Farheen Hakeem's Political Courage

Voters in south Minneapolis district have the right to know where their candidates stand on the issues. Only Farheen Hakeem has the audacity to stand up for what she believes in and how she will fight for her constituents. This is taken from her Political Courage Test at VoteSmart.org:

Abortion Issues

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding abortion.
	a) Abortions should always be illegal.
X	b) Abortions should always be legal.
	c) Abortions should be legal only within the first trimester of pregnancy.
	d) Abortions should be legal when the pregnancy resulted from incest or rape.
	e) Abortions should be legal when the life of the woman is endangered.
	f) Abortions should be subject to a mandatory waiting period.
	g) Require clinics to give parental notification before performing abortions on minors.
	h) Other or expanded principles

Budget and Tax Issues

State Budget: Indicate what state funding levels (#1-6) you support for the following general categories. Select one level per category, you can use a number more than once.
Slightly Increase	a) Education (Higher)
Greatly Increase	b) Education (K-12)
Maintain Status	c) Emergency preparedness
Greatly Increase	d) Environment
Maintain Status	e) Health care
Slightly Decrease	f) Law enforcement
Maintain Status	g) Transportation and highway infrastructure
Greatly Increase	h) Welfare
Greatly Increase	i) Other or expanded categories
For Health care, I would like to join with other legislators to bring Single Payer Universal Health care to Minnesota.
State Taxes: Indicate what state tax levels (#1-6) you support for the following general categories. Select one level per category, you can use a number more than once.
Greatly Increase	a) Alcohol taxes
Slightly Increase	b) Cigarette taxes
Greatly Increase	c) Corporate taxes
Slightly Increase	d) Gasoline taxes
Maintain Status	e) Income taxes (incomes below $75,000)
Slightly Increase	f) Income taxes (incomes above $75,000)
Greatly Decrease	g) Property taxes
Maintain Status	h) Sales taxes
Slightly Increase	i) Vehicle taxes
	j) Other or expanded categories
Undecided	1) Should state sales taxes be extended to Internet sales?
Yes	2) Should accounts such as a "rainy day" fund be used to balance the state budget?
No	3) Should fee increases be used to balance the state budget?
	4) Other or expanded principles

Campaign Finance and Government Reform Issues

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding campaign finance and government reform.
Yes	a) Do you support limiting the number of terms for Minnesota governors?
Yes	b) Do you support limiting the number of terms for Minnesota state senators and representatives?
c) Do you support limiting the following types of contributions to state legislative candidates?
Yes	1) Individual
Yes	2) PAC
Yes	3) Corporate
Yes	4) Political Parties
Yes	d) Do you support requiring full and timely disclosure of campaign finance information?
Yes	e) Do you support imposing spending limits on state-level political campaigns?
No	f) Should Minnesota participate in the federal REAL ID program?
Yes	g) Should Minnesota allow homeowners whose mortgage is in foreclosure a one-year deferment on their primary residence?
h) Other or expanded principles
No Answer

Crime Issues

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding crime.
	a) Increase state funds for construction of state prisons and hiring of additional prison staff.
	b) Establish the death penalty in Minnesota.
X	c) Support programs to provide prison inmates with vocational and job-related skills and job-placement assistance when released.
X	d) Implement penalties other than incarceration for certain non-violent offenders.
X	e) Decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana.
	f) Minors accused of a violent crime should be prosecuted as adults.
	g) Support state and local law enforcement officials enforcing federal immigration laws.
X	h) Support hate crime legislation.
	i) Other or expanded principles

Education Issues

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding education.
X	a) Support state funding of universal pre-K programs.
	b) Support federal education standards and testing requirements for K-12 students (No Child Left Behind).
X	c) Support state education standards and testing requirements for K-12 students.
	d) Support requiring public schools to administer high school exit exams.
	e) Allow parents to use vouchers to send their children to any public school.
	f) Allow parents to use vouchers to send their children to any private or religious school.
X	g) Provide state funding to increase teacher salaries.
	h) Support using a merit pay system for teachers.
X	i) Provide state funding for tax incentives and financial aid to help make college more affordable.
	j) Support allowing illegal immigrant high school graduates of Minnesota to pay in-state tuition at public universities.
	k) Other or expanded principles
I support J, but I would term it to be "Support allowing undocumented high school graduates of Minnesota to pay in-state tuition at public universities.

