One of the more overreaching pieces of legislation passed by the Minnesota Legislature this past session was a "bias registry." In essence, this is a database of Minnesotans engaging in "hate speech." And given the fact it was progs who pushed for this to be part of the Public Safety omnibus bill, you can guess what brand of speech they consider "hateful."
Obviously there are tremendous concerns being raised as to the potential abuse of such a program, especially when you consider how the information was set to be complied. Here was the initial language proposed in the House version, which instructed the human-rights dept. to....
… solicit, receive, and compile information from community organizations, school districts and charter schools, and individuals regarding incidents committed in whole or in substantial part because of the victim’s or another’s actual or perceived race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, national origin, or disability.
But when the final version was reconciled in committee, it was replaced with this:
Analyze civil rights trends pursuant to this chapter, including information compiled from community organizations that work directly with historically marginalized communities, and prepare a report each biennium that recommends policy and system changes to reduce and prevent further civil rights incidents across Minnesota.
Definitely seems less ominous than what DFL lawmakers initially desired, which was to flat out police speech. My duly elected state rep Harry Niska just last April basically got them to admit the quiet part out loud.
Rep. Vang has a provision in the Judiciary Bill that creates a government database of “hate incidents” (not crimes, which are already tracked).
— MN House GOP War Room (@MNHRCWarRoom) April 26, 2023
Rep. Vang says “hate incidents” could include:
- Writing an article saying COVID came from China
- Wearing a “I ♥️ JK Rowling” shirt pic.twitter.com/7N2hjFBUME
So does this mean the "bias registry" has indeed been scaled back. Color Rep. Niska skeptical.
Niska told National Review that he met with the Democratic leader of the committee and with (Rebecca) Lucero, the human-rights-department commissioner, to discuss the new language.
“And in that meeting, commissioner Lucero told me that the problem we had raised had been fixed. She used that word, ‘fixed,’ and that my questions were spot on, and they don’t want to collect that information [about constitutionally-protected, non-criminal speech],” he said.
Niska said he didn’t buy it. Although the language had been changed, to Niska it was now just more vague. And the funding that was being approved — $395,000 for fiscal 2024 and $250,000 for 2025 — was the same amount the department had initially requested.
Speaking against the proposal in May, Niska alleged that the Democrats and human-rights leaders behind the plan simply “vaguified” the language in the bill to make the critics look away. He argues that, under the new language tasking the human-rights department to “analyze civil rights trends,” department bureaucrats can theoretically gather the unverified allegations of non-criminal hate and bias that they had intended to all along.
“Absolutely it could include that,” Niska said. “Implicit in the word ‘analyze’ is that there is something to analyze.”
While the DFL has control of all of state government, they know full well that a permanent, California-style majority is not a fait accompli. However, having the ability to silence dissent would go a long way to achieving that goal.
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