Capitol Update from MEP’s lobbyist at the Capitol – John Tuma

 ”That’s different is indispensable in Minnesota… That’s different means you have an opinion, but you’re holding back the details.”

Howard Mohr

How to Talk Minnesotan*

Having five generations of roots here in Minnesota, I enjoy Howard Mohr’s little book on how to speak Minnesotan.  It is absolutely hilarious and so true – ya know.  We definitely have some unusual ways of putting things.  So when those of us from Minnesota say that “they’re different”, we pretty much know what we’re saying without having to say it.  It would be so un-Minnesotan to delve into the details, but we all know what we mean.  There is no need to expound on the term “different”; it is always in relation to something that is in the negative.  Mohr didn’t clearly explain that negative thing in his paragraph on the subject, but maybe that’s because it’s so understood.  It’s on pages 3 and 4 of his book if you care to read it.

This term came to mind when researching the Minnesota constitutional provision reserving the right of farmers to market directly to consumers that was adopted in 1906.  I was thrilled to find a recent Supreme Court case interpreting this constitutional amendment, which was decided in 2005; the long dormant constitutional protection rising up a century later to protect a new generation of pioneer farmers.  State v. Hartmann is the case of Diane and Michael Hartmann’s appeal of their conviction for selling custom processed meat that originated from their small organic farm.  One of their major arguments was that the 1906 constitutional amendment put forward by market gardener Alwin Rowe exempted them from obtaining any license to sell their product and the restrictions placed on the sale of custom processed meat.

As a student in law school (University of Minnesota – y’betcha), I learned it is important to have good facts as you develop your legal arguments.  Therefore, I was hoping that the farmers, Diane and Michael Hartmann, who brought the case citing protection from our state Constitution for the right to market directly to consumers would be the paragons of Minnesota farming virtue.  Dancing in my head were visions of the American Gothic painting looking something like Norwegian organic farmers standing in front of their clean-cut homestead desiring only to share the bounty of their beloved farm with their fellow Lutheran parishioners.

Alas, the best and kindest description I can give of the Hartmanns, based on the language from the reported cases, is that pleasant old Minnesota phrase “they’re different”.  My tip off was when Supreme Court Justice Helen Meyer in her majority opinion stated, “the Hartmanns do not make any other coherent constitutional claims”.  The only other information I could gather on this couple from the internet was an administrative lawsuit they took against the postmaster of Gibbon, Minnesota, for the postmaster’s refusal to continue to allow them to receive their mail as “general delivery” as opposed to having to get a P.O. Box or what most farmers would do, get a mailbox.

Further, I was hoping that their attorney would be one of those pillars of a small community — a man from a long line of lawyers serving in the family firm for years; a member of the Rotary club, golf course and a Friday evening bridge club with his wife of 25 years; four kids and dogs, ya know.  Alas, as I researched the attorney for a possible question or two about the legal theories in the case, I found that his license had been revoked only a year after the case was decided; something about mishandling client funds.  “Whatever.”  (*See page 4 of How to Speak Minnesotan.)

Even though my visions of the ideal farm family victimized by overzealous bureaucrats being defended by a small town lawyer looking like Gregory Peck strolling out of the pages of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird didn’t come true, the resulting legal action still provides a glimmer of hope for the growing local farming movement.  But first the bad side of the story. Like most pioneering organic farmers there was nothing orthodox about the Hartmanns’ approach to this legal matter. 

Diane and Michael Hartmann raised beef and hogs on their small farm outside Gibbon, Minnesota.  They had their animals “custom” processed at the nearby Lafayette City Meats.  These two small towns are a dozen miles or so north of New Ulm, lying in the beautiful farm country of the prairie pothole region, just north and west of the great bend in the Minnesota River. 

The term “custom” processing of meat refers to a method where a butcher processes a particular animal provided by an individual and returns the meat from that specific animal directly back to the customer.  Essentially they are just contracted to butcher the meat.  The law requires those packages to be stamped “not for sale” and the law forbids anybody from selling them on the open market.  The regulations regarding inspection of this meat is minimal compared to that required of meat heading to the general market.

In April of 2001, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) started a clandestine underground investigation of someone selling uninspected meat directly to consumers from the back of their van on the streets of Hutchinson in McLeod County.  The clandestine agents made two separate purchases of small quantities of custom process ground beef, wieners, pork chops, beef liver, and bacon.  (I hear Lafayette City Meats does an excellent job of smoking their bacon.  I wonder what the agents did with the evidence?)  The illegal sellers were, of course, the Hartmanns, who apparently traveled the 30 miles north on Highway 15 up to the regional center of Hutchinson.

On December 7, 2001 after one of these clandestine buys of the illegal contraband, the MDA issued the Hartmanns an order to stop selling food without a retail license and to stop selling custom processed meat.  The Hartmanns responded by sending a long rambling letter to the MDA informing the state of their interpretation of the statutes and Constitution.  They informed the regulators that failure to respond to their positions would constitute agreement and they would continue to sell their farm products.

The McLeod County Attorney, Michael K. Junge, tried to mail the Hartmanns a complaint, but there was no mailbox at their place of residence.  Remember, they had that little dispute with their postmaster.  The case was eventually submitted to the District Court where the Hartmanns were convicted on both counts of selling without a license and selling custom meat in violation of our state statutes.

The Hartmann’s attorney appealed the matter to the Minnesota Court of Appeals.  Minnesota has two layers of appellate courts.  The first is a three-judge panel at the lower Court of Appeals.  If a matter is significant enough, it could also then be accepted for review by the Minnesota Supreme Court in front of its seven-judge panel.  At the first level, the three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals sided with the State to create a very narrow interpretation of article 13 section 7 of the State Constitution regarding the rights of farmers to sell directly to their consumers.

The Court of Appeals took the position that article 13 section 7 only applied to individuals that sold door-to-door (peddlers) and those who “cultivated” their produce.  Therefore, apparently they felt that the constitutional amendment only covered door-to-door vegetable and fruit salesman.  Obviously they had visions of it only applying to Peter Jensen selling melons from his horse-drawn wagon in Minneapolis in 1904. (see the second in this serious of articles.) 

Also, the State vigorously argued that a constitutional amendment only covered “products” of the farm and that meant only the raw produce in its natural state.  For example, a farmer could sell berries, cream and live pigs because they are products of the farm, but preserves, butter, cheese or ham are not covered.  Further, the Court of Appeals indicated that it was reasonable for the State to ignore this constitutional amendment of the people if their actions were for the purpose of protecting the health of the general public.  Therefore, the Court of Appeals upheld the State action on both counts.  In other words, the Hartmanns did about as good as the Vikings in their four Super Bowls.  “Oh, for dumb” (*page 70, for ya non-Minnesotans)

Fortunately, despite the quite “different” approach taken by the Hartmanns, the Minnesota Supreme Court recognized the significance of interpreting this constitutional amendment a century later and accepted the case for review.  The concept of marketing directly to consumers had slowly faded after World War I, but it started to experience resurgence in Minnesota at the turn of our new century.  Like the dormant farmers markets coming back to life after a long winter, the forgotten great accomplishment of Alwin Rowe still had some punch for this new season of farmer marketing.  More about the Supreme Court’s action next week and it is a “heckuva deal”.  (That’s on page 71 if you’re keeping score*.)

* How to talk Minnesotan, A Visitor’s Guide, Howard Mohr, Penguin Group, 1987

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 2:50 pm by Jen and is filed under Food and Sustainable Agriculture, Legislature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.