Early evening news digest: financial report edition

In Officials should follow through with promises, the Austin Daily Herald makes a good point in plain American which cats and dogs can read:

State officials converged on Austin over the weekend, with U.S. Rep. Tim Walz on Friday, U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman on Saturday and Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Sunday.

The three met with Mayor Tom Stiehm, city engineer Jon Erichson, Rep. Jeanne Poppe, Sen. Dan Sparks and others to discuss the 2008 flood, and what prevention has been implemented and what is planned for the future.

Officials commended Austin for remaining in the forefront of flood mitigation and being proactive since floods in 1978 and 2004 devastated the city.

Though the community is grateful for their visits and apparent concern for Austin’s situation, we hope these officials follow through with their promises to secure both state and federal funding.

Austin’s half-cent sales tax will offset some expenses — flood mitigation is very expensive — and the city has made this their No. 1 priority.

A collapsed culvert in Oakland Township that took the life of one flood victim will likely not receive Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding because it doesn’t qualify, and Freeborn County will be hit with an unexpected $200,000 to fix the ongoing problem. It may take some time for FEMA to assess damaged areas in Austin.

Federal and state funding will help accelerate mitigation.

This may require earmarks--and the leaders who will seek them.  The paper also reports Flood clean-up volunteers still needed.

In other news, the Walzes have learned is that the cost of credit cards charges is a bear. No wonder he's such a big supporter of PAYGO. WCCO reports:

The freshman Minnesota Democrat and his wife report owing between $75,000 and $165,000 on three credit cards. Those figures are on Walz' latest congressional financial disclosure form, which requires lawmakers to list figures only in broad ranges.

They also owe between $100,000 and $250,000 on a mortgage, and between $50,000 to $100,000 on a line of credit, for a rental unit in Mankato. The rental unit is valued at between $250,000 and $500,000.

Walz' spokeswoman Meredith Salsbery says that the Walzes are not wealthy people. She also notes that Walz did not draw a salary for most of 2006, when he took a leave of absence from his teaching job to run for Congress.

The home mortgage is smaller, but the credit card debt is up from last year's report, summarized in a Minnesota Independent story last month:

Among Walz's liabilities: a home mortgage valued at between $250,000 and $500,000, a home equity loan estimated at $50,000 to $100,000, and three different credit card debts running between $10,000 and $50,000.

In The Nifty Fifty House Party - Part X: Minnesota, Texas blogger Kyle Stanley lowballs the Walz campaign fundraising:

District 1 (S-Factor 0.5 GOP): When Gil Gutknecht ran in 1994, he promised voters in this southern Minnesota district (Rochester, Mankato, and the Mayo Clinic) he would serve no more than six terms. Gutknecht chose to run for a seventh, and his ploy backfired in his 2006 defeat to Tim Walz, a teacher, coach and retired member of the National Guard from Mankato. Since then, well over half-a-million has been raised by Walz, the more moderate of the 2007 newcomers from Minnesota. Republicans (and the NRCC) have coalesced around Mayo Clinic physician Brian Davis, but State Senator Dick Day will march on to the primary. Wonder if this will make things a little dicey for the GOP. Prediction: Favor DFL.

Walz has raised over $1.5 million in the cycle, and had $1 milion cash on hand at the close of the fist quarter. Davis, on the other hand, had $50,000 COH (and $10,000 in debts to venders), while Day closed the quarter with $72,000.    That more complete picture paints a somewhat different story.

We're looking forward to the June 20 monthly reports from parties and some PACS, as well as the July 15 quarterly reports from candidate committees.

Farm Policy picks up on the Worthington Globe article about last week's Farm Bill Forum.

Edweek's Campaign K-12 blog notes Walz's Halt NCLB Bill:

Rep. Timothy J. Walz, D-Minn., a freshman and former teacher who won his seat in an upset victory in 2006, is co-sponsoring a bill that would suspend the accountability provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act, according to my colleague, David Hoff, over at NCLB Act II.

If that sounds like a bold move for someone facing a potentially tough re-election battle ... it actually, well, isn't. At least two of the three Republicans vying to take on Walz in the general election have said they would scrap the NCLB law, according to this news report. Still, it's telling that, at least in this contested congressional district in a swing state, the candidates seem to have a similar take on the NCLB law. Namely, that it's not working.

I'm not sure yet if that sentiment is unique to Minnesota--nearly every member of the state's congressional delegation opposed the law even back in 2001--or if it's a trend that will play out in tough races nationwide.

We don't think this will be a "tough" race. As for Minnesota not liking NCLB, we think that's dislike is in  part a consequence of the state's long tradition of local control of schools, as well as the bad taste left by the "profiles of learning" debacle.

In Walz Digs Graves (Sam Graves, the Republican author), the Swift and Able independent NCLB blog reports that the Hispanic caucus isn't pleased with the bill.

Not political news, but the Blueman has a great storm photo and video up in A Stormy Weekend. We didn't get hit by the storms, but were bothered by some rather annoying skeeters and other pests. Such is  a Minnesota summer.