Contact Your Senator IMMEDIATELY
Today the Star Tribune newspaper ran an editorial in support of strong regulation of the frac sand industry. The editorial, entitled "Minnesota Legislature must protect trout streams," says in part:
“Schmit’s common-sense legislation, which will likely face a critical Senate floor vote today, proposes a reasonable 5,000-foot-setback for sand mines from trout streams and the springs that feed them. Mining also couldn’t occur within 25 feet of the water table. The aim is straightforward: to protect the flow of the cold, clear waters that are the lifeblood of the region’s renowned trout fishery and, by extension, the jobs dependent on angling tourism. Cutting off springs or groundwater flow through careless excavation could reduce stream flows and increase water temperature to levels lethal to trout...The setbacks called for in the legislation are based on the best available research and would significantly reduce the risk of environmental damage. Waiting years to gather data for a more tailored approach isn’t practical. The damage to critical trout habitat may already have been done by then."
This vote is happening today on the Senate floor as early as mid-morning. Sen. Matt Schmit of Red Wing will offer his amendment on the Senate floor to the Omnibus Game and Fish Bill (Senate File 796) to protect southeast Minnesota trout streams from frac sand mining and processing.
Take Action. Contact your Senator immediately and urge them to support Sen. Schmit’s amendment. You can find your state Senator's name and contact information online here, or by calling 651-296-0504 or 888-234-1112.
Suggested message: “Today Sen. Matt Schmit will offer an amendment on the Senate floor to protect southeast Minnesota trout streams from frac sand mining. I strongly encourage you to support this amendment, which will include a setback from trout streams for frac sand mines. The Star Tribune editorial had it right today when it said that these setbacks "are based on the best available research and would significantly reduce the rise of environmental damage." I will check back in tomorrow to see how you voted on this amendment."
You can watch the debate on the Senate floor online here.
For more information on this issue, contact LSP's Bobby King at 612-722-6377 or bking@landstewardshipproject.
Small Business
May 10, 2013
LSP: Troutfishing in America, or, the stream you save with a call to your senator may be your own
May 08, 2013
All your base are belong to us: MN GOP gubernatorial campaign hires trolls in SC
Diving into Politics In Minnesota's Scott Honour announces deep campaign bench, Bluestem picked up this bauble in Charley Shaw's article:
Honour’s campaign released an e-mail Tuesday afternoon announcing 12 people or their firms are working for him in positions ranging from field work to polling. . . .
Wesley Donehue, digital. Donehue is the CEO of Push Digital based in Columbia, S.C.
GOP-friendly MinnPost columnist Cyndy Brucato reported in Scott Honour, GOP candidate for governor, names campaign team:
Digital-communication duties will be handled by Push Digital.
Will Push Digital supply these services for Brand Management and Social Media? From the Push Digital website:
In many cases, people are already talking about you. Some comments are positive, while others are negative. Using new search tools, we monitor websites and social networks for activity about you. We leave blog comments, tweets and Facebook messages to respond. If the messages are positive, we begin a dialogue with the user in an attempt to recruit him/her as an activist. If the messages are negative, we push back with the truth.
In short, paid trolls.
Outsourcing the Honour troll ops to South Carolina isn't the smartest move. (We'll leave the speculation about how South Carolina rewards stalking to the smart people).
Taking a little time from our spring planting, Bluestem will do a little free concern trolling for the aspiring investment banker's grand ambition.
Invest that money in Minnesota's local troll community. Surely some of the fine folks here could use the coin and you'd help the economy of the state you adopted several years ago and you could truly say: "all your base are belong to us."
You'd own them.
Image: Screenshot of meme's origin in Zero Wing, via Wikipedia.
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May 02, 2013
Sustainable Agriculture Demonstration Grant Program faces test in conference committee
The Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture conference committee meets at 1:00 p.m., and Bluestem hopes that the House conferees--Jean Wagenius, David Dill, Jeanne Poppe, Rick Hansen, and Andrew Falk--can prevail on keeping $190,000 for the Sustainable Agriculture Demonstration Grant Program in the final conference report.
There's no comparable language in the Senate bill for this program, which is described on the Minnesota Department of Agriculture website:
Competitive grants for up to $25,000 are awarded to individuals or groups for on-farm sustainable agriculture research or demonstration projects in Minnesota. The purpose of the Grant Program is to fund practices that promote environmental stewardship and conservation of resources as well as improve profitability and quality of life on farms and in rural areas. . . .
Eligible recipients include Minnesota farmers, individuals at Minnesota educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and local natural resource agencies. Priority is given to projects that are farmer initiated. All non-farmer initiated projects must show significant collaboration with farmers. . . .
The program objectives are to research and demonstrate the profitability, energy efficiency, and benefits of sustainable agriculture practices and systems from production through marketing. Grants are available to fund on-farm research and demonstrations and may include, but are not limited to:The program does not fund projects that duplicate previously funded projects. . . .
- enterprise diversification and organic production using traditional and non-traditional crops and livestock;
- cover crops and crop rotations to increase nitrogen uptake, reduce erosion, or control pests;
- conservation tillage and weed management;
- cropping systems to implement integrated pest management systems for insects, weeds, and diseases;
- nutrient and pesticide management including prevention of entry into water bodies;
- energy production such as wind, methane, or biomass.
