Innovative teacher contract passes

Woo hoo! In an update to this post, Minneapolis teachers yesterday ratified a contract that, rather unexpectedly, gives principals the right to pick their staffs -- rather than letting teachers pick their own positions based on seniority.

The vote wasn't even close: 68.72% in favor. Teachers also get a 2% raise this year and a 1% raise next year.

It'll be interesting to see what happens next year when principals start assembling their staffs. But this is good news overall, putting the interests of students first.


education, Minnesota, politics, midtopia

An unusual school contract

This one caught me by surprise. Over in the troubled Minneapolis school district, teachers have tentatively agreed to let principals pick their staff -- rather than forcing them to pick teachers by seniority.

A lot of rank-and-file teachers aren't particularly happy with the idea, but I hope it survives. Seniority is a wonderful way to reward long-serving workers, giving them very strong job security. But the downside is that you're picking teachers by longevity, not talent. The two aren't necessarily linked, and even great teachers can get burned out as they get older. In those cases, what's good for the teacher isn't what's good for the students or the school.

My oldest daughter has had two wonderful-but-young teachers. Both were uprooted because they lacked seniority. One had to change from kindergarten (her strength and love) to first grade. The other had to leave the district. My daughter now is taught by an older teacher -- who does okay, but is not inspired. Even in a meritocracy not every teacher can be a marvel, but it is always sad to see teachers you love forced to go elsewhere simply because they lacked seniority.

Teachers do have a legitimate concern that the new plan would make it easier to get rid of the most senior -- and thus most expensive -- teachers. That's why most unions have a seniority rule, to make layoffs generally not worth the employer's while. Most of the time, when a union shop needs to shrink, employers opt for buyouts instead.

But that shouldn't be a big problem if principals aren't responsible for a teacher's salary. If they aren't the one's paying, they shouldn't care if a given teacher is pricey or cheap. I don't know how school budgets work, but that might be a tweak worth considering: principals fill slots, and the district picks up the bill.

Other criticisms are less persuasive.

With this being year-to-year, this doesn't give students the consistency in their schools. They need structure, and I can see a revolving door in the schools, and this would discourage teachers from even wanting to the work for the district.

This one doesn't fly. First, consistency is not a virtue in and of itself; if a teacher is consistently bad, they should go. Second, since students change grades (and teachers) every year, how much consistency can there be? Third, this assumes principals would want a school with high turnover. I can't think of a reason why they would.

Kudos to the teachers for agreeing (even tentatively) to a system that puts the kids' needs first. If it survives, I hope the district exercises it in good faith. If they don't, it will destroy trust and -- most likely -- precipitate a serious confrontation at the next contract negotiations.

I'm curious what Centrisity's Flash -- a working teacher in St. Paul -- thinks about all this. Flash? Care to comment? Or do a post of your own? I'd love to hear a teacher's perspective.

education, politics, midtopia

Two faces of religion

Two more examples of the good and bad sides of belief, both from Minnesota.

CHRIS LIND
On the bad side, there's the case of Chris Lind. He was fired as a hallway supervisor in the Prior-Lake/Savage school district for talking to students about abstinence, despite repeated warnings to stop. He would also question them about their sexual orientation, and reportedly told one student that it was "National Pick On Lesbians Day."

The story doesn't end there. After being fired, he went out and got elected to the school board, prompting the popular school superintendent, Tom Westerhaus, to resign in protest.

Now Lind is threatening to sue the school board he is now a member of, if it doesn't pay him a settlement for wrongful termination.

The school board may have overstepped its bounds a bit, because the cause for firing included activities Lind pursued in his off time, off campus. But unless the conversation is consensual, teachers have little to no business discussing an individual student's sex life, faith or sexual orientation, either on campus or off.

Outside the legal realm, overstepping boundaries is wrong and rude, even if it's motivated by sincere belief.

TOM AND POLLY WILEY
On the good side, there's the case of Tom and Polly Wiley, an Iowa couple who went on a missionary trip to Tanzania in early 2007, helping to put a concrete floor into a preschool near Arusha. There they met 5-year-old Zawadi Rajabu, a girl born with two club feet.
They found a surgeon who helped them find Dr. Mark Dahl, a St. Paul specialist who is one of only a handful of surgeons in the country familiar with an arcane technique for straightening club feet. He agreed to do the surgery for free, and the Wiley's then raised the money to fly Zawadi and her mother to the Twin Cities -- and found a Tanzanian physician that they could stay with while they're here.

