New Bill on House Floor

[Tuc33Ker]

Here is a new bill that was introduced to the MN House of Representatives this week. It adds 2 days back on the 3A season and also mandates when the seasons can start. It will be impossible to move or change the seasons, if this passes. It also takes deer management control away from the DNR. The House authors are Steve Drazkowski (28B), Peggy Scott (49A), Jeanne Poppe (27B), Denny McNamara (57B).

H.F. No. 436, as introduced - 86th Legislative Session (2009-2010) Posted on Feb 02, 2009

1.1A bill for an act

1.2relating to game and fish; extending the deer hunting season in certain areas;

1.3amending Minnesota Statutes 2008, section 97B.311.

1.4BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:

1.5 Section 1. Minnesota Statutes 2008, section 97B.311, is amended to read:

1.697B.311 DEER SEASONS AND RESTRICTIONS.

1.7 (a) The commissioner may, by rule, prescribe restrictions and designate areas where

1.8deer may be taken, including hunter selection criteria for special hunts established under

1.9section 97A.401, subdivision 4. The commissioner may, by rule, prescribe the open

1.10seasons for deer within the following periods:

1.11 (1) taking with firearms, other than muzzle-loading firearms, between November 1

1.12and December 15;

1.13 (2) taking with muzzle-loading firearms between September 1 and December 31; and

1.14 (3) taking by archery between September 1 and December 31.

1.15 ( Notwithstanding paragraph (a), the commissioner may establish special seasons

1.16within designated areas at any time of year.

1.17© Notwithstanding paragraph (a), the commissioner shall allow a nine-day early

1.18A season in Zone 3 beginning the Saturday nearest November 6 and a nine-day late B

1.19season in Zone 3 beginning the Saturday nearest November 20. Zone 3 is described in

1.20Minnesota Rules, part 6232.1400, subpart 3.

[cupper]

I just e-mailed my local congressman to vote "NO" if this bill is introduced and I urge all of you to do the same. I am not one of those people that thinks the DNR is perferct, but I definately feel that they should be making these kinds of wildlife management decisions, NOT our lawmakers-many of whom do not even hunt!

Let your voice be heard!

[mrklean]

yea thats a joke, lets let the highest bidder decided what will happen with hunting

[Jim916]

I like the idea of a longer 3A season, like it used to be a few years ago. But I do not like the idea of taking the deer management away from the DNR.

[BRULEDRIFTER]

I think in the end it always comes down to what the legislature wants anyway, I think...... The DNR does their thing, research, make recomendations, give input and report to their heads and so on up the food chain.

I could be totally wrong too, so if anyone really can interpret this, please do.

I guess the way it is originally presented, it's NO GOOD!

The idea of taking away management from people that study the resourse makes absolutely no sense to me at all!

Yeah, let's let a suit and tie tell us what's best for the deer.........

[picksbigwagon]

Okay, I cleaned up the bill a little bit and got rid of only the paragraph and line numbers to make it read a little easier.

Here it is:

A bill for an act

relating to game and fish; extending the deer hunting season in certain areas;

amending Minnesota Statutes 2008, section 97B.311.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:

Section 1. Minnesota Statutes 2008, section 97B.311, is amended to read:

DEER SEASONS AND RESTRICTIONS.

(a) The commissioner may, by rule, prescribe restrictions and designate areas where

deer may be taken, including hunter selection criteria for special hunts established under section 97A.401, subdivision 4. The commissioner may, by rule, prescribe the open seasons for deer within the following periods:

(1) taking with firearms, other than muzzle-loading firearms, between November 1

and December 15;

(2) taking with muzzle-loading firearms between September 1 and December 31; and

(3) taking by archery between September 1 and December 31.

( Notwithstanding paragraph (a), the commissioner may establish special seasons

within designated areas at any time of year.

© Notwithstanding paragraph (a), the commissioner shall allow a nine-day early

A season in Zone 3 beginning the Saturday nearest November 6 and a nine-day late B

season in Zone 3 beginning the Saturday nearest November 20. Zone 3 is described in

Minnesota Rules, part 6232.1400, subpart 3.

