Keeping Idle Hands Busy
by Tuma, Minnesota Environmental PartnershipJohn Tuma’s Capitol Update – April 16, 2010
“This is a beautiful rivulet…it runs in a wide romantic valley. The bluffs which rise on both sides, are formed of a fine white sandstone. We stopped for a few moments on the edge of the bank…to enjoy the beautiful and refreshing scenery which offered itself to our view, and which formed a pleasing contrast with the burned and blasted appearance of the prairie.”
- William H. Keating, July 18, 1823
This vivid picture of the beauty of the Minnesota River Valley in 1823 was written by Professor William H. Keating from the University of Pennsylvania who was serving as a geologist with the exploration party of Major Stephen Long. The expedition was charged with exploring and mapping the St. Peter’s River (now known as the Minnesota River) to its source and the Red River to the trading outposts on the present day Canadian border. This was a highly successful and resourceful party who within four months traveled from Prairie du Chien at the mouth of the Wisconsin River on the Mississippi River along their intended course to the Canadian border and then from there taking the famed fur trading routes through Lake Winnipeg, Lake of the Woods, and Lake Superior on down to Detroit, Michigan.
The above account on July 18 was made on the banks of the “Chanshayape Watapa,” which is translated as “the stream of the tree painted red.” The best description of this name was given by an Italian exile by the name of Giacomo Beltrami who joined the expedition at Fort Snelling with the ambition of discovering the true source of the Mississippi River. He would later become disgruntled with the expedition, leaving with some Native American guides from Pembina on the Canadian border to head southeast where he erroneously claimed to have identified the source of the Mississippi River at Lake Julia in the county that would eventually bear his name. In his journal he described the meaning of the name “Red Wood” to be “from a tree which the (Native Americans) paint red every year, and for which they have a peculiar veneration…in this they adore the thunder which, as they think, comes from the Rocky Mountains.” It was for this reason the stream became known as Redwood which would later give name to the county and the community of Redwood Falls.
What is not well known about this expedition was that it almost failed from its inception at Prairie du Chien. While Major Long and his second-in-command, Lieutenant Martin Scott, were busy making arrangements for the commencement of the expedition at the trading post, the men of the expedition had a great deal of idle time to waste away. After provisions were acquired, Major Long left with a small party and a Native American guide on horseback in hopes of arriving early at Fort Snelling to make further arrangements, leaving Lieutenant Scott to bring a keelboat up the Mississippi River with the supplies. Upon Lieutenant Scott’s exit from Prairie du Chien, he soon ascertained that the crew in their idle time had disposed of a large quantity of liquor and were close to general mutiny when the order to proceed was given. It was only due to the stern threat of death to any disobedient oarsman that there was no mutiny. Apparently Lieutenant Scott proved to be a superior leader of men based on the fact that the keelboat set a record for transit from Prairie du Chien to Fort Snelling, despite allowing his oarsmen to sleep off the effects of the bottle after only covering nine miles on the first day.
Like an expedition through the untamed wilderness in the early 1800s, mutiny in the legislative process is always a concern for legislative leaders, particularly at this stage of the legislative session. The legislative session is at that point where most of the committee work has been done and the members are slogging through long and tedious hours in their chambers listening to a litany of monotonous debate. It is during such idle times that the rank and file start to scheme. Members of the majority think they know better strategies for ending a difficult session, and minority members have more time to dream up “gotcha” election-year amendments. It is at this time that legislative leaders often try to find activities to keep legislators busy. Many casual observers were surprised by the number of committees that were scheduling hearings this last week even though committee deadline has long passed.
Exasperating this tension in the air from inaction is the fact that the elections are coming up. The rank and file are restless to get out on the campaign trail. Add to that the fact that several key legislators have thrown their hats into the ring of the wide-open gubernatorial race, with endorsing conventions for the DFL candidates at the end of next week and Republican candidates in the following week. Then there is the uncertainty regarding the exact amount of federal dollars that should be coming from the jobs bill and the health care bill out of Washington, DC. The Legislature still needs to close the gap of the state’s budget by about $600 million before they leave and these dollars from Washington, DC are critical to closing the gap. Even though the Governor has bashed the deficit spending coming out of DC, even he has relied on a significant portion of his budget fix from the deficit spending he criticizes.
