URGENT Alert!!! Stop MELF’s Legislative End Around!!

Thomas Jefferson said, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”  Unfortunately, despite the desire to recuperate from the long and contentious legislative session, that vigilance is still needed.  The big government nanny state special interests refuse to accept that the  proponents bureaucratic quality rating system(QRS), that according to their own data, had only miniscule support among parents, providers and legislators.  Yet, like the monster in a bad horror movie, this idea will not die.

According to columns in the Saint Cloud Times and the Star Tribune published in the last 36 hours, the Minnesota Early Learning Foundation (MELF), despite the fact that their legislative mandate has now expired, has been pushing for Governor Dayton to ignore the clear will of the legislature.and unilaterally implement the Parent Aware QRS as a statewide program.

Here is the key quote from the St. Cloud Times column of former MN state Duane Benson, executive director of MELF and former executive director of the big government leaning Minnesota Business Partnership:

“”The governor has the authority to bring Parent Aware statewide, and we believe he is committed to ensuring public funding goes to providers that deliver a high rate of return for taxpayers. Therefore, we have called on Dayton to take administrative action to make the voluntary Parent Aware Ratings a statewide option.” (Emphasis added).

The Star Tribune column by Gail Rosenblum also dutifullly transcribes the MELF big government view and adds the information that MELF is desperately trying to score the $50 million of funding from our bankrupt federal government that cannot control spending:

The Legislature did approve $4 million in scholarship aid for at-risk children. MELF is grateful, but says to give those kids the best chance, those dollars must be tied to high standards.

They hold out one more hope this year: that Dayton will take executive action to expand the quality rating system and require that the $4 million be tied to it. The July 29 deadline, while not set in stone, was requested to give MELF adequate time to meet deadlines to apply for federal Race to the Top dollars.

“To not [support] this means we’re not eligible to compete for up to $50 million in early education dollars,” said Art Rolnick, a MELF board member and senior fellow at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. (Emphasis added).

There are many major problems with this approach:

1) It would be a usurpation of legislative authority.and a violation of the Minnesota Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine just as when extra-legislative spending during the shutdown engendered bipartisan opposition.

2) This would be creating a new statewide bureaucracy that would be costly to administrate when the new budget already had to borrow an extra $1.4 billion dollars of one-time money to accommodate the spending priorities chosen through the long 2011 budget process.

3) This extra-constitutional move would be done to try to gain one-time federal funds when the use of one-time state funds to balance Minnesota’s budget was heavily, arrogantly and hypocritically attacked.

4) Due to the even more out of control spending that is occurring in Washington and this very complicated debt ceiling fight, it is extremely unclear that these funds will be available even if this highly questionable method of expanding the QRS and Minnesota’s application are successful and Minnesota could be tied to lots of federal mandates for a mere pittance of one-time federal money.

5) The governor using this method to apply for Race to the Top funds would violate the spirit of the bipartisan legislation authored last year prohibiting Minnesota’s participation in Race to the Top and be contrary to Minnesota’s long history of bipartisan opposition to the extension of federal control in education such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.

Because of this July 29th theoretical deadline and for all of the reasons cited above, it is imperative that you call Governor Dayton, the legislative leadership and your own legislators and ask them to stand for the constitutional separation of powers and to tell MELF to stop interfering with legislative authority and that if they want funding and new programs that they should wait until the next  budget cycle or at least the next legislative session like any other advocacy group.  With our debt and spending crisis at both the state and federal levels, the last thing we need is more government spending,more bureaucracy, and more government intrusion into our lives.

GOVERNOR DAYTON:

651-201-3400

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LEGISLATIVE LEADERSHIP:

Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch 651-296-5981 sen.amy.koch@senate.mn

House Speaker Kurt Zellers  651-296-5502  rep.kurt.zellers@house.mn

House Majority Leader Matt Dean 651-296-3018 rep.matt.dean@house.mn

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Thank you for what ever you can do to stand for liberty, our Minnesota Constitution, for reining in out of control spending and the growth of government and to protect the hearts and minds of our youngest children.