Bluestem Prairie

The Crisis (of credibility): Mike Parry discusses "common sense"; Tom Paine rolls over in grave

These are the headlines that try readers' souls. An urban legend, like hell, is not easily conquered, as Mike Parry's continued campaigning against an imaginary EPA dust rule demonstrates.

One has to hand it to Huckle Media, publishers of the Owatonna People's Press, for at least putting Senator Mike Parry's notion of "common sense" within quotation marks. In Parry discusses ‘common sense’ there's this gem:

“Does it make good common sense for Congressman Walz to vote against agriculture?” Parry asked. “It’s exactly what he’s done. He voted against the Cambodian and Panama trade agreements. That’s about a $9 billion export market for this state of Minnesota.”

Parry said Walz has supported the Environmental Protection Agency, which Parry says wants to control the dust coming out of the back of a combine.

Perhaps Parry should take a refresher course on both his talking points and geography (perhaps he could sit in on one of Walz's guest social studies classes in district schools). Presumably, Parry is talking about the Colombian free trade agreement. Colombia and Cambodia? Close enough, one supposes; they both begin with a "C."

Walz wasn't against agriculture, but concerned about other issues.  The Rochester Post Bulletin reported in October:

Walz voted for the South Korea Free Trade Agreement saying it will benefit farmers in southern Minnesota. But he voted against agreements with Colombia and Panama. He said he has serious concerns about Colombia's human rights record and corruption and instability in Panama.

“I believe that as the leader of the free world, the United States must be guided in its trade policy by our values,” he said in a written statement.

No doubt Parry is guided by his values, too: he's a ALEC member willing not only to allow corporations write the bills he introduces, but to craft fiscal notes for budgets in which work might be outsourced to them. Lovely.

And then there's that complete nonsense about combine dust. Since this is Mike Parry, it's not surprising that he keeps spouting material that was stale in November, as BSP noted in Emo Senator: battling phantom EPA dust menace key to Parry's totally straightforward campaign:

Bluestem agrees that a rule against combine dust would be devastating to farmers. However, far more devastating to the political process is basing campaigns on pure cow flops, as legendary Minnesota politician Magnus Johnson liked to point out about the Republican platform of his time.

Parry is riding that manure spreader. The Washington Post reported in Bill to ban phantom EPA dust rule approved by House panel:

Earlier this year, Republicans found what they saw as an ideal talking point to illustrate a federal bureaucracy gone batty.

The Environmental Protection Agency, they warned, was trying to regulate something only God could control: the dust in the wind.

“Now, here comes my favorite of the crazy regulatory acts. The EPA is now proposing rules to regulate dust,” Rep. John Carter (R-Tex.) said on the House floor. He said Texas is full of dusty roads: “The EPA is now saying you can be fined for driving home every night on your gravel road.”

There was just one flaw in this argument: It was not true.

The EPA’s new dust rule did not exist. It never did.

Still, the specter of this rule has spurred three bills to prevent it , one of which was approved Thursday by a House subcommittee. It sparked a late-night battle on the Senate floor. GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain cited it in a debate as a reason to eliminate the EPA.

The hubbub over this phantom rule — surely one of the most controversial regulations that never was — involved a slow-moving federal agency and a Republican Party with the EPA in its crosshairs.

"Common sense" like that possessed by Mike Parry makes nincompoopery completely redundant.

Photoshop image:  Fiddle-dee-dee on geography and facts, Flouncette O'Parry. Image by Tild

Bonus: Some campaign advice from Weird Al Yankovic:

Persuasion: Martin County Republican activist woos MN voters by calling them drug addicts

A tipster with the barking fantods emailed Bluestem with a comment he felt was racist dropping from the tender lips of Martin County GOP stalwart Neal Breitbarth.

My correspondent took exception to the remarks at the end of Local turnout reaches new high, published in the February 8, 2012 Fairmont Sentinel:

Breitbarth is optimistic the high turnout means positive things for Republicans in Minnesota. Addressing the crowd at the Holiday Inn, he said, "Maybe we can get this monkey off our back in Minnesota and actually vote for a Republican for president."

Bluestem doesn't find the remark to be racist. Breitbarth wasn't comparing the president or health care reform to a monkey (a racist trope), but employing a shopworn figure of speech about addiction. Having a "monkey on your back" comes from the jargon of heroin addiction; Breitbarth was slamming Minnesota voters, not the President.

It's true that Minnesota hasn't gone into the Republican column in a Presidential race since Nixon was elected in 1972, but it's hardly persuasive to tell voters that picking Democratic candidates is the equivalent of political vein popping. "Hey, dumb junkies...."