It's not a big program, but one that's useful for farmers, especially those in fast-growing sectors like community supported agriculture (CSA). It's not as if traditional production agriculture is starved in either chamber's bill, so the omission of the program in the Senate bill seems a casual error that can be easily corrected.
Here's the Land Stewardship Project's position on the project (via LSP's lobbyist Bobby King:
Funding for the Sustainable Agriculture Demonstration Grant Program. LSP supports the House position that provides $190,000/ year funding for this program. (HF 976 lines 6.7 – 6.20) There is no dedicated funding in the Senate position.
Here's the House staff comparison and contrast chart. Perhaps the greater problem with the Senate bill is the absence of funding for the Minnesota Agricultural Water Quality Program, which would be developed by the Minnesota Department of Ag and a board composed mostly of farmers and local soil and water commissioners. Oddly, Republicans have objected that farmers would not have a voice in establishing the program's policies. The program is a priority of the Minnesota Farmers Union.
H.F. No. 976 – Agriculture Policy Provisions Same, Similar and Different
With the suspension of the sustainable food production diploma program at M State-Fergus Falls, a peculiar hostility to toward small-scale, innovative agriculture seems to be gaining steam among some state lawmakers and bureaucrats. This is unfortunate, as the local food movement has been a boon for small business and job creation for those who seek to serve consumer demand.
Update: Those who support fostering our state's sustainable farming sector might consider contact the senators on the conference committee to ask them to agree with the House bill and fund this modest program. Be polite to the legislative aides who answer the phones and listen to the voicemail messages.
David Tomassoni: 651-296-8017
Tom Saxhaug: 651-296-4136
Dan Sparks: 651-296-9248
Jim Metzen: 651-296-4370
Torrey Westrom: 651-296-3826
Photo: Sexy buffer strips, via MnDA.
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Apr 24, 2013
Sleepy Eye small businessman wants legislature to keep energy dollars working on Main Street
Midway through Wind power requirement proposal goes to state lawmakers, Mankato Free Press staff writer Dan Linehan reports:
. . . Timothy Zinniel, president of Sleepy Eye-based Zinniel Electric, said his company started selling and installing solar panels in 2007 and now makes 50 percent of its annual sales from solar power.
“If (municipal power providers) and power companies could offer electricity from a local standpoint, they’d be creating more jobs locally. Our largest export is our dollars. Let’s keep them here,” he said.
Zinniel estimates he’d hire at least five more people if the solar standard passes.
That doesn’t include the jobs created by Minnesota’s two solar panel manufacturers, tenKsolar and Silicon Energy.
When Zinniel is working with a customer, he offers them both American- and foreign-made panels. The Chinese ones are sometimes cheaper, but Zinniel said many of his customers are willing to pay a bit more to buy American. . . .
Zinniel supports a measure that would require Minnesota's utilities togenerate 4 percent of their electricity from solar power by 2025 and to get 40 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2030.
Although Xcel Energy and other utilities oppose the bill, a representative for Xcel conceded that the development of Minnesota's wind industry hasn't led to higher rates for the out-of-state utility's customers in Minnesota. Linehan reports:
That said, McCarten said Xcel’s wind energy spending hasn’t led to any price increases for customers. In other words, if the company had bought natural gas instead of wind, customers would be paying roughly the same amount.
[J. Drake] Hamilton, the renewable energy advocate, said people who support the higher renewable energy standard should contact their legislators.
Bluestem suspects that as Minnesota's solar industry matures, costs will come down. Could the utilities' own commitments and contracts for fossil-fuel generated power be as much factor for the resistance to the development of solar as concern for the hypothetical costs for consumers?
Manufacturing jobs creating high-quality Minnesota-made products, as well as jobs based in Greater Minnesota small businesses, sounds pretty electifying to Bluestem. Governor Mark Dayton supports the development of Minnesota's renewable energy portfolio.
Photo: Solar panels, via Zinniel Electric.
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Apr 15, 2013
Farmer-hating urban chick pushes strong ag budget in House omnibus ag & enviro finance bill
Remember when Rod Hamilton and House Republicans got the fantods over an urban, earth-friendly woman chairing the House Environment, Natural Resource and Agricultural Finance Committee? Because she would so not understand farmers?
From December 2012 through January 2013, one could scarcely pick up a paper in a swing rural district won by a DFLer in the November 2012 election and not read an example of the collective Republican butthurt.
Looks like Hamilton was just acting like that frienemy who really doesn't wish us well with our new date, despite all the concern trolling.
Just in from Minnesota Farmers Union Legislative Director Thom Petersen's emailed Notes from the Farmers Union:
Both the House and Senate are moving their versions of the omnibus agriculture and environment finance bills authored respectively by Rep. Jean Wagenius and Sen. David Tomassoni. The House version also carries agricultural policy provisions the Senate version does not at this point. The House version has a strong budget for agriculture including full funding for the AGRI fund, and other MFU priorities including sustainable agriculture, dairy development, county fairs, AURI, and Board of Animal Health. Members can track House bill progress here: House Finance bill the Senate version will be released later today. The bill also addresses water usage fees and reduces fees for irrigators from .35 cents to .22 cents per million gallons pumped as originally proposed by Rep. Wagenius. The Senate is not likely to include water usage fees in their bill.
Indeed, the House version of HF 976 2E as passed in Ways and Means includes $82,406,000 for 2014-2015, while the governor's budget proposed $80,606,000 (see page 10).