My question is doesn't the Commisioner refered to in this bill refer to the DNR commisioner? If not, who is it refering too? If it is the DNR, isn't that what is occuring right now? If it is the DNR Commish, then all this bill does is add 2 days back to 3 A season....

[james_walleye]

Is there another state in the US in which the government makes these decisions rather than the states DNR? The reason 2 days was taken away from the 1st season was to give more incentive to people to hunt the 3B season and spread out the pressure. If you want first crack at 3A you get a shorter season. Now you are going to have a whole load of people who no longer have any incentive to hunt the 3B season anymore being you can now shoot does in both seasons AND have 2 weekends. What a farce.

[picksbigwagon]

Good question. How do the surrounding states make decisions? There are guys here from SD, ND, WI and IA. I will try and find out about IA this weekend, I am heading down there to ice fish....

[candiru]

The way I am reading it this bill would end the Oct. antlerless season with regular firearms and prevent any late antlerless season after Dec. 15. The 2 days added back to the 3A season would be weekend days. If I remember right they were taken away from the 3A season to help save some bucks. At that time there were no doe permits in 3A.

[candiru]

In my opinion the legislature sticks it's nose into way too much. I believe that very few of them are serious hunters or anglers. Someone bends their ear about a pet-peeve and a bill gets wrote. Then after months of hearings and everything else it all gets decided in an omnibus bill in a conference commitee in the middle of the night right before the session ends.

[96trigger]

Where are the QDM organizations now? they should be all up in a tizzy about this. They want to move the firearm season out of the rut, this bill wants to tack 2 more days on to it. Ha, nice to see our government tax dollars at work. Someone please keep this up to date and let the rest of us know. I will be emailing my representative tonight.

Just emailed him now, hope he listens...

[lcornice]

I'm going to use this as one giant teaching moment so bear with me and I apologize if it becomes a bit lengthy. Issues are implemented either by statute or rule. Statutes are passed by the legislature and tend to set broad authority, whereas rules are done through a Department process. Within rules, DNR has 2 levels of authority. The first is the standard process that can take over a year to complete. The second is the emergency rule process that is used to set seasons, open and close areas, and set bag limits. This authority is very limited and spelled out in statute what constitutes an 'emergency'. For example, DNR can use emergency authority to set bear quotas because it is a population and management issue. However, emergency authority would not cover something like scopes on muzzleloaders because it's well ... not an emergency. So the take home is statutes are done through the legislative process by elected officials. Rules are completed by the state agency. Remember, statutes out rank rules and rules cannot conflict statutes. For example, if the statute says all road signs should be yellow, MNDOT could use light yellow or dark yellow but they better not be purple.

Now to this specific example. The posting is slightly inaccurate because the only new piece of statute is at the bottom and is underlined. It should look like this:

Section 1. Minnesota Statutes 2008, section 97B.311, is amended to read:

DEER SEASONS AND RESTRICTIONS.

(a) The commissioner may, by rule, prescribe restrictions and designate areas where

deer may be taken, including hunter selection criteria for special hunts established under section 97A.401, subdivision 4. The commissioner may, by rule, prescribe the open seasons for deer within the following periods:

(1) taking with firearms, other than muzzle-loading firearms, between November 1

and December 15;

(2) taking with muzzle-loading firearms between September 1 and December 31; and

(3) taking by archery between September 1 and December 31.

( Notwithstanding paragraph (a), the commissioner may establish special seasons

within designated areas at any time of year.

© Notwithstanding paragraph (a), the commissioner shall allow a nine-day early A season in Zone 3 beginning the Saturday nearest November 6 and a nine-day late B season in Zone 3 beginning the Saturday nearest November 20. Zone 3 is described in Minnesota Rules, part 6232.1400, subpart 3.

Using our previous example, subparts 1-3 are the defining statutes that set the broad authority for a deer season. Specifically,it states DNR can hold a firearm deer season any time between Sept. 1 - December 31. In the 1970's, that date was chosen through the rule process as the Saturday nearest November 6th. A couple of years about Subpart 3( was added in case DNR needed to have a special season outside the 9/1 - 12/31 timeframe (say for disease management).