That will work.

Need more entertainment at Breitbarth's expense? Earlier in the article, the Fairmont RV dealer says:

Neal Breitbarth, who has served numerous times as a GOP delegate, wasn't surprised by the outcome [the Santorum win].

"Health care is the biggest drag on Mitt Romney, and the biggest issue in the nation is Obamacare and getting rid of Obamacare," said Breitbarth, a Santorum supporter.

Breitbarth is referencing Romney's role in the 2006 health care reform in Massachusetts, widely seen as a precursor to the direction reform took under President Obama.

Curiously, Breitbarth didn't have a problem with Romney's record on health care reform two years later, when he served on Romney's 2008 Minnesota statewide steering committee. He was a Minnesota Republican State Central Committee member at the time. It's astonishing what Obama's support for a policy could change it so drastically for Neal.

It gets better. 

The Sentinel breathlessly reports about the "record" turnout for the presidential caucus and plays stenographer for the local Republican activists carrying on about how the turnout in one of the reddest Minnesota counties means that Santorum or whomever will be the next Nixon. According to the paper, 234 people cast their votes in the straw poll. 

What the conservative newspaper doesn't tell readers, but the SOS page reveals, is that in 2008, 230 people in Martin County cast straw poll votes for the Republican straw poll.  That works out to one new Republican straw poll participant for each year since 2008.

Statewide in 2008, nearly 63,000 Republicans cast presidential straw ballots; in 2012, the number dropped to 48,916.

No wonder why Neal is so high about getting that DFL monkey off the back of Minnesota; Bluestem only wishes that he would quit bogarting whatever it is he's smoking.

Movie still: What Martin County Republican Neal Breitbarth's figure of speech suggests about Minnesota's voters.

Cornish's shares gallows humor with DFL colleagues via publically-funded email system

Scrolling through my Facebook wall late yesterday afternoon, I noticed this post by a state representative:

During our extended floor session, Rep. Cornish sends photo to all DFL representatives with subject: Crime Bill on My Desk. It contains only a photo of a gallows with two empty nooses.

Yet another way to fostering the bipartisanship the public so desires, as well as promoting public confidence in the institution as well on Cornish's part.

I messaged the House member to see if I could have the email forwarded; a screen shot is at right. What a kidder, that Tony Cornish.

Cornish chairs the Minnesota House Public Safety and Crime Prevention Policy and Finance committee. That's might clever of him to send that photo to his Democratic colleagues.  What a kidder.

Given the symbolic meanings that gather around nooses these days, meanings differing by race, age and other factors, perhaps one might have wished that the chair of the House Public Safety and Crime Prevention Policy and Finance Committee might have been mature enough to control his wit for a moment, or at least reflected on the possibility that his colleagues on the other side of the aisle might not all share his taste in rick-rolling emails.

It's not as if he's just a poor country blogger or something. He's actually a poor country chief of police. UPDATE: Reader T.Pa Or Coffee notes: "By the way, Cornish is no longer a police chief. He resigned so that he could do a better job as a legislator."  Point taken. [end update].

But there's something else that might have given him pause if he grasped a larger sense of history: the role hanging played in Minnesota's decision to end the death penalty. In 2008, the Star Tribune's Brian Leehan reviewed that story in Botched hanging led state to halt executions:

A small item in the Wednesday Feb. 7, 1906 edition of the Minneapolis Tribune reads, "Sheriff Miesen has arranged to test the rope and gallows upon which William Williams is to be executed next Tuesday at midnight."

Ramsey County Sheriff Anton Miesen's test seems to have been successful, but it didn't keep the execution of Williams at 12:31 a.m. on Feb. 13, 1906, from being a hideously botched affair that resulted in him being the last person executed in Minnesota.

Double murderer William Williams was certainly guilty of killing his former lover (a teenager) and the lover's mother, but his death was cruel, if not usual:

Sheriff Miesen was confident of his rope's strength, and the proper functioning of the trapdoor of his gallows, but his math was faulty in calculating both the height of Williams and the gallows platform.

As the condemned man dropped, his feet hit the floor.

A lurid description in the next day's issue of the St. Paul Daily News said that William's "neck stretched four and one-half inches and the rope nearly eight inches."

So deputies quickly grabbed the rope and pulled it upward, then took turns holding Williams' feet off the ground for almost 15 minutes while the life was choked out of him.

The death certificate stated that the cause of death was strangulation.

The debacle, and the newspaper coverage of it, gave ammunition to those in the state Legislature who opposed the death penalty.