So how many Republicans have voted for this bill as it makes its way through committee hearings?
Photo: Representative Jean Wagenius, a lot nicer to farmers than Republicans will let on.
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Apr 09, 2013
Senator Vicki Jensen's service sets ambitious agenda for greater Minnesota small businesses
Elections matter, and residents of the old Mike Parry district are seeing a clear difference in their new senator, Vicki Jensen (DFL-Owatonna). Whereas Parry's caustic tweets and abrasive personality used to draw statewide attention, Jensen's workhorse effectiveness is gathering a following.
The Grand Forks Herald reports on the freshman senator's work for small business in Job, tax plans could benefit rural Minnesota. Danielle Killey writes:
. . .Sen. Vicki Jensen, DFL-Owatonna, proposed a broader plan she said would not only bring in new jobs, but also will help businesses stay in greater Minnesota and retain jobs. It would replace the Job Opportunity Building Zone program.
Jensen would give rural Minnesota businesses some sales and property tax exemptions when they expand or come to the state and offer income tax credits based on pay and the number of employees, encouraging new hires.
“We need tools in greater Minnesota,” President Barry Wilfahrt of the Grand Forks and East Grand Forks Chamber of Commerce said.
He said there are business incentives in neighboring North Dakota that can draw companies away.
Jensen said while there are other job and economic development programs in the state, she wants some specifically focused outside the Twin Cities metropolitan area.
“I’m not willing to just sit back and cross my fingers this (other) legislation will work in rural Minnesota,” Jensen said. . . .
Jensen said program such as angel investment credits, which provide a break for those who give money to startup companies, work well in the metropolitan area. But she said more than 90 percent of that funding goes there rather than to rural Minnesota.
“Greater Minnesota needs different tools,” Ahlgren said.
Read the entire article at the Herald. In the Owatonna People's Press, Jensen reports back to her constituents in Owatonna legislator looks back on her first three months as state senator:
. . .I recognize that being an effective legislator involves listening to constituents, translating their concerns into workable proposals, and building bipartisan consensus to implement bills into law.
Some here at the Capitol have advised me that freshman often hold back on questions and may be more inclined to vote along party lines. However, when I ran to be your senator, I promised all of you I would do my homework, ask tough questions, and make legislative decisions to the best of my abilities in representing all of you.
To that end, I was especially honored to be recognized in the Capitol Report publication as one of three majority party freshmen who have made an immediate impact. They reported that in each new class of lawmakers, there is a small group of standouts — “freshmen who arrive at the Capitol with a knack for the job.” Freshmen making major strides by the middle of their first year on the job, tackling major pieces of legislation, forging relationships across the aisle and even bucking their caucuses on occasion. . ..
Jensen quotes the Briana Bierschbach article in PIM, adding:
I share this with all of you not because I want any further recognition, but rather I want you all to know that lawmakers in St. Paul are hearing from District 24 and I will do my best to ensure they keep hearing from our district.
Jensen has scheduled regular in-district meetings with her constituents in Waseca, Owatonna and Faribault.
Photo: It's not the sort of negative attention that Mike Parry brought to the district. From the Grand Forks Herald: "Barry Wilfahrt, Grand Forks and East Grand Forks Chamber of Commerce president, tells Minnesota senators Monday, April 8, 2013, that a program to give greater Minnesota businesses tax incentives would help rural cities attract and keep companies. Beside him is bill sponsor Sen. Vicki Jensen of Owatonna." (Forum News Service photo by Danielle Killey).
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Mar 22, 2013
Frac sand news: Hansen & Schmit bills advance; SEMN permitting; WI project threatens Riverway
While bills related to regulating the frac sand industry make their way through the Minnesota state legislature, sand mining continues to generate headlines in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Minnesota state House and Senate bills
Last night, the Minnesota House Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture Finance Committee moved on unanimous voice votes to send HF906 to the House Ways and Means Committee, as well as lay it on the table for possible inclusion in the Omnibus House Environment and Agriculture Finance bill.
With Republicans Denny McNamara (R-Hastings) and Tim Kelly (R-Red Wing) signed on as sponsors--and most objections (other than having a bill at all) from the silica sand industry overcome, the Rick Hansen (DFL-South St. Paul) bill retains its basic shape: technical assistance for local government in permitting and monitoring under the aegis of the Environmental Quality Board (EQB) but no Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) or one-year moratorium.
Listen to the action at the end of the audio here. SF1018, introduced by Senator Matt Schmit (DFL-Red Wing), is the senate companion bill.
Minnesota Public Radio's Stephanie Hemphill reported on the bills' earlier progress in Frac sand mining bill clears another hurdle. The Schmit bill was heard in committee but audio has yet to be posted.
Permits move ahead in Fillmore and Winona Counties
The Rochester Post Bulletin reports in Little concern for silica-sand quarry near Highland:
A quarry southeast of Lanesboro that has been extracting silica sand since 2008 with little notice is asking to expand from 18.6 acres to 50 acres.
Reilly Construction Co., of Ossian, Iowa, which operates the mine on the land of Sandra and John Rein near the unincorporated town of Highland, submitted an environmental assessment worksheet on Jan. 10. The public comment period has ended, and Fillmore County is responding to questions and comments, said Zoning Administrator Chris Graves. About a dozen people or governmental agencies commented on the document.