Here's the difference between the two cases: Lind spent his time pointing out the flaws he perceived in others, while the Wileys simply lived their belief, showcasing their faith by humble example, compassion and sacrifice on behalf of others. Lind demonstrates why many people associate believers with sanctimony and the bedroom police; the Wiley's demonstrate the power and hope that true belief can engender.

minnesota, religion, politics, midtopia

Obscure election, outsized result

While the nation's attention was focused on Iowa, here in Minnesota we had our own touch of drama: a special election for the State Senate.

This normally wouldn't be a big deal. But it's got irony and surprisingly large political consequences.

Last fall, Gov. Tim Pawlenty (a Republican) appointed State Sen. Tom Neuville (also a Republican) to be a county judge. Neuville had been in the Senate since 1991, and his seat, in Northfield (a college town just south of the Twin Cities), was thought to be pretty safely Republican.

Until last night. That's when DFLer (Democrat to everybody else) Kevin Dahle defeated Republican Ray Cox, 55 percent to 42 percent, to win the seat.

So what, you might ask? Well, in the irony section, that one seat happens to be what the Senate DFL needed to secure a two-thirds majority -- giving them the power to override a Pawlenty veto.

So to recap: Gov. Tim Pawlenty, by appointing a Republican judge, ended up drastically weakening his political clout.

He's not totally irrelevant: the DFL only has 85 seats in the state House, five short of a veto-proof majority. But there often are enough Republican collaborators in that body to get an override on important issues. And if past trends continue, the DFL may secure a two-thirds majority in both houses this November -- the prospect of which makes it easier to find Republicans willing to support an override in the meantime.

November looks like it will be interesting on both a state and national level.

Pawlenty, Kevin Dahle, Minnesota, politics, midtopia

When one size doesn't fit all

The Star Tribune had an interesting piece this weekend about the latest refugee influx into Minnesota -- the Karen people of Burma (er, Myanmar), who are a growing presence in the St. Paul suburb of Roseville.

They're here because for years they've been part of an insurgency against Burma's military dictatorship. They're also a religious minority: about a third of them are Christian, and Burma is a majority Buddhist country.

But interesting as that is -- and it continues a Minnesota tradition of providing haven to various ethnic groups fleeing warfare in their homeland, like the Hmong and Somalis -- I found a detail buried near the bottom of the story to be telling in a different way.

The refugee kids -- about 140 -- know no English and are unfamiliar with American customs and culture. So the school district has been working overtime to educate them, scrambling to find translators and additional teachers.

Elementary schoolers attend regular classes for part of the day, but the nuances of English make it hard to keep up.

More than 10 percent of Roseville's students are classified as having limited English proficiency, meaning ELL teachers like Onstad have more than just Karen students to help, said Chris Sonenblum, district director of student services.

The Karen students need so much attention, however, that Onstad finds herself spending much of the day teaching the new refugees simple consonant-vowel-consonant words.

And no one expects much success when the students take state standardized tests for the first time, especially when everything, including how to fill out the test form, is new.

"We're teaching them how to bubble-in answers and write their name," Onstad said. "They're not going to be up to snuff to take grade-level tests."

That, undoubtedly, will hurt the district's chance of making "adequate yearly progress" with No Child Left Behind in coming years.

That's because NCLB requires that the kids meet testing standards after one year -- a flatly ridiculous requirement.

So unless an exception is made, the school district will be penalized thanks to circumstances beyond its control.

I have no problem with the idea of standardized testing -- it is useful, after all, to actually measure student achievement against a common standard, and it's a good way to identify underperforming schools that either need assistance or reform. My biggest gripes about NCLB were its inflexibility and the fact that Bush underfunded his own initiative.

The rigidity is on display in this example. It's ludicrous to expect immigrant kids to meet federal standards after only one year -- especially because they're going to hvae trouble just reading the test questions, much less answering them.

There are a million different kinds of students, and so when it comes to education policy "one size fits all" doesn't necessarily work. There needs to be flexibility for special situations like this one. If the federal government won't provide it, the state needs to weigh in on the side of the school district -- both as an advocate for change at the federal level and with specific help at the local level, so that the school district doesn't suffer unfairly while it absorbs this educational challenge.

Karen, education, Minnesota, politics, midtopia

Flag follies

Today the flag ban I wrote about earlier this year went into effect here in Minnesota. It is now officially illegal to buy an American flag made in a foreign country.

For the irony-challenged (like, say, the legislators who passed this piece of stupidity), that means you are now *not* free to buy our revered symbol of freedom from the vendor of your choice.

Puts a whole new -- indeed, Orwellian -- spin on "freedom isn't free", doesn't it?

Minnesota, politics, midtopia

Great moments in religion, 2007

As another holiday season winds to a close, we're reminded again why so many people look a bit askance at religion, and why conflating "religion" with "morality" is illogical. There are plenty of positives to religion -- as I've noted before. But as with any human institution, it's prone to abuse and misuse.

