The 2023 Minnesota legislative session is over May 22nd, and with the last few bills passed or defeated, the Legislative Evaluation Assembly has a complete list of legislative actions to evaluate on its report and scorecard. Below is the press release that has been sent to over 200 media outlets to announce our efforts and give a sneak peek of what is to come.
The press release can be found here.
Our 2023 LEA awards banquet was held on February 21st 2023, and despite the snowy weather, we had a good turnout and enjoyed the presentations by our speakers, and a good dinner. Only one of our 5 honorees attended the banquet. The reason is that three of our honorees are now in the Minnesota senate, they were caught having to be present in St Paul, in the senate, voting on tight votes. They did their jobs rather than attend our photo-op. The LEA approves.
You can see below a few photographs of our banquet
.Many thanks to Mark T Bitner Photography for the great images
Video was taken of the entire banuet, which is on our YouTube channel here.
Come to the 2023 Awards banquet, where we honor the top scoring legislators in the 2022 LEA report. Meet the honorees and hear Kendall and Sheila Qualls talk about their work. HONORING: Representatives: Ca; Bahr, Steve Drazkowski, Eric Lucero, Eril … Continue reading →
LEA highlights legislative activity; announces honorees.
St. Paul, MN, August 6, 2022 — Legislative Evaluation Assembly of Minnesota (LEA) is releasing its evaluation of the Minnesota legislature’s 2022 session. The 2022 LEA report rates the votes of all 201 legislators on selected bills. The report summarizes these bills and analyzes them in more depth and detail than seen in the popular press. LEA calls out the abuse of legislative process in 2022 resulting in an overwhelmed legislature that is increasingly unaccountable. “in a non-budget year, the legislature continued to accept multi-subject omnibus bills to change policy, making an overwhelmed legislature that is increasingly unaccountable “ says LEA president Don Lee. “Legislators and citizens have both failed to retrieve self-government from the authoritarians, bureaucrats, and special interests who are all too willing to take citizens’ money and run their lives.”
Five legislators with the highest LEA scores are honored in the 2022 LEA report.
Sixteen House bills and eighteen Senate bills were selected by LEA for scoring. The report is dominated by the same unconstitutional omnibus bills that dominated the sessions. Omnibus bills on Agriculture, Environment, Health and Human Services, and Government Finance are included. Bills addressing Competency Restoration, COVID Relief Payments, SW Light Rail, Off-Road Vehicle rules, and Opioid Settlement funds are also covered.
2022 Honorees: Representatives Cal Bahr, Steve Drazkowski, Eric Lucero, Erik Mortensen, and Jeremy Munson. (No Senate honorees.)
Honorable Mention: Representatives Jeff Backer, Steve Green, Jerry Hertaus, Jon Koznick, Joe McDonald, Shane Mekeland, and Tim Miller
Gordon L. Anderson, Past President, LEA Minnesota (2007-2011), owner of Integral Society blog. (The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily the members of LEA)
Today political parties have become the vehicles of political power for special and moneyed interests, displacing a consensus of the governed. They have subverted processes of legislation through pork, omnibus legislation, and negotiations between party leadership and government officials. The legislators, once elected, usually become accountable to their party leadership and vote in partisan blocks, rubber-stamping party-negotiated legislation without meaningful citizen feedback.
In drafting the Constitution, the US Founders worked hard to prevent moneyed interests from gaining control of the government. They did this through sets of checks and balances on the process of legislation designed to only produce laws that reflected both a consensus of the people in the House of Representatives and a consensus of the States in the Senate.1The original Constitution directed the states to appoint two Senators each to represent them. In this way, both the interests of the states and the expertise of their seasoned experts in governance had to agree with something the people desired. This arrangement was abolished by the 17th Amendment, which removed this check, by having citizens vote for senators. This removed the representation of the states in their own federation and allowed political parties that vied for citizen allegiance to escape a check on the tribalism they produced by seasoned Senators representing State interests. But the Founders failed to check the power of political parties as vehicles for moneyed and special interests to usurp power.
In his 1796 Farewell Address, composed with the help of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, George Washington lamented that the Constitution did not constrain the power of political parties:
All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests.
Continue reading →However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
George Washington, Farewell Address.
Come to the 2022 Awards banquet, where we honor the top scoring legislators in the 2021 LEA report. Meet the honorees, and hear Dr. Jeff Johnson talk about Refugee resettlement and the Law. On-line registration has ended. The at-the-door price … Continue reading →
On Dec 18th, 2021 at 2 PM, LEA board member John Augustine will be on Mitch Berg’s Northern Alliance radio program to talk about the 2021 LEA Report on the MN Legislature, and some positive and negative developments in MN state government this past year. Tune in and join the conversation!
LEA highlights legislative accomplishments, abdications; announces honorees.
St. Paul, MN, December 1, 2021 — Legislative Evaluation Assembly of Minnesota (LEA) is releasing its evaluation of the Minnesota legislature’s remarkable 2021 session. The 2021 LEA report rates the votes of all 201 legislators on sixteen selected bills. The report describes these bills in more depth and detail than normally seen in the popular press. LEA calls out the shift in government power in 2021 from open deliberation to closed door meetings of powerful leaders. “Minnesota government in 2021 continued to be dominated by the COVID emergency and the governor’s emergency powers. “ says LEA president Don Lee. “Legislators failed to assert their proper role to craft law. Effective governance was left to the governor and his administrators.”
Seven legislators with the highest LEA scores are honored in the 2021 LEA report.
Twelve House bills and thirteen Senate bills were selected by LEA for scoring. The report is dominated by the same unconstitutional omnibus bills that dominated the sessions. Omnibus bills on Taxes, Agriculture, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, and Housing are included. Bills addressing the governor’s emergency powers, Voter ID, energy policy, and price gouging are also covered.
2021 Honorees: Representatives Steve Drazkowski, Steve Green, Matt Grossell, Eric Lucero, Shane Mekeland, Erik Mortensen, Jeremy Munson. (No Senate honorees.)
Honorable Mention: Representatives Kurt Daudt, Josh Heintzeman, Duane Quam, Kristin Robbins.
LEA had a table at the MN Patriots event near Zumbro Falls in southern Minnesota on September 28th. The weather was beautiful, and we had good attendance at our table. We passed out free LEA reports and encouraged attendees to join LEA.
Many attendees seemed recently awakened to political issues, and hungry for information about how they can make a difference.
The featured speaker was Dr Scott Jensen, who is running for governor of Minnesota.
Board members John Augustine and Ben Riechers represented LEA at the Citizen’s Council for Health Freedom’s (CCHF) annual Gala on Sept 9th in Oakdale, with a table at the event.
John and Ben discussed LEA’s work with the attendees, and handed out free copies of the LEA annual report. They report that they had many visitors at the table and good conversation with the attendees.
CCHF is committed to a health care system that is patient centered, protects patient privacy, and is free market driven. CCHF drafts legislation, meets with legislators, and makes fact-based arguments in the public square. Perhaps more exciting is the role they are now playing to help grow the existing free market for health care. Priorities over the next year include stopping COVID vaccine mandates, promoting free-market health care via WEDGE, which is a free trade zone for health care and gaining approval for ivermectin to be available over the counter. CCHF leader Twila Brase is optimistic that there will be bipartisan support for stronger health privacy laws at the state level.
The featured speaker at the event was Dr Scott Atlas. More information can be found here.