It's possible the EAW will come before the county board at the end of this month or in early April, he said. If it finds the worksheet meets requirements, the board can approve it and the quarry can apply for a conditional use permit that would allow the expansion.
While similar mines that were proposed for south of St. Charles brought heavy criticism and comment, the Rein mine has been operating without problems, he said. "They have been a really good mine," he said. . . .
The comments on the Rein proposal centered around many of the same concerns as those commenting on the Saratoga proposals — traffic, health, water pollution and noise.
The Rein worksheet also had comments from people who feared damage to two trout streams — Nepstad and Gribben — because their headwaters are around Highland.
That's not quite the situation in Winona County, where the small scale of a 20-acre site that will be worked out in three years is meeting little resistance. The Winona Daily News' Jerome Christenson reports in Commission: EIS not required for Nisbit mine:
If the county board’s willing and the state doesn’t intervene, Winona County’s first new frac sand mine could go into operation this spring.
On a 5-3 vote, the Winona County Planning Commission recommended that the county board not require an Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Nisbit mine.
Mine operator Tom Rowekamp said he was pleased with the vote. “We know people have concerns,” he said, “We’ve done our best to address them. I don’t know what else we could do.”
The proposed 20-acre mine site is located in Saratoga Township outside Utica on land owned by David and Sherry Nisbit. The site lies on the north side of Gethje Lane, a dead-end private road. Current plans call for about 200,000 tons of sand to be removed each year for about three years, at which time the commercially available sand is expected to be exhausted. The mined area will be recovered with topsoil and planted to native prairie. . . .
. . .Three fourths of the dozen or so who spoke at the public hearing favored requiring an EIS for the mine, citing concerns about dust, water quality and increased truck traffic. . . .
Commissioner Jim Hegland said he lived about a mile and a half from the mine site and shared the concerns of the speakers, but “there’s only so much research we can do before we have to do something.” He said the Nisbit mine’s small size and limited prospective lifetime make it a good test case for silica mine regulations in the county.
Much of the opposition to other proposed projects centers either on their massive scale--as in the moribund proposal for a mammoth processing and mining complex in St. Charles--or their location near homes, schools or sensitive natural areas, along with unanswered questions about the industry's impact.
Wisconsin: Riverway project won't go away
The Cap Times out of Madison reports in Riverway mine moves closer as Walker boosts frac sand industry:
With Gov. Scott Walker’s new budget including assistance for the sand mining industry, a controversial frac sand operation near the Lower Wisconsin River is moving closer to approval.
The town of Bridgeport Planning Commission has OK’d a conditional use permit for Pattison Sand Co. of Clayton, Iowa, to locate a mine near the Lower Wisconsin State Riverway, setting up a final vote by the Town Board on March 27.
Mine opponents packed the Bridgeport Town Hall for the commission meeting last week but were given little opportunity to speak during the three-hour hearing, according to reports. . . .
“It’s supposed to be ‘For the People and By the People’ but that didn’t happen,” Arnie Steele of Bridgeport Concerned Citizens told the Courier Press in Prairie du Chien.
The group says it will consider legal action but Bridgeport attorney Todd Infield had advised the commission that it couldn’t deny a permit simply based on citizen opposition. Timing may be an issue as well for the town of Bridgeport, with elections scheduled for April 2. The town chairman and two supervisors are facing challenges from mining opponents.
The Riverway Board has urged Pattison to withdraw its application, saying that while the project might meet the letter of the law, the mine would detract from the scenic area and potentially conflict with the federal Highway Beautification Act of 1965.
But Pattison, which could not be reached for comment for this story, has said it will not drop its application.
Last month, the company was cited by the state Department of Natural Resources for violating its air pollution permit at a facility in Prairie du Chien where processed sand is transferred from trucks to rail cars. Pattison says it is taking steps to address those problems and has not been fined
Read the entire story at the Cap Times. And yes, another train went off the tracks, the LaCross Tribune reports in Train carrying sand derails near Hatfield.
Photo: Another sand train wreck in Wisconsin, via, WEAU.com. What grassroots activists in Minnesota hope to avoid.
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Mar 12, 2013
Tearful Mary Franson to Alexandria town hall: "Democrats are just destroying this state"
Representative Mary Franson makes no secret of her low regard for unions, despite her union leader grandfather. From the attacks on her Family Freedom Act website to her attacks on her 2012 opponent, a retired coach, as "Big Labor Bob," she's against them.
As a former home child care provider, she has ridden point against an organizing drive by AFSCME and SEIU to organize daycares.
But we've never seen her tear up while she's tearing up. We probably would too if we thought the DFL was destroying the world as we know it.
In today's Alexandria Echo Press, Crystal Dey reports in Ingebrigtsen, Anderson and Franson discuss Dayton's plans:
Although it was billed as a legislative town hall meeting, a Friday gathering in Alexandria felt more like a political platform for Republican leaders to analyze the DFL’s recent proposals. . . .
A former child care provider, Franson was visibly distraught over the issue.
“I’m just very emotional today because the Democrats are just destroying this state,” she said through tears.
Franson said child care providers should have the right to run their business without a union, to choose to be privatized and receive the subsidy.