Employment Issues

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding employment.
X	a) Increase funding for state job-training programs that re-train displaced workers and teach skills needed in today's job market.
	b) Reduce state government regulations on the private sector.
	c) Provide low interest loans and tax credits for starting, expanding, or relocating businesses.
	d) Provide tax credits for businesses that provide child care for children in low-income working families.
X	e) Increase state funds to provide child care for children in low-income working families.
X	f) Increase the state minimum wage.
X	g) Support laws that prevent employers from dismissing employees at will.
	h) Support financial punishments for those who knowingly employ illegal immigrants.
	i) Support increased work requirements for able-bodied welfare recipients.
	j) Increase funding for employment and job training programs for welfare recipients.
	k) Other or expanded principles

Environment and Energy Issues

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding the environment and energy.
X	a) Promote increased use of alternative fuel technology.
	b) Support increased production of traditional domestic energy sources (e.g. coal, natural gas, oil, etc).
	c) Support providing financial incentives to farms that produce biofuel crops.
X	d) Use state funds to clean up former industrial and commercial sites that are contaminated, unused, or abandoned.
	e) Support funding for improvements to Minnesota's power generating and transmission facilities.
X	f) Support funding for open space preservation.
X	g) Limit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
X	h) Enact environmental regulations even if they are stricter than federal law.
	i) Other or expanded principles
I would support increased production of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. I would also support funding for improvements to Minnesota's power generating and transmission facilities if it was to reduce our carbon footprint on the planet.

Gun Issues

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding guns.
Yes	a) Should background checks be required on gun sales between private citizens at gun shows?
No	b) Should citizens be allowed to carry concealed guns?
Yes	c) Should a license be required for gun possession?
Undecided	d) Do you support current levels of enforcement of existing state restrictions on the purchase and possession of guns?
Undecided	e) Do you support current state restrictions on the purchase and possession of guns?
	f) Other or expanded principles

Health Issues

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding health.
	a) Ensure that citizens have access to basic health care through managed care, insurance reforms, or state-funded care where necessary.
	b) Guaranteed medical care to all citizens is not a responsibility of state government.
	c) Limit the amount of damages that can be awarded in medical malpractice lawsuits.
	d) Allow patients to sue their HMOs.
	e) Require hospitals and labs to release reports on infections that are a risk to public health, while not compromising patient confidentiality.
	f) Legalize physician assisted suicide in Minnesota.
	g) Support allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana to their patients for medicinal purposes.
	h) Other or expanded principles
I support single payer universal health care.

Social Issues

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding social issues.
Yes	a) Should Minnesota recognize civil unions between same-sex couples?
Yes	b) Should same-sex couples be allowed to marry?
Yes	c) Should Minnesota provide state-level spousal rights to same-sex couples?
No	d) Do you support a moment of silence in public schools?
Undecided	e) Do you support voluntary prayer in public schools?
Yes	f) Do you support sexual education programs that include information on abstinence, contraceptives, and HIV/STD prevention methods?
No	g) Do you support abstinence-only sexual education programs?
Yes	h) Should the state government consider race and gender in state government contracting and hiring decisions?
Yes	i) Do you support affirmative action in public college admissions?
Yes	j) Should Minnesota continue affirmative action programs?
Yes	k) Do you support state funding of stem cell research?
Yes	l) Do you support state funding of embryonic stem cell research?
No	m) Do you support allowing pharmacists who conscientiously object to emergency contraception to refuse to dispense it?
n) Other or expanded principles
I am confused to what "e) Do you support voluntary prayer in public schools?" Students should have the right to pray in schools if they choose, but the school administrators should not require students to attend prayer. For example, is a student wished to do Friday Prayers, which happen at lunch time, the school should not stop the student, and meet their needs. Yet, a teacher can not require all of the students in the class to pray along with the student.
Legislative Priorities
Please explain in a total of 100 words or less, your top two or three priorities if elected. If they require additional funding for implementation, please explain how you would obtain this funding.
The big challenge that I see in the Legislature is to balance the 2 billion dollar deficit without cutting programs and services to the poor. As your State Representative, I would advocate that housing, jobs, youth programming, and programs to end poverty are an investment, not an expense. I will fight to secure general funds to sustain programs for education and social services, and work beyond party lines to create solutions to balance the budget, find funding for community programs, and bring landmark legislation to law. [ These taken from VoteSmart.org Farheen's primary opponent has this listed on their site: Mr. Hayden repeatedly refused to provide any responses to citizens on the issues through the 2008 Political Courage Test when asked to do so by national leaders of the political parties, prominent members of the media, Project Vote Smart President Richard Kimball, and Project Vote Smart staff. I consider Mr. Hayden's inaction to be yet another sign of local DFL corruption, ineptitude, and not truly standing for anything but getting elected. - KC ]