From the 2007 holiday season alone, we have the following cautionary tales:

HINDUS VS. CHRISTIANS
In India, home to many religious militants, Hindu attacks on Christians led to several days of riots and clashes. Though a small minority and initially the victims, some Christians went beyond defending themselves, engaging in retaliatory arson attacks against Hindu homes. The dispute began when a Christmas Eve show was perceived by hard-line Hindus as an attempt to encourage conversions -- a touchy subject in India: The state where the violence occurred, Orissa, even has a law requiring police permission before someone can change their religion.


CHRISTIANS VS. CHRISTIANS
What better way to honor the birthplace of Jesus than to fight over it? Sounds silly, but that's a not-uncommon occurrence at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, built over a grotto where many believe Jesus was born. The church is jointly managed by three different Christian sects: Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Armenian Apostolic. It would seem to be a triumph of interfaith cooperation -- were it not for the pitched battles between priests over such weighty matters as who gets to clean what part of the building. And the peacemakers? Palestinian policemen, who broke up the fight.

JEWS VS. MUSLIMS
Down the road, in Nablus, masked Jewish settlers from an illegal West Bank settlement attacked four Palestinian farmers, spraying them with pepper gas and beating them with sticks. Hardline Jewish settlers believe they are divinely ordained to settle Palestinian land, which is often simply appropriated without compensation to the landowner.

MUSLIMS VS. EVERYBODY
It's been a busy week for Islamist extremists. Though putatively fighting a holy war against Christian and Jewish oppressors, their targets of late have been mostly Muslim: Sunni tribesmen opposed to Al-Qaeda, Benazir Bhutto and, of course, those heretical Shiites -- some of whom have violence issues of their own.

SIMPLE STUPIDITY
Here we have not one, but two examples of believers -- in this case, Christians -- putting faith ahead of brains.

The first is the urban legend that the song "12 Days of Christmas" is really a coded recitation of Catholic beliefs, apparently based on little more than the fact that the song is really old, and that both it and Catholicism manage to contain some elements numbered up to twelve. Never mind that the symbolism ascribed to the song involves elements embraced both by Catholics and their Anglican persecutors, which kind of renders the whole exercise pointless.

The second is a small movement that sees Biblical significance in Interstate Highway 35, which runs through Minnesota.

Some believe I-35 might be shorthand that links the interstate to Isaiah 35:8 of the Bible: "And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not pass over it, and fools shall not err therein."

I-35 = Isaiah 35... get it? Never mind that there doesn't seem to be any explanation for the eight. There's also the weird logic outlined by one supporter, who points to tragic events -- the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, the 1963 assassination of JFK and killings and kidnappings in Laredo -- in arguing that I-35 is a "highway of holiness." Huh? If that's holiness, I don't want any part of it.

These folks don't represent the mainstream of their faith, of course. None of the examples here do. But they're a remarkably time-compressed compendium of all the ways that faith -- particularly partisan, unquestioning faith -- can lead to harmful results. Believe whatever works for you: but always be willing to tolerate the existence of, and interchange with, other beliefs. And always, always, always be willing to entertain the idea that more than one belief could be right -- or that you are the one who is wrong.

religion, politics, midtopia

Updates

I had all of Christmas week off -- and was down for most of it with various ailments, including the ever-popular stomach flu. I'm considering going in to work next week and asking my boss to convert those vacation days into sick time....

My Democratic in-laws gave me two political joke gifts: a Democratic Dream mug and a backward clock counting down the seconds remaining in the Bush presidency. (The Unemployed Philosophers Guild, where the mug came from, has a bunch of other fun political stuff. Like the Disappearing Civil Rights mug, Axis of Evil finger puppets and an Eleanor Roosevelt doll.

NO CAMERAS
Buhl, Minn., has decided against installing security cameras around town after enduring widespread scorn from the community.

A LITTLE CREDIT WOULD BE NICE
Didn't I say nearly the exact same thing a couple of weeks ago?

Buhl, Minnesota, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Northstar Line moving forward

Lots of good mass transit news will be arriving in Minnesota in time for the holidays, all of it having to do with the soon-to-be passed transportation bill.

The three big items contained in it:

1. $195 million to help rebuild the collapsed I-35W bridge.

2. $55 million for the Northstar commuter rail line, part of about $162 million in federal money that will eventually come our way to help pay for the $320 million project. It's on track to break ground in 2008, with a scheduled opening in 2009. And once the new Twins stadium is built, Northstar riders will be able to use the stadium station to switch to the Hiawatha light-rail line, giving them carless access to downtown Minneapolis, south Minneapolis, the Mall of America and the airport.

