” OMG they found 24 verifiable cases of where the people had moved. Which their great investigation actually proved on this is…people move! That’s not voter fraud and they want you to believe they’ve proved a case for voter fraud, but they haven’t, they just proved some folks move.
That’s just two incidences of Minn. Majority claims they’ve found voter fraud from your link Hugh but they haven’t, it’s a lot of conjecture and innuendo is all they have. They make fantastic claims tossing out irrelevant inflated numbers, claim they’ve found some of those numbers to be true then draw the conclusion and want you to believe they’ve proven voter fraud but they haven’t.
This is link is full of evidence essentially debunking Minnesota Majorities claims, I’ve just quoted one small piece regarding Franken election claims. The page in link carries a ton of other links debunking the GOP voter fraud myths.
http://mediamatters.org/mobile/research/2012/08/16/a-counting-fraud-new-book-by-john-fund-amp-hans/189395
“There is no basis in fact, whatsoever, in these inaccuracies propagated by the Minnesota Majority here, none,” Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said Wednesday. “After the most closely scrutinized election in Minnesota history in 2008, there were zero cases of fraud. Even the Republicans lawyers acknowledged that there was no systematic effort to defraud the election, none.”
“In Hennepin County, 650,000 people voted,” he continued. “The Minnesota Majority presented us with 1,500 cases that they felt there were problems with voting. Our own election bureau gave us 100. At the end of the day, we charged 38 cases. And all but one of them are felons voting who were still under the penalty [of not legally applying to regain individual voting rights]. There was no fraud.” [AlterNet.org, 8/8/12]
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It should be noted that you have Minnesota Majority, Karl Rove and Faux News all making claims of voter fraud and every single claim has been debunked as lies and manipulation and that there are literally hundreds of sites on net offering proof that they’re lies from every other imaginable news source. Get a clue.
“His foreign policy is from the 1980s, his social policy is from the 1950s and his economic policies are from the 1920s”…Obama on Rommney…dayum if ain’t the truth.
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I don’t even know why there is all this whoopla on these ballot issues. You know that if either of them pass the courts will just throw them out anyway, right?
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Majority rule doesn’t apply to constitution. The Judicial branch has final word on upholding the Constitution, not Joe Public…thank Gawd.
“The best argument against a democracy is a 5 minute conversation with the average voter”…Winston Churchill
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“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” Sir Winston Churchill
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i believe that quote has also been applied to capitalism as well….just because capitalism is the best system that we know of does not mean their are not unintended consequences that arise from unfettered capitalism….not only are the wealthy snatching up all the capital they are snatching up all the politicians and all the votes thanks to corporations being people. Funny they want all the benefits of that designation (political influence) but not all the negative (being sued or put in jail) kind of just like how they want the govt to take on all their risk they took while they get to reap all the profits before and after being bailed out. Wow…im off topic haha but that quote you referenced automatically made me think of the new quote.
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fastone…Yes, I agree on that….just saying that if that were to happen…..the general public will be up in arms about it…..as most folks do not know this is the way it is with constitutional amendments! In other words, there will be hell to pay….as far as the public goes. That is also the reason the founding fathers originally set up the electoral college…..for voting for the President. In some instances, the electoral college vote totals differ from the popular vote! Remember the election of the year 2000…..Bush vs Gore…..Florida…..the electoral college….the Supreme Court? The Democrats are still fuming about that decision by the Supreme Court! Remember, these kinds of things DO HAPPEN!
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Vern~ Sorry, thought were implying the Supreme Court couldn’t overturn a majority vote on something. Would the Repubs have a hissy fit if that happened?…no diggity. Then again, as you pointed out regarding 2000…somebody always is chaffed with every Supreme Court ruling it seems. Some been fumming over Roe vs Wade for over 40 years…
But the Supreme Courts mission is to defend our Constitution first and our laws, NOT appease everyone. I still like the opinion from the Dane County Judge that put smack down on Walkers voter ID bill….and I don’t see how courts could see this any other way…
“A government that undermines the very foundation of its existence – the people’s inherent, pre-constitutional right to vote – imperils its legitimacy as a government by the people, for the people, and especially of the people,” Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess wrote. “It sows the seeds for its own demise as a democratic institution. This is precisely what 2011 Wisconsin Act 23 does with its photo ID mandates.”
I don’t see the voter ID ammendment as protecting our voting rights, I see it as slippery slope to more government control even over our roght to vote and precisely as he stated, the seeds of demise of our country. If voter fraud actually existed impacting our elections, then we would be defending our Democracy, but since there isn’t then it’s transparent is an agenda to undermine our Democracy…no question about it.
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fastone, I am confused here. You seem to be an expert on everything political, so I am going to ask what may to you be a stupid question regarding your last comments.
You state that “majority rule doesn’t apply to the Constitution”. Why would we even be voting on a constitutional amendment if a majority (>60% I believe) vote to approve the amendment and the Supreme court would rule it unconstitutional to change anything in the existing Minneosta Constitution ?
