Contributors

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Gay Marriage and the Real Job of a Senator

Yesterday the Minnesota Senate passed a gay marriage bill, following the House's vote last week. Governor Mark Dayton is set to sign it tonight. The bill passed the Senate by a 37 to 30 margin, mostly along party lines, with three Democrats voting against it and one Republican voting for it.

Just last November Minnesotans rejected a constitutional amendment that would have banned gay marriage. There had already been a law against it, but Republicans did an end-around the governor and tried to write a discriminatory law into the constitution.

One of the Democrats voting against the marriage bill that just passed was Dan Sparks, from rural Austin:
Sparks, a four-term Democrat, said he voted against the bill to align with his southeastern Senate District 27, which voted about 60 percent in favor of the constitutional amendment last fall. Sparks and nine other rural Senate Democrats hail from districts that voted in favor of the constitutional amendment in November.

“At the end of the day it wasn’t a personal vote for me, it was a vote about representing my district,” Sparks said. “Today I still wasn’t positive after hearing some of the emotional speeches. It was weighing heavy on myself and my family.” Sparks said it was “by far” the most difficult vote he has taken as a senator.
Voters in my district voted against the constitutional amendment by a 3-2 margin, but my senator, David Hann, announced he would vote against it the day before the vote.

The lone Republican who voted for the bill, Branden Peterson, co-sponsored it. Members of his own party vowed to defeat him in the next election. On the floor of the Senate he said:
“I stand here, quite honestly, more uncertain about my future in this place. When I walk out of this chamber today, I know that I’m standing on the side of individual liberty.”
Scott Dibble, of Minneapolis, was a Democratic sponsor of the bill. Most of his constituents supported its passage.

Which of these men did the right thing, and why? It depends on what we think a senator's job is in the first place:
  • A: A senator is an employee of all the people in his district. He should vote the way the majority of his constituents want him to. In that case, Dibble and Sparks did the right thing and Hann and Petersen did the wrong thing.
  • B: A senator is an employee of just the people who voted for him. Sparks may have done the wrong thing (because he's a Democrat, and it's possible the majority of them wanted the bill passed), Petersen did the wrong thing, and Dibble and Hann did the right thing.
  • C: A senator is an employee of his party. Sparks and Petersen did the wrong thing, and Dibble and Hann did the right thing.
  • D: A senator is just a job. Sparks and Dibble did the right thing (because they voted the way the majority of the voters in his district voted, and that may get them reelected). Petersen did the wrong thing. Hann may have done the wrong thing if the constituents in my district voted against the constitutional amendment because they felt gay marriage should be allowed. If those constituents thought it was wrong to hack the constitution every time the legislature can't get their way through the normal legislative process (which was why I've voted all recent amendments), then Hann may have done the right thing.
  • E: A senator is a moral and ethical leader who is supposed to make this country a freer and fairer place, in a truly libertarian sense. Sparks and Hann did the wrong thing, and Dibble and Petersen did the right thing. Because prohibitions against gay marriage are exactly the same as anti-miscegenation laws that banned interracial marriage, which have now all been struck down in all the states.
  • F: A senator is religious leader who is supposed to obey the commandments of whatever religion holds him captive. Sparks may have done the right thing depending on his religion, Petersen probably did the wrong thing (if he's a typical Protestant Republican), and Dibble and Hann did the right thing (assuming their religions support their votes).
  • G: A senator is an employee of the people who paid for their election. Sparks and Petersen did the wrong thing (members of their parties almost certainly contributed the majority of his funds), and Dibble and Hann did the right thing.
Judging by the behavior and rhetoric of Democrats, most of them seem to perceive their job to fall into one or more of A, C, D, and E. Republicans seem to favor B, C, D, F and G. This difference might be at the core of why Republicans seem to think governing should be so easy while Democrats find it so complex.

This makes me wonder if the vast majority of people have ever considered what the job of legislators is supposed to be. They just get mad when someone votes in a way they don't like. But having no common definition of what the hell a politician's job should be may be the reason we're so dissatisfied with their performance.

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