Appeals Court upholds state wolf-management plan
Larry Oakes / Star Tribune
The Minnesota Court of Appeals has refused to strike down a controversial wolf-management plan passed last year by the Legislature.
In a ruling filed Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the court said a Ramsey County district judge properly threw out a lawsuit brought against the state by animal-rights groups.
The federal government had said it wouldn't proceed with plans to remove the wolf from the threatened-species list in Minnesota until the state had a plan to take over management of its wolf population, which state and federal biologists say is no longer in danger of being wiped out.
The Minnesota plan, currently under review by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, would preserve many protections for wolves in northern Minnesota while allowing central and southern Minnesota property owners to kill wolves caught preying on livestock or to trap suspected culprits.
The Appeals Court rejected the suit's claim that the 2000 Legislature, after an earlier failed attempt to pass a plan, bundled or "logrolled" it with more popular, unrelated legislation in order to get it passed. The suit alleged that was a violation of the state Constitution. W
riting for the panel, Judge R.A. Randall responded all the measures in the bill had a common natural-resources thread, and that the plan got close scrutiny.
"The practice of bundling controversial, volatile provisions with germane and less controversial laws is not impermissible logrolling," he wrote. "Rather, it is the nature of the democratic process."
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Court upholds state wolf plan
Process used to pass management proposal was not example of logrolling, judges
say
By Ashley H. Grant - Associated Press
Including measure in fish and wildlife bill did not violate Constitution, judges say
ST. PAUL -- The state Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld the legislative process used to pass the state's wolf management plan.
The three-judge appeals panel agreed with a Ramsey County District Court judge that animal-rights and environmental groups failed to demonstrate that the bill approved by the 2000 Legislature was an example of "logrolling,'' in which unrelated subjects are lumped into one bill.
The groups contended that legislators, frustrated in their attempts to pass a wolf-management plan, violated the state Constitution by attaching it to a more popular fish and wildlife funding bill.
The appeals court said all the issues fall under the broad subject of "natural resources'' and that the wolf management plan had been debated extensively.
"The practice of bundling controversial, volatile provisions with germane and less-controversial laws is not impermissible logrolling,'' Judge R.A. Randall wrote in the opinion. "Rather, it is the nature of the democratic process where you have major and minor political parties, partisan politics, and an independent executive branch.''
Rick Duncan, an attorney for the animal rights and environmental groups, said they would ask the state Supreme Court to review the case.
"It's one of those cases where different people are going to have different opinions,'' Duncan said.
He said the wolf management plan wouldn't have passed unless it had been rolled into the larger bill that contained widely popular provisions.
Last year, the state Supreme Court struck down part of a wage-protection law because it was lumped into a massive, unrelated tax bill.
The appeals court said the wolf issue was different because the bill that contained the plan didn't contain an overly broad range of subjects that were "wholly unrelated'' to each other.
The judges didn't comment on the legislation itself -- only on the process used to pass it.
"The WMP may be unpopular with certain members of the public and the Legislature,'' Randall wrote. "However, popularity is not the test.''
For instance, in years of projected budget deficits, tax increases -- even if good public policy -- do not rank high in popularity contests, he wrote.
The appeals court is not a committee set up to determine whether bills passed are good legislation or to rewrite bills or toss them aside, Randall wrote.
The lawsuit was filed against Gov. Jesse Ventura because, as the leader of the executive branch, he ultimately would have the responsibility to enforce the law.
The plaintiffs were Defenders of Wildlife; Sierra Club, North Star Chapter; Humane Society of the United States; Friends of Animals and Their Environment; Help Our Wolves Live; Minnesota Wolf Alliance; and Animal Protection Institute.
The state forwarded the management plan to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service earlier this year.
Federal officials will decide whether they believe the plan will ensure the species long-term survival in Minnesota.
If the plan is deemed sound, the federal agency will begin the process of removing the gray wolf from its federal status of threatened and returning the animal to state control. That is likely to take about a year.
The plan would break the state into two zones, each providing different levels of protection.
In a zone covering the northeastern third of the state, property owners could kill wolves if they observed them stalking, attacking or killing domestic animals. In the rest of the state, property owners could destroy wolves if they thought they represented a threat to domestic animals.
