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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Perfect! |
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Location: Green Bay, WI | Excellent news guys! I am relieved, and impressed to be honest, that the Governor listened to the concerns of the DNR (and many people), and reacted on the side of the resource. Excellent, indeed...
TB
EDIT: I cannot find confirmation of this online now. Where did the news of this apparent veto come from? How certain of this are we?
Edited by tcbetka 5/25/2010 6:34 PM
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Location: Musky Tackle Online, MN | Best news we've heard in a long time if this is a done deal! As Shawn said, thank you to everyone that spoke up and spread the word for others to do the same. With Pawlenty being good college friends with one of the lobbyists on the other side, it's great to see that he can ignore that and use some good (not sure if we can call it common) sense.
Aaron |
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Posts: 1243
Location: Musky Tackle Online, MN | http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/polina...
Governor vetoes game and fish bill
Posted at 5:28 PM on May 25, 2010 by Tim Pugmire (0 Comments)
Filed under: MN Legislature
Gov. Pawlenty today vetoed a sweeping game and fish bill passed in the closing hours of the 2010 legislative session.
Pawlenty signaled last week that the bill could be in trouble when he said he had deep concerns over several provisions. One sore spot was the language allowing anglers to fish with two lines. Another was the provision Sen.Satveer Chaudhary, DFL-Fridley, got included to improve the walleye population on a northern Minnesota lake where he owns a cabin. Republican Senators have asked for an ethics panel inquiry of Chaudhary's actions .
In a veto message to legislative leaders, Pawlenty said the bill would have established a harmful precedent for managing natural resources.
The bill also included a new program to pay landowners to allow public hunting access, free fishing for kids under 16 and a earlier start for the duck hunting season.
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Location: Apple Valley | Yes!!!!!!!!! |
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Location: Green Bay, WI | Excellent, thanks for the confirmation Aaron! I got tied up on the phone, and had to stop looking myself. So I'm glad you posted the link...
GREAT JOB to everyone who took the time to email, call and/or write letters to the Governor on this. And let's hear it for Gov. Pawlenty, showing he has common sense and truly does want what's best for the natural resources in his state. Strong work by the Governor on this one!
TB |
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| Just spent the better part of an hour on the phone with Shawn and John. All of the calls and e-mails paid off. I want to thank Steve for allowing us to get people from MuskieFirst involved in the discussion on the topic. A HUGE THANK YOU to all that called in and voiced their opinions.
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Location: Green Bay, WI | I have to laugh--I called the same day I sent that email last week, and was going to try to give them some background as to why I was opposed. Well shoot, I was on the phone less than 10 seconds! They must have really been getting slammed with phone calls that day, LOL...
Did John indicate that he knew how much opposition had been voiced?
TB
Edited by tcbetka 5/25/2010 7:38 PM
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| on the original legistation, the no votes were in the teens in the House and Senate. So the Governor saved us, that's for sure. |
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Location: Green Bay, WI | What's the chance that the legislature will round up a two-thirds vote, and over-ride the veto? Doesn't seem likely as I count the DFL members in Minnesota, but I am not sure I understand their process entirely.
TB
EDIT: While the MN Senate has more than a 2/3 majority for the DFL party and could easily vote to override the Governor's veto (providing all members voted along party lines), it appears that their House is 3 votes short. There are 134 members of the MN House, and 2/3 * 134 = 90. But there are only 87 DFL Representatives, so they'll need to convince 3 Republicans to cross-over on this issue, and vote outside party lines. So the $64,000 question is, how likely is that to happen?
I am guessing that it isn't all that likely. According to that article, there are apparently some Republicans calling for an ethics panel inquiry of Senator Chaudhary's actions in regards to the walleye stocking of the lake where he owns property. So this matter may become a matter of pure politics--each side votes the party line, and the Governor's veto will stand (as I understand it).
The plot thickens...
Edited by tcbetka 5/25/2010 10:24 PM
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| TBetka -
An override of this bill won't happen.
The legislative session is over (the closing date is constitutionally mandated), so the only way they could re-open the issue is if the governor called a special session. With this being an election year, and are current governor very interested in New Hampshire and Iowa at the moment, the chances of a special session are roughly equal to the chances that I'll get run over by the space shuttle on my way to work tomorrow morning. Maybe not even that good.
