Humpty Dumpty in the Secretary of State's Office

"When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master— that's all."

-- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking-Glass."


The selfless public servant in the Secretary of State's office puts his thumb on the scale, yet again:

On Monday morning, supporters of the amendment to define marriage as strictly a union of a man and a woman joined with Republican lawmakers in asking the Minnesota Supreme Court to reverse Secretary of State Mark Ritchie's editing of the amendment's title.

Far from shrinking from the controversy, Ritchie, a Democrat, announced hours later that he also planned to change the title of the photo ID amendment, prompting renewed charges that he is using his nonpartisan office for political purposes.

He's already attempted to change the title of the gay marriage amendment, claiming he could because (a) Mark Dayton issued a meaningless veto of the amendment and (b) Attorney General Lori Swanson told him he could. He's apparently going to attempt to do the same thing to the photo ID amendment.

Here's what he did:

If Ritchie's changes remain intact, November voters would see a question on their ballots about "limiting ... marriage to opposite sex couples" rather than one about recognizing "marriage solely between one man and one woman."

They would also see a question titled "changes to in-person & absentee voting & voter registration; provisional ballots," which Ritchie picked when he cast aside the Legislature's preference of "photo identification required for voting."

Emphasis mine. We might have a duly elected legislature, but it can't be trusted to do the right thing, so Mark Ritchie will do it for them. And he'll have the Attorney General rubber stamp it for him. I suppose we should have global warming, because at this rate we'll be growing bananas in Minnesota any time now and we might as well go for verisimilitude.

So is there any recourse against this uncivil servant? Well, he's going to have to defend his actions in court. Unfortunately, he'll be in front of the always-compliant Minnesota Supreme Court.

This is outrageous, of course, but I'd be willing to let it slide, so long as when Ritchie's name next appears on the ballot in 2014, it reads as "Corrupt Incumbent Mark Ritchie."