John Marty, as I understand things, is chief author of each. First:
SF 17 (companion bill, HF 276). One you have to love, if you despise Citizens United. Senate text:
Resolution requesting Congress to propose a constitutional amendment and, if Congress does not propose an amendment, applying to Congress to call a constitutional convention to propose an amendment clarifying the rights protected under the Constitution are the rights of natural persons and not the rights of artificial entities and that spending money to influence elections is not speech under the First Amendment
The Bill texts in both houses are identical but for inconsequential punctuation differences.
WOOF: Given how Harold Hamilton, wearing his Anoka County Watchdog hat, (along with his alleged building cotenant, Republican party insider and activist John Kysylyczyn, who ostensibly presents himself as responsible for the Anoka County Record, a website alleged by Kysylyczyn to be a newspaper and to be published from Hamilton's Micro Control business location in Anoka County and not from Kysylyczyn's home and day-job daycare business site in Roseville) barked so much and so loudly about "Citizens for Responsible Government" using a Citizens United approach to duly report with authorities as a PAC supporting candidates Hamilton did not/does not like; you would expect Hamilton to bark for the anti-PAC measure.
Given how Harold Hamilton, wearing his Taxpayer League Chairman hat, (who acting along with henchmen in Minnesota Citizens For Life, Inc.), used uber-conservative Indiana lawyer James Bopp Jr., who filed and litigated Citizens United, in Hamiltonian pet-project litigation arising in Minnesota aimed squarely at wanting to erect an Iron Curtain against financial disclosure by PACs; you would expect Hamilton to bark against the measure.
My guess: Hamilton barks out of both sides of his mouth, loudest as Krinkie's Henchman-Chairman - from a position presumably on the other end of the leash from Krinkie.
While inconsistency has been dismissed by some as a hob-goblin of petty minds, at least one long and firmly rooted consistency of the Watchdog exists. It is that Anoka County's Erhart brothers are and always have been the Watchdog's two favorite trees.
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Second bill; SF 18 (companion house measure, HF 76, "Minnesota Health Plan; all necessary health care guaranteed to be available and affordable for every Minnesotan; Minnesota Health Plan, Minnesota Health Board, Minnesota Health Fund, Office of Health Quality and Planning, patient advocacy ombudsman, and inspector general for the Minnesota Health Plan established; and money appropriated.").
Saying less now about this bill is not to suggest it is of less importance than SF 17.
It is more detailed, and readers should study it for now, while expecting a subsequent Crabgrass post focused entirely on The Minnesota Health Plan.