Bar Buzz: No lawyers allowed?

Byline: Kevin Featherly

What's up with that, Rep. Marion O'Neill, R-Maple Lake, wanted to know. "I don't know where I would give up my right to an attorney," she said. "I'm just not quite understanding the logic of that."

Her puzzlement was prompted by a section of a 16-page omnibus bill that deals with correctional officer discipline. Subdivision 9 of the bill dictates what happens when an officer who faces discipline is brought in to give a formal statement.

The bill's original heading reads, "Presence of attorney and union representative." But an amendment takes the words "attorney and" out of the subtitle, leaving only the union rep. In total, five changes were made to the section. Their sum effect is to leave lawyers out.

The committee's chair, Rep. Jack Considine, DFL-Mankato, is the omnibus bill's author. He said he had the same worries as O'Neilland actually wanted to leave the language in the bill. But in the interest of satisfying union stakeholders and getting the bill passed, he said, he took attorneys out of the language.

Max Hall, the legislative representative for the AFSCME Council 5 union, spoke to the committee. His union represents 2,000 Minnesota corrections officers and he explained that the original language left his members "nervous" about their union's status as workers' "exclusive representative."

"We were concerned that the exclusive representation process could be circumvented by an attorney," Hall said. The bill's original draft allowed for either a union rep or an...