Legislative News

from Minnesota Snowmobiling - November 2021

From the President

Random Prattling, Jabbering & Nattering

An opinion article by Doug Franzen

In last month’s column, I invited readers to respond to my comments and engage in a respectful conversation, particularly if they disagreed with something I said. Thankfully, several of you did. The first responder felt that I exhibited a bias in favor of Senator Gazelka and was unfair to Governor Walz. This response while strongly worded, was civil and contained no personal attacks on me (probably due to the writer’s knowledge of my low self-esteem). It was perfect.

A second reader called me to tell me he liked my column even though he may disagree with some of its content. Both communications made my day. This is the type of conversation I was hoping for. There are a bunch of really smart folks (Socrates, etc.) who understand that the purpose of an argument is not to win but to learn. I learned something from the responses including something about myself. Thank you, readers! One responder felt that my anti-Walz bias was apparent and noticed that I did forewarn readers that my bias would seep through into my column. In fact, I like Governor Walz. I think he, with the benefit of the wise counsel of Commissioner Jan Malcolm, has shown courageous and effective leadership in managing our Covid crisis. However, he has not demonstrated that he understands or cares about snowmobiling and its impact on our quality of life. Also, I do like Senator Gazelka. He has proven to be a strong friend to MnUSA and all Minnesota snowmobilers, yet we do not see eye to eye on the pandemic. So, while I try to limit my perspective to snowmobile matters, bias does creep in. FYI, I have no idea who I will support for Governor in the upcoming election. It would be helpful if Governor Walz did show me that I am wrong and show support for our sport (hint, hint).

A word about bias: We all have opinions capable of metastasizing into bias. The problem is that we don’t always know it. Our bias is both conscious and unconscious. It’s the unconscious bias that gets us into trouble. We tend to find truth in reports that agree with our opinions regardless of the evidence. This truth finding is nothing more than confirming our bias and is therefore agreeable to us. Again, we all do

it. Confirmation bias is a disease that can easily be cured by respectful debate and argument. Is it remotely possible that your conversation partner is correct, and you are mistaken? If the people arguing have open hearts and are willing to learn, the argument will benefit both parties.

Recently, I observed some win-win arguing at the MnUSA Fall Workshop. Your Board of Directors is a feisty bunch, and its members are all strongly opinionated. At this meeting I saw some strong disagreement and lots of argument. But, in the end, the best results came from the arguments. Folks listened to one another, and no personal attacks occurred. I believe that such productive argument is possible because the directors know and respect one another. Even if a director believes that another director is spouting nonsense, they know and respect each other enough to disagree without being disagreeable.

Legislative stuff was accomplished at the workshop. On Friday, the Trails and Legislative Committee met and recommended a legislative agenda for 2022. Included in this agenda are matters that didn’t pass during the virtual legislative session this year and a new issue. On Sunday, the Board of Directors adopted the recommendations of the committee. The MnUSA priorities are as follows:

• Increase penalties for trespass on private land by snowmobilers • Sales tax exemption for building materials used in the development and maintenance of snowmobile trails • Permit snowmobiling on WMAs • Protect our dedicated fund • Monitor state/federal legislation or administrative action advancing high-speed rail between Duluth and the Twin Cities metro area to ensure that recreational trail crossings are not compromised • Allow trail crossing across divided highways at safest locations rather than at intersections, roundabouts and J-turns. • Reform sales requirements for snowmobiles without current registration.

Finally, the Minnesota House of Representatives has announced that its 2022 session will be held virtually again in 2022. We’re not out of the soup yet. So, be careful, be mindful and take care of yourselves.

Doug Franzen has been MnUSA’s lobbyist since 1978.