DFL Party Bosses

The DFL Parrot Ad and Blind Ad vilify Republican leaders for removing the Override Six from leadership positions for voting with the Dems for the Transportation Bill (HF2800). The vote was 89-44 (House Journal, p 7883-84) to pass the bill.

The Governor then vetoed the bill. The House needed 90 votes to override the veto.

To override it, the Dems needed the 6 Republicans who had already voted for it and none of the DFLers who had already voted for it could depart from their ranks. Plus they needed one more person to vote for the bill to make a total of 90 votes.

In the original vote, 2 Dems, John Lesch and Mary Otremba, voted against it, siding with the majority of the Republicans. Since the Dems needed at least one more vote, imagine the pressure they heaped on Lesch and Otremba. One of them had to vote for it if everything else went right. But the Dems wanted both votes. Otremba had voted against the transportation bill in the previous year.

The DFL can belittle the GOP for demanding blind obedience, as they call it, all they want. But we just implicitly know the DFL demands on Lesch and Otremba were equally great, if not greater. Plus the DFL had to keep the 6 Republicans on their side with cajoling and manipulation to eventually override the veto 91-41 (House Journal, p. 7889-90), with Lesch and Otremba voting in favor.

In the end, the Republicans attempted to keep all party members in line and failed. The DFL made sure they kept all party members in line. The very example the DFL used to claim Republicans are handpicked, blind, parroting followers of "party bosses" actually shows the DFLers are, to use their own language, the handpicked, blind, parroting followers of party bosses. When one is blind, it’s hard to see what is true about one's self.