But it isn't the DFL coming after your children that has Franson distraught; it's also the drive of home health care aides to organize that's bothering her:
“The union is going to denigrate the child care system as we know it,” she said. “It doesn’t stop with the unions; they’re going after our disabled people also.”
Franson said it is not only child care subsidies that are affected. The money available for care of disabled people will be cut as well.
This is curious stuff given the cuts to home health workers Franson helped hand out in her first term. In July 2011, Minnesota Public Radio reported in Health and human services budget cuts worry providers:
It's a troubling result to this difficult legislative session," said Steve Larson, the public policy director at The Arc Minnesota. The budget outlook for disabled people barely improved despite intense lobbying from his organization. Larson estimates there are at least $170 million dollars in cuts to waiver and home care programs that serve people with disabilities, including a pay cut that targets personal care attendant services provided by non-legally responsible relatives."Some of our lowest paid health care workers that do a tremendous job are now going to have to take a 20 percent cut," Larson said.
The Direct Care Alliance had the deets in September:
The budget included a 1.5 percent across-the-board cut for all health care funded by Medical Assistance, Minnesota’s Medicaid plan. In addition, several targeted cuts reduced payments for particular populations. The most unfair of these was a 20 percent cut for personal care assistants who provide services to a relative, which goes into effect on October 1. According to the law, “relative means the parent or adoptive parent of an adult child, a sibling aged 16 years or older, an adult child, a grandparent, or a grandchild.”For example, a PCA providing care to a relative for $10 per hour will probably be earning $8 under the lower reimbursement rate, while other PCAs with the same amount of experience at the same agency will continue to earn $10. In addition, the agencies that employ these critical caregivers will have to find other ways to cut costs, since their reimbursement rate will be cut by significantly more than $2 an hour for PCAs who are related to their clients.
Workers went to court to block the change.
In December 2012, a court reversed the policy as discriminatory. Via SEIU Minnesota State Council's website, Home Care Workers Applaud Reversal of Discriminatory Family Caregiver Cut:
Home care workers seeking the right to form a statewide union applauded Monday’s decision by the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruling that a 2011 provision ordering that people who care for elderly or disabled relatives receive 20 percent less pay than their non-relative counterparts is unconstitutional and violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Minnesota Constitution.
Just weeks after going into effect in October, 2011, the provision was challenged in court and blocked for months by a temporary restraining order before being upheld in March by Ramsey County District Court Judge Dale Lindman. It was then delayed by the legislature and would have gone into effect again on July 1, 2013
Indeed, the cuts are one the reason for coming together, organizers say, as are low pay and no benefits.
But Mary Franson was pleased with slicing the health and human services budget, as she wrote her August 2011 piece, It’s the Spending Stupid:
The fact that we were able to turn Health and Human Services from a projected growth of over 22% and bend the curve down to less than 5% is impressive in itself. Even still, Minnesota has a spending problem NOT a revenue problem and it needs to be seriously addressed.
At the end of the day – we are at war. We are fighting an ideological war. . . .
Apparently, it's ok to slash pay for some of the state's hardest workers in low-paying jobs. But should they organize so that they might avoid the whims of budget battles?
Mary Franson will cry you a river.
Photo: Representative Mary Franson at an anti-union event.
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Feb 22, 2013
Senator Dave Brown xeroxes 10th Amendment Center resolution, pretends it's a senate bill
When we last saw Senator Dave Brown (R-Becker), he'd just introduced his introduced SF325 , a "United Nations Agenda 21 private property rights restrictions implementation prohibition" bill. It bans any sustainable development anywhere, anyhow, in the state if anyone, anyhow can trace the language back to Agenda 21.
Since he's got the Agenda 21 Alarmist malarkey, he can move on to go old fashioned Tentherism by introducing SF514, a cookie-cutter resolution provided by the Tenth Amendment Center, which sounds pretty prestigious.
It is: it's run out of Michael Boldin's home in California, where he also operates Webstores, LLC. Mother Jones' Stephanie Mencimer reported in If at First You Don't Secede:
In 2007, with some money from a customer service job (he prefers not to say where he works), Boldin launched the Tenth Amendment Center's website. Though the Constitution provided many tools for battling the Bush administration's overreach—the Eighth Amendment bans torture, for instance—Boldin saw the Tenth as the ultimate check on federal power, all in a single line: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people." In that terse passage, Boldin saw the legal and philosophical basis for challenging a raft of executive excesses.
The Tenth has also caught on with Tea Partiers and others seeking a one-size-fits-all way to snub federal authority. . . .
At MinnPost in 2010, Eric Black looked at the movement in Taking Tentherism seriously in Minnesota and Debate over Tentherism: Some history to consider, as well as later occasional posts, that still serve as good introductions to the broader movement.
Cottage Grove veteran Leon Moe and the Tenth Amendment Center
In Minnesota, disabled Vietnam vet Leon Moe is the Ten Amendment Center state group coordinator. At the height of the Tea Party and Tentherism, Moe was frequently in the news. In 2009, Scott Wente of the South Washington County Bulletin reported in Retiree throws himself into push for state sovereignty:
Leon Moe said he’s always been a patriot.
The Cottage Grove resident’s definition of what that means, though, has changed a lot.
Forty years ago, when he was fighting with the U.S. Army in Vietnam, it meant following the U.S. government’s orders.
Now, it means lobbying legislators at the state Capitol to assert Minnesota’s sovereignty, a move that would allow the state to claim exclusion from unfunded federal mandates on 10th Amendment grounds. . . .
