Republicans in the Minnesota Legislature seem distracted as of late. They should be finalizing budget bills and opening negotiations with the governor. Instead, they’ve allowed themselves to be distracted with efforts to ban gay marriage, impose voter identification requirements, and getting into disputes with local authors. Republican legislator Matt Dean recently singled out novelist Neil Gaiman for accepting a $45,000 speaking fee from a local library that was paid out the state’s conservation and arts legacy fund. Dean put it more succinctly when he said that Gaiman is a “pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state.”
Gaiman responded to the charges on his blog, pointing out that he charged his customary speaking fee and donated all of the money to charity. I’m a big fan of Gaiman’s writing and I’ll admit that he comes across quite better in the blog post than the Strib article in which he sounds just a tad pompous. That may just be selective editing, though. The library might have exercised a little more thoughtfulness about the politics of paying a substantial speaking fee with public dollars, but it’s hardly an offense that should provoke name-calling. Even though our citizen legislators work on a part-time basis, a modicum of decorum that exceeds schoolyard standards should be expected.