House member George MacKenzie, R-Gaylord, had tried to abolish capital punishment in Minnesota in 1905 and again in 1909. He succeeded in 1911 when Republican Gov. Adolph Eberhart signed the legislation into law.

But Bluestem suspects Cornish didn't have that in his mind--or much else--when he decided to send the "Crime Bill on My Desk" email to colleagues while they were meeting in chamber. Perhaps he should just stick to the little handcuffs pin he loves to wear.

The photo can be found on Cornish's Facebook page in an album called "Arizona Trip 2012" that documents a short stay in Tombstone. The caption below the photo there? "The Only Sure Cure for Repeat Offenders."  Stay classy, Representative Cornish.

Screenshots: The gallows humor of Tony Cornish.

Related posts: Cornish denies rumors he's running for Blue Earth County Sheriff day after spreading them

Tony Cornish likes opponent, but freaks over her totally rad liberal Facebook ties to a Democrat

 Civility and its discontents: Tony Cornish is an honorable man (just agree with him)

Former Wells Mayor Shannon Savick seeks to challenge Representative Tony Cornish

Emo Senator: Mike Parry said he had no goal for fundraising & he meant every word of it

Loyal fans of Emo Senator, southern Minnesota's most beloved telenovela, will remember that Mike Parry's congressional campaign stops are drawing voters like Limburger cheese attracts the ladies. In Emo Senator: lost episode shocks Mike Parry fans, the Austin Herald reported that two men gathered for coffee with the Belle of Waseca County.

It's looks like his campaign checkbook is just as attractive.

Minnesota Public Radio's Brett Neely reports in Congressional fundraising numbers streaming in:

First District Rep. Tim Walz raised $210,000, making 2011 a million dollar fundraising year for the former teacher. His campaign has $617,000 in the bank. Two of Walz's three Republican challenger Allen Quist raised $6,200 for the entire year. A third opponent, Mike Parry, has not yet released his fundraising totals.

Within ten minutes of each other, devoted Emo Senator admirers pointed the screenwriter to Senator Parry's FEC filing:

Covering Period 09/14/2011 Through 12/31/2011:

	Column A This Period	Column B Election Cycle-To-Date
6. Net Contributions (other than loans)
(a) Total Contributions (other than loans)	32585.00	32585.00
(b) Total Contribution Refunds	0.00	0.00
(c) Net Contributions (6(a) - 6(b))	32585.00	32585.00
7. Net Operating Expenditures
(a) Total Operating Expenditures	3402.14	3402.14
(b) Total Offsets to Operating Expenditures	0.00	0.00
(c) Net Operating Expenditures	3402.14	3402.14
8. Cash on Hand at Close of Reporting Period	29182.86
9. Debts and Obligations Owed TO the Committee	0.00
Itemize all on SCHEDULE C or SCHEDULE D
10. Debts and Obligations Owed BY the Committee	0.00
Itemize all on SCHEDULE C or SCHEDULE D

When he entered the congressional race in early October, the Emo Senator told the Mankato Free Press that he didn't have a fundraising plan, but that he felt very good about himself. Veteran political reporter Mark Fischenich wrote in Parry to challenge Walz for Congress:

Parry hasn’t set a goal for campaign donations but said he has strong skills in fundraising.

“I do know that I’m a hard charger. I work from sun-up to sun-down and then some.”

Senator Parry hasn't done much had charging, spending only $3402--including one $600 in-kind contribution for munchies--so Bluestem can't speculate on just how hard it may have been. Such fundraising figures surely could barely cover the copying fees for the  crack public-relations legal team recently hired by Parry's best-known campaign volunteer, Michael Brodkorb.

Curious items in the contributor list suggest that Parry's on-and-off again amnesia has affected his accounting.  Information has been requested about the occupation of one "Gretchen Hoffman" of Vergas, Minnesota. Bluestem has it on good authority that Ms. Hoffman is a state senator. 

Additionally, Parry seems to have forgotten what Dick Day did for a living when he wrote the check.

Most of the rest of the haul is standard issue Republican checks--no surprises there, other than the fly speck quality. 

The contrast with earlier  Walz challengers? Eventual (and spectacularly dismal) 2008 nominee Brian Davis took in close to $55,500 in late 2007. Former Senator Dick Day was also seeking the seat, and raised nearly $53,000. Randy Demmer, who won the nomination in 2010, took in about $35,000 during the same time period in 2007.

Looking at 2010 cycle figures, we learn that the Demmer campaign closed 2009 with a $19200.00 haul, though the campaign remained in debt to the tune of $135,150.00 in loans from the candidate to himself. At the end of 2011, $92,000 of that debt remained on the books. Quist, who lost the endorsement after several rounds of balloting at the 2010 convention, took in $32,853 in late 2009. 