Moe was first drawn to politics by Ron Paul's ideas, Wente writes, but found Ron Paul Meet-ups too Republican. But like baby bear's porridge, the Constitution Party was just right--and he found a kindred soul in former House Minority leader Marty Seifert:
So when Paul endorsed the Constitution Party’s presidential candidate, Chuck Baldwin, Moe got in touch with the leaders of the Constitution Party of Minnesota. He started attending meetings last December, and in February, he and three other Constitution Party activists met in the State Office Building to seek out a legislator that would author a bill declaring Minnesota a sovereign state. . . .
The group of four was successful in getting Minnesota House Minority Leader Marty Seifert, R-Marshall, to author the legislation. A week later, House File 997 was ready to move through the committee process.
By March 19, 2010, Moe was connected with the Tenth Amendment Center. In March 2010, Moe posted on the Minnesota pages on TAC's webpage, Minnesota Sovereignty Legislation HF 997 & HF 998:
We have two slightly different versions of Minnesota Sovereignty Legislation. HF 997 authored by Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Rep Marty Seifert. HF 998 authored by Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Rep Tom Emmer. Both pieces of this legislation were introduced to the Minnesota House on the same day, February 19th, 2009. Perhaps the two authors did not want to be outdone by the other.
These 2 pieces of legislation were assigned to the State and Local Government Operations Reform Technology and Elections Committee. This Committee is chaired by DFL Rep Gene Pelowski of Winona who has so far refused to bring either of these pieces of legislation to a Committee hearing.
What I find interesting is that GOP gubernatorial candidate Rep Tom Emmer is listed as GOP Lead on this Committee. In addition his gubernatorial campaign manager Rep Mark Buesgens is also listed as being on this committee.
It has been over a year and I have not heard any barking or received any documentation by Rep Emmer or Rep Buesgens urging Chairman Pelowski of their Committee to bring this Tenth Amendment legislation to a Committee hearing. . . .
Criticism of the party didn't sit well with the Republican Party in Crow Wing County in September 2010, Brainerd Dispatch assistant editor Mike O'Rouke reported in Discord with GOP outlined at tea party rally here:
Tea party organizer George Burton, addressing a smaller than usual tea party crowd Tuesday, criticized Crow Wing County Republicans, claiming that they discouraged participation and urged scheduled speakers to cancel their appearances at Tuesday's rally.
. . ."Things got pretty ugly," he told the crowd, stating that a certain party (which he named later in an interview) had tried to convince Leon Moe, state coordinator of the Minnesota Tenth Amendment Center, to cancel his speech.
But Moe did indeed speak and was billed as the head of the TAC:
Moe, a disabled Vietnam veteran who heads the Tenth Amendment Center, said this nation's founders feared a government with too much power. He discussed the Tenth Amendment as the cornerstone of the Constitution."
The Tenth Amendment states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
He said neither health care nor education were listed as powers of the federal government and discussed how state Legislatures could declare such laws null and void.
"We just don't want to be obeying stupid, unconstitutional laws," Moe said.
Moe showed up at a famous protest in Governor Mark Dayton's reception room in January 2011, objecting to a health care order that the Democratic governor was signing as one of his first acts of office. In Dayton gives mic to Cottage Grove protester, South Washington County Bulletin reporter Scott Wente reported:
Cottage Grove resident Leon Moe is critical of federal health care expansion and on Wednesday was given a big platform to express that view.
Gov. Mark Dayton yielded his microphone to Moe and other protesters at a highly unusual ceremony during which the governor signed off on an expansion of the federal Medicaid program in Minnesota. . . .
Moe, who went to the Capitol to protest the action, said he was asked to speak. He believes the Medicaid action is unconstitutional.
“If you can show me anywhere in the Constitution where it says that Congress has the authority to legislate health care, let me know,” Moe said to applause as he stood at Dayton’s lectern and in the light of TV cameras. . . .
Dayton's plan to sign the executive order was publicized days in advance, drawing protesters to the ceremony. Events in the ornate reception room of the governor's state Capitol office traditionally only are open to journalists, staff, supporters and lawmakers.
“This is a public room,” Dayton said. “This belongs to the people of Minnesota.”
Some of the protesters were Tea Party members, but Moe says he is not part of that movement and instead considers himself a libertarian. He occasionally contributes letters to the editor of the South Washington County Bulletin.
In his latest letter, dated February 15, Schoen's gun stance reason enough to oust him in next election, Moe believes that freshman Representive Dan Schoen has turned his back on the Constitution.
The Tenth Amendment Center and SF 514: side by side
Did Moe deliver the language to Senator Brown, who was elected in 2010? Hard to tell, although it's clear from the 2009 newpaper report that he had a hand in Seifert's bill. Curious that in 2009,Tentherism wasn't some backbench malarkey, but an issue championed by Minority Leader Seifert, thought now to be more "mainstream" than Emmer, who also sponsored a Tenther but apparently didn't work on it hard even for the TAC state coordinator.
Whatever the case, Brown's resolution is a copycat of the TAC language. Here's a side-by-side comparison of the model resolution and SF 514:
Tenth Amendment Center Resolution and SF 514 side by side
Photo: Senator Dave Brown, R-Becker. The 2013 bill is also co-authored by Dave Osmek (R-Mound) (above); Leon Moe at the microphone in the Governor's Reception Room (below). Photo by Don Davis via the South Washington County Bulletin.
