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The politicians who foisted this scam on Minnesota are laying low as they wait for the American mass amnesia to take hold, and the media, purveyors of that amnesia, are obliging them. It is not profitable for televised and print news to hound out of office those politicians who gave our pocketbooks to Twins owner Carl Pohlad.

However, it is now close to the time when we citizens are polled to gauge our opinion of the policymakersčvoting day. I have a dim view of the institution of voting, but I would nonetheless take great satisfaction in seeing the authors of this travesty removed from their positions of privileged feeding from the public trough.

A few telling details in last year's newspaper articles managed to slip through all the gushing about how to best fund the stadiums, where to put them, what they will look like, what the seats will be made of and how many rich people can sit in the luxury suites.

First, state law requires anything imposing a local sales tax to appear on the ballot, but the bill grants itself a waiver. A few politicians who actually believe in representing the electorate repeatedly tried to force a referendum, but the anti-democratic forces overwhelmed them and removed it.

The Senate Tax Committee voted unanimously for a referendum; the Senate voted to switch committees to the Rules Committee. After all, “a referendum is a recipe for no progress, no ballpark,” according to Hennepin County Commissioner Mike Opat. He refrained from commenting on whether waiving a referendum is a recipe for no democracy.
Second, the stadium is funded by a 0.15 percent sales tax in Hennepin County. This is three cents for every $20 spent. Put another way, the $522 million Twins stadium is something like $315 for every person living in Hennepin County, and that’s ignoring the Gophers stadium taking $10 million out of the general fundčwhich also funds education and health care--every year until 2031.

Yet a Star Tribune Minnesota Poll showed that two-thirds of the public didn’t want to pay for a new stadium, and 78 percent wanted a referendum. So all this money is coming from people who were methodically denied the ability to reject this theft of their money by people who didn’t represent them. Most of the legislators who voted for the stadiums are from districts outside of Hennepin County, and most legislators from that county opposed it.

Which leads me to my third interesting detail. The stadiums were largely a Democratic project. Opposition generally came from Republicans and a small minority of Democrats. Few Democratic supporters seem to realize that their party has abandoned them. It’s time for voters to realize this, and return the favor by abandoning the sinking ship of the Democratic Party.

Anyone who buys anything in Hennepin County pays for three-fourths of the stadium, whether they support the Twins or not. There will not be any subsidiary benefits to the economy.

Politicians pass laws nestled away from the public view. The “democratic process” is not transparent. We can’t criticize them for something we don’t know about because it’s on page 246 with obscure wording. What this means is that our “representatives” are not accountable for what they do.
Well, it’s time to start trying. The chief sponsors of the bill were Steve Kelley in the Senate and Brad Finstad in the House. Know them and their kind; they are the enemy.