Your turn: Preferential voting is unconstitutional

[ I completely disagree with the following article. I am posting this to show the futility of the pro-lifers to turn a non-partisan issue into a partisan one. IRV supports rather than diminishes democracy. It is a runoff where all votes are counted again each round. No votes are "weighted" more than others. But the majority ALWAYS wins. ]

By Andy Cilek and Matt Marchetti, Minnesota Voters Alliance ( Republican Party / MInnesotans Concerned for Life )

Minneapolis voters recently approved a little understood and poorly described voting system called Single Transferable Vote, also known as Ranked Choice Voting or Instant Runoff Voting. Now, its proponents want to foist the same scheme on the unsuspecting voters of St. Paul.

Preferential voting systems, which require voters to rank candidates in order of preference rather than vote for one, are seriously flawed, undemocratic and unconstitutional.

Political insiders and groups such as Fairvote tout IRV while either ignoring or downplaying any opposing arguments. They conveniently gloss over the fact that the Minnesota Supreme Court, in Brown vs. Smallwood, ruled preferential voting unconstitutional in 1915.

In a recent article published on Fairvote Minnesota's site, Professor David Shultz of Hamline University (and also of Fairvote) wrongly accused a local reporter of misinterpreting the attorney general's recent report, which simply stated that if Brown was still to be followed, (which we believe it is), IRV was "probably" unconstitutional.

Even worse, Shultz displayed an utter ignorance of basic civics by referring to the Brown decision as "antiquated." So then the Constitution must be antiquated, too?

It should also be noted here before IRV being placed on the 2006 ballot, Burt Osborne, then Minneapolis city attorney, said "the city of Minneapolis appears to be precluded from adopting a preferential voting system generally unless such a system is provided for by the Minnesota Constitution pursuant to Brown v. Smallwood, 153 N.W. 953, 957 (Minn. 1915)." The mayor and City Council ignored this warning and pushed it through anyway.

The state's highest court ruled in 1915 that preferential voting systems were "contrary to the intent of our Constitution." In this decision, the court emphasized that the Constitution, by implication, forbids any elector to cast more than a "single expression of opinion or choice."

In an attempt to circumvent this ruling, Schultz argues that the 1915 court ruled preferential voting unconstitutional merely because it involved the Bucklin method of counting, which "had the effect of giving some voters more than one vote."

He argues that IRV "does not share this fatal flaw." The claim is that even though each voter may cast multiple votes, only one vote is actually counted — the one applied to the highest preferred candidate eligible to receive it.

This is pure rhetorical trickery. Where did the other votes go, cyberspace? It only stands to reason that if you rank three choices on the ballot, you've cast three votes!

The defining characteristic of all preferential voting systems is the existence of secondary choices, regardless of the counting scheme. The issue is NOT how votes are counted, transferred or manipulated, but how many votes (choices) each voter may cast. Because IRV allows voters to rank multiple candidates, it does indeed "share this fatal flaw."

