Less blogging, but not less news

Visit www.TheCatholicSpirit.com to read MCC and OSJ's preview of this legislative session and what they'll do as our legislators seek to tighten the belt. Creating jobs is huge for both public policy organizations. 

Also, FYI, I'll be posting far less to this blog this session. Add www.TheCatholicSpirit.com to your RSS feed for legislative stories as they come out!

Happy New Year (and here's to a new legislative session)

The 2009 legislative session will begin at noon on Jan. 6. Of course, the budget is the hot topic this year. The Minnesota state government announced Dec. 5 that we're facing a $5.3 billion deficit over the next 2.5 years. Some think the February forecast will put it at $7 billion.

Yikes. That would put about 15 percent of our total budget in the red.

The Minnesota Catholic Conference and Catholic Charities' Office for Social Justice both plan to urge support of legislation that would support job creation, especially for low-income families, who are being hit hardest by the recession.

MCC told me they plan to push legislation in other areas that don't have dollars attached, but MCC's Pete Noll reminded me that this isn't the time to stop investing in what's important, just because money is tight. Education, he said, is like a 401k — you put money in it now because it needs to pay off in the long run. If our kids aren't educated, what do we have?

The Office for Social Justice's newsletter, Seeds of Justice, is available for PDF download at OSJ's Web site. It provides a good, critical overview of the budget, with a good reminder that just a few years ago we were facing a surplus. (How fast and far that pendulum swings.) The newsletter also outlines OSJ's objectives, which include:

•  job creation
• worker justice
• raising minimum wage
• protecting funding for low-income housing
• supporting legislation that would make it easier for ex-legal offenders to find jobs
• universal health care for children 
• opposing anti-immigrant proposals

There's more. I suggest you check it out. MCC will be releasing a statement from the bishops within the next week or so. At the heart of all of OSJ and MCC's work is the protection of human dignity. People need to be treated like people. It's pretty simple, until money gets in the way. 

And it's over!

With the end of the legislative session last week, it's worth checking out the Minnesota Catholic Conference's session analysis that appears in this week's The Catholic Spirit. From sex education, ending poverty and inmate re-entry, MCC's priorities run the gamut.

Vetoed!

Governor Pawlenty vetoed the minimum wage bill late yesterday afternoon. It's unlikely that the Legislature will have the votes to over turn it. The Star Tribune has the story.

The governor said that a higher minimum wage would make it difficult to allow employers to maintain jobs during while the economy slows and prices hike. He also said that Minnesota does not recognize a tip credit, as 43 other states do. He would like to see a provision for a tip credit in the bill.

Legislative wind down (or heat up)

The end of this legislative session is scheduled for Monday, and the Minnesota Catholic Conference is working hard to pass and block a few pieces of legislation.

Included is Senate File 2965, which regulates gestational carrier arrangements and assisted reproduction. It's on the governor's desk, and MCC hopes he'll veto it.

In a letter to Governor Pawlenty on the bill, MCC wrote:

"The Catholic Church teaches that marriage is the only morally acceptable framework for human reproduction. Further, donation of semen or ova and the use of surrogate motherhood to bear children are contrary to the unity of marriage and the dignity of the procreation of the human person. The issue of assisted reproduction is complicated. While we sympathize with childless couples who are desperate to have children, the ends do not justify the means. We hope that government will not attempt to redefine the natural state of marriage and human procreation.

In addition, the bill fails to address the rights of human lives created through assisted reproduction technologies. Most human embryos created through in vitro fertilization are not implanted, much less carried to term, but are discarded, frozen or used in destructive and undignified experimentation."

A bill MCC does want the governor to sign is the minimum wage bill. According to the MCC, 29 states presently have minimum wages higher than Minnesota's. More than 300,000 Minnesota jobs would get a pay boost, which I assume would benefit the economy (the more money you have, the more you spend). And, most importantly, as Archbishop Flynn said two weeks ago, it's a matter of affirming human dignity.

To find out more about these bills, read The Catholic Spirit editor Joe Towalski's editorial this week online.

Will Minnesotans pay for embryo destruction?

Those of you who read my blog last session may recall the amount of attention I gave to a bill that would grant taxpayer funding to embryonic stem cell research at the University of Minnesota. The bill narrowly passed the House Wednesday. It passed the Senate last session. The bill's going to conference committee to reconcile the different versions.

I don't expect Governor Pawlenty to sign the bill, and considering the 71-62 vote in the House, it doesn't look like an override is possible.

I could always be wrong, however.

Embryonic Stem Cell Research is dastardly in and of itself, but it also leads down a slippery slope of continued denial of human dignity to the weakest and voiceless.

Happy Birthday, Archbishop Flynn (and happy retirement, too!)

Friday was Archbishop Harry Flynn's 75th birthday. It was also the date of his official retirement. Instead of hopping a plane to some beach to lounge (or to his cabin in New York State), he spent part of his morning at the State Office Building to speak at a press conference on increasing minimum wage.

The House passed the bill the night before, and it was going to conference committee to resolve differences between the Senate and House versions. It is expected to be on the governor's desk within the week.

"People keep reminding me that this is my 75th birthday — a fact that hasn't gotten by me; but as I move into retirement I wanted just one more tiem to speak about this very important issue and on behalf of these very important workers," he told the gathered crowd, legislators standing proudly behind him.

"I believe that increasing minimum wage is a matter of justice," he said.

"It is true that the people of this state value hard work, but we also value the dignity of the worker. For me, that means that the life of the worker has to be spent doing more than work."

Many low wage workers work two or three jobs to make ends meet, he said.

"This isn't a dignified life," he continued. "True human dignity means that people not only focus on their material survival but that they have time and opportunity to participate in their social, cultural and spiritual development as well. Family life and participation are key to human dignity and important to our democracy."

Increasing minimum wage would allow people to work only one job and thus, have more time for family and social life, he said.