English: Mark Ritchie, Secretary of State, giv...

Unlikely Media Star Mark Ritchie (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here in Fly­over Coun­try, we’re used to being ignored by the élite media on the coasts. That could change, for a few weeks any­way. This Novem­ber, Min­nesota will join the list of states that have had votes on whether to enact a con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment ban­ning same-​​sex mar­riage. Min­nesota may become the first state to defeat such an amend­ment, and this may be par­tially due to the actions of the Min­nesota Sec­re­tary of State, an unas­sum­ing politi­cian in what is often con­sid­ered — by the rest of the coun­try — as a bor­ing state.

I live in Min­nesota. It’s a place of stun­ning con­trasts. It may be the only state where you can reg­u­larly see peo­ple walk­ing around in shorts and a parka. Min­nesota has a long pro­gres­sive his­tory. It also has an active social con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment, includ­ing ded­i­cated oppo­nents of abor­tion in both major polit­i­cal par­ties. It’s a state where hunt­ing is a favorite leisure activ­ity, and so has strong opin­ions on both sides of gun con­trol /​ gun rights issues. It’s a state with one of the nation’s most lib­eral U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives [Keith Elli­son (D-​​Minneapolis), a co-​​chair of the House Pro­gres­sive Cau­cus], whose dis­trict is lit­er­ally adja­cent to a dis­trict with one of the nation’s most con­ser­v­a­tive Rep­re­sen­ta­tives [Michele Bach­mann (R-​​Stillwater), founder of the House Tea Party Caucus].

So, in 2010, we elected con­ser­v­a­tive Repub­li­can Tea-​​Party types to majori­ties in both the state Sen­ate and the state House, but a lib­eral Demo­c­rat — Mark Day­ton — as Gov­er­nor. We also elected a Demo­c­ra­tic Sec­re­tary of State, Mark Ritchie. He’s got­ten involved in the process related to the upcom­ing vote on an anti-​​same-​​sex-​​marriage amend­ment, and his actions could affect the suc­cess or fail­ure of that amendment.

In 1997, shortly after Con­gress enacted DOMA (the Defense of Mar­riage Act, which is the fed­eral anti-​​same-​​sex-​​marriage law — you can tell that law was named by Repub­li­cans, right?), Min­nesota enacted a statute ban­ning same-​​sex mar­riage in Min­nesota. The state does not rec­og­nize same-​​sex civil unions, either. Same-​​sex cou­ples can­not get mar­ried in Min­nesota, and if they get mar­ried else­where, Min­nesota does not rec­og­nize these as legal mar­riages. Not con­tent with this — and rec­og­niz­ing that laws ban­ning same-​​sex unions would not sur­vive con­sti­tu­tional tests — Repub­li­cans here have been try­ing to amend the Min­nesota Con­sti­tu­tion. Until 2010, no anti-​​same-​​sex-​​marriage amend­ment has passed in both Minnesota’s Con­gres­sional houses, mostly because at least one always had a pro­gres­sive Demo­c­ra­tic majority.

That changed in 2010, when the national Tea Party wave swept over the Min­nesota leg­is­la­ture, and Repub­li­cans won con­trol of both the House and the Senate.

Gov­er­nor Day­ton surely would have vetoed any Min­nesota law fur­ther abridg­ing rights of same-​​sex cou­ples. He hasn’t been afraid to use his veto pen against a vari­ety of extremely con­ser­v­a­tive laws that have landed on his desk in the last eigh­teen months. He even stood up to the leg­is­la­ture in a bud­get bat­tle that shut down the state gov­ern­ment for three weeks last summer.

But the process of amend­ing the Min­nesota Con­sti­tu­tion does not involve the Gov­er­nor. An amend­ment has to pass both Houses of the Leg­is­la­ture, then is sub­mit­ted to the peo­ple for a vote. It requires a major­ity of the votes cast in the elec­tion — which means that if some­one votes for Pres­i­dent (for exam­ple) but votes nei­ther Yes nor No on the Amend­ment ques­tion, then that is con­sid­ered equiv­a­lent to a No vote. Since ten to twenty per­cent of vot­ers don’t vote on Con­sti­tu­tional ques­tions, this makes these votes harder than a straight­for­ward majority.

The pro­posed Amend­ment, as passed by the state leg­is­la­ture, would add a Sec­tion 13 to the Min­nesota Constitution’s Arti­cle XIII (Mis­cel­la­neous Sub­jects), which cur­rently has 12 Sections:

Sec­tion 13. Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or rec­og­nized as a mar­riage in Minnesota.