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Feb 04, 2013
Grove City's century-old Carlson Meats shows value of robust local food infrastructure
The West Central Tribune's Tom Cherveny, one of Bluestem's favorite Greater Minnesota news reporters, contributed a fine piece, online Sunday, about local food monument, Carlson Meats. The 100-year-old business has helped feed folks from the youngest souls to the Dalai Lama.
Cherveny writes in Grove City is local foods destination:
It was a few decades ago and Chuck Carlson’s dad was crossing the Canadian border when the officer saw his Grove City address and told him: That’s the town with the meat market where he gets his best meat.
Only recently, his son’s mother-in-law was shopping for potato sausage in Phoenix, Ariz., when the man next to her felt obliged to inform her: “I know where you can buy the best potato sausage in the country. It’s a little meat market in Grove City.’’
It’s also where Chuck Carlson continues to make potato sausage according to the recipe that his grandfather made his own 100 years ago.
Chuck and Kristin Carlson are celebrating the 100th anniversary of Carlson Meats in Grove City under the ownership of the Carlson family. William Carlson purchased the business in January of 1913. He stayed with the business until his death in 1954.
His son, Willard, returned from service in World War II to work alongside him. Willard and Luella continued the business to 1983, when third generation owners Chuck and Kristin Carlson formally took over. Chuck got started in 1975, one year after marrying Kristin, the co-worker he had met at Glacier National Park. Chuck said he had returned to help out “for a while.’’
Not all of their customers arrive from locations as far-flung as the Canadian border and the Arizona dessert, but many do come a ways. Carlson Meats is one of only a couple of dozen small- to medium-sized processing facilities in Minnesota that are United States Department of Agriculture Inspected plants.
Producers of everything from buffalo and lamb to yak for the emerging local foods market rely on Carlson Meats for their processing because of it. The yak man has his pastures north of Cold Spring, where he once served the meat to the visiting Dalai Lama. . . .
Check it out at the West Central Tribune.
Photo: A old interior shot of the shop, via Carlson Meats.
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Jan 04, 2013
Specialpalooza: Allen Quist jumps into MN HD 19A, dogwhistles culture war as key issue
Until today, it was unclear whether perennial candidate Allen Quist would enter the Minnesota House District 19A race, especially after stellar veterans' advocate Jim Golgart entered the 19A race as a GOP contender yesterday.
But Quist jumped in today, and the 1980s-era anti-sodomy crusader and culture warrior is already setting himself apart from the herd of cats running for the open seat by his mention of "welfare" and academic standards--a dogwhistle to the current battle over the state's revised social studies standards, which is largely led by conservative education group Education Liberty Watch.
Governor Dayton has yet to set the date for the special election prompted by the resignation of Rep. Terry Morrow, who ran unopposed in the 2012 election.
Robin Courrier, Clark Johnson and Karl Johnson are competing for the DFL endorsement, Tim Gieseke plans an Independence Party bid and Golgart will battle Quist for the Republican nod. The winner will represent Nicollet County, Kasota, and parts of Mankato.
Bread & butter issues v. culture war
Quist is the first candidate to bring up an issue that points to cultural warfare.
The New Ulm Journal's Josh Moniz reports Clark Johnson, Jim Golgart enter 19A race that neither of the candidates to announce yesterday are concerned with social issues, but plan to focus on the bread and butter concerns they believe are most on district residents' minds:
[Golgart] said he has no interest in running on any social issues for the special election nor pushing any if elected. . . .
. . .Johnson has no interest in pushing any kind of social issues in either the race or the Legislature.
"I think the time is not right for social issues. We saw what happened with the last Legislature when they over emphasized [social issues]. They got diverted and ended up with having to have a special session," said Johnson.
That's pretty much where the other candidates are: upgrading the local "death road" that is Highway 14, the budget, fixing education funding, jobs.
Not so with Allen Quist. Here's the dog whistling passages, along with a curious claim about his effectiveness as a legislator:
Because Quist served three terms in the Minnesota House in the 1980s, Quist would enter the Legislature with three terms of seniority. “Both experience and seniority are major factors in being effective,” Quist said.
Quist also said that his record of being bi-partisan is a significant asset in promoting good government. “Good legislation is almost always bipartisan,” he said. Quist was chief author of the bill that created what was then called Minnesota’s Department of Jobs and Training. Quist said he worked closely with then DFL Governor Rudy Perpich in drafting and passing that bill. Quist said the purpose of the bill was helping people become self-sufficient as opposed to keeping them on welfare.
Repeal of the controversial education policy known as the “Profile of Learning” was another of Quist’s accomplishments. Quist said he won the support of Education Minnesota in that successful repeal effort.
As interesting as that framing is to Allen Quist, it's not exactly how it happened.
In fact, when the Profiles were scrutinized beginning in 1999, then repealed in 2003, Quist wasn't serving in the legislature--and some of those those who were scrambled to distance themselves from the unsuccessful 1994 gubernatorial candidate.
Placing this "accomplishment" on his resume, right after noting the successful authorship of one bill passed while he served, without noting when the Profile was repealed and what his specific role was in this process, is something on the sketchy side.