3. Speaking of light-rail, the bill also contains about $10 million for the planned Central Corridor extension of the system, which will connect downtown Minneapolis with downtown St. Paul.

By the way, the Northstar line, besides easing the need for additional highway lanes in the northern suburbs, is expected to produce about $1 billion in economic development along its route.

light rail, mass transit, politics, midtopia

Cameras proposed to fight non-existent crime

Welcome to Buhl, Minn. Population 1,000. It's a small, sleepy community where nothing much ever happens. Indeed, it disbanded its police force in 1999.

Which is why it clearly needs surveillance cameras to keep the peace.

Local law enforcement officials are pushing a plan to place six surveillance cameras around this Iron Range town of less than a thousand people.

Sgt. Pat McKenzie of the St. Louis County Sheriff's office, which has overseen law enforcement in Buhl since the city disbanded its police department in 1999, said it'd be a tool for solving and deterring crime. But some residents are asking: What crime?

The main plan is to put cameras on the three roads into town, to ensure that any out-of-town criminals are caught in videotape as they arrive. But they'd also put cameras at City Hall, the city beach and an industrial park.

If the good citizens of Buhl want cameras, of course, they can have them. But does anyone here think the surveillance society has gotten a little out of hand?

civil+liberties, surveillance, politics, midtopia

Bridge update

Some interesting political reactions to the 35W bridge collapse.

In Washington, the House quickly approved $250 million to rebuild it. That's rational, and unsurprising.

Here in Minnesota, Gov. Tim Pawlenty is suddenly willing to sign the gas-tax increase he vetoed in two previous sessions. He is expected to call a special session devoted exclusively to addressing years of deferred maintenance on highway infrastructure.

And state DFLers (Democrats to you out-of-state readers), to their credit, have been avoiding the blame game, focusing instead on what the policy reaction should be.

Of course, some things don't change. Lt. Gov. (and MNDOT Commissioner) Carol Molnau, whose political priorities have been opposing transit projects and the gas tax, crabbed about the change.

On a gas tax, she said, "we do need to look for resources we can count on long term." But in order to solve the problem, she said, "we would have to raise gas taxes 34 or 35 cents a gallon. I don't think the motoring public can sustain that."

First, let's just note that Molnau is scaremongering a bit: the gas tax is not the sole source of revenue for transportation spending.

But let's take her at face value. The gas tax is currently 20 cents a gallon, and has not been raised since 1988. You'd have to raise it 15 cents a gallon simply to account for inflation. Another 15 cents a gallon on top of that to deal with the backlog simply isn't that onerous -- and it's called being responsible.

Especially because, as I've argued before, the real problem is that gas isn't expensive enough. Not to mention the other benefits of forcing people make rational choices about energy use.

Important as it is to address the backlog of maintenance work, however, we should try to avoid overreacting to the problem. We're not going to suddenly have a rash of bridge collapses, and we shouldn't overspend on a frenzy of needless, emergency repair work. A crash maintenance program would:

1. Drive up the cost of the projects in the short term, thanks to scarcity of materials and labor;

2. Play havoc with travel times;

3. Lead to a repeat of #1 a few decades down the road, as all those freshly repaired bridges and roads start to wear out at the same time.

4. Make the whole thing less doable politically.

So it will be good if this disaster leads us to confront the consequences of deferred maintenance. But the response should take a medium view. Increase spending and move up repair timetables, but do it in such a way that the work (and cost) is spread out over a reasonable length of time, say 10 or 20 years.

Further, the cost of maintenance should be incorporated into our long-term planning, to ensure we're only building as much infrastructure as we're willing and able to maintain. Other considerations aside, there may be times when a light rail line or bus rapid transit will be the way to go because doing so saves on maintenance costs compared to a freeway of similar capacity.

I'm not at all confident that the response will be so measured. Instead, I expect to see a combination of two extremes: "spend a lot of money now" and "talk about it, but after the dust dies down continue doing little or nothing." With luck I will be pleasantly surprised, especially here in Minnesota.

35W bridge, politics, midtopia

Perspective

I tried to go over and see the downed bridge yesterday, but the police have blocked off access to all the obvious observation points. Which seems a bit misguided, given the hundreds of thousands of people who have some personal connection to the bridge, if only from driving over it thousands of times.

Meanwhile, Just to keep things in perspective, consider this: A bridge collapses in Minneapolis, killing at least five people and (it was thought at one time) as many as 30. It gets intense international media coverage, including television coverage from as far away as Japan.

Then yesterday, a train derailed in Congo, killing 100 people.

It merited a 10-line brief in my paper's world roundup.

For local media, it makes sense to focus on local events. And given that the bridge collapse occurred here, it makes sense that my paper would obsess over it. But I'm pretty sure the treatment would have been the same regardless. And I'm sure other papers had extensive coverage of the bridge collapse and the same short brief on the Congo crash -- if they mentioned it at all.

