Minnesota Lawyer

Progressive DFLers and conservative Republicans seem to share a unity of purpose only in the broadest, most meaningless sense.

There is a lot of public analysis going on about the bankruptcy of the city of Detroit. While much of it follows the trope of the cautionary tale, in places like Minnesota, there is a fair amount of disassociation — as in “it can’t happen here.”

The noise and excitement of the Legislature being over for the year, it’s a good time to reflect on the institution itself — how it has been strengthened, how it has been weakened.

Minnesota’s labor unions should be quite happy with the way things are going right now in St. Paul. Many of their stated goals are moving forward in the legislative process.

As regular as the new term that brings students back to school, early January summons legislators old and new back to St. Paul for the convening of the Legislature. In 2013 as in 2011, there will be a lot of freshmen.

Any change in laws is likely to provoke strong arguments from both the right and the left, revealing yet another fault line in our political culture.

I had to pause and reflect this week as the Legislature in my home state of Michigan passed into law a form of “right to work” that had been promoted by Gov. Rick Snyder. The law made union dues voluntary for private-sector unions and most public sector unions.

It’s that time in the political cycle after a judgment has been rendered by the electorate, when pundits like to divine a message in the results. This time there were multiple messages, but one of them was a desire for more “bipartisanship.”

You don’t have to be interested in class warfare to be engaged with the issue of whether the middle class is shrinking, under siege or beginning to emerge and thrive again in this volatile economy.

Some conservatives like to say “why can’t government be run more like a business?” I try to explain to them it can’t because it’s government.