Two other candidates, Jim Engstrand (now running for Congress in Texas) and Mr. Conservative, Jim Hagedorn, who moved to sunny Blue Earth to run, and who is now supporting Newt Gingrich from an undisclosed location.

But all hope is not lost, completely, if we turn our eyes to fundraising in the legendary 2006 election that swept Walz into office. Mostly lost, but not totally.

And the 2005-2006 unknown who challenged six-term representative Gil Gutknecht?  At the beginning of 2006, Walz had $78,103.24 cash in hand, having just experienced a final quarter in which he'd deposited $48,444.39 in the bank. The campaign carried $5755.93 in loans the candidate had borrowed from Wells Fargo.

Gutknecht, whom Walz would defeat in one of the biggest surprises of 2006, entered that fateful year with $620,101.24 in the kitty, having just raised $144,406.57. 

While the Walz and Gutknecht totals are close, the candidates' approaches are far different. Gutknecht failed to preceive the Walz campaign as a threat until well into 2006, whereas Walz is listed as one of 20 most vulnerable Democrats by his own caucus's campaign wing. 

What will happen?  Tune in again--this is an episode of Emo Senator, after all. Anyone, except for Walz himself, may well be surprisedby what Mike Parry will do or say.

Image: Mike Parry, the Emo Senator. By Tild. With that sort of fundraising, of course he has to wear the parlor drapes from Tara.

Earlier episodes:Emo Senator: lost episode shocks Mike Parry fans

Emo Senator: Amnesia! Mike Parry forgets he's his own boss during MNSCU benefits hearing (a complete list of episodes is found at the end of this post).

 

Emo Senator: lost episode shocks Mike Parry fans

Fans of Emo Senator, southern Minnesota's most beloved telenovela, weren't surprised to learn that Senator Mike Parry's amnesia had returned and the Belle of Waseca had forgotten that he doesn't have a boss who forces him to take vacation time.

More shocking? The lost episode of Emo Senator a reader dug up in the Austin Herald. The day before Parry's grandstanding performance in Emo Senator: Amnesia! Mike Parry forgets he's his own boss during MNSCU benefits hearing, voters in Spamtown seem to have forgotten that Parry is running for office.

In the lost episode, Sen. Parry talks campaign in Austin, the fan called this passage to Bluestem's attention:

Sen. Mike Parry, R-Waseca, spent Wednesday morning drinking coffee and talking politics with two men at the Mower County Senior Center.

The stop was one of many meet-and-greets Parry will hold this month as he campaigns for Democrat Rep. Tim Walz’s congressional seat.

Parry said he has been meeting many new faces on the campaign trail and has been well received.

Two men at a campaign stop?  Stupendous!

Arch rival Tim Walz visited Austin the next day, the paper reports in Walz tours Innovance in Albert Lea:

First District Congressman Tim Walz, D-Minn., looked at Albert Lea’s Innovance Inc. Thursday as a successful business model for creating and maintaining jobs.

The parent company to four businesses — Lou-Rich, Almco, Panels Plus and Exact Manufacturing — Innovance now has 340 full-time employees and 30 temporary or part-timers. It has three facilities in Albert Lea and one in Hayward.

“It’s a powerful story,” Walz said of the company’s growth. “It’s positive to walk around here.”

Meeting with company officials and a few other business leaders, Walz had a roundtable discussion about the company and then took a tour to see how the business operates. . .

. . .After his visit at Innovance, Walz was slated to visit Albert Lea City Hall to meet with some of the city’s leaders.

Tune in tomorrow for more tales of Emo on the campaign trail--and the money trail, as the deadline approaches for Parry and Quist to report on their Q4 2011 fundraising. Walz raised $1 million last year and ended 2011 with $617,000 in the bank.

Image: Emo Senator, by Tild.

For all past episodes, see Emo Senator: Amnesia! Mike Parry forgets he's his own boss during MNSCU benefits hearing

Job-killing Draz seeks more regulation for industry

Last year, Representative Steve Drazkowski (R-ALEC) ran as a foe of job-killing regulations. He told the Post Bulletin:

We must address the pandemic of uncertainty facing Minnesota businesses. Forcing government to live within its means and eliminating business-killing regulations will send positive signals to Minnesota’s job creators. Once confidence is restored, our state’s entrepreneurial spirit will be unleashed to create jobs that will restore vibrancy and economic prosperity.

Jobs! Prosperity! Get out of here government!