Again, for national media, it makes sense to pay more attention to homegrown events than things happening overseas. And for everyone, it's easier to get interested in stories where there is plenty of riveting video.

So this isn't an attempt to bash the media. But at the end of the day, 10 or 20 times as many people died in what must have been a horrific crash in Congo. Our local tragedy doesn't even begin to compare.

Count your blessings.

disaster, Minnesota, midtopia

Close calls

Frankly, I'm not in much of a mood for blogging today, as the Twin Cities absorbs the loss of the 35W bridge and the deaths of at least four and probably a couple of dozen people.

Traffic moved pretty well this morning, thanks to the state essentially turning an alternate highway into a freeway by turning off the traffic lights and blocking access from side streets. A new bridge will probably take two years to build, so they're also looking at longer-term fixes like turning road shoulders into extra lanes and things like that.

It seems like the bridge just got old and fatigued, and frequent inspections, while noting some issues, failed to spot the problems. Which may simply be a comment on how hard it can be to spot a weakening bridge.

One of my best friends from college normally is on that bridge around that time, commuting home. After the bridge fell, his wife spent a frantic hour or so trying to locate him, but the cellphone network was overloaded and she couldn't get through. Finally she sent her brother over to his office to look for his car. They found it; he had gotten stuck in a conference call. The bridge collapse and Twins game letting out meant he didn't get home until late into the night, but that was far better than the alternative.

Over at Centrisity, a friend of Flash's was on the centerspan that fell into the river. She's fine, but flip on over for a picture showing her car.

I work just a few blocks from the river. Later tonight I'm going to walk over and take a look.

Update: Added links to some of the information above. Meanwhile, the fingerpointing has already begun.

disaster, Minnesota, midtopia

Highway bridge collapses in Minneapolis

The Interstate 35W bridge across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed tonight, right at the end of rush hour.

So far, fatalities and injuries seem miraculously light, but that may just be a function of lack of information. It seems unlikely that there wouldn't be a substantial number of fatalities.

I don't use that bridge in my commute, although my wife drove across it twice earlier today. But we're all okay as are everybody we know.

Hope for the best.

Update: This is a major traffic artery. Tomorrow's commute is going to be a mess. And since it could take a year or more to rebuild the span, the Twin Cities are going to be a traffic mess for a long time.

disaster, Minnesota, midtopia

Ellison, conspiracies and overreaction

Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison -- the Minneapolis Democrat who is the nation's first Muslim congressman -- said something stupid Sunday.

On comparing Sept. 11 to the burning of the Reichstag building in Nazi Germany: "It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that. After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it and it put the leader of that country [Hitler] in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted. The fact is that I'm not saying [Sept. 11] was a [U.S.] plan, or anything like that because, you know, that's how they put you in the nut-ball box -- dismiss you."

Sorry, Keith. Saying something and then trying to disclaim it is not only intellectually discreditable -- it's not enough to keep you from being labeled a nutball on this point.

And what he was saying was dumb in and of itself. The Reichstag fire is an obvious parallel if you believe 9/11 was an inside job -- even if it's a parallel that fails on some key details. But it's irresponsible to give political and intellectual comfort to 9/11 conspiracy theorists.

Ellison could argue that he wasn't saying 9/11 was an inside job, only noting that the political effect of the WTC attack was similar to the effect of the Reichstag fire. Even if you accept that explanation, his words were inexcusably unclear on that point. A casual reading would lead a reasonable observer to conclude he does, indeed, think 9/11 was an inside job.

But reaction to Ellison's words demonstrate that nutballs on the other side of the ledger can actually make their own side come off worse for the encounter, even when dealing with such an easy target as the above.

Gary Gross at Let Freedom Ring (LFR), for example -- a semi-prominent member of the conservative blogosphere, with an average of 175 hits a day or so.

Gross' post notes the "scary" similarity between Ellison's use of the Reichstag metaphor and an earlier reference by Abdul Alim Musa, an American black Muslim who supports the Iranian government and is fairly radical, albeit in a nonviolent way.

Except that the use of the Reichstag metaphor is not even remotely surprising. As I noted above, it's an obvious historical reference to make if you want to suggest that the WTC was an inside job perpetrated for political reasons. The fact that two disparate sources refer to it is no more scary than any other mention of common referents. If Alim Musa said "It's raining cats and dogs", would anyone remark on the "scary" fact that many other Americans have used the exact same words?