IRV has yet another fatal flaw; all ballots are not counted equally! While the Bucklin method provides for all secondary votes to be counted when necessary, IRV only counts second choice votes on those ballots cast for defeated candidates. This means some voters end up having their first and subsequent choices counted while others have only their first choice votes counted.

The court clearly stated, "The preferential system of voting directly diminishes the right of an elector to give an effective vote for the candidate of his choice."

Consider an IRV election with three candidates, A, B and C. Candidate A receives 40 first choice votes, candidate B receives 35, and candidate C receives 25. Because no candidate received 51 percent of the first choice votes, candidate C is eliminated, and those 25 ballots are recounted for second choice votes and a new total is then re-tallied. If 16 of those second choice votes went to candidate B, and nine went to candidate A; candidate B is declared the winner with 51 votes.

In this example, the voters who preferred candidate C had their first and second choice votes counted while those who preferred candidate A had only their first choice votes counted. Clearly, the voters who preferred Candidate A had their right to cast an effective vote diminished.

Brown vs. Smallwood concludes, "The decision is sound; we do right in upholding the right of the citizen to cast a vote for the candidate of his choice unimpaired by the second and additional choice votes cast by others."

We believe any objective court will rule all preferential voting systems unconstitutional because they all share the same undemocratic characteristics. IRV advocates make many arguments supporting their scheme, but an in-depth examination will reveal that none of them hold water.

This is the opinion of Andy Cilek and Matt Marchetti of Minnesota Voters Alliance, a citizens group formed with the primary purpose of empowering the electorate.

originally at: http://www.sctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071109/OPINION/111090032/1006

A necessary choice

By Dan Neil Los Angeles Times

My wife and I just had an abortion. Two, actually. We walked into a doctor's office in downtown Los Angeles with four thriving fetuses -- two girls and two boys -- and walked out an hour later with just the girls, whom we will name, if we're lucky enough to keep them, Rosalind and Vivian. Rosalind is my mother's name.

We didn't want to. We didn't mean to. We didn't do anything wrong, which is to say, we did everything right. Four years ago, when Tina and I set out on this journey to have children, such a circumstance was unimaginable. And yet there I was, holding her hand, watching the ultrasound as a needle with potassium chloride found its mark, stopping the heart of one male fetus, then the other, hidden in my wife's suffering belly.

We don't feel guilty. We don't feel ashamed. We're not even really sad, because terminating these fetuses -- at 15 weeks' gestation -- was a medical imperative. This has been a white- knuckle pregnancy from Day 1, and had it gone on as it was going, Tina's health would have been in jeopardy, according to her doctor. The fact is, multiple pregnancies are high risk, and they can go bad very suddenly. I wasn't going to allow that, though the fires of hell might beckon.

In the midst of this experience, practically on the eve of our procedure, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its ruling in Gonzales vs. Carhart, upholding the federal ban on a rare obstetrical procedure called intact dilation and extraction, or intact D&E, also known as "partial-birth" abortion.

The decision is a watershed in abortion law, the first ban on a particular abortion procedure since 1973's Roe vs. Wade and the first restriction on abortion to be approved by the court that does not include an exception for the health of the mother. Antiabortion activists were jubilant and immediately began talking about plans for state-by-state campaigns to restrict, and eventually rescind, access to abortion generally. For the first time in a long time, such talk didn't seem like wishful thinking.

I was stunned. Events in Washington that I had once followed with purely newsy and academic interest -- the recent appointment of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., and the fate of Roe -- suddenly struck home in the most personal way possible.

I mean, my wife and I have always been pro-choice, but we never expected to actually confront the Choice. After all, we've been trying like crazy to have children. We had already undergone two in- vitro fertilization procedures before this last time, when we put back five embryos, despairing that any would take. Beforehand, the fertility specialist asked us if we were OK with "reduction" -- also known as selective abortion -- in the event that too many took hold. We said yes, not really appreciating what that meant.

To our delight, four set up residence. Our initial joy, however, was tempered by the realization that we would have to lose two to keep two. For the last couple of months, Tina and I have discussed our options with our doctors, gradually wrapping our heads around this personal and private decision -- only to have the government invite itself to the conference at the eleventh hour.

