Tag: Minnesota

Those who say crime doesn’t pay obviously never took up crime as a profession:

State lawmakers got their first pay hike in years, courtesy of Minnesota voters. The salary for the state’s part-time lawmakers rose sharply — from $31,141 a year, to $45,000. But that does not include money they also receive for their daily expenses.

House members receive $66 dollars a day for expenses, on top of their salaries. That’s seven days a week during the legislative session, no receipts required. In 2017, Representatives got an average of $8,812 in per diem, bringing total pay to almost $53,812.

$45,000 a year might not seem like a lot but as the story noted legislators in Minnesota only work part time. In addition to the rather sizable salary for doing absolutely nothing productive the legislators also get a pretty decent per diem.

Imagine getting paid $53,812 per year to rob everybody in a state for a short stint every year. In addition to the salary you receive from that you are also in a position to make political deals. You can promise companies legislation that will hinder their competitors for a fee (not directly payable in cash to your bank account but you end up receiving it in a roundabout manner in order to avoid accusations of corruption). On top of that you can also hold another job.

Crime pays quite well in Minnesota.

Sometimes I wish that I was a politician because then I could vote myself a raise whenever I wanted one:

MINNEAPOLIS (KMSP) – The Minneapolis City Council last Friday approved a pay raise for all its members and the incoming mayor starting in 2018, according to public documents.

Though the resolution was not previously on the agenda or passed through any standing committees, outgoing Council President Barb Johnson proposed the measure at this year’s final meeting to give each member of the Council and the mayor a $10,000 salary increase, with annual raises matching those given to other city employees through collective bargaining agreements. The proposal passed unanimously, though no period of public comment was noted in the meeting’s minutes.

Politicians who vote themselves raises like to make any number of excuses. The most common excuse is that any vote for a raise doesn’t take effect until after the newly elected politicians take office so they’re not actually voting themselves a raise. However, with such a high incumbency rate in this country voting for a raise for the next set of politicians is usually the same as voting themselves a raise so that excuse is incredibly feeble. Other politicians try to justify giving themselves raises by claiming that they do a hard job. But robbing people and forcing them to do their bidding isn’t terribly hard since they have an army of uniformed thugs willing to do their dirty work.

Of course the denizens of Minneapolis could always opt to replace the entire city council but the next set of politicians will do the exact same thing because almost nobody is going to turn down the opportunity to give themselves a raise. This is what democracy looks like.

The resent glut of sexual assault and harassment reports has been both sad and fascinating to watch. On the one hand it’s sad to see just how many influential individuals have a record of sexual assault and harassment. On the other hand it’s fascinating to watch the accused fall like houses of cards.

Two of Minnesota’s lawmakers, one from the red team and the other from the blue team, announced that they’re resigning their positions due to sexual harassment allegations against them:

A pair of Minnesota state lawmakers — one a DFL senator, the other a Republican representative — announced Tuesday that they will resign from office in the wake of sexual harassment allegations.

Word of the resignations of Sen. Dan Schoen and Rep. Tony Cornish came within two hours of each other, capping a stunning sequence of events that vividly demonstrated a new awareness of what many insiders say has been a long-standing tolerance of mistreatment of women working at Minnesota’s Capitol. Both men had been under pressure from leaders of their parties to resign.

I know very little about Schoen but I’m familiar with Cornish because he has played a major role in both gun rights and criminal law. While he was fairly reliable from the position of gun rights, he was an absolute bastard when it came to criminal law. As an ex-cop he was never shy about his absolute obedience to the blue line. He fought every piece of legislation that attempted to hold Minnesota’s law enforcers accountable. Moreover, he seemed gleeful about every piece of legislation that would make the lives of people found guilty of crimes, even the most petty of crimes, more miserable. Seeing this hardcore law and order politician fall from grace because he violated the law is karma in action.

Hopefully somebody will manage to convince Franken, Minnesota’s other grabby politician, to resign.