Gross then segues into his second logical flaw, a comparison of Musa and CAIR's views on Osama bin Laden's role in 9/11. Musa flatly denied bin Laden's role. CAIR (a Muslim advocacy group) simply said (immediately after 9/11) that "if bin Laden was behind it, we condemn him." In Gross' world, that constitutes a "denial" by CAIR that bin Laden was involved -- at least until they were "shamed" into admitting it a couple of months later.

For logical flaw #3, Gross quotes Musa defending Hamas, then quotes CAIR criticizing the closing of a Muslim charity that the administration said supported Hamas. Except that CAIR does not express support for Hamas; it disputes the allegation that the charity supports Hamas militants.

Having made three flawed comparisons, Gross then uses logical flaw #4 to tie it all together with what he apparently thinks is a political version of the transitive property in mathematics:

1. Ellison (remember Ellison? This is a post about Ellison) equals Musa;

2. Musa equals CAIR;

3. Ergo, Ellison equals CAIR.

Except that his definition of "equal to" works something like this:

1. I don't like Bush;

2. Osama bin Laden doesn't like Bush.

3. Therefore, I agree with everything OBL does and says.

That's stupid enough; but Gross takes it one ludicrous degree further, akin to this:

4. OBL speaks Arabic;

5. Lots of Arabs speak Arabic;

6. Therefore, I speak Arabic (because of my connection to them through my supposed total agreement with OBL)

I assure you, I do not speak Arabic. And Gross' post reflects a disregard for facts and logic more breathtaking than anything Ellison said.

That doesn't excuse Ellison, who has a greater responsibility to reason thanks to his seat in Congress. He should make a clear statement on his position regarding 9/11, and stop giving aid and comfort to conspiracy theorists.

Reichstag, terrorism, 9-11, Ellison, politics, midtopia

Heffelfinger blows a gasket

You knew it was coming. Minnesota's former U.S. attorney Tom Heffelfinger -- who resigned while, unbeknownst to him, he was on a list of those that the administration was considering firing -- fired back Thursday after weeks of semisilence.

Heffelfinger, who says he had no idea anyone in Washington was thinking of firing him when he resigned his position as U.S. attorney in February 2006, has gradually become more open about his outrage over the controversy around the firing of U.S. attorneys as his name has been more publicly linked to it.

In remarks to the Bar Association in Minneapolis, he reached a new peak, saying among other things that "something is fundamentally broken within the Department of Justice."

And he read aloud from an e-mail, written by Kyle Sampson, then-chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, to other Justice Department officials under pressure to explain how particular U.S. attorneys had become candidates for dismissal.

Sampson suggested the attorneys on the list -- including Heffelfinger -- "had no federal prosecution experience when they took the job."

This elicited a burst of shocked laughter from the audience, many of whom knew Heffelfinger had been a Hennepin County prosecutor, a federal prosecutor, and had served a previous term as U.S. attorney for Minnesota under the first President Bush before the second President Bush appointed him in 2001.

It's not encouraging that the people in charge of firing decisions were so unaware of his record. It's like it was Amateur Hour in the Justice Department executive offices.

Heffelfinger, Goodling, Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Tanks for this

It's not my backyard, of course, but as a former tanker I fully support the family in this one.

WASECA, MINN. -- Tony Borglum has a thing for tanks. So much so that last fall, after he and his father traveled to England to buy one, they bought four more with the idea of opening a tank-riding business and obstacle course in their back yard.

"We were there a day and a half, and I got to thinking: 'There's nothing like this in the U.S.,' " said Borglum, 20, talking about the obstacle course in England where he bought the tanks and an armored personnel carrier. "I said, 'I think people would be interested. So let's bring some back and see what happens.' "

What happened has turned Waseca County into a battleground, pitting the Borglums and their plan against dozens of residents who are less than thrilled by the idea of seeing and hearing tanks and an armored personnel carrier rumbling across the land.

The vehicles involved are British and varied, and none of them are actually tanks. They include an Abbott self-propelled artillery piece, a FV432 armored personnel carrier and two armored cars: a Saladin and a Ferret.

Noisewise, I don't think the neighbors have much to worry about, though I agree with their concerns about the outdoor shooting ranges. I just wish ex-tankers could actually drive the things instead of merely riding on them. Ah, well.

Minnesota, armor, politics, midtopia

Here's your chance to balance the budget

Well, the Minnesota budget, that is.

Minnesota Public Radio has a semi-nifty interactive feature that lets you decide priorities, taxes and spending for the state. Even if you're not from Minnesota, it's still an educational exercise.

This biennium the job is made easier by the state's projected $2 billion surplus. You're making decisions on whether to increase spending or cut taxes, not making tough calls about where to cut back.

