First, the deceptive practices portion of HF 3. We told you before on our program that this part of the bill is unconstitutional, and it still is. It makes it a crime punishable by up to a year in jail or a $3,000 fine for a person to make any sort of statement, within 60 days of an election, if the person “(1) intends to impede or prevent another person from exercising the right to vote; and (2) knows to be materially false.” It explicitly includes statements about “the qualifications for or restrictions on voter eligibility at an election”. It also allows the attorney general — an elected partisan official — to sue individuals who he believes violated the law. This provision would allow county attorneys and the AG to hit alleged violators with attorney fee awards which would be tens of thousands of dollars.

We pointed out before that our concern centers on the provision that says that qualifications for voter eligibility are subject to this speech code. Well, since our episode, the author of the bill, Rep. Greenman, literally confirmed that those who oppose felon voting and want to say “you’re a felon and you can’t vote” will be prosecuted.

[No way this stands up in federal court. Unfortunately, the same thing can’t be said for all of the DFL’s radical legislative agenda this year. — Ed]