Skip to main content

Stop Guilt by Association Bill; Call/email now


Hello Climate Champions!
The legislature is currently considering a particularly nasty bill that would criminalize organizing and activism in a way that we find deeply troubling, so we're asking you to contact your legislators about it.
What is it?
HF3693 / SF 3463 is being called the “guilty by association” bill. It creates harsher criminal charges on people who trespass on critical infrastructure. It also imposes liability on those who are seen as having helped the person who has trespassed by educating, recruiting, hiring, etc. that individual. This bill ups the trespassing charge from a misdemeanor to a felony. This bill has recently passed through committees in the House and Senate, and is ready to go for a floor vote when the Representatives and Senators return from spring recess this week.
What does that mean?
  • Critical infrastructure is infrastructure that is seen as vitally important to the functioning of daily life such as power, water, fuel, etc.
  • An argument against the bill is that it is very vague, so it is hard to know what it really means! Could it (if enacted) be interpreted that providing a meeting space to those who eventually commit an act of felony trespass makes the provider of the meeting place also liable? The language could be interpreted in a variety of troubling ways. The freedom to assemble is a constitutional right.


Why are we worried?
There are laws already on the books that protect critical infrastructure from trespassing and conspiracy to commit trespass. This bill discourages Minnesotans from exercising their right to free speech and association. It seems to be in reaction to the protests that we have seen in the past years like the pipeline protests. John Gordon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union - Minnesota, testified at both the House and Senate hearings, and said the bills were “unnecessary, unwise, and unconstitutional.”  It is critical to the functioning of a healthy democracy that this bill does not pass.
What can we do?
Call and write your legislators and the governor. (Scripts are attached!) Tell your friends and family to do the same.
When the bill comes up for a vote, we will be sending you an alert to give one final push to make sure that this bill does not pass! Be on the look out for this follow up action sometime next week. We will have about 24 hours notice on when the bill goes to a vote!

 Contacts for Senate District 9;
Rep. John Poston Rep.John.Poston@house.mn or 651-296-4293

Sen. Paul Gazelka 651-296-4875 or  Sen.Paul.Gazelka@senate.mn
Script
Hello _____. I am calling to strongly urge you to vote against HF3693 / SF3463. The protection of critical infrastructure is very important to the functioning of daily life, but there are already existing laws that protect critical infrastructure from trespass, making this bill unnecessary. Beyond that, the language of this bill is so vague that I fear that it will interfere with the ability of Minnesotans to participate our democracy through peaceful and legal means. The Director of the ACLU says these bills are “unnecessary, unwise, and unconstitutional.”  Vote no on HF3693 / SF3463!

If you are calling Governor Dayton, urge him to veto this bill, if  it comes to his desk.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Let us all walk in the foot steps of John Lewis

By John King In Selma, Alabama, on Sunday, March 7, 1965, John Lewis, standing in the lead of a long line of marchers, looked down from the crest of The Edmund Pettus Bridge at the line of police armed with clubs, whips and truncheons and said, “I am going to die here.” Lewis intended to lead the marchers from Selma to the capital Montgomery, to demand access to voting for Black people in Alabama. Sheriff Jim Clark lowered his gas mask and led the deputies, some on horseback and some on foot, into the line of marchers. Under swinging clubs and hooves trampling, Lewis was the first to go down. Women and children were not spared. Choking and blinded by tear gas, they were struck by clubs and truncheons wrapped with barbed wire. Lewis, with a fractured skull and a severe concussion, almost did die. The nearby Good Samaritan Hospital did not have enough beds to care for the injured marchers. A nation watched in horror as news footage of that bloody day appeared on T...
2 comments
Read more

More Republican dirty tricks

  As a Blue Dog Corporate Democrat, 7th District Rep. Collin Peterson’s votes in Congress go against the beliefs and convictions of progressive voters in our district. I’m one of those progressive 7th District voters. Like most average voters I rarely actually encounter my Member of Congress. However, I recall three encounters with Rep. Peterson over the many years I’ve been stuck with him. I met him at Mikey’s Restaurant, on Main Street in Long Prairie, when he was first campaigning for a seat in Congress. We were both young then and he was full of energy and inspired in me a sense of hope for positive change. Besides, I’d met the Republican incumbent. He was an older man who, it seemed, was operating on dead batteries. I was happy to vote for the energetic Peterson. Some years later I was a delegate to the DFL District convention in Bemidji. Peterson opposed a woman’s right to choose abortion. He was being challenged by a woman who supported the right to that choice. I gave...
Post a Comment
Read more

The bible should rule in the MN Senate, says Majority leader Gazelka

“A lot of my job frankly is stopping the onslaught of the left from continually moving us in a way that we know is contrary to the Bible,” Gazelka told the extremist Christian evangelical leader Andrew Wommack during an interview in November on Truth & Liberty, a weekly extreme right Christian on-line broadcast. Gazelka told Wommack that he is engaged in a spiritual battle as leader of the Minnesota Senate. Wommack in turn told Gazelka that opponents of conservative Christians are with “the spirit of Antichrist. What they call political correctness is nothing but demonic inspired and so … I can get by with stuff maybe you can’t.”  Gazelka didn’t disagree with the extremist opinion that opponents of conservative Christians are with the spirit of the Antichrist. He merely dissembled and claimed he was like Jesus who went among the sinners to convert them. Gazelka has always seen himself as a minister who intends to convert Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Sikhs, Bahai, ...
1 comment
Read more