There are a few drawbacks that make it less than satisfying. First, you only have certain choices for how much to spend on each item. For instance, you're given a choice between sticking $50 million in reserves or $700 million -- nothing in between. And the particular programs funded at each spending level is decided for you, so you don't get to choose your priorities as specifically as I would like. For instance, if you want to increase the number of public defenders, you also have to increase judicial salaries.

With those caveats, here's how my budget ended up. All numbers reflect changes from current spending, not totals.

OVERVIEW
It turns out I'm something of a tax-and-spend kind of guy. I used up the surplus and added another $465 million in income tax increases. But that's somewhat misleading. It's mostly because I chose to greatly increase budget reserves. Had I not done that, I would have avoided raising taxes and been left with a $300 million surplus.

E-12 education: Mostly unchanged. $38 million extra to help poor families send their kids to pre-school. Not only is this good for the kids, it's essentially subsidized day care for working families.

Health and human services: $300 million to provide health insurance coverage to most of the state's uninsured kids and low-income adults, as well as giving small businesses a break on insurance costs. COLA increases for nursing homes, and $48 million to child welfare programs.

Tax relief: $300 million to restore Pawlenty's cuts in local government aid. No direct property tax relief or rebates. The Jesse Checks drew down our rainy-day funds and led directly to the budget crunches of recent years. I have no desire to repeat that.

Higher education: $155 million to the University of Minnesota for merit pay and research, $125 million to community colleges (which offer a more affordable education to a larger swath of students) and a minor $25 million to student aid to help offset expected tuition increases.

Debt, state agencies and veterans: $200 million to provide COLA increases for state workers.

Agriculture and the environment: I dislike agricultural subsidies, but this didn't let me slash those. I boosted spending by $200 million to fund the Clean Water Legacy, a 10-year effort to clean up polluted waters.

Jobs, housing and the arts: No increase.

Transportation: $65 million more to the Highway Trust Fund. No more trying to build critical infrastructure on the cheap as Pawlenty has attempted -- and failed.

Prisons: $100 million for maintenance, COLA raises and rehabilitaton programs for prisoners.

Courts and public defenders: $120 million boost. I mostly wanted to increase funding for public defenders, a critical shortcoming in our legal system. To do that I also had to increase judicial pay.

Budget reserves: Socked away $700 million to get the reserves up to where they belong: 5 percent of the two-year budget.

Personal income taxes: Raised the top personal income tax rate from 7.85 percent to 8.5 percent, generating an extra $465 million. I could have left taxes alone and settled for a smaller contribution to the budget reserves. But I chose this option for two reasons: It merely returns tax rates to where they were in 1998, and the additional burden is very small: $90 a year for a single taxpayer earning $100,000.

Corporate income taxes: No change. Not needed.

Sales and sin taxes: No change. Not needed, and these taxes are regressive.

ANALYSIS
So while I spent the surplus and then some, what did I spend it on? Budget reserves, local government aid, prisons/courts, the environment, higher education and health coverage for the vulnerable. All appropriate places for government spending, IMO. This was because I saw an opportunity to make investments that will pay off in the long term. If I had not chosen that route, it would have been easy to balance the budget and provide a tax cut while still improving services in key areas. I would have been fine with that outcome.

Beyond the raw numbers, the exercise is useful in making you think about the tradeoffs between taxes and services. But it also assumes our tax money is being spent efficiently and wisely. That's not always a safe assumption.

Once you complete the budget, you can compare your budget to others'. I was in the mainstream in most of my choices. The exceptions were:

I spent more than most: health care, local government aid, paying state workers, environment, public safety, budget reserves.

I spent less than most: K-12 education, property tax relief, jobs/housing/arts.

The most interesting stat: More than 80 percent of participants agree that rebates are bad idea.

Give it a try and let me know how you make out.

budget, minnesota, politics, midtopia

MAC puts hammer down on cabbies

One of the Muslim accomodation issues I wrote about last month has reached a resolution of sorts.

On an 11-0 vote Monday, Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) members voted to crack down on drivers refusing service, making Minnesota the first place in the country to decide how to treat Muslim cabbies who decline to transport alcohol- toting riders on religious grounds.

Starting May 11, any airport taxi drivers who refuse riders will face 30-day suspensions. Drivers will have their licenses revoked two years for a second offense.

This isn't a full resolution because some cabbies are considering suing on the grounds of religious discrimination.

One might ask what's the big deal, especially because the problem is rather small: Just 27 refusals of service out of 120,000 total rides during the holiday travel season. Why not just use the existing rules, in which a cabbie who refuses to accept a fare must go to the back of the taxi line and wait all over again?

The answer lies in another number: 75 percent, which is how many airport cabbies are Somali Muslims and thus likely to refuse an alcohol-carrying fare.

In some ways, this is the reverse of the Minneapolis Community and Technical College situation in the earlier blog entry. And the logic is the same: a minority can often reasonably be accomodated; but a majority must be watched lest it impose its views on the rest of us.

