DFL Chutzpah

Below is a shot of a political flyer produced by the DFL in behalf of Rep. Jeremy Kalin (D-17B).

The DFL touts:

Rep. Kalin voted to put an end to members leaving the Legislature to become lobbyists and attempt to influence their former colleagues. (House Journal Page 680, 2007)

And he refuses to allow lobbyists to buy him expensive gifts or meals.

In this part of the brochure, the DFL says with a straight face:

Taylor was handpicked by his party leaders in St. Paul who voted against new rules that put an end to the lobbyists’ revolving door. (House Journal Page 680, 2007)

Now this is certainly magnanimous of Kalin. Wow is he an ethical person and those Republicans are just pathetic for voting against the rules regarding lobbyists!!

It’s true the Republicans voted against the rules regarding lobbying (House Journal, March 1, 2008, pages 680-702, find lobby info on page 702). It’s not too difficult to conceive that most Republicans voted against the referenced lobbying rules precisely because they voted against all the permanent rules proposed and adopted by the DFL controlled legislature. Undoubtedly there were rules that Republicans properly did not like and they had to vote up or down on the whole package. So the vote says nothing about any specific rule.

When the Republicans were in control of the House in 2005, they proposed and adopted rules that also included lobbying issues (House Journal, February 10, 2005, pages 374-396). And guess what. Why so many of those ethical Democrats voted against the House rules! Can you believe that?!! They too must be against all those lobbying rules proposed by the Republicans in 2005.

The Republican rules regarding lobbying in 2005 are very similar to the Democrat rules in 2007. So it would appear that neither party voted against the rules specifically because of rules about lobbying.

The new rule was added by the Dems in 2007 that keeps a retiring legislator from becoming a lobbyist for one year after leaving office. For the DFL to pick out that rule, as if the Republicans voted against that specific rule when they voted against the whole package, is ludicrous. But the DFL leaders are so stupid they themselves got snagged in the revolving door of rule-making while trying to make the Republicans look guilty for doing the same thing the DFLers do. And the DFL stoops to this shoe-bottom level to try to muster votes!!

Kalin and the DFL "leadership" love to play politics by putting politics before people. This is unadulterated childishness. This DFL and Kalin level of ethics would be beat by Taylor hands down without even having to think about it!