5/8/2012
Reports in a WSJ Editorial
A recent Wall Street Journal staff editorial, "Gouged By The Wind," (May 5) mentioned reports that indicate that renewable energy mandates are expensive for Minnesota. (This link to the editorial will work for users within the legislative campus; the text was also posted on this blog.)

A 2012 report from the Center for Energy Policy and the Environment at the Manhattan Institute, The High Cost of Renewable-Electricity Mandates, compared states with renewable mandates to states without.

The 2011 Beacon Hill Institute report mentioned in the editorial was done with the Minnesota Free Market Institute, The Economic Impact of Minnesota's Renewable-Portfolio Standard.



 

5/3/2012
Secret Transcripts?

It's Paul VanCura's last day at LRL and he was honored on the House floor with a resolution read by our longest-serving Library Subcommittee member, Rep. Mary Murphy, and the House member from Paul's district, Rep. Jim Davnie. The full resolution is a bit longer, and has some funny LRL insider references. Like this one:

WHEREAS, Paul has also checked in decades of House and Senate Committee
minutes, and innumerable citizens and inexperienced summer law clerks have benefited
from Paul's patient help in untangling complex legislative histories; and

WHEREAS, Paul has faithfully refused to divulge the location of the "secret
transcripts" of legislative committee hearings, existence of which some patrons through the
years have been thoroughly convinced; and

Over the years LRL staff members have helped many, many researchers who were not excited about listening to hours of committee hearings on audiotape. "Aren't there transcripts?" they would ask with great hope.

No. We would continue helping them through the process, and when it seemed daunting again, the question was repeated. "Are you SURE there aren't transcripts?" One of our most memorable researchers, "The Man in the Green Hat" (mentioned in another resolution clause), was never convinced, and thus rose the LRL legend of the secret transcripts.

Thanks for everything, Paul!

4/30/2012
Good News For Paul VanCura; Bad News For Us
We like it when the weekly "Politics in Minnesota" newsletter picks up news from the Library - about new services or awards, for example. We're not that excited about the mention we received last Friday. It reminds us that a core member of our staff will be leaving very soon.

"Longtime Legislative Reference Librarian Paul VanCura will be leaving May 3 to accept a new position. He will be director of programs for the National Collegiate Conference Association, which, among other things, sponsors the National Model United Nations conferences. VanCura, who started at LRL in September 1989, says he will miss the chaotic energy of the legislative session as well as the dedicated members and staff. VanCura wonders how long it will take him to stop looking for pertinent details about legislators, as he has handled the updates for the Legislators Past and Present database for more than a decade. We wish him the best." (One slight correction - it was really 1983, not 1989, when Paul began work at the Legislature.)

Paul has also been our premier guardian of legislative history materials. He's checked in decades of House and Senate Committee minutes. Innumerable citizens and inexperienced summer law clerks have benefited from Paul's patient help in untangling complex legislative histories. He spent many years in the cramped quarters of the SOB ground floor tape room, and the people sitting and listening to hours of testimony on audiotape weren't always cheerful. We kept "pink cards" detailing the twists and turns of omnibus bills; check out this card on clues to pieces of the 1989 Omnibus Crime Bill.

Web access to committee hearings has been a vast improvement for legislative history researchers, but knowing what records exist for which year is still tricky. Paul wrote and has constantly revised the Library's Minnesota Legislative History Guide, a primary resource we use daily.

Our library and the Minnesota Legislature has been incredibly lucky that Paul has spent much of his career building resources that will help researchers tomorrow and decades from now.

The photo of Paul is from a few years ago, when he was asked by a legislator for a copy of a law in its original, handwritten format. It's gone a bit viral. A legislative colleague from Utah, when hearing of Paul's departure, attached the photo to an email that said, "You'll be taking this along, right?"

We'll miss Paul - a lot.

Robbie LaFleur, on behalf of ALL the Legislative Reference Library staff members  

4/19/2012
Digital Images of Legislators of the Past
We frequently update biographies in the Minnesota Legislators Past & Present database, as we learn new information about members who have served in the Legislature back to statehood. Sometimes there are great improvements to the database in one fell swoop, like the recent addition of photos for legislators for five earlier sessions, scanned with a grant from the Minnesota Digital Library (MDL). We added photos for members who served in years close to the two World Wars: 1915, 1917, 1919, 1941 and 1943.

4/13/2012
House and Senate Seating Charts: Who Sat Where When?
We've had many requests for old seating charts over the years, sometimes for family reasons. One time a son wanted to sit where his father had spent so much time; another time a man asked about his grandfather who served in the 1930s.

4/10/2012
A Senate Time Machine of Sorts
Over time the Library is adding digital pieces to the historical legislative record. We recently finished scanning older print issues of the Senate Briefly publication back to 1985. We also have 1978-1984 on microfiche, so perhaps in the future we can convert those to post online.

