Hatch calls for reversing cuts to law enforcement

07/11/2006

Conrad deFiebre,
Star Tribune
Last update: July 10, 2006 – 10:42 PM

Saying that “we deserve a safe society,” DFL gubernatorial candidate Mike Hatch called Monday for restoring the 800 to 1,000 Minnesota law enforcement officers he said have been lost to Republican budget cuts in recent years.
Rising crime rates and continued ravages to society from methamphetamine trafficking prompted the proposal, Hatch said. He offered no specific funding source for the roughly $50 million a year the added police would cost.

“Something may fall off the bottom” of the state budget to bolster police forces, he added. “It’s a lot of money, and a lot of security, but I’m not planning to raise taxes.”

Hatch, in a news conference held after he and running mate Judi Dutcher formally filed for governor and lieutenant governor, said that Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty had put his no-new-taxes pledge ahead of safety in killing the state gang strike force and cutting aid to cities that helped pay for police.

Similarly, Hatch said, President Bush has slashed 90 percent of the funding for the 1990s federal “Clinton Cops” program, which once beefed up Minnesota public safety contingents by 1,200 officers.

Hatch said the cuts have left much of rural Minnesota, where meth abuse remains prevalent, without effective drug interdiction.

Hatch said he backs the state’s 2005 limits on sales of pseudoephedrine and ephedrine, cold medicines essential to producing meth. But the restrictions have only hampered small-scale Minnesota meth-makers, he said, leaving gangs an open market here for Mexican “superlab” meth.

His solution: Get Congress to ban the medications totally.

Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung responded that the governor in 2005 signed Minnesota’s toughest crime bill in years, cracking down on meth and sex offenders. Pseudoephedrine restrictions have reduced local meth labs by 80 percent, he said.

McClung also questioned Hatch’s full commitment to blocking meth shipments to Minnesota. “Is he going to be tough on the illegal immigrants who are importing it from Mexico?” he said.