Kresha - not voting; Posten - voting wrong

Newsletters from the elected representatives in Senate District 9 arrived in my in-box late last week. Representative Kresha's newsletter was enigmatic. Representative Posten was predictably disappointing.

I say Representative Kresha's newsletter was enigmatic because all his constituents learned was that his daughter was going to go to prom and that the legislature took some votes last week. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for the Representative's daughter, but the folks in the district didn't elect Ron to give them weekly updates on his kids.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Representative Ron is using his weekly reports on his kids, and the kids in Little Falls in general, to brand himself as the "nice-boy-next-door" who we sent to St. Paul to --- what? --- practice his extreme politics? Well, we won't worry about the latter. It's the "nice guy" part that counts. Right?!

Below Rep. Kresha's warm familial message in this weeks newsletter was this:

"It has been a very busy week at the Capitol, with five omnibus bills being debated on the House floor. So far, we’ve voted on the Education, Jobs and Energy, Health and Human Services, and Agriculture bills, with the Transportation bill currently being debated. Next week we will vote on the Higher Education, State Government, Public Safety, and Environment omnibus bills."

Omnibus bills are very complicated. As a citizen I'd appreciate my Representative giving me just a short explainer on each one. Then I might understand why he voted one way or the other.

But with Rep. Kresha there is no explainer. There is just this:

"While there are a lot of provisions in omnibus bills that I disagree with, it is important to remember that what has passed so far will not become law. The House and Senate bills and budgets are so far apart that any bill that comes back from conference committee will look very different than what has passed through either the House or the Senate."

So, not only do you not know what's in the Health and Human Services Omnibus bill, for example, you don't know how Kresha voted -- or if he voted at all. After all, why bother to vote when none of this stuff is going to become law anyway.

I bring up not voting at all because that's what Representative Ron has done on a couple of significant occasions lately.

Last week, as Kresha points out, the Minnesota House debated the Jobs and Energy Omnibus bill. Part of that bill is for Minnesota to require utilities to provide electricity from 100% renewable sources by 2050. As part of the debate Rep. Hornstein introduced an the following amendment:

“The legislature finds and declares that greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activities are a key cause of climate change.”

All Democrats voted for the amendment as did five Republicans. How did Kresha vote? He didn't. He was excused. So we don't know if he's a climate change denier or a climate hero. We do know he's a nice guy though.

Back when he first ran for the House of Representatives my family was publishing the local Spanish language newspaper. Ron Kresha told me, at that time, that he would represent all his constituents, including the Spanish speaking ones. He bought an advertisement in the newspaper that said exactly that. To this day he still runs that ad in the Spanish language paper every month.

So, when the vote came up for legislation to give drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants I figured we could count on Ron for a yes vote. After all, licenses for the undocumented are good for us all.

How did Representative Ron vote? He didn't. He ducked out. Was excused from doing his  job. So we don't know what Ron believes. But he's a very nice guy.

We do know what Representative John Posten believes. He voted against the 100% renewable standard and he's proud of it. Posten is proud to be against renewable energy. Gawd!