A Minnesota Poll taken during the 2004 presidential election found that 58 percent of those surveyed agreed that “so many people have taken extreme positions these days that it’s hard to talk with anyone about politics unless you know they are likely to agree with you.” If nearly six out of 10 Minnesotans aren’t talking politics with one another, it shouldn’t be a surprise that we are represented by a deeply divided Legislature–and that this year we endured the second longest special legislative session and the first government shutdown in Minnesota’s history.
But is Minnesota as deeply divided as election results and political pundits would make us out to be? Or are we a state in which special interests and the extreme fringe of both major parties drive wedges, even as most of the state prefers building bridges?
The challenge of finding consensus is becoming increasingly urgent. Minnesota faces difficult choices in just about every area of our civic, economic and cultural lives. These choices go to the very heart of the kind of state Minnesotans want.
Unfortunately, in today’s political environment, there is little incentive for politicians or for those representing special interests to build consensus. Redistricting creates non-competitive safe districts in which like-minded people elect and reward policy makers who share their views … and only their views. At the same time, there is an erosion of forums devoted to objective news and common ground. Between February 2004 and February 2005, audiences for the 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. television news broadcasts declined 13 percent in a key segment (viewers between ages 25 and 54), to cite just one example.
Many viewers haven’t abandoned politics or policy. But instead of getting their information from mass media, they go to the social forums on the Internet where blogs, wikis and the like join people who share political outlooks. Instead of understanding different views, more and more of us seek reinforcement of our own political ideologies, in part because we don’t think we can get an objective viewpoint.
The Citizens League is embarking on a multi-year initiative to change this environment by facilitating a vision for Minnesota that is defined by Minnesotans. The goal is to engage the state’s citizens in creating a sesquicentennial anniversary agenda: plans for action on a handful of critical issues that could be announced by May 2006, with the first steps accomplished by May 11, 2008, the 150th anniversary of Minnesota’s statehood.
The plan calls for creating both short-term and long-term objectives. Re-engaging Minnesotans in the public process requires immediate successes. People need validation and they need to know that their voices and involvement make a difference. But we must also face the reality that many of the state’s most difficult challenges have been years in the making and will require years for solutions to take effect. Therefore, the agenda must also include plans that look out a decade or more.
Minnesota’s 150th Anniversary Project–or MAP 150–will have several components:
- People from a broad philosophical spectrum are taking the first cut at issues and solutions for the public to consider. Participants at this level of the project are people from public policy and non-profit sectors, advocacy groups, education, business and other sectors. Their role is to narrow the scope of issues and solutions for the public to consider.
- The ideas emerging from these first panels will be put before the public for affirmation or rejection. Through forums and research, Minnesotans from all walks of life will be able to refine and narrow the proposed list of issues and solutions to include in MAP 150.
- Opinion gains power through discussion and agreement. Our hope (if funding permits) is to engage Minnesotans in innovative new ways, including an electronic town hall meeting, a real-time discussion of what is important to us as a state and the actions we should take. This discussion–and the ones that follow it throughout the MAP 150 initiative–will be informed by the facts that are critical to understanding and evaluating each issue. This effort builds on the Citizens League’s successful Facts Unfiltered project last year. As the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.”
The hope is to identify the issues and solutions where there is consensus and urgency–where Minnesotans agree on the substance and the need for quick, yet thoughtful action. The agenda that emerges may well be a mixed bag of issues and solutions, not all of which call for government action. Minnesota’s past suggests that when citizens start talking, government is only part of the answer. Recommendations could include steps that families, businesses, schools, the faith community or other institutions could take to make Minnesota a better state.
Shaping the agenda will begin by asking people to see choices within existing private and public resources. This isn’t to pick sides in the “no new taxes” debate, but to encourage people to grapple with setting priorities.
Creating the agenda is only the first step in MAP 150. If the goal is to achieve the first steps of the agenda by May 11, 2008, then the issues and solutions proposed as part of MAP 150 need to become part of Minnesota’s political discussion during next year’s election campaigns and beyond.
In the long run, the greatest measure of MAP 150’s success may not be whether any individual agenda item is implemented, but whether the Minnesota Poll taken during our state’s sesquicentennial shows that as a state we once again are willing and able to talk politics and public policy.
Much of MAP 150 will depend on funding. This is perhaps the most ambitious initiative the Citizens League has ever undertaken. If successful, we hope to engage other organizations in creating the agenda, announce it by May 2006 and pursue solutions that can be implemented by May 2008, Minnesota’s sesquicentennial.
Tom Horner is Vice Chair of the Citizens League Board of Directors and is President of Himle Horner Inc., a Minnesota public relations and public affairs firm. This article originally appeared in the October 2005 Minnesota Journal.
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