![\"Earning](\"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Hormel.jpg\")
<\/a>Earning an unwelcome sobriquet<\/p><\/div>\n
My first year at The Capitol, I mostly watched and listened, as told to.\u00a0 By my second year I had a full slate of bills.\u00a0 But first, two more stories from that first year:<\/p>\n
Around the second week of my first session, a fellow Progressive (we had a Progressive Legislators Caucus) told me, \u201cWhen in doubt, vote with Willard.\u201d\u00a0 Rep Willard Munger, who sat right behind me on the House Floor, was the Dean of the Legislature, the Champion of Minnesota\u2019s Lakes and Natural Resources, a man with a Trail named after him stretching from Saint Paul to Duluth.\u00a0 A couple days after getting that advice, a bill comes up for a floor vote where I\u2019m not sure whether pushing the green button or the red button would be best for most Minnesotans.\u00a0 So I look up at the Voting Board in front of me to see which way Willard is voting, but he hasn\u2019t voted yet.\u00a0 Just then there\u2019s this tap on my shoulder and it\u2019s Willard saying \u201cWhich way you voting on this one, Dawkins?\u201d To this day I don\u2019t know if Willard was part of an initiation rite of passage or genuinely wasn\u2019t sure which way to vote and respected my opinion.<\/p>\n
Around the second month of session, I gave my Maiden Floor Speech, impromptu and unplanned.\u00a0 I just couldn\u2019t refrain after listening to so much hypocrisy.\u00a0 The Republicans were actually arguing that a law the court had declared unconstitutional shouldn\u2019t be deleted from our statute books.\u00a0 The Democrats were arguing that it didn\u2019t make sense to keep something in our law books that people would read thinking it was<\/span> the law when it wasn\u2019t.\u00a0 The trouble was that it was all about sex, and even back then the Republicans were behind the times, and extremist about regulating people\u2019s personal lives.\u00a0 The law (which was no longer the law) said that\u00a0gas stations\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0dispense Prophylactics to combat STDs (among other things).\u00a0 When I stood up I described how, almost half the Sundays of the year, there are Vikings Cheerleaders parading around on TV scantily clad; everyday merchandisers are\u00a0legally making money pushing sex to sell their products, and complained that in a society that gives so many mixed messages that sex is tantalizing, wonderful,\u00a0and verboten, it\u2019s really the height of hypocrisy to argue against a straight-forward message (not even a change in the law) telling kids at least Be Safe.<\/p>\n My second year \u201cNeighborhoods Agenda\u201d was almost all brass tacks, nuts & bolts, concrete ways to help Saint Paul and its neighborhoods.\u00a0 Many of these bills later became enacted, and some are mentioned in other stories.\u00a0 In addition to being pragmatic in a nuts & bolts way,\u00a0 any politician worth their salt, needs to provide leadership painting a vision of what might be someday, if not just yet.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s a belief I still strongly hold.\u00a0 Come on You Future Politicians!\u00a0 What\u2019s the vision for the future?<\/p>\n Tomorrow:\u00a0 Come On Third Parties!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Getting called \u201cAndy Sandanista\u201d was not the way I wanted things to start-out.\u00a0 Perhaps if I\u2019d had a quick retort (like I did that time in the Judge\u2019s chambers), and said something like, \u201cWell, if it isn\u2019t the Democratic Phony … Continue reading