Constitution-smashtitution.

Congressional leaders have found a common enemy in George W Bush. He sent the FBI into the Rayburn Office Building and raided the office of a memeber of Congress. Now I am not going to defend the alleged actions of William Jefferson, but his actions do not give new powers to the executive branch. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have released a joint statement condemming the actions of the executive branch.

The implications of a new Presidential power to rifle through the offices of memebers of Congress have frightened even the Republican House leadership. When it is all said and done we all value our freedoms. If we don't stand up for each other who will?

I can't find a link to the statement so here it is:

"No person is above the law, neither the one being investigated nor those conducting the investigation.

"The Justice Department was wrong to seize records from Congressman Jefferson's office in violation of the Constitutional principle of Separation of Powers, the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution, and the practice of the last 219 years. These constitutional principles were not designed by the Founding Fathers to place anyone above the law. Rather, they were designed to protect the Congress and the American people from abuses of power, and those principles deserve to be vigorously defended.

"Accordingly, the Justice Department must immediately return the papers it unconstitutionally seized. Once that is done, Congressman Jefferson can and should fully cooperate with the Justice Department's efforts, consistent with his constitutional rights.

"In addition, the Justice Department must immediately cease any further review of the documents it unconstitutionally seized, ensure that those who have reviewed the documents do not divulge their contents to the investigators, and move in Court to vitiate the search warrant."

Road Trip!

Town Hall Brewery made a list of top 50 places to have a beer in the country.

Mistakenly left off the list was Eric's house. The dude knows his beer and will sometimes share.

So who is up for a little beer trippin'?!?

Longing for Thoughtful Governance.

Lori Sturdvant got it right in her opinion piece today. Using a metro-wide sales tax to build public infrastructure was a great idea that died at the hands of political cynicism.

Steve Kelley had a good idea and in a perfect world the process should have polished the idea into something that works for everyone. It seems reasonable that the rate could have been decreased or phased in... at least considered.

But the debate about the Twins Stadium did not happen in a perfect world. It was in a world where building a 42,000 seat stadium and building the system to get people there are separate conversations. Where even suggesting they be linked is controversial!

You want to plan for the future? Why do you hate baseball?

On Missed Opportunities

Yea, so I don't really blog all that much. I hit the blog area of my favorites and I find myself reading capital brew-ha-ha and then following his trail of beer. I can't call those opportunities missed, because the choice was to post something about nothing to be read by no one or drink good beer. No opportunity cost, it past my personal CBA.

In order to miss an opportunity there has to be a chance for something better if a different choice is made. Take for example passing a half-assed stadium bill that is not even the best offer the team has made over the last several years and designating a tax for it without addressing ANY public infrastructure issue.

Building places people congregate (read: sport stadiums) without building the infrastructure to support it is stupid. Stadium solutions that do not address transit options are missed opportunities. Need I go into the whole we need to think of a future with less gas?

We should have built a Twins stadium and a Gopher Stadium along with the Central corridor and develop a good deal with a transit componet for the Vikings Stadium. That is a missed opportunity that we have to live with for years.

If the East Metro delegation had held together... It should be noted that there is no East Metro Delegation. It is an idea that Sharon Marko and Randy Kelly had worked to forge in the waning days of the 2005 session and never has really seemed to fit. But let's assume that Ramsey, Washington and Dakota County legislators worked together as well as Hennepin and Anoka or the Range Delegation. Their 10 votes in the House for the stadium (Charron, Entenza, Lesch, Lillie, McNamara, Mahoney, Meslow, Scalzie, Slawick, Thao) could have forced a real commitment to the Central corridor and true metro-wide development.

Steve Kelley even made the link in the Senate bill! All they had to do was work together and work smart and everyone would be happy. But today we have a crappy stadium plan that was passed in a very divisive manner that will have something for everyone to hate for years to come. I think there were very good ideas that were drowned out of this final bill. I think we missed a wonderful opportunity.