Note that this amend­ment is strictly unnec­es­sary, since Min­nesota law already for­bids same-​​sex mar­riage. The desire to enact this amend­ment, how­ever, may be an admis­sion that the anti-​​marriage-​​rights law is actu­ally unconstitutional.

The amend­ment itself will not appear on the bal­lot. What will appear is a ques­tion that describes the amend­ment. The leg­is­la­ture pro­vided this as the word­ing of the ques­tion that will be on the Novem­ber ballot:

Shall the Min­nesota Con­sti­tu­tion be amended to pro­vide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or rec­og­nized as a mar­riage in Minnesota?

The ques­tion would also be given a title, to be printed in bold let­ters above the ques­tion. The title sug­gested by the leg­is­la­ture is:

Recog­ni­tion of mar­riage solely between one man and one woman

How­ever, accord­ing to Min­nesota law, the leg­is­la­ture can word bal­lot ques­tions, but doesn’t get to assign bal­lot titles. That respon­si­bil­ity belongs to the Sec­re­tary of State. Demo­c­rat Mark Ritchie has decided on the fol­low­ing title to accom­pany this anti-​​same-​​sex-​​marriage amendment:

“Lim­it­ing The Sta­tus Of Mar­riage To Oppo­site Sex Couples.”

This would seem to more prop­erly express the intent of the pro­posed amend­ment, since its pur­pose is indeed to pre­vent same-​​sex mar­riages — which are already ille­gal — rather than to allow opposite-​​sex mar­riages — which are already legal. Repub­li­cans in Min­nesota, how­ever, are com­plain­ing that Sec­re­tary Ritchie’s title casts the pro­posed amend­ment in a neg­a­tive light, since “Lim­it­ing” rights would tend to be less pop­u­lar than “Rec­og­niz­ing” the cur­rent sta­tus quo with­out men­tion of who would be adversely affected (to which I sup­pose one could say, “Duh!”).

Sec­re­tary Ritchie has also changed the title on another Repub­li­can amend­ment that will be on the Min­nesota bal­lot this Novem­ber. The new Repub­li­can leg­is­la­ture tried to enact a law requir­ing vot­ers to present state-​​approved pic­ture ID in order to vote. In order to make this work, the law would also alter a vari­ety of Minnesota’s rules regard­ing same-​​day voter reg­is­tra­tion, absen­tee vot­ing, and pro­vi­sional bal­lots. Gov­er­nor Day­ton vetoed that law, so the leg­is­la­ture decided to try to make it a Con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment (which would be harder to repeal later anyway).

The title for the voter-​​ID amend­ment, as pro­posed by the leg­is­la­ture, is:

Photo Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Required for Voting

Sec­re­tary Ritchie has changed the title to:

Changes to In-​​Person & Absen­tee Vot­ing & Voter Reg­is­tra­tion; Pro­vi­sional Ballots

Again, Repub­li­cans are object­ing to this change, claim­ing it is los­ing “what the core of the con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment is,” since it doesn’t actu­ally men­tion voter ID — even though Ritchie’s title more com­pletely describes the extent of the effects of the pro­posed amendment.

Repub­li­cans are tak­ing Sec­re­tary Ritchie to court, in an attempt to pre­vent him from assign­ing titles to these bal­lot ques­tions, as Min­nesota law requires him to do. There appar­ently is fear that if these pro­posed amend­ments are accu­rately described on the bal­lot, vot­ers would be less likely to vote for them. One can rea­son­ably sus­pect, then, that even Repub­li­cans feel it is pos­si­ble these pro­posed amend­ments will fail in the fall, par­tic­u­larly if they are given titles through the process required by Min­nesota law rather than through the Repub­li­can rebrand­ing machine (remem­ber DOMA?).

Novem­ber could see Min­nesota becom­ing the first state where vot­ers reject an attempt to pre­vent same-​​sex mar­riage. The bal­lot ques­tion can thus be expected to attract national atten­tion, despite being a ques­tion from a state that often doesn’t get national attention.

Do you think the name change could affect the out­come? Do you agree with Sec­re­tary Ritchie’s titles? Do you agree with state Repub­li­cans that Ritchie’s actions are polit­i­cally moti­vated? Were the titles rec­om­mended by the leg­is­la­ture polit­i­cally motivated?

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