During the 2024 election, Minnesotans voted on a state constitutional amendment called the Minnesota Continue to Provide Lottery Revenue to Environment and Natural Resources Fund Amendment. Its purpose is to extend the dedication of at least 40 percent of state lottery proceeds to the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund through December 31, 2050. The Minnesota Lottery generates between $75 million and $90 million in net proceeds each year, after payouts and expenses. This means that approximately $30 to $35 million annually will be directed to “protect, conserve, preserve, and enhance the state’s air, water, land, fish, wildlife, and other natural resources.”
There is little debate about the importance of a clean environment for a healthy society. Studies consistently show that as communities become more prosperous, they begin to prioritize environmental quality. This is not just about protecting nature. It is also about protecting ourselves. Clean air lowers rates of respiratory and heart disease, while clean water prevents the spread of dangerous infections. A healthy environment is essential for human health, and as a society we must ensure it remains a top priority.
However, locking a specific funding mechanism into the state constitution applies a one-size-fits-all approach that is not the most effective way to care for our environment. This amendment is a clear example of a violation of the principle of subsidiarity, and it is likely to create more problems than it solves.
Subsidiarity Defined
The Principle of Subsidiarity holds that:
Matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest, or least centralized authority capable of addressing them effectively.
It holds that higher levels of authority, such as state or federal governments, should only become involved when lower levels like cities, counties, or communities are unable to manage the responsibility on their own. Rooted in Catholic social teaching and widely applied in political and organizational theory, subsidiarity respects the dignity and competence of local institutions. It encourages solutions that are closer to the people affected, allowing for more responsive, context-specific, and accountable decision-making.
Even though this concept is usually discussed using social and political systems as examples, this concept holds true for all complex systems. Example violations of subsidiarity would be a human trying to directly control how much insulin the pancreas produces. Or a user interface controller directly writing data to a database, rather than passing it through a service layer responsible for validation and business logic. These breakdowns ignore the proper responsibilities of each layer and disrupt the integrity, adaptability, and scalability of the system as a whole.
A constitution is meant to be a collection of qualitative values that guide the spirit and direction of all laws. These values are timeless and unmeasurable. They serve as enduring principles we continually strive toward, not objectives to be completed. This recent Minnesota amendment violates that spirit. It is not qualitative in nature but highly quantitative. It specifies an exact percentage of funds from a specific revenue stream and directs them toward a fixed category of spending. Even more telling, it includes an expiration date. These are the kinds of details that belong in legislation, not in a constitution. By embedding a rigid and time-bound financial mechanism into our highest legal document, we have not only confused categories but have also bypassed the proper role of lower governing bodies and violated the principle of subsidiarity.
Preventing Optionality
One of the most harmful effects of embedding rigid, quantitative directives into a constitution is the loss of optionality. In his book Antifragile, Nassim Taleb explains that systems grow stronger not by avoiding stress but by having options, especially those that are asymmetric: options that offer more upside than downside. This is essential for resilience and long-term sustainability. As talked about in my article Meekness to Liberal Arts: Generics in Complex Systems, the best way to increase upside in complex systems is by having modules that are designed to be as generic as possible, able to serve many unforeseen needs. When modules are generic, they offer optionality. They allow the system to adapt, respond, and evolve as new problems arise.
This amendment, by cementing a specific funding stream with a fixed percentage and a fixed purpose, removes that flexibility. It turns what could be a generic financial module into a narrowly defined mechanism. Instead of enabling growth, it locks the system into a single pattern of provision. In doing so, it weakens the state’s ability to respond creatively and effectively to future environmental and societal needs.
Imagine it is the year 2040. Minnesota is facing a severe and unexpected environmental crisis: a multi-year drought has devastated crops, dried up rivers, and caused drinking water shortages across rural communities. Scientific models show that emergency water infrastructure, groundwater recharge systems, and large-scale agricultural adaptation efforts are urgently needed. However, the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, by constitutional mandate, continues to allocate over 30 million dollars per year to a wide range of pre-approved conservation, recreation, and education projects—many of which are important but not immediately critical to the water crisis. Lawmakers, recognizing the emergency, want to redirect those funds toward water supply stabilization and emergency irrigation programs, but they cannot. The Constitution prevents it. The money is locked. The state must either amend the Constitution again—a slow and uncertain process—or find new sources of funding during a fiscal emergency. In this moment, the system reveals its fragility. The rigidity that once seemed like a safeguard becomes a burden, and the lack of optionality prevents Minnesota from addressing its most urgent needs.
A Systems Based Solution
If the goal was to create a constitutional amendment, then it should have focused on the qualitative value of our environment rather than prescribing a fixed financial mechanism. A constitution should elevate enduring principles, not dictate specific transactions. The amendment could have affirmed that the state of Minnesota recognizes the care of creation as a fundamental public good. It could have stated that the health of our air, water, land, and ecosystems is essential to human dignity, public health, and intergenerational justice. This kind of amendment would have served as a guiding star, shaping future legislation and budgets without locking the state into a single, time-bound funding arrangement. By anchoring our shared commitment to environmental stewardship in values rather than formulas, we would have upheld both the spirit of subsidiarity and the long-term adaptability of the system.
This kind of value-driven constitutional principle would not only be structurally sound, it would also be deeply biblical. At the very beginning of Scripture, God places humanity in the garden not as owners, but as stewards. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). We are called to care for creation, to tend and preserve it, not to exploit it or control it with rigidity. Stewardship is not about fixed percentages or preset programs. It is about responsibility, wisdom, and discernment over time. As Christians, we believe that the created world reflects the goodness of God, and that caring for it is part of our vocation. A constitutional recognition of this truth would have aligned with both the principle of subsidiarity and the spiritual responsibility we share as a community. It would have called future generations not to follow a formula, but to seek justice and harmony with creation in their own time and place.
LongLoft - Code Writer 