Confronted with news that tribal gaming facilities aren't getting much oversight, Draz is singing a different tune:

Drazkowski said he met with Gov. Mark Dayton on Monday to discuss his concerns, and the governor has promised to make changes to the agency.

“It’s easy to say you’re doing a wonderful job when no one bothers to check your work,” Drazkowski said. “We’re talking about regulation of what could be a $20 billion industry in this state.”

Apparently, there are job creators who don't need regulating and those who do. Bluestem wonders how Drazkowski sorts that one out.

Photo: Chocolate ALEC Drazombie Bunny By Tild.

 

Putting a man on the moon: Steve Drazkowski, the power of cliche, and partying like it's 1969

In a column on reform--not just reform, but the lovely 2005 urban slang Reform 2.0 favored by those hep cats in Kurt Zellers's caucus--Steve Drazkowski notes:

America is changing. Minnesota is changing - and it's clear we aren't keeping up. We're in the middle of the pack when it comes to student reading test scores. Our current state education model came about before we put a man on the moon.

Yes indeedie. This is powerful rhetorical stuff.

Bluestem wonders if The Draz is willing to apply this reasoning to other areas. It's clear that Minnesota isn't keeping up with Iowa, for instance.

Our current marriage model came about before we put a man on the moon.  Those folks in Iowa have had same sex marriage for a couple of years now. We hope to see Draz urging voters to reject the marriage inequality amendment Draz and his friends so rashly placed on the November's ballot.

Is Draz proposing that we make 1969 the cut-off year for models for everthing, or is education somehow special?  Bluestem also pauses to reflect that people educated under that pre-moon landing model somehow managed to get a man on the moon, but perhaps there's no relationship between book larnin' and rocket science.

Or perhaps mere chronology is simply no substitute for arguing a system or proposal on its merits. Or that fluffing the same-old, same-old ALEC model bills with a shiny new name (dated as the construction might be) only changes the branding of said proposals, not the debate about them. 

Pretending that the "hearings" where Draz and his ace boonies presented these ideas once again were actually forums designed to gather citizen-generated proposals is the pure product of a Potemkin advance team, as we noted late last August in The Draz Traveling ALEC Reform 2.0 Medicine Show hits Kenyon, Goodview and beyond.

Image: The Drazombie ALEC Bunny returns. Photoshop by Tild.

Reform 2.0: To distract from Steve Sviggum as news, senate comm department trots out Koch

It's not just smiley faces at the Senate Majority Caucus anymore.

Earlier this month, the hiring of Former Minnesota House Speaker, Pawlenty commissioner, and current Regent Steve Sviggum as communications director/ Senjem's executive assistant at $102,000 a year by the Republican Senate Majority Caucus fueled a bonfire of criticism mixed with the tinder of praise and expanding the emoticon universe on the right side of the aisle.

Witnesses for the defense didn't help much. Blois Olson won  the first nomination for With Friends Like This Award--MN Pol Division for 2012 with this sentence in The Morning Take:

There is no one more authentic and straightforward than Steve Sviggum, and it is clear that having a sage, calm and mature hand in the Senate Majority Leaders operation is what is needed.

This learned observation by the Golden Tongue of Tunheim came at a moment when Sviggum told the Associated Press and other reporters in Sviggum insists new job vetted by U of Minn. brass:

"There is no decision that I can make here that affects the University of Minnesota," he said. "I am not the decision-maker. Now I work for a decision-maker or -makers, but I am not the decision-maker."

The AP story notes that Sviggum said:

he spoke with [Board Chairwoman Linda] Cohen and [university general counsel Mark] Rotenberg separately last week before officially applying for the job. He was announced as Senate communications director Monday.

This account is disputed, according to the U's student paper, the Minnesota Daily. In Disagreement over whether Sviggum vetted Regents policy, Greta Kaul reports:

"Regent Sviggum did not discuss the job or consult about it with either the chair or vice chair of the Board of Regents prior to taking the position. Nor did Regent Sviggum discuss taking this position with the university general counsel or seek his advice about doing so, Board of Regents Chairwoman Linda Cohen and University General Counsel Mark Rotenberg wrote in a joint press release Wednesday.

And there's more, Kaul notes:

It was reported that the Board met last week in order to discuss changes to its conflict of interest policy involving University employees serving on the board. The meeting was, in fact, a conference call between regents Sviggum, Cohen and Vice Chair David Larson, Cohen said Friday. The meeting did not constitute a quorum under Minnesota's open meetings law.[emphasis added]

Sviggum said he brought up the possibility of a regent working at the Senate.

"I vetted the policy up front. I clarified the policy with the [general counsel]. I clarified with the chair," Sviggum said.