4/9/2012

Serendipitously, two books about Indian culture arrived in the Library's morning mail. Two books by two brothers (!): Rez Life by David Treuer and Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask by Anton Treuer.  

4/5/2012
Minnesota Legislators Who have Served in Both the House and the Senate

Update: Because there has been interest in a list of House members who have moved to the Senate, we made some nice tables drawn from data in the Legislators Past & Present database. Here are Minnesota legislators who have switched from House to Senate (398), and from Senate to House (73). The lists include legislators who have served in the Legislature since statehood. Some legislators, like William Henry Carman Folsom, made the switch back and forth more than once.

Another update: You can now limit the lists by date. See the dropdown boxes on the House to Senate list and the Senate to House list. For example, of all the legislators who have served in the 62nd session (1963) to date, six of them have served in the House following the Legislature: Bernie Omann, Richard Parish, Linda Runbeck, Carl Iverson, Leonard R. Dickinson, and Louis Murray. (Note: They may have begun service before 1963.)

 

4/4/2012
Legislators Who Served in the House After the Senate
Current members of the Legislature are listening to testimony and considering bills, caught up in finishing the 2012 legislative session. At the same time, it’s the beginning of the election season, with many members announcing their departure, and many people announcing their candidacy. Recently former Senator Rick Olseen announced that he is considering a run for the Minnesota House in District 32B. It’s more common for House members to move to Senate service.

4/2/2012
Session Laws On the Move

Here's an interesting podcast about moving the original Session Law books from the Office of the Secretary of State in the State Office Building to a more secure and climate-controlled long-term home at the Historical Society.

Several years ago we had a request for the original handwritten version of an early law. Using all his upper body strength, Librarian Paul Van Cura carefully photocopied the text.

It's great that these valuable physical objects will be preserved in the best possible conditions. It's also great that we all have access to the text of all these laws digitally, thanks to the work of the Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Think of the difference between scanning the handwritten pages of the large volumes versus the online printed pages of these important historical documents. See all the years at the Minnesota Session Laws page.
 

3/26/2012
Use Fresh Carbons - 1960s Instructions for Preparing Bills
"I hate Scribd," someone said to me recently. Some of the document sharing services might be confusing sometimes, but it's so great that newsworthy letters and reports are shared instantly and widely. It's hard to even imagine a day when legislative documents - bills, laws, statutes, and more - weren't available electronically. I thought of this when we recently scanned an old Revisor's Manual, in which the instructions for preparing a bill included: "Typing Requisites. One side only of good quality white, 8-1/2 x 13 bond. Four copies of a bill are required for each body. (The paper, size, and number of copies of resolutions and amendments will appear in the chapters devoted to such subjects.) Use fresh carbons. (p. 22)"

3/13/2012
An Annual Discussion - More State Symbols?
After a journalist posted a link to the Library's web page on Minnesota State Symbols--Unofficial, Proposed, or Facetious, we took a fresh look at it. The page was put up several years ago - for kids, really. Over the years we don't know of many children consulting the site, but plenty of adults have. It needed review and reformatting. Done! There may be a few people checking it this year, since the Legislature now has at least three bills for official symbols in play; an official state pipe band (HF1517), the black bear as state mammal (HF2144/SF1905), and a proposal for an offical state soil, the Lester soil (SF2254).

3/1/2012
In the Scanner Now - Even More Tax Study Commission Reports
Rep. Jennifer Loon's legislation to create a tax reform action commission was discussed in the House Tax Committee on February 9. (HF1822, companion SF1712) The House Public Information Office wrote a Session Daily article about it, "Tax Reform Could Go to Tax Commission." Regardless of whether the new tax reform action commission is enacted, it prompted us to put similar earlier reports online.

2/24/2012
Bill Summaries: a Reminder About Great Work from the House and Senate
Legislative librarians from other states often post questions to the NCSL Legislative Research Librarians Staff Section email list, asking about practices or information from each state. Today LRL librarian Paul VanCura responded to a request about research offices and bill summaries. His answer might be a useful reminder to many Minnesotans too. Bill summaries give readers a quick overview of bills. As Paul wrote....

In Minnesota, House Research, and Senate Counsel and Research create bill summaries for some, but not all bills. Many times they only do a summary for a specific engrossment or amendment, not every version. Here's a link to the versions done by House Research for HF 1 from 2011-2012: http://goo.gl/auX8A

2/20/2012
State of the State history - Illustrated
We love it when information we publish is used for innovative news stories. For the night of Governor Dayton's State of the State Address, David Gillete from Twin Cities Public Television created a cartoon essay, "The History of the State of the State." He noted that if viewers want to find more information, they should visit the state's best kept secret, the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library. He gave us two thumbs up, and four gold stars.