Minnesota Legislature

“ Every law which upon its effective date applies to a single local government unit or to a group of such units in a single county or a number of contiguous counties is a special law and shall name the unit or, in the latter case, the counties, to which it applies. The legislature may enact special laws relating to local government units, but a special law, unless otherwise provided by general law, shall become effective only after its approval by the affected unit expressed through the voters or the governing body and by such majority as the legislature may direct. ”

“ The legislature shall provide by law for charter commissions. Notwithstanding any other constitutional limitations the legislature may require that commission members be freeholders, provide for their appointment by judges of the district court, and permit any member to hold any other elective or appointive office other than judicial. Home rule charter amendments may be proposed by a charter commission or by a petition of five percent of the voters of the local government unit as determined by law and shall not become effective until approved by the voters by the majority required by law. ”

“ He shall have a negative upon all laws passed by the legislature under such rules and limitations as are in this constitution prescribed. He may on extraordinary occasions convene both houses of the legislature. He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, fill any vacancy that may occur in the office of secretary of state, treasurer, auditor, attorney general, and such other state and district offices as may be hereafter created by law, until the next annual election, and until their successors are chosen and qualified. ”

“ None of the members of the council may be current or former lobbyists registered under Minnesota law. None of the members of the council may be a current employee of the legislature. None of the members of the council may be a current or former judge. None of the members of the council may be a current or former governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, or state auditor. None of the members of the council may be a current employee of an entity in the executive or judicial branch. Membership terms, removal, and compensation of members shall be as provided by law. ”

“ The legislature may provide for the election of one person in each organized county in this state, to be called a court commissioner, with judicial power and jurisdiction not exceeding the power and jurisdiction of a judge of the district court at chambers, or the legislature may instead of such election confer such power and jurisdiction upon judges of probate in the state. ”

“ The moneys belonging to the Internal Improvement Land fund, shall not be appropriated for any purpose whatever until the enactment for that purpose, shall have been approved by a majority of the electors of the state voting at the annual general election following the passage of the act.
The force of this amendment shall be to authorize the sale of the Internal Improvement Lands without further legislative enactment. [Adopted, November 5, 1872]
Sec. 33. In all cases when a general law can be made applicable, no special law shall be enacted ”

“ That no inconvenience may arise by reason of a change from a territorial to a permanent state government, it is declared that all rights, actions, prosecutions, judgments, claims and contracts, as well of individuals as of bodies corporate, shall continue as if no change had taken place; and all process which may be issued under the authority of the territory of Minnesota previous to its admission into the union of the United States, shall be as valid as if issued in the name of the state. ”

“ The legislature shall not authorize any county, township, city or other municipal corporation to issue bonds or to become indebted in any manner to aid in the construction or equipment of any or all railroads to any amount that shall exceed ten per centum of the value of the taxable property within such county, township, city or other municipal corporation, the amount of such taxable property to be ascertained and determined by the last assessment of said property made for the purpose of state and county taxation previous to the incurring of such indebtedness. ”

“ The election process and recount in Minnesota have lived up to the state's reputation for organization, transparency, and bipartisanship. The officials have been meticulous and every ruling has been unanimous.
While Senator Amy Klobuchar is one of the hardest working members of the United States Senate, Minnesotans deserve their full representation.
Once the Minnesota Supreme Court has issued its final ruling in this case, the President and I look forward to working with Mr. Franken on building an economy for the 21st century. ”

“ And as it is to be appropriated to this use with the consent of the State ceding it; as the State will no doubt provide in the compact for the rights and the consent of the citizens inhabiting it; as the inhabitants will find sufficient inducements of interest to become willing parties to the cession; as they will have had their voice in the election of the Government, which is to exercise authority over them; as a municipal Legislature for local purposes, derived from their own suffrages, will of course be allowed them; ”

“ The convention which framed the Constitution was indeed elected by the State legislatures. But the instrument, when it came from their hands, was a mere proposal, without obligation or pretensions to it. It was reported to the then existing Congress of the United States with a request that it might
be submitted to a convention of delegates, chosen in each State by the people thereof, under the recommendation of its legislature, for their assent and ratification. ”

“ Mr Madison considered the popular election of one branch of the national Legislature as essential to every plan of free Government. He observed that in some of the States one branch of the Legislature was composed of men already removed from the people by an intervening body of electors. That if the first branch of the general legislature should be elected by the State Legislatures, the second branch elected by the first—the Executive by the second together with the first; ”

“ The powers of the Legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the Constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may at any time be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited [p177] and acts allowed are of equal obligation. ”

“ Certainly all those who have framed written Constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be that an act of the Legislature repugnant to the Constitution is void. ”

“ To have submitted it to the Legislative discretion of the States, would have been improper for the same reason; and for the additional reason that it would have rendered too dependent on the State Governments, that branch of the Fœderal Government which ought to be dependent on the People alone. ”

“ Mr Madison said that he had brought with him into the Convention a strong bias in favor of an enumeration and definition of the powers necessary to be exercised by the national Legislature; but had also brought doubts concerning its practicability. His wishes remained unaltered; but his doubts had become stronger. What his opinion might ultimately be he could not yet tell. But he should shrink from nothing which should be found essential to such a form of Gov^ [t.] as would provide for the safety, liberty and happiness of the community. ”

“ THE number of which the House of Representatives is to consist, forms another, and a very interesting point of view, under which this branch of the Fœderal Legislature may be contemplated. ”

“ One of the principal objections inculcated by the more respectable adversaries to the Constitution is its supposed violation of the political maxim, that the Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary departments ought to be separate and distinct. In the structure of the Fœderal Government, no regard, it is said, seems to have been paid to this essential precaution in favor of liberty. ”

“ The Legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity, and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex. ”

“ The Civil Rights Bill and the Freedmen's Bureau Bill and the proposed constitutional amendments, with the amendment already adopted and recognized as the law of the land, do not reach the difficulty, and cannot, unless the whole structure of the government is changed from a government by States to something like a despotic central government, with power to control even the municipal regulations of States, and to make them conform to its own despotic will. ”

“ Some mode of displacing an unfit magistrate is rendered indispensable by the fallibility of those who choose, as well as by the corruptibility of the man chosen. He opposed decidedly the making the Executive the mere creature of the Legislature as a violation of the fundamental principle of good Government.
Mr Madison & Mr Wilson observed that it would leave an equality of agency in the small with the great States; that it would enable a minority of the people to prevent ye removal of an officer who had rendered himself justly criminal in the eyes of a majority; ”

“ In order to lay a due foundation for that separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of Government, which to a certain extent is admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation of liberty, it is evident that each department should have a will of its own; and consequently should be so constituted, that the members of each should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others. ”

“ Our recent decisions make plain that we do not sit as a super-legislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation nor to decide whether the policy which it expresses offends the public welfare. ”

“ When I was four years old I was taken with my family to a little town in western Minnesota, where I lived a more or less vapid and lonely life until I was ten. ”

“ The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. ”

“ No man can be a competent Legislator, who does not add, to an upright intention and a sound judgment, a certain degree of knowledge of the subjects on which he is to legislate. ”