In the MCTC case, providing a footbath for Muslims is reasonable because it benefits everyone and Muslims are such a small minority of students that it cannot reasonably be argued that they are imposing their views or practices on nonMuslims.

In the taxi case, however, Muslims make up a strong majority of cabbies. Allowing them to discriminate against passengers carrying alcohol benefits only the cabbies and could make it very difficult for such passengers to get a ride, which makes it an unreasonable accomodation.

I suspect, however, we'll get to find out what a court thinks.

civil liberties, Minnesota, religion, politics, midtopia

Yet another Gonzales roundup

Over the weekend, Monica Goodling -- having taken the Fifth to avoid testifying before Congress -- abruptly resigned from the Justice Department, becoming the second high-ranking Justice official to become unemployed over this "overblown personnel matter," as Gonzales first referred to the prosecutor firings.

And Newt Gingrich became the latest Republican to say Gonzales is toast.

The most interesting thing about Goodling's firing -- besides the questions it raises, fair or not, about what she might have had to hide -- is that it highlights a two-pronged administration practice: Prizing loyalty above competence, and relying heavily on Pat Robertson's law school -- a poorly rated evangelical Christian institution -- as a source of those loyalists.

On the one hand, as with the prosecutor firings, the administration has every right to put anyone it wants in appointed posts. But that political power carries with it a public responsibility that the administration seems to have roundly ignored. The problem, as Andrew Cohen succinctly puts it:

There is no longer a meritocracy in place at the Justice Department when it comes to hiring decisions. Where the Department once was staffed by some of the best and brightest lawyers in the nation, now it has become a repository for the Monica Goodlings of the world. If you were a dedicated federal prosecutor, a Bush appointee, would you want some younger lawyer from some fourth-rate law school determining your future? You wouldn't. And yet that's precisely what happened here to our Gang of Eight. They weren't judged by the best and the brightest and the most seasoned and respected attorneys in the nation; they were judged by Monica Goodling, a legal disciple of Pat Robertson.

The fact that the appointees are Christian isn't the issue, although the law school in question does point out the pull that Pat Robertson and his fellow travelers still have on the GOP, to its detriment. Robertson, you may recall, is the caricature who blamed Hurricane Katrina on abortion, suggested that God would wipe out a gay-pride parade and who, along with Jerry Falwell, blamed 9/11 on abortion, feminism and gays. I'm unimpressed by the GOP's continued association with him.

No, the problem here is putting party and politics above all else. There's an old joke about how Republicans rail about government incompetence, and then prove it when they get elected. The Bush administration apparently failed to realize that it was meant to be a joke.

And it may be what led to situations like this:

Ms. Thompson, a purchasing official in the state’s Department of Administration, was accused by the United States attorney in Milwaukee, Steven Biskupic, of awarding a travel contract to a company whose chief executive contributed to the campaign of Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat. Ms. Thompson said the decision was made on the merits, but she was convicted and sent to prison before she could appeal.

The prosecution was a boon to Mr. Doyle’s opponent. Republicans ran a barrage of attack ads that purported to tie Ms. Thompson’s “corruption” to Mr. Doyle. Ms. Thompson was sentenced shortly before the election, which Governor Doyle won.

The Chicago-based United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit seemed shocked by the injustice of her conviction. It took the extraordinary step of releasing Ms. Thompson from prison immediately after hearing arguments, without waiting to issue a ruling. One of the judges hinted that Ms. Thompson may have been railroaded. “It strikes me that your evidence is beyond thin,” Judge Diane Wood told the lawyer from Mr. Biskupic’s office.

The fear that this sort of thing was commonplace is the main reason the prosecutor firings is a scandal, even though the firings themselves were legal. Gonzales lying to Congress was simply an inept cherry on top.

Coincidentally, here in Minnesota we may have a related development. Three managers in the office of recent U.S. attorney appointee Rachel Paulose are resigning and returning to prosecuting cases, apparently a reaction to Paulose's "abrasive" and "disrespectful" management style -- prompting a senior Justice Department official, John Kelly, to fly in to mediate.

It's a case of "he said, she said" at this point: Is Paulose the problem? Or is it her assistants? That said, it's highly unusual that three of them resigned at the same time -- taking demotions and pay cuts in the process -- when they had no problem working with her predecessor, Tom Heffelfinger.

This could just be a standard, apolitical personnel issue -- the kind that can roil any office regardless of politics or the administration in charge. Paulose's defenders, for example, say the three had problems taking direction from a young woman, which is plausible. But the timing is enough to make you go "hmmm."

Gingrich, Paulose, Goodling, Gonzales, politics, midtopia