In defense of Legacy funds

This is a column about the critical importance this legislative session of sending a bill to Gov. Mark Dayton that establishes grass or other perennial buffers alongside Minnesota rivers, streams and other waterways, many of which are polluted.

But we're going to take a long route to get to that point.

Start here:

So far this session, I've had no need to write about Rep. Phyllis Kahn, DFL-Minneapolis — a Cornell, Yale and Harvard grad, a onetime biophysics professor and the longest-serving Minnesota legislator.

Kahn has done some great things. Most notably, in 1975 she was chief author of the much-copied Minnesota Clean Indoor Air Act, which banned tobacco smoking in public places. She's also had some low points. But then we all have.

The subject arises because Kahn published in this newspaper's editorial pages on Wednesday a rather colorful, if accuracy-challenged, recounting of legislative events in 2013, when her party, the DFL, was in charge of the House, and when she chaired the House Legacy Committee that oversaw approximately $100 million in game, fish and wildlife habitat projects recommended by the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council (LSOHC).

My argument has long been that projects endorsed by the council, with its eight citizens and four lawmakers, should remain sacrosanct and largely intact when considered by the Legislature.

Kahn in 2013 took a different tack as chair of the Legacy Committee, proposing to change LSOHC proposals significantly. "At all times, we must remember that their recommendations are just that," she said.

Kahn, for example, put out her own habitat-project RFPs (requests for proposals), in effect reopening the allocation process and bypassing the LSOHC. She also wanted to shift about $6 million of fish, game and wildlife habitat money to metro parks; proposed Outdoor Heritage Fund distributions be changed from annual to biennial, reducing the council's ability to react quickly to emerging environmental threats such as invasive species; and for good measure, she wanted to fund a poorly presented land acquisition proposal by the Fond du Lac band of Chippewa that the council had earlier rejected.

Kahn also came tantalizingly close to proposing that the LSOHC be enlarged from 12 to 17 members and that the majority of seats be given to legislators, not citizens.

Because of Kahn's stature in the Legislature (she was first elected in 1972) — and because in addition to the House, the DFL in 2013 also controlled the Senate — my fear was that if Kahn's ideas ended up in a bill on the desk of DFLer Dayton, he might sign it, thus neutering the LSOHC and the principle of citizen oversight upon which it was established.

Which is why I made sure readers got the drift, as it were, of Kahn's efforts to usurp the LSOHC's authority. Joining me in opposition to her were a score or more of conservation and environmental groups.

Writing on Wednesday, Kahn asked: Did I pick on her in 2013 because she's a woman? Did I oppose the Fond du Lac land acquisition because I'm a racist? Or am I and my "allies in the conservation, hunting and fishing communities [simply] rank hypocrites?"

Memo to Kahn: Stop looking for enemies where none exist.

Consider also what old what's-his-name — Aristotle — said: "All things being equal, assume the superiority of the demonstration which derives from fewer hypotheses" — the backbone of Occam's razor.

Meaning, keep it simple.

Yes, some House Republicans are trying to change LSOHC recommendations once again over the objections of state conservation and environment groups. But Senate DFLers won't agree to significant Legacy bill changes. And even if the Senate did agree, Dayton wouldn't sign the bill.

I haven't had to write about that bill, either. Because it's not going anywhere. So it's not important.

What is important is the buffer bill, which I have written about, and which you support.

And upon which we agree.