Editorial opinion at the school, where Sviggum had been a popular, though adjunct, teacher in the Humphrey Institute, is not taking kindly to the former speaker's sense of entitlement. Today's editorial, Regents get political, begins:

Last week, Regent Steve Sviggum accepted a job as communications and executive assistant of the Senate Republican Caucus. According to the chair of the Board of Regents and the University of Minnesota general counsel, Sviggum did not consult with either of them about whether this position would constitute a conflict of interest. The extent of his efforts was a conference call between himself, the chair and the vice chair of the Board of Regents. That’s hardly thorough.

The conflict of interest in Sviggum’s new position is clear — it is an obvious violation of the employment-related conflict of interest provision of the board’s code of ethics.

But the student editors don't stop there. They continue:

This is only the latest development in the politicization of the Board of Regents. In February 2011, the Legislature selected Laura Brod as its at-large regent candidate, a position she had not been nominated for. Brod was a Republican legislator whose term ended the month before her selection. Before selecting her, the Republican delegation met twice to discuss their selection, excluding Democratic-Farmer-Labor legislators. House higher education committee Chairman Bud Nornes explained the selection with an alarming quote: “It’s hard to expect friends to not vote for you.”

Indeed. 

However, it appears that the Senate Republican Caucus Communications Office, headed for the moment by Sviggum, so has a plan to make sure the authentic and straightforward Kenyon farmer and political veteran is no longer the center of the news.

They're trotting out former Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, whose sudden resignation from the top leadership post and revelation of an innappropriate relationship with a male senate staff led to the dismissal of the guy Sviggum's replacing: Michael Brodkorb, the dark lord of GOP smear politics and former deputy chair.

Via the Grand Forks Herald, veteran Forum Communications political reporter Don Davis reports in Capitol Chatter,  Legislative notebook: Assistant calls Senjem tough:

A Senate GOP communications staffer is lining up five-minute media interviews with Koch Tuesday, the opening day of the 2012 legislative session.

While she has said little in public since the relationship was reported, she did issue an apology. She did a series of short telephone interviews when she quit a leader, but that was before the relationship was revealed.

Bluestem thanks Davis for reporting on the machinery of the Senate flacks itself. Some of the handiwork of Sviggum's staff has been seen in Sen. Amy Koch: Back up after 'punch to the face' at the Star Tribune, wherein we get the news that Koch didn't wear her wedding band to the interview.

However, the news article failed to make clear that the punch in the face was largely self-inflicted, regardless of what the gays may say to City Pages.  Nor does Koch answer the burning question raised in December by the alt-weekly. Somehow, Bluestem doubts that the Senate GOP communications staffer Davis mentions has called the City Pages staffer to line up an interview; in any event, the journalist has moved on to report on other Lotharios.

The Senate communications office has moved on in other ways as well. Back to Davis. Under the Grand Forks Herald's own headline, Legislative notebook: New Senate leader not just a happy face, readers learn:

New Senate Majority Leader Dave Senjem, R-Rochester, can be as tough as anyone when he negotiates with Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton, one of his assistants said.

Senjem is known as a nice guy, but one whose negotiations skills with Democrats have not been tested.

The article goes on to relate the man crush that Assistant Majority Leader Bill Ingebrigtsen, R-Alexandria, has on Dave Senjem.

Bluestem can only observe that that is sure some messaging from Sviggum's comm department, given that Senjem's negotiation skills have indeed been tested, since he served as minority leader at a time when the DFL had an overwhelming majority in the Senate.  Having proved hs negotiation skills under such adverse conditions must count for something.

But perhaps not so much within his own caucus. David reports--the first time that BSP has seen the vote noted in print:

Senjem won the job Koch held for a year by a single vote in an 11-hour closed-door meeting late last month.

. . .Ingebrigtsen said Senjem has "that diplomacy about him" and said "he is not going to poke anyone in the eye and go out."

 

Putting a nice guy in charge of the caucus is not a bad thing, the Alexandria senator said. "There is nothing wrong with Republicans being liked."

A large majority of Senjem's own caucus would disagree, prefering their leadership to be disagreeable sorts.

Images: Steve Sviggum, above; Dave Senjem, not just a happy face.

Earlier in Reform 2.0: Reform 2.0: Oops, he did it again, or, Chief Sviggum's cunning rules headlines & airwaves

Reform 2.0, or spare change in the MN Senate: Sviggum to take home $102,000 as comm head

Emo Senator: Amnesia! Mike Parry forgets he's his own boss during MNSCU benefits hearing

As we tune in to the latest episode of Emo Senator, Southern Minnesota's most beloved online telenovela, readers will be distressed but not surprised to see a relapse of our hero's amnesia.

