Minnesota spice: sore-loser Democrats thwart democracy AGAIN

Democrats purport to be obsessed with threats to “democracy,” but they tend to go into full obstruction mode when democracy actually threatens to break out.We have seen that over the last week, as US Senate Democrats grilled Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees and repeatedly demanded the extent to which they’ll defy the duly elected commander-in-chief.“Will you say no if Trump wants you to commit a crime?” “Will you refuse to follow a Trump order to shoot innocent protesters?” And so on. The Democrats’ questions assume that Trump is a monster, and the job of a Cabinet member is to frustrate his designs.In fact, Trump has just won an overwhelming electoral victory, and the job of his Cabinet members is to help effectuate the policies that voters have endorsed.We see the same thing at the state level — when Democrats lose, their first impulse is to obstruct, to take their ball and go home.In Wisconsin in 2011, following Republican Gov.Scott Walker’s election and facing a GOP majority in the state Senate, every Senate Democrat fled the state for nearly a month so the body would not have a quorum and could not conduct business. Texas Democrats followed that playbook in 2021, when dozens of them hightailed it to Washington, DC, in a failed attempt to block a Republican-sponsored voting-reform bill.Something similar is happening now in my state, Minnesota.In November’s election, Republicans gained several seats in the state House of Representatives, and it appeared the 134-member body would be evenly split, 67-67.But as it turned out, one of the Democrats’ candidates had cheated. Minnesota’s constitution requires a legislator to live in the district he or she represents — and one seemingly victorious Democratic candidate lied about his residency, living all the while in a different district.His Republican opponent filed an election contest.

The judge who heard the lawsuit held that the Democrat cheated and enjoined him from taking a seat in t...