GOP releases platform for Duluth convention
Karen Boothe, 5/29/96

State Republican Party leaders have unveiled their proposed 1996 platform. It's expected to be debated, amended and adopted this week during the state convention in Duluth. Minnesota Public Radio's Karen-Louise Boothe reports:

As party platforms go...this one is pretty typical. It contains TWELVE main issues with Taxes and Spending reform topping the list. Party Chairman Chris Georgacas says the proposal recommends capping real estate taxes for senior citizens, reforming and simplifying the property tax SYSTEM...and cutting taxes and spending by ten percent. The platform doesn't give SPECIFICS beyond that:

BITE: PLATFORM 1 :21-SECS "A PUBLIC GOOD." Another key issue is reform of the criminal justice system The platform proposal calls for mandatory prison sentences for violent offenders with no chance for parole, trying violent juveniles as ADULTS..and double bunking prisoners who are incarcerated in state prisons. There are recommendations for welfare reform, health care reform and civil rights reform. The platform recommends welfare benefits be limited to Two years and there would be work and residency requirements. Under Health Care, there's a proposal to cut MinnesotaCare for the working poor, and Under Civil Rights reform, affirmative action would END, although racial discrimination would be denounced.

Georgacas rejects suggestions, the proposed platform is ANYTHING short of COMPASSIONATE:

BITE: PLATFORM 2 :21-SECS "FOR SEVERAL DECADES."

But Governor Arne Carlson, the state's highest ranking Republican, takes a different view than the leaders who've established the framework for the party's ideologies and policy positions. Carlson opposes the platform recommendation to eliminate Minnesota Care, and he opposes the two year limit on welfare benefits:

BITE: PLATFORM 3 :20-secs "IS NOT WORKABLE." Carlson, who's already decided not to ATTEND his party's state gathering, downplayed the importance of the platform too, saying most candidates run AWAY FROM platforms not ON them. Party leaders are hoping OTHERWISE...saying THIS year's document was crafted from the grassroots and in the spirit of the Republican "Contract With America." They're hoping it not only provides the framework for the party's ideologies, but as the backbone to the candidacies of more republicans vying to take control of the legislature.

Conspicuously ABSENT from this year's platform are opinions on School vouchers and the current debate over the land use of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and Voyageurs National Park. Perennial stances such as an opposition to legal abortion and no fault divorce have re-emerged this year...as is a position defining "FAMILY" in only the traditional sense.

SOC