Earlier last summer, loyal fans will remember, Senator Mike Parry forgot that he owns and operates a Godfather's Pizza in Waseca, and so was forced to accept the maximum in-session per diem, or see his family sent to the poor farm since the legislature was his only source of income.

He also collected a paycheck during the shutdown.

Now, in a hearing Thursday on retirement benefits for MNSCU employees (prompted by big rollovers of vacation time for top administrators), The Belle of Waseca County once again forgets that he's a small business owner and his own boss.

The Minnesota Daily reports in Legislators scrutinize MnSCU for sick and vacation time payouts:

Parry said companies usually force employees to use their vacation time so that they’re rested and perform well on the job.

“I’m forced to take [my two weeks], why aren’t they forced to take theirs?” Parry said after the meeting.

Distracted by another scandal in the Republican Party of Minnesota, our camera crew was unable to capture footage of Mike Parry looking in a mirror, talking to himself, and forcing Mike Parry to take two weeks vacation.  Or perhaps that's Dave Senjem's job, though we do not know of vacation time for our part-time legislators, who can, after all, claim per diem for weekends and holidays during the session, just as the Emo Senator does.

Such forgetfulness seems hard-wired in Minnesota Republican DNA these days, what with Tony Sutton forgetting to tell Pat Anderson about the $10,000 medical marijuana study he was conducting in 2010 when she came looking for help with gas money for her campaign for state auditor.

Or perhaps nurture, not nature, contributed to that study. Something had to make people want to eat those burritos.

Maybe Mike Parry congressional campaign consultant Ben Golnik knows what Sutton was smoking, since he's one of the "insiders" that MPR identifies in

Sutton seemed to favor the services of current and former party executive directors. The last three were awarded contracts to work for the Republican Party.

During Sutton's tenure, Ryan Griffin served as the party's executive director. But in addition to his annual salary of $85,000, he was also paid roughly $14,000 for consulting and legal work, according to campaign finance documents.

Sutton characterized the payments as a bonus for advising the party on legal issues during election season.

Two former executive directors of the party, Ben Golnik and Darren Bearson, also secured contracts. Golnik was paid $6,000 to help with the 2010 gubernatorial recount and to help Republicans win the Minnesota Senate. He's still owed another $8,000. Bearson's firm, Compass Point Strategies, earned nearly $50,000 for media and consulting work since 2009.

Whatever the case, memory or not, our hero loves a good party, and that's why Emo Senator has such a following. Tune in this week, as the legislature reconvenes, for more Emo Senator.

Image: Tild's artistic vision of the Emo Senator.

Past episodes below the fold.

ALEC consolidates MN operations after sudden downturn in loon state Republican brand

Two seemingly disparate news items suggest some shifting ground in the Minnesota political landscape, a place where ordinary geology tends toward erosion and collapse, rather the earthquakes suggested by headlines the day after elections. Witness the victory of Chip Cravaack over Jim Oberstar in a congressional district where political currents pulled away the riverbank from the under the Democrats fishing there.

Much has been made of the implosion of the Republican brand in the past few month, but the entirely self-inflicted river of shame has been gnawing on that bank for years. We only now see the bloom of slit depositing itself as the current slows.

Bluestem has looked -- in a snarky, bloggy way -- at some of the points made by Minnesota Public Radio's Tom Scheck, Catherine Richter, and Bill Wareham in Chairman's spending decisions on insiders helped lead to GOP debt.  The latter report, out this morning, should serve as a reminder of what real journalism looks like: digging into records, rather than tweets.

There's real paydirt in that current.  Go read the whole thing. Bluestem is pleased to read these passages, beginning with the lede about the failed burrito baron:

A Republican leader with 25 years of hard-earned respect from the party that prides itself on fiscal discipline, awarded contracts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to consultants, lawmakers, candidates and party insiders over the course of nearly 30 months as state party chairman, contributing to the financial wreckage the party is trying to fix today.

And there's this:

MAJOR DONOR SECURES PARTY CONTRACT

Sutton and the Republican Party also did business with at least one major donor.

Donors typically give money to political parties they agree with to win elections. In this case, a donor gave money to the Republican Party and also created a business to sway voters.

The donor is Robert Cummins. The business is Civis Communications.

In 2009 and 2010, the party paid Civis Communications about $82,000. Roughly half the cash was for direct mail services and the other half was for voter identification efforts.

Cummins, CEO of Primera Technology, is one of the GOP's top donors. In 2010, according to records, Cummins gave $425,000 to the party's state account. In addition, the Freedom Club State PAC, which Cummins helped create, gave the party $400,000.

