Last year, I noted how, in his effort to get the powerful neoconfederate wing of the Republican base to back his presidential bid, Minnesota’s absentee governor, Tim Pawlenty, was sending out a veritable symphony of dog whistles to the fans of the Stainless Banner.

Now, we see from a look at the state legislative record of his protégé and would-be successor, Tom Emmer, that Gutshot Tim isn’t the only neoconfederate fan running loose these days. MN Observer of The Cucking Stool has the scoop

— here’s just one of the dozen-odd Constitutionally-questionable shout-outs to the Confederacy she documents:

House File 998 (chief author) Once again setting up his Tenther cred, this proposed legislation – if passed – proclaims Minnesota’s sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment:

[T]he State of Minnesota hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States, and that this resolution serves as notice and demand to the federal government as our agent to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers.

Even setting aside the fact that this reads like something straight out of the South Carolina Causes of Secession, this is just weird. What’s the state supposed to do? Send some creepy cease and desist letter whenever a Minnesotan receives Social Security benefits? Force its farmers to turn down farm subsidies (good luck with that one)? Require that MNDOT refuse federal highway funds?

That, folks, is just the tip of the iceberg from this longtime corporate trial lawyer.

At the end of the recitation, MN Observer finishes with this summation of Tom Emmer as a legislator and a lawyer:

All in all, what we see in these proposals is… what? A candidate who seems capable of only defining freedom in terms that benefit people who look and think just like him, it seems. A candidate willing to let one of the world’s most stable governments with intricate checks and balances to be undercut by radical proposals that pander to extremist elements. A candidate who slept through the vast majority of his Constitutional Law classes, if nothing else.

And that is that.