As all the world knows, Minnesota’s DFL Party has stood by for years while criminals stole billions of taxpayer dollars. Republicans have tried to stop the steal, but have gotten no cooperation from Democrats. Thus, in last year’s legislative session, the Republicans proposed to establish an office of Inspector General to investigate fraud in state government, with the power to bring criminal prosecutions.
That proposal was, for obvious reasons, popular with voters. It scored 72% approval in the Thinking Minnesota Poll, and it passed the Senate last year on a bipartisan 60-7 vote. But the word came down (from Governor Tim Walz, reportedly, and it seems that it had to be from him) that the bill must die in the House. It did, as every Democrat voted against it. It would have passed with a single DFL vote.
Since then, pressure has only mounted as public appreciation of the scope of the fraud scandal has grown. This year, passing the Inspector General bill was the Republicans’ top legislative priority. Democrats initially blocked the bill in the House, unanimously delaying it on a procedural vote. But ultimately, they realized that they couldn’t face the voters if they didn’t at least pretend to care about fraud.
So on Thursday, as the legislative session was about to enter its final week, the Democrats finally threw in the towel. The measure passed the House 127-5, which means that nearly every Democrat reversed his vote from last year. So what did the Democrats do? They took credit for passing the bill that they had blocked for over a year!
The Democrats have no shame, but we already knew that. I guess we will find out in the fall whether the voters have been paying attention.