Therefore, this last week was marked by an eerie sense of impending mutiny within the legislative process. In the midst of that atmosphere, the Legislature did deal with some environmental provisions. The LCCMR (lottery proceeds) bill, HF2624, was addressed by the full Senate on Tuesday with a much better result than that in the House. When the bill was passed on the House floor, Rep. Tom Rukavina (DFL-Virginia) successfully deleted several land acquisition proposals recommended by the joint citizen and legislator commission. It has been a long-standing position of MEP members active in the LCCMR process to give great deference to the recommendations of the joint citizen and legislator commission who have done excellent work in the past. Therefore, when the bill came up for Senate action there was a great deal of concern that the Senate would continue to undo the good work of the commission.
With stellar leadership from Sen. Ellen Anderson (DFL-St. Paul), the chief author in the Senate, the package put together by the LCCMR was maintained without any amendments being adopted. Of the several amendments offered, the closest to success was one from Sen. Julianne Ortman (R-Chanhassen) which would have restricted any use of the money to purchase land to be done by eminent domain. It was a strange amendment in that all the land purchases through LCCMR are done through a willing and voluntary transaction. Although it would have only been an unfortunate distraction, the amendment was defeated on a 33-33 tie vote. All other amendments failed by a wide margin and the Rukavina language was offered as an amendment by Sen. Tom Bakk (DFL – Cook), but withdrawn before a vote. It was withdrawn because it would have likely failed by a wide margin, establishing a strong Senate position against the provision going into the conference committee. It’s at this conference committee that we hope the LCCMR recommendations can be restored. The Senate passed HF2624 by a wide margin of 58 to 6.
On the House side, the fruits of the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Constitutional Amendment are starting to be harvested and, to the relief of those monitoring the appropriation of the sales tax dollars, the House did an excellent job of following the recommendation of the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council (LSOHC). The House Cultural and Outdoor Resource Finance Division, chaired by Rep. Mary Murphy (DFL – Hermantown), approved their committee bill appropriating this year’s funds from the sales tax proceeds on a strong bipartisan voice vote. Most of the money available for spending was in the outdoor and land portion of the sales tax proceeds. The Legislature followed the LSOHC’s recommendations exactly, investing nearly $59 million in a broad range of projects from prairie restoration to trout stream protection. The package was very balanced in both the type of projects and their location. Those who were strong supporters of the constitutional amendment should be very thankful for the work of the LSOHC and the House committee. The committee bill will now be introduced as a bill for consideration by the full House Finance Committee and will likely be taken up on the floor next week. The Senate bill that also respects the LSOHC’s recommendations is awaiting action in the Senate.
The House Finance Committee approved the omnibus environment finance bill (HF3702) on Wednesday. Rep. Kate Knuth (DFL-New Brighton) successfully amended the bill with a moratorium on permits for hazardous waste incineration facilities until March 1, 2011. The moratorium is directed toward a Cottage Grove incineration facility. The bill also has some excellent provisions regarding sighting and financial assurance for landfills promoted by Rep. Julie Bunn (DFL-Lake Elmo).
Finally, in the energy area, there was a small unsuccessful attempt at mutiny in the House to repeal the moratorium on importing electricity produced by dirty coal plants. Republican gubernatorial candidate Rep. Tom Emmer (Delano) offered an amendment to repeal the moratorium to a bill regarding Public Utility Commission governance. This amendment was promoted by North Dakota, who wants to ship in more electricity from its coal fields. They have threatened to sue the State of Minnesota, but those promoting clean energy are confident that our law would withstand a U.S. constitutional commerce clause challenge. Apparently Emmer’s gubernatorial platform is to surrender to any threats of litigation from North Dakota.
Rumor has it that the Legislature will take a break for a couple of days later next week to allow for the DFL State Convention. It will also allow the leadership a break from potential mutiny from the rank and file for a few days. We will see how effective our legislative leaders are as the challenging final days of session are upon us. Hopefully they will show the same resourcefulness and strength in leadership initiated by Lieutenant Scott.
