I am informed and believe that you currently need to fork over an Honest Abe, five bucks, to run for an open seat on the City of Ramsey council. Think about it. A candidate tax.
How does that differ from a poll tax, in being an imposition to a citizen right?
Not only that. There's more -
So what's the poll tax equivalent, the candidate tax, were you to want to be among the "cast of thousands" who will be candidates for the open LaDoux and Berg Anoka County Commission seats, for the opportunity to win and from then on make all your friends call you "Commissioner" or have those really close to you be familiar enough to call you "Comish."
My information and belief is it takes TEN honest Abes for that, yes, fifty bucks, to get onto that ballot.
Is it constitutional? Has it been tested?
My guess is what's constitutional is what a robed bunch say is, including fictitous persons, corporations having human rights of speech; so guess if it reached Minnesota's esteemed bunch - which has become "Pawlentyized," a term apart from "bastardized" but in my mind having a comparable meaning.
Read this.
Read this.
That new guy - it is scary. He looks like a young Scalia, at least in the Minn Post photo.
Whoa. Too much to stomach. Clarence Thomas as his "mentor." Clerking for Thomas and not smart enough once there to figure a way to dump the follower and get to clerk for Scalia himself, the leader in that pairing of "Justices."
YOU GOTTA PAY TO PLAY.
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Is that just?
Does justice matter? It's a governmental requirement after all, and "Justice" is an abstract concept while government is - what, a social contract? Have you signed the contract, or merely been born into it?