MN To Keep Lt Governor For $750K A Year

Uploaded on Feb 18, 2010 / 1 view / 3 impressions / 0 comments

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Description

Why does Minnesota have a Lt. Governor? Other states don't and seem
to do just fine. So today, Minnesota Rep. Phyllis Kahn proposed a
constitutional amendment which abolishes the office of Lt.
Governor.

This amendment would eliminate the...

This amendment would eliminate the position of Lt. Governor.
Rep. Kahn argues that the position has very few duties and in an
effort to "make government smaller", we could eliminate this
position.

Rep Buesgens likens the position to an insurance policy. The
Governor and Lt. Governor are elected on the same platform and this
person is one heartbeat away from being governor. If something were
to happen to the Governor then the position would go to Secretary
of State, which has its own specific set of duties and was elected
to do those duties. He has fire insurance and has yet to use it but
isn't going to get rid of it because he so far hasn't had to use
it.

Rep Emmer at some point wanted to make sure we're not making
tongue in cheek comments about the current Lt. Governor. He feels
that she has done all the duties assigned to her, and done them
well, even if we don't see her all that often.

Rep. Kahn referenced getting rid of the State Treasurer which
had far more duties than the Lt. Governor constituents voted it
through easily. She also made comments on how infrequently she sees
the current Lt. Governnor or how often the representatives are in
contact with her.

Other representatives used the insurance policy anaology, one
saying he didn't like the analogy but that he supports the bill and
another saying "how many insurance policies can we have".

It was also discussed that the 3/4 of a million dollars they
would save by eliminating this position isn't a lot, but its
something. and in this economic climate every little bit helps.

The bill was defeated. Distributed by Tubemogul.

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