What the proposed statute does is mandate that the Zone 3 deer season start on a specific date and removes the authority for DNR to use the general time frame in Subpart 1. It also says specifically how long that season will last (currently the length is also specified in rule) and would mean that any discussions regarding changing opening dates would exclude the southeast. To address an earlier question, it would not affect the early antlerless season.

That's all I'll say because any more might be construed as a personal opinion.

[picksbigwagon]

Thanks Lou, I figured since it was coming from St. Paul, not you guys on Lafayette, it was really only adding two days to 3A which is going back to what the season was 10 years ago when I started deer hunting...

[Jameson]

Thank you Lou.

Quote:

© Notwithstanding paragraph (a), the commissioner shall allow a nine-day early A season in Zone 3 beginning the Saturday nearest November 6 and a nine-day late B season in Zone 3 beginning the Saturday nearest November 20. Zone 3 is described in Minnesota Rules, part 6232.1400, subpart 3.

So if rules are made through the DNR, and statues are made in the legislature, if the DNR wanted couldn't they change zone 3 to a small one square mile area?

[lcornice]

So if rules are made through the DNR, and statues are made in the legislature, if the DNR wanted couldn't they change zone 3 to a small one square mile area?

You guys are smart. Yes. However, that would likely violate legislative intent and they could go back and define a Zone 3 in statute.

[lcornice]

Thanks Lou, I figured since it was coming from St. Paul, not you guys on Lafayette, it was really only adding two days to 3A which is going back to what the season was 10 years ago when I started deer hunting...

True but the point I was trying to make is that it adds the 2 days and sets the opening date through statute. That is different from how deer are managed today, which is through rule under the broad authority of statute.

I think I should stop now :-)

[picksbigwagon]

I missed that, you are correct sir (said like Ed McMahon)....

[BRULEDRIFTER]

Thanks a lot, Lou!

[96trigger]

Thanks Lou, If that goes through, and the "rules" don't change. Would there be any point for anybody to go 3B? Especially now that the 3B shares its last weekend with Muzzleloader Hunters, i.e. all the 3A hunters that still have a license. If it does go through, I am assuming that there COULD be some major "rules" changes like Antler Restrictions etc.... This could get very interesting. I am thinking that all the old 3A hunters are doing two things, they are trying to get back the extra two days, and they are trying to prevent the move of the season back. Both of these are going against what some of the whitetail organizations in the state are trying to lobby for.

[walleyeslayr]

It's a good thing we don't have a 4-6 billion dollar budget deficit pending. If that were the case I'm sure these politicians would be spending ALL their time getting a handle on their F&^$$n spending. Great waste of time!

[cupper]

Thanks Lou. I appreciate the facts and I also appreciate that you take the time to post on here and get involved in our discussions.

It is nice to have a better understanding of how the system works. All that said, my concerns are still the same... I don't believe it is the legislaters place to get involved in these matters. It is not their area of expertise to be deciding when a hutning season should start, end, or how long they should be.

I have some stong personal opinions on what would be the way to go for 3A and the timing of hunting seasons as I grew up and still hunt in SE MN, but those opions are for another place.

[james_walleye]

I'd really like to know why these politicians introduced this bill? Its not based on biology whatsoever i guarantee that. Isnt that what these rules and regulations should be based on??

[96trigger]

Email Drazkowski and find out his reasoning behind the introduction of this bill. I'd do it but he is not in my district.

Where are the other authors from? Are they even in zone 3 areas.

[sparcebag]

Man it seems these legislators are POWER HUNGRY!

[skee0025]

heres the response I received

This bill was just introduced yesterday. It will be interesting to see if it gets a hearing. If it does, the DNR and interested citizens will be asked to testify for and/or against. Please consider testifying at a hearing.

After looking at the language, I think the key objection is the word "shall" in the added language. The word "may" would give the decision to the Commissioner of the DNR to extend the season. I look to the DNR & other wildlife specialists to improve the language in the bill, if the bill moves forward in the house.

Thanks for your taking the time to share your thoughts about this bill.