So proud of Minnesota. So proud to be a Minnesotan.
It’s really interesting that the age of the voter almost directly correlates to their percent chance of voting for the Minnesota ban on gay marriage prop. 64% of those 65 and older voted for it, only about 40% of 40 year olds and 20-something percent of 20-something year olds.
Still not happy the vote was so close in the first place (51-48), but the demographics tell you that such efforts are completely doomed as time goes on.
Figures. My car is fine and we have wine in the house. But considering how much sleep I got last night watching the election, I wish I were dead.
We did. The pro-6 ads went on & on (and on & on) about how many millions and billions of taxpayer dollars were being wasted, but the simple fact is that not one dollar of state money is going to be spent on the bridge. The funding is coming from Canada and private money.
From what I heard on the news, it’s possible that the state legislature could just pass a new Emergency Manager law. Of course, half of those “experts” are just pulling things out of their asses, so who knows. Still, it’ll be a bitter irony if the opponents of the EM law get exectly what they want, and their cities and school districts all wind up in Federal bankruptcy court as aresult.
The final results, with all precincts reporting:
30 - Yes 54%
31 - No 61%
32 - No 56%
33 - No 55%
34 - No 53%
35 - Yes 81%
36 - Yes 69%
37 - No 53%
38 - No 72%
39 - Yes 60%
40 - Yes 71%
One of my co-workers says that the school his daughter goes to had threatened some cutbacks had 30 not passed. However, nothing in 30 prevents the legislature from moving any existing money from the general fund that is set aside school funding over to something else - and one look at what happened with “the lottery money” tells me that this is a definite possibility.
The concept of an Emergency Manager may have some merit, but they have been far too quick to pull the trigger and far too free to do what they want. The worst overreach I can point too offhand is the way that they used the EM law to steal a public park on prime Lake Michigan frontage from the people of Benton Harbor so that the elite would have a new golf course.
In Florida we had 11 on the ballot, all sponsored by Republican state legislators. All but 3 failed. Good thing, as some were really egregious, e.g., increasing the (currently Pub-controlled) legislature’s power over the Supreme Court.
What bothers me most is the long term implications of such a law. With all his other faults, I at least trust Snyder to appoint the best person he can for the job; he has the business and financial networks to make a decent choice, and I do believe he has Michigan’s best interests in mind. I would have trusted Granholm to do the same, though she wouldn’t have had the same connections. I wouldn’t have trusted Engler not to just appoint some crony, and I certainly don’t trust the next governor, because we don’t have any idea who that is. What if the Michigan electorate in its infinite wisdom elects a governor with all the moral compunction of Kwame Kilpatrick? Given the Benton Harbor mess, we can see how even a good-intentioned appointment turned out. What if a governor appointed somebody who simply intended to loot the city for whatever it had left?