John Tuma’s Capitol Update – Summer Edition, August 13, 2010

“You go tell your boss that I’ve got a loaded .30-.30 Winchester sitting in the corner of this cabin, and the next person in a uniform who steps on my dock is going to get blown into the lake.”

- Benny Ambrose, April 3, 1963*

In the early 1960s as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northeastern Minnesota took its next major step toward a wilderness designation, Dorothy Molter and Benny Ambrose found themselves at the center of a brewing storm.  A faction of local citizens unhappy with the federal intrusion and land use restrictions elevated Molter and Ambrose to folk hero status.  Neither of them looked for this battle with the federal government, nor were they looking for the notoriety.  They just wanted to live out their years in the wilderness they loved.

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“This afternoon we will take the Skyline Trail, the trail that more than any other gives us a feeling of distance and space.  Vistas of wilderness will be ours, frozen swamps and lakes and winding trails through the woods.  Along that trail towards sunset the light effects are more striking than anywhere else, for here the whole country lies before us.”

- Sigurd Olson, The Singing Wilderness, 1956

Sigurd Olson is a giant in Minnesota’s conservation history as one of the leading voices during the mid-1900s for the preservation of wild places like our beloved Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Voyageurs National Park.  He was also a literary acclaimed writer, penning his classic, The Singing Wilderness, in 1956, a must-read for any environmental activist.  So respected was Olson that his likeness is one of only a few busts displayed within our State Capitol.  It seems almost providential that Olson’s bust stands guard to Capitol Committee Room 107 where most of the Senate environment and conservation issues are addressed. 

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John Tuma’s Capitol Update for May 18, 2010

“I rolled off the pony in a heap.  I staggered toward the stockade gate and fell headlong through the door of a house, where I lay in a stupor for hours.”
- Sam Brown, Fort Wadsworth, Dakota Territory, 1866

Sam Brown was a legendary frontiersman.  He was the son of Major Joseph R. Brown, for whom Browns Valley was named.  That valley lies between the headwaters of the Red and Minnesota Rivers on the western border of Minnesota; right at the tip of that little bump you see on the state map on our western border.

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John Tuma’s Capitol Update for May 14, 2010

“It’s very confusing, and very wonderful.  People disagree, they get angry — and they do it in public and nobody dies.”
- Idil Abdull, May 11, 2010

On Wednesday, Warren Wolfe of the Star Tribune provided us with one of the more pleasant stories from the State Capitol, that of 36-year-old Somali-born Idil Abdull.   She is a citizen lobbyist from Burnsville working to make some changes in a bill to protect Somali autistic children.  “Lobby of one: Making sense of Legislature” provides an interesting perspective of our American legislative experiment in democracy, Minnesota style, through the eyes of a newcomer to our land of immigrants.  Ms. Abdull provides us with a refreshingly honest citizen’s perspective. 

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John Tuma’s Capitol Update – Supplemental Edition for May 11, 2010

Did you know that May 11 is Statehood Day in Minnesota?  This is the day Congress ratified Minnesota’s acceptance into the Union back in 1858.  The great state of Minnesota is 152 years old today.  In typical historical fashion, the Minnesota legislative session is in the midst of its traditional end of session train wreck this rainy and gloomy Statehood Day.  Here is a brief update on where the Minnesota Environmental Partnership’s (MEP) legislative priority issues are on this Tuesday morning as the session careens to its sudden end.

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John Tuma’s Capitol Update – April 29, 2010

“He advocated a constitutional amendment to limit state spending increases to no more than inflation plus 1%. Grunseth saw this as a way to distinguish his candidacy from the others. At this time all the candidates were sounding the same basic themes. All were pro-life (for now), pro-environment, pro-education.”

- Leon Oistad and David Hoium, There Is No November, 1991*

In 1990 Minnesota experienced one of the most bizarre gubernatorial elections in its history. The campaign of Republican-endorsed candidate John Grunseth melted down in the midst of allegations of sexual impropriety. Grunseth withdrew only 12 days prior to the election, resulting in Arne Carlson being placed on the ballot as the Republican candidate after a second-place finish in the primary, allowing him to go on to eventually win the election. Carlson’s victory was due in part to DFL Governor Rudy Perpich’s campaign having become tainted with the negative attacks against Grunseth in the last month of the election, even though it was revealed after the election that most of the negative Grunseth information was dug up and spread around by Carlson’s campaign operatives.

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John 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. 

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John Tuma’s Capitol Update – April 2, 2010

“Fire!”

Slightly after 9 p.m. on March 1, 1881, when the Minnesota Senate was in one of those long and tedious end of session meetings, a shocked senator happened to look out of the main doors of the Senate chamber to see the grand staircase of the Capitol engulfed in flames.  He quickly screeched out an alert and when the stunned Senate realized that their only route out of the Capitol was engulfed in an impassable wall of flames, pandemonium broke out.

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On its first full day of hearing presentations from groups requesting money for the 2008 funding cycle, the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR) reviewed fifteen project requests.  Each proposal was only allotted one-half hour and Chair David Hartwell did his best to keep the meeting on pace.  Much to the consternation of several members who felt they were not getting time to fully vet the issues, Chair Hartwell had to resort to cutting questioning short on several occasions. (more…)

On Tuesday, October 9th, the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR) met to decide which projects will be invited to give presentations to the Commission, hear three presentations for the 2008 funding cycle, and approve a report on Minimum Standards for Forest Conservation Easements.  [Up to this point, the LCCMR has largely been meeting to discuss big picture issues such as developing a statewide conservation plan, how to prioritize appropriations for the 2008 funding cycle, and how conservation easements funded with Environment Trust Fund monies could impact mining rights in the state.  Today was the first day that the Commission heard presentations from groups looking for funding, and the meeting was not without its share of controversy.] (more…)