Flooding The State Constitution With Amendments Circumvents Its Higher Purpose

There is a certain perverseness for a state political party that claims to hold the state Constitution in such reverence to want to clutter that same sacred document with a bunch of nonsensical amendments.

When a Constitution needs amending, it is usually for very special reasons. Maybe to correct an unjust interpretation of ambiguous language, or to address a situation that cannot be fixed legislatively.

The use of amending the Constitution was never meant to be a way of legislating. Frankly, the mechanics of adding amendments in Minnesota is much too easy. One branch of government, the Legislature, with a simple majority vote, can by bypass the two other branches of government and move an amendment directly to the ballot.  

Although a vote of the citizenry is, in theory, a true democratic initiative, there is a danger of pushing an amendment to a vote before it has been thoroughly vetted in public discourse. The danger is even greater today when the money changers can buy public opinion.

During this session, the GOP majorities have taken the use of constitutional amendments into a new realm. They have taken the one branch rule concept and utilized it as a tool of choice.

All of the current amendments under consideration, or already on the ballot, can be dealt with in much simpler ways and without defacing the state's founding document. Let's take a look at a few of them in more detail.

1. The Marriage (Discrimination) Amendment. This is already placed on the November ballot, but at the same time, has absolutely no reason to be there. Minnesota law already prohibits same sex marriage. Even though I disagree with it, the DOMA law addresses this situation specifically. Still our GOP legislative friends are not comfortable with the ability of this law to withstand court challenge. So they want to tie the hands of the court by making this same law a constitutional amendment.

The proponents of this amendment are not satisfied that the current generation of Minnesotans are locked into current law, they want to make sure that future generations are locked into it as well. And they move forward with this, even with the growing evidence that the future could very well have a very different viewpoint on the discriminatory nature of current DOMA regulations. This faulty process is much like the historical attempt, at the federal level, to lock in the moral conviction of one generation's feelings about alcohol via the prohibition amendment. Of course we all now know that this was a colossal failure and was repealed a few years later. Even if you favor the workings of the Marriage Amendment, it is grossly unfair to cement this into our Constitution. A document that has been held to the purpose of upholding individual rights, and thwarting discriminatory behavior, as part of its founding principles.

2. Photo ID for Voting. Even if you believe this is necessary, it is still not a valid reason for a constitutional amendment. This needs to be dealt with legislatively. We have had a few attempts at a legislative remedy for this... one Democrat and one Republican. But the bills were never dealt with on a bipartisan basis and two opposite party governors vetoed the respective legislation. But is that a reason to give up? Is that a reason to take one partisan answer and lock it into the Constitution? Absolutely not. It is the Legislature's responsibility to find an acceptable compromise. To take this to amendment status is a failure of negotiation. If every failure of negotiation ends up as constitutional issues, then we will have a flawed document indeed.

3. Right To Work Amendment. This is another issue that should be debated and resolved at the legislative level. There are a number of related pieces of this type of legislation in various other states which are difficult to explain and even more difficult to fully understand in full context. The simplistic name of the amendment does not allow for serious discussion of what this would entail in the work place. Rushing it into amendment status without a thorough legislative debate is just plain wrong... and quite frankly, dishonest. The public needs to know exactly what they are voting on when changing their governing document.

4. 60% Majority Vote To Raise Taxes. Another legislative cop out. Staking out a partisan tax position and placing it into the Constitution is tying the hands of future legislatures. Serious consequences can result when legislative budget options are removed; we have two prime examples in California and Colorado. These states have already placed into law similar types of tax increase restrictions. Budgets there have turned into chaotic "free for alls." In these cases, a party stubbornly holding to a partisan stance can leave a state with few budget options. Regardless of how you feel about this type of budgetary tactic, it should never, ever be cemented into the state Constitution.

5. Prohibiting State Government Shutdowns. Even though shutdowns are a painful situation, this, too, should not be part of the Constitution. It is still a legislative/executive branch tool that serves a purpose—even if it is an unpalatable one. Adding constitutional amendments to change or eliminate legislative and executive options is a silly game that should not be played. We have a history of how we legislate that has a lot of different dynamic functions... or a more recent description might be dysfunctions. But changing those dynamics can have unpredictable and possibly detrimental consequences. Once they are locked into the Constitution, it will be difficult to retrace our steps.

We have tinkered with our state Constitution via the amendment process more than we should have in the past. Even the Legacy Amendment that was passed recently should have been vetted more in the Legislature before moving to an amendment status.

Minnesota's process of amending the Constitution is easier than federal changes to the U.S. Constitution and easier than many other states for their own constitutions. Too easy. The temptation has been much too great for a Legislature, determined to stick to a strict agenda, to utilize the amendment process. When legislative compromise is thwarted as the preferable option, then pushing that agenda around the governor or around the courts has now become the option of choice... at least for this GOP majority.

It is a wrong agenda. It is wrong for the future of Minnesota; wrong for its future citizens; and wrong for our sacred state document. We need to just Vote No on all amendments... to protect the Minnesota Constitution.

-Dave Mindeman