Residual Forces

Well, the thought control tyrants are fearmongering their way to banning smoking in Minnesota won a major battle yesterday.

Anti-tobacco forces won the latest round in the legislative debate over a proposed statewide bar-and-restaurant smoking ban as a committee sent the measure to the Senate floor on Monday stripped of amendments added by another panel last week.

Removed were provisions to allow smoking in bars equipped with ventilation devices and to prevent local governments from enforcing tougher smoking restrictions than the state’s.

Common sense, in other words, was rejected by the nanny staters.

But the tight 6-5 vote to remove those amendments in the State and Local Government Operations and Oversight Committee was only a preview to the twists and turns likely to occur in the full Senate, said the bill’s chief sponsor, Sen. Kathy Sheran, DFL-Mankato.

“There will be more amendments on the floor,” she said. “But I think, overall, the votes are there for a strong bill.”

It is highly unlikely that common sense will pop its head up again on the Senate version, since they removed common sense in order to get it to the floor.

On Monday, bar owners argued that high-tech ventilation systems can protect patrons from second-hand smoke and that state limits on local tobacco ordinances would provide the “level playing field” that statewide smoking ban proponents have often invoked in promoting their views.

The Minnesota Senate is really turning towards tyranny as a form of governance. Check that, the urban DFL controlled Senate is turning into a dictatorship.

Committee Chairwoman Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, noted that the tobacco industry sought preemption of local laws a decade ago when it faced legislative momentum to strengthen curbs on youth access to cigarettes. Preemption narrowly failed before a tough statewide law was enacted to combat tobacco sales to minors.

And there you have it, smokers are criminals in the minds of these people, like Rest.

I have been told that there are 3 Republicans who deserve credit for fighting on behalf of freedom. Senator Day, Senator Gerloch, and Senator Robling all fought the DFL vice lord Sen. Ann Rest tough, and even garned two votes of opposition from DFLers on the committee.

So Rest overrules another committee that requested at least 2 hearings. The bill will go to the floor as is. The fate of Freedom and property rights lays with the 22 Republicans standing up for it with the outstate DFLers. The urban liberal thought control nanny state Senators who control proceedings will do everything they can to get this bill through.