To be clear, the procedure banned by the court last month -- intact D&E -- was not an option in our case. But it doesn't take much foresight to see how the court's decision could have huge consequences for fertility and reproductive medicine. For instance, the case upheld a ban on a midterm abortion procedure -- that is, one that takes place between 12 and 28 weeks. If the government begins to foreclose obstetrical options in the midterm, it will tie the hands of family health doctors in unexpected and dramatic ways.

Take our case. As soon as we found out at about four weeks that we had too many fetuses, we wanted to undergo the reduction procedure. But our doctor told us to wait to see if the number would reduce on its own, as often happens. Then, at about 12 weeks, we underwent a type of genetic testing (chorionic villus sampling, similar to amniocentesis), reasoning that if we had to abort two, it would be better to abort any fetuses with genetic abnormalities. The results took two weeks to get back, and by that time Tina was experiencing complications so severe that we had to put her in the hospital. The whole time, an awful clock was ticking.

Amniocentesis testing -- which involves extracting fluid from the placenta -- is usually performed between 15 and 20 weeks. That's solidly in the second trimester as well. If midterm abortions are banned, what will the state tell parents confronting the agony of a fetus with severe abnormalities? Would it oblige them to carry through with the pregnancy against their will? Would it -- as proposed by South Carolina's pending "ultrasound" legislation -- require women to look at pictures of their fetuses in an attempt to impress on them the humanity of the fetus they are aborting? Believe me, they know.

We got a sense of this kind of heavy-handed paternalism in Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's majority opinion in Gonzales vs. Carhart, in which he asserted that the ban would ultimately be good for women, who would be spared the mental and moral trauma of the procedure.

If only women and their doctors were as smart as Congress.

The court's ruling upholds the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, which declares the intact D&E -- in which the fetus is partially extracted from the uterus before being dispatched with an aspirating needle, scissors or forceps -- to be "gruesome and inhumane." But the truth is, there is no such thing as a pretty abortion. The alternatives to intact D&E are no less grim. Is grasping and dismembering the fetus in utero with forceps (as opposed to after a partial extraction) or injecting it with heart- stopping chemicals and then delivering the stillbirth any less repellent?

Gruesomeness is no standard at all. Removing the organs from a brain-dead teenager is gruesome, yet we do it to preserve the life of an organ recipient. The point is, sometimes it's necessary.

Americans need to be careful what they wish for. I think antiabortion advocates imagine a world in which women -- promiscuous, lazy or selfish singletons -- roll into the doctor's office for midterm abortions and stick their feet in the stirrups while still chatting on the cellphone. Recreational abortions, you might say.

But in the real world, that's not how it happens. Virtually no one takes the matter lightly. I would also point out that even the most fervent abortion opponents may one day find themselves suffering from infertility and may rue supporting the court's from- the-bench obstetrics.

Some wanted to know how we decided to keep the girls. Partly, it was a matter of how the fetuses were arranged. Partly, it had to do with other factors. Some studies show offspring of older fathers (I'm 47) run a higher risk of autism, and males are four times as likely to be autistic. Still, I had reservations about bringing girls into the world now, when forces seemed to be aligning to disenfranchise them (nine of 10 GOP presidential candidates favor reversing Roe vs. Wade). I hate to think my girls will have to fight the battles their mothers and grandmothers fought.

I feel sorriest for our doctors. The three we have seen are all extraordinary people, deeply compassionate, superbly trained. All are parents. All regard abortion with the greatest gravity. And yet they are obliged to be circumspect, if not downright fearful. And who can blame them? The physician who performed our reduction asked that her name not be used, for fear that she might be terrorized by some gun-toting antiabortion extremist.

For our part, we are grateful that she was out there. Without her, we wouldn't have been able to have a family. When Roz and Viv grow up, I hope one day I can introduce them to her. I think she'd be proud.

Dan Neil is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

(c) 2007 Deseret News (Salt Lake City). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.

Source: Deseret News (Salt Lake City)