What's more, Minnesota's legislature runs on a biennial calendar, and the session that just ended was the end of the biennium as well, so the legislative slate will be totally blank when the next session begins in January.
This bill was a mess even without the Cass Lake spearing ban issue. Even without that, as a Minnesota angler I think I would have been calling for a gubernatorial veto. The Minnesota DNR is sometimes a ponderous bureaucracy that moves painfully slowly, but the fact of the matter is they get it right far more often than they get it wrong, and this bill was shot through with provisions that overrode DNR recommendations based on sound science and professional knowledge on subjects that ranged from shore fishing to deer hunting.
Unfortunately, there were a number of very worthwhile provisions that also went out the window with this veto. There was a program established by this bill that would have mandated training about invasive species for people that professionally install docks and boat lifts. That provision happened to be written by Sen Mary Olson, the same Senator who wrote the original Cass Lake bill lifting the spearing ban. There's a good lesson there I think - nobody's worthy of being universally reviled. I wish that bill had gone through as a stand alone measure instead of being dragged down by the rest of the Omnibus bill.
All in all though, this bill was a good example of cases where throwing the baby out with the bath water is the most sensible thing to do.
Cheers,
Rob Kimm |
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| "the chances of a special session are roughly equal to the chances that I'll get run over by the space shuttle on my way to work tomorrow morning. Maybe not even that good. "
Honestly what are the chances of either of us making it to work RK LOL.
Many thanks to all who called and those who had to endure some disgusting antics in an attempt to cause economic and possibly physical harm.
We need to work even harder now and form a tighter band of solidarity across the country for Large Pike and Muskies.
We need to be more mindful and vigilante of the legislation and organizations that promote anti fishing and decimation of our resources.
Thanks to all of you who helped get Anglers, Muskie and Pike noticed.
John Underhill
Edited by Muskiefool 5/26/2010 12:05 AM
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Posts: 203
Location: Alexandria, Minnesota | Awesome work guys....Thanks for all of the heads up info over the last few months. |
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Location: Green Bay, WI | Great posts Rob & John... Thanks for all the hard work on this issue over the last several weeks. As with any cause, a solid champion(s) often makes all the difference. There were several of you guys over in MN that made all the difference there, and I think everyone concerned about the future of our fisheries (Pike, Musky or otherwise) owes you guys a huge debt of gratitude. As the Green Bay musky issue has shown us so clearly, having overwhelming support for a matter only goes so far. You need someone to lead the effort, and coordinate all the support. Someone needs to "be the guy" that others can turn to for information, or be the voice of reason when things start to get a little out of hand (as they often do on sensitive issues such as these), and people start to lose focus. So THANK YOU again for your tireless work on these ultra-important issues!
But Rob...you might want to take cover today, because I think they are bringing Atlantis back in--and you may be a marked man now!
TB |
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Location: Minnesota: where it's tough to be a sportsfan! | Congrats all around, & special thanks to those out-of-state people that took the time to make the contacts to get this VETO in place. Rob made an excellent observation about the way a politician actually works. please re-read his last post. In my opinion when it comes to the politicians: There are no friends, there are no enemies, there are only those willing to sell out our resources for the apperance of votes! I'm never shy of an opinion, just ask my wife! I feel the real sad thing here is that a bill with so many questionable issues in it made it through the Senate & the House. Although we rallied this time, they will come again.
Can we as fishermen support an organization that will stay abreast of the political scene and represent and notify us of issues before they get this far along? Is there interest in an organization that can be a pool of information and support to the volunteers of all states that have Muskies & Pike issues? I know wrong time of the year as we all want to go fishing now. But think it over...we are no longer safe in the belief that someone else will do it for us. A hardy THANK YOU to all that kept this going and brought this bill to a Stop. It is too bad that good legislation is incumbered with riders and amendments that are not for the common good. |
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Location: Twin Cities | Great news, especially thanks to Rob, John and shawn for all your hard work. |
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Posts: 3158
| WOW!!!!!
EVERYBODY GRAB THEIR RIG OR RIG AND BOAT AND LETS CIRCLE THE CAPITAL BUILDING IN CELEBRATION!!!!!!!!!!1 |
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Posts: 2384
Location: On the X that marks the mucky spot | jakejusa - 5/26/2010 6:36 AM
Can we as fishermen support an organization that will stay abreast of the political scene and represent and notify us of issues before they get this far along?
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