Mike Scholl, who is the company's executive director, said he leads the daily operations of the firm and did not want to comment on Cummins' role. He said that Cummins' influence within the party did not help Civis secure the contract.

Fascinating stuff in and of itself, but also for Cummins' role in other hanky-panky related to constitutional amendments.  Readers may recall how we asked about GOP consultant Greg Peppin's hire by House Speaker Kurt Zellers to "lobby" his own caucus on behalf of the marriage inequality amandment. In Peppin pimping hate: House member's spouse "lobbies" caucus on amendment--for whom?, Cummins put in a star turn via PIM's Brianna Bierschbach:

Donations played into the calculus of the amendment vote in another way, according to one source who monitored the amendment effort. House Republican caucus uber-funder Robert Cummins, the chief executive officer of Primera Technology, is a fervid backer of the amendment and a past donor to anti-gay-marriage initiatives. Since 2004, Cummins has contributed more than $408,000 to groups like Minnesota Citizens in Defense of Marriage — now Minnesota Majority — and the Minnesota Family Council, and has thrown hundreds of thousands of dollars at the House GOP caucus campaign chest. In a June 2010 Capitol Report story, then-caucus treasurer Matt Dean said Cummins is much more involved than the average donor. He works directly with House leaders to recruit Republican candidates to run in each district. “He understands the importance of winning elections,” Dean said at the time.

“Promises must have been made to outside sources,” the source said, adding that the caucus was reportedly promised several million dollars for the 2012 elections from various groups if the amendment passed this session.

Peppin understands that the vote was likely difficult for freshmen to make, especially those who narrowly won in swing districts last fall or those who campaigned on fiscal issues, not social ones. That was the case for freshman Rep. Kurt Bills, a schoolteacher from Rosemount who ultimately voted for the legislation.

Bills now faces a bid from Jeff Wilfahrt, the father of the late Andrew Wilfahrt, a gay soldier whose ultimate sacrifice helped give freshman Republican and disabled veteran John Kriesel's passionate  speech against the amendment on the floor of the House such power.

There are some truths money can't buy off.

The Freedom Club, Minnesota Majority, Robert Cummins: these are names we'll hear a lot about, and the cautionary tale investigated by Scheck and his associates should be told and retold to voters in the coming days. To paraphrase a common chant: This isn't what democracy looks like.

It's what cronyism smells like.

The pattern continues. The Scheck and Richter report notes one case of a GOP employee collecting a consulting fee while on the payroll:

During Sutton's tenure, Ryan Griffin served as the party's executive director. But in addition to his annual salary of $85,000, he was also paid roughly $14,000 for consulting and legal work, according to campaign finance documents.

Sutton characterized the payments as a bonus for advising the party on legal issues during election season.

And who does Griffin have as a client now that he's laid off?  None other than the Freedom Club, a contract tweeted by none other than the late Michael Brodkorb at the time when the MNGOP laid Griffin off, and evidenced by this Freedom Club's talking points document pimping Steve Drazkowski's Right To Work For Less Money Amendment, helpfully posted by the Rochester Tea Party Patriots.  Mr. Griffin's phone number is on the document, in case anyone in the press wants to interview him about his service to the Republican Party of Minnesota and the big donors who bought it.

Mr. Cummins has indeed purchased a small circle of loyal friends and retainers.

However, for most of the amendments to the state constitution that Mr. Cummins and other wealthy business men are promoting, Bluestem offers the kindly suggestion that those seeking answers on this development should simply give the American Legislative Exchange Council a call-- it's the author of model bills for much of Draz's legislation, including this particular amendment and his supermajority amendment. Copycat bills from ALEC are responsible for much of the recent unrest in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana.

The financial erosion of the Republican Party of Minnesota under the management of Tony Sutton (who brought Baja Sol to the brink with his lovely wife Bridget) appears to have altered the river of cash that waters the broader conservative valley in the North Star State, and this brings Bluestem to the second news item mentioned in the lede.

The conservative megablog True North reports that Two Major Minnesota Conservative Think Tanks Join Forces.

Upon reviewing the press release, our conclusion is that the wedding of the Center of the American Experiment and the Minnesota Free Market Institute isn't a merger, but rather a consolidation at a moment of coming austerity and ambition on the part of those big donors who've been funding the Republican Party (MPR reports that the party received only $255 from small donors in 2010). ALEC's think tank division, the State Policy Network, lists  both organizations in its directory entry for Minnesota.

Hard times indeed.

Photo: Failed burrito baron Tony Sutton, photo courtesy of Fibonacci Blue.