I don’t see the point of having provisions to change the Constitution if the Supreme court can just ignore the whole amendment process vote (assuming it’s >60%) if they so choose.
I haven’t read the Minnesota Constitution, but I would assume that the provisions to amend the same document are part of the original document….so amending the constitution following those procedures should leave any Supreme Court ruling moot and out of the picture.
So, what am I missing ?
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GOP Hucksters pushing voter fraud lies:
http://www.alternet.org/gop-voter-fraud-hucksters-latest-lie-felons-made-franken-us-senator?paging=off
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So what was all the fuss about after the 2000 presidential election? Or is it only voter fraud when a Democrat loses?
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fastone……. The Minnesota amendment vote for voter ID is ONLY to ensure that the voters are legally able to vote…that their photo matches the way they look….and that the voter is legally registered in his/her precinct. Does not matter age, race, rich, poor, gender, …….only matters if you are legal to vote…..and in your correct district. I have NEVER been asked to show identification….the election judges do not know me from Adam! I know…..I personally would prefer that everyone is truthful…….but, unfortunately….we know that is not the case! This is not the perfect, catch-all system….but, it is a start. I cannot fathom why the non-voter ID folks say this takes AWAY their rights…..it does NOT TAKE AWAY ANYBODY’S RIGHTS! As of now….we DO NOT EVEN KNOW the SCOPE of NON-LEGAL votes taking place….each and every election. Not trying to say the sky is falling…..it is there are too many infractions and loopholes that that seriously cast a very long shadow on the very integrity of our elections! Not trying to create more hurdles for anyone to jump……just to make the elections as honest as possible……too many folks trying to influence elections in dishonest ways. That Sir….effects so many different programs, politicians…and the list would go on almost indefinitely……SO, I cannot express to anyone how important an honest, legal vote is…….on most everything! I believe we will all be the better off with a simple voter ID. Again….this DOES NOT TAKE AWAY ANYONE’S RIGHT TO VOTE. If a person….. is in the precinct / district they are registered in….not a felon…. in the USA legally….. are of age….they ALL can vote…….for whomever they wish to vote for! I think some folks are a bit paranoid of this….thinking their individual right is going to be taken away! NOT TRUE!
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So, all these people out there committing voter fraud–what’s in it for them? Why would a person commit a federal crime by voting fraudulently, when it has NO BENEFIT to the person doing it? If I voted twice, I would put myself at risk so that my chosen candidate could get an extra vote? And no matter how many times you say it, it WILL take away the right to vote from people who aren’t able to get an ID. For most of us, voting with an ID would be easy, but there is a subset of the population for whom it would be very, very difficult. Just because you don’t know any of those people doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
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Reguardless of which side you stand on these issues, they are both against the very fabric of the constitution. The constitution is a “living” document formed to solidify our rights and duties as a nation, not to bend to the whims of public pressure. A constitutional republic is NOT a “majority rule” endevor. It is a system in which we trust duly elected representatives to debate the facts of an issue and then enact policy based on the “greater good” for our country while conforming to the principles of our founding fathers, not subvert the political process to indoctrinate belief or endorsement of “values”. Constitutional amendments all should be able to pass one basic smell test. Does this amendment add or clarify the rights and responsiblities of the people or does it limit the rights and responsiblities of the people? Seems pretty simple when you look at it from an informed, non-biased viewpoint.
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Just for full disclosure, I will be leaving both questions blank as neither one belong on the ballot. I realize that is in effect a “NO” vote but much like a 1 cent tip for poor service it is a matter of principle that I will not answer the question of “Do you walk to school or carry a lunch?” with a yes or no.
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Well, it does seem that voter fraud is happening…the son of and campaign manager for US Rep Jim Moran, D-Va, Patrick Moran, was caught advising an undercover reporter on how to create fraudulent utility bills and then cast votes in the names of registered voters who haven’t recently voted. Patrick Moran also said that this fraud is becoming more difficult to accomplish because of new voter ID laws.
http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/video-captures-dem-campaign-chief-plotting-vote-fraud/
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Just this morning, a democrat is caught on video tape instructing a would be voter how to conduct voter fraud.
http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/video-captures-dem-campaign-chief-plotting-vote-fraud/
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Politicians themselves are fraudulant. So, why is it so hard to believe there isn’t voter fraud???
I have provided this example in the past. Nobody has argued or responded differently, but it’s worth repeating. If there is Nooooooooooooo voter fraud, how it is that when recounts occur the totals NEVER turn out the same? All of the sudden, boxes appear out of nowhere, (only on recounts). Hundreds of NEW votes come from every direction and many of course are the “absentee” ballots. In today’s world, this shouldn’t be happening. I find it embarassing to a certain degree that we can’t be a tad more accurate and accountable with our voting system.
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Moderator, editorial board and Forum Communications,
I seem to remember that the DNT endorsed the 2008 Legacy amendment. Can you confirm?
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Get an ID for crying out loud. You need it for everything else, and you’ll have four years to do it.
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