The nationally orchestrated GOP hate campaign against teachers and public employees; (whose unions are generally if not universally embracing the other major party nationwide); is clear from a quick:
Google = GOP republicans legislature compensation benefits minnesota teachers public employees
Hits turned up from beyond Minnesota.
Start with Strib coverage in-state,
here.
Plus a buffet: e.g.,
here,
here,
here,
here and
here - from California to New Jersey and places in between; those all being first page Google hits; never mind Google's banner above the return listing, "About 352,000 results (0.67 seconds)".
Union busting, pure and simple - and necessarily coordinated since chance parallelism of that scope is impossibly improbable.
Check the Minnesota 2010 GOP platform. It is one of the first page Google hits, this blurb per Google:
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat -
Quick View
Public employee retirement fund deficits should not be funded by taxes, fees or by
... employee
benefits should be abolished, allowing small businesses to assemble
.... We support reforming tenure, limiting public school
teachers' right to
.... Republicans support reinstating a citizen
legislature in
Minnesota by
...
www.mngop.com/pdfs/platform.pdf
GOP platform at Page 6, for example: Take away teacher right to strike and remove their job security. Why do that? It's unfair. Whose agenda is it? Who does it serve beyond those wanting to weaken the opposing party in the two-party system we unfortunately face [i.e., Ventura's coat tails proved incapable of budging us from a two party stranglehold, not that his views were all that good about all that much].
OKAY. Anyway -- Let's turn back the clock. Jesse time. Jesse's retrospective of Jesse time [2009, a time before his Fourth Amendment rights being violated led him to seek judicial redress against TSA, et al.].
Jesse's retrospective published 4 Dec. 2009; Strib,
this link, this screehshot - click it to enlarge and read:
With that read and understood; Strib again,
here, presents numbers to contemplate - although for our purposes inadequate since legislative cost, total for each house including expense accounts, benefits, and all for legislators and staff, are not broken out so that savings from dumping out the more expensive of the two houses will not be discernible. But do it. Do it anyway since two houses makes things more than twice as difficult to navigate, and dumping the more expensive house while making the other remaining one be on a two year service-election cycle could not add to the indirect economic costs (and waste) of campaigning for office and all that entails.
If you have a problem because too many politicians get entrenched as it is and if you put all the entrenched ones into a single chamber no new blood could surface; then term limits is the clear answer. Okay, that objection's gone if you go unicameral with term limits. Surely some very good and dedicated people would be returned to the private sector sooner than some might wish, in some cases; but it's a myth that the state is not filled with far more people capable of the job than ever get the opportunity and paycheck and benefits.
How retirement accounts would be handled, years to vest, partial vesting, fixed payout vs fixed yield from the fund as shepherded - all that can be worked out. And if it is fixed yield from the fund as shephered a side benefit would be an end to politicians turing a blind eye to how the fund gets mangled and mismanaged and what kind of management fees are extracted-extorted.
Clearly, beneficial that way too.
There is no downside; or if so, readers are invited to inform me of sound counter arguments to going unicameral, term limits, two year terms and not longer, and the more expensive of the two houses gets folded out with the numbers and districts set as currently exist for the remaining chamber.
It's easy in concept and without insurmountable implementation impediments.
There are impediments - of the incumbent human nature kind which must be hammered down.
"My ox being gored, no way, no how," is the institutional impediment and politicians should be slapped upside the head over that, to get them to act like normal people not thinking themselves a priviledged aristocracy or such.
Then -- if they walk the talk; they are or would be credible in casting stones. Staying in that clearly obvioius glass house and casting stones - that goes against old sayings, and old sayings exist because each often distills a great wisdom into a few fixed words.
Old sayings don't get old by being off point, verbose, or merely trendy. Polyester went out of style as do bad adages; while only the good ones, of the "glass houses - throw stones" quality, survive as timeless and always apt.
Playing out the cards might be bumpy, but the outcome of unicameral reform, with term limits, and with frequent two year facing of the electorate by all, that package seems worth the effort.
Now, the GOP says it is against "bureaucrats" having too much power and too good a deal. If you curb the legislative ranks, doesn't that mean the bureaucracy simply becomes more entrenched and powerful?
What about term limits there? A fifteen year or twenty year cap on service, what about that? Make it cumulative, so if one uses the revolving door, you come back not at zero, but with your past service in balance relative to how long you can sit. Make it a longer stint than for elected officials where six or eight years of one politician in one district is enough and time for change. Make it cumulative, administrative appointment/employment AND legislative service adding up to twenty years. Do not count school board or local service, since twenty years with that added might be too tight a pinch to the shoe. Exempt snow plow drivers and janitors and such - or don't, that's a policy question where the rank-and-file are not decision makers in much of any sense. But if a judge, that's against the twenty, just as with a governor or a DEED lawyer.
The military has gotten brass heavy with the volunteer combat arrangement and the nation draft-free for now; but it has up-or-out. You can stay more than twenty years, or less and not get the pension vesting, depending upon up, or out. It's got problems, making hierarchy stronger than perhaps best outside of fighting forces. Yet, perhaps that might be a step for the civil service; but
not to be approached until the legislature has mucked its own stable.
Demand that of them, or tell them to not monkey with the well-being and livelihood of others if they cannot face the music of THEIR OWN TUNE.
It's clear. It's simple.
It's something the loud-mouthed Republicans would never do. They'd rather not face a mirror, warts and all, and would prefer pushing around others as many probably did when younger, as schoolyard bullies.
Do you envision Hockey Tom as one easy to get along with in grade school vs. one who got his hands into other kids' lunch bags because it was a privilege of being more belligerent, larger, or quicker in a fight?
I envision an answer, but I'd like Hockey Tom to honestly say.