The claim to Education Minnesota support for his efforts is also fuzzy. Looking into Nexis, it's not clear whether Education Minnesota was supporting Allen Quist specifically when it finally shifted from a "fix it or repeal it" position in 1999 to agreeing to the 2003 repeal; indeed, it's not clear that he can take full credit for the repeal of the Profile of Learning.
Bluestem has contacted Education Minnesota, which is reviewing its institutional history of how it came to support the 2003 repeal. Update: We've posted the response here: Specialpalooza: Education Minnesota responds to Allen Quist's puzzling 19A bid press release [end update].
In fact, here's some evidence that legislators distanced themselves from Quist as support for the Profile vanished, though they supported the call for reform or repeal.
On February 12, 1999, St. Paul Pioneer Press staff writer Paul Tosto reported in "House Kills Profile:"
. . . But as the debate shifts now to the Senate, observers there see interest in tinkering with the Profile, but not killing it altogether."I think in the Senate, we're going to be a little bit more prudent than they were in the House," said Senate Majority Whip Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing.
The Profile's paperwork burden and complex grading system had become a fiasco, acknowledged Murphy, who also sits on the Senate Children, Families and Learning committee. The Senate, he added, is interested in maintaining some of the statewide standards laid out in the Profile's 10 learning areas, then leaving it up to districts to decide how to achieve them.
"The gist of what they're (the House) doing is correct. But I don't want to be tied in with Allen Quist and some of those people," said Murphy. Quist is a former gubernatorial candidate who has attacked the Profile repeatedly as harmful to education and has pushed for its end. (Nexis All News, accessed 1/4/2013)
And as for Education Minnesota's position, Tosto reported:
Backers praised its emphasis on hands-on learning, original research and community interaction. Critics dismissed it as bureaucratic busywork with little connection to learning.
Even the state's biggest teachers union, Education Minnesota, urged lawmakers to "fix the Profile of Learning or get rid of it," after a membership survey found 63 percent of teachers opposed to the current rule.
There are only three articles in the Nexis All News database that are returned by the search string "Allen Quist AND Profile of Learning AND Education Minnesota," and neither of the other two include Education Minnesota's position on the repeal.
Allen Quist wasn't serving in the legislature when the Profile was adopted in 1998; a report by the conservative group Eagle Forum noted opposition to the Profile by Marty Seifert and Gene Pelowski.
And while Education Minnesota supported the final bill that replaced the Profile with the state developing a set of standards in 2003, Quist wasn't serving in the legislature at the time, nor was the repeal credited to him at that time. Rather, then-state senator Michele Bachmann's name comes up most, while future Bachmann congressional aides Julie Quist and Renee Doyle of EdWatch are mentioned in the writeup of the repeal by Eagle Forum. The author of the repeal bill in the House was Rep. Tony Kielkucki, R-Lester Prairie.
In other works, like Fed Ed, Quist argues a deliberate conspiracy to dumb down students.
What's academic? A look at Quist's curriculum modules
Moreover, Quist's version of academic standards might be the very definition of political. The Curriculum Modules he edited remain online. He bills them:
CMods provides accurate and exciting new information for teachers and other interested persons. This information is generally unavailable in school textbooks because it contradicts the worldviews of the education establishment. The information is presented in the form of curriculum modules that may be downloaded or used in other ways by teachers, parents or anyone else, free of charge. The mods are designed to supplement and/or correct current textbooks.
And what is in this "accurate" information? That dinosaurs and people inhabited the planet at the same time and the prehistoric "super croc" is the behemoth mentioned in the Book of Job. Promised, but not delivered? Darwinism today. The editor of those modules isn't the person Bluestem would want deciding academic standards.
The new standards aren't perfect--as someone who worked in Ben Franklin's Library Company for nearly five years, Bluestem's owner can spot the need for some tweaking-- but Eric Austin's assessment, My Thoughts On The Minnesota Social Studies Standards And The REAL Outrage… is more on the money.
Perhaps most importantly, this is something of a coterie issue, so the dog whistle is all the more obvious.
Quist not interested bringing home the bacon?
But what's most surprising that Quist is running for the state legislature at all, especially where a parochial, bringing-home-the-bacon issue like upgrading Highway 14 is important.
In 2009, Minnesota Independent reported Andy Birkey reported in Is Quist still the religious right candidate?:
But earlier in his career he said politics isn’t his strongest suit. In the 1994 Star Tribune profile on him and his family, Dane Smith reported that legislators who worked with Quist in the capitol said he was “something of a loner in the Legislature, preferring to socialize with lobbyists and activists who opposed abortion rather than with his colleagues. He did little to build the personal contacts and rapport that is crucial to enactment of legislation.”“He agrees that his character was not well-suited to the back-slapping and tending to the narrow needs of a legislative district,” Smith continued.
Quist agreed with that assessment. “I’m much more at home running for statewide office,” he said. “I was never that interested in parochial issues, in bringing home the bacon.”
Now, however, he's all about those things.
Cartoon: Allen Quist, by Ken Avidor.
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Dec 05, 2012
Scary MN: Representative-elect Jim Newberger totally freaks about EQB & Citizens Forums
Yesterday, in Scary MN: Draz gets a polite letter from EQB chair & MN Ag Commissioner Dave Frederickson (and Ellen Anderson), Bluestem suggested that conservative Republican grumblings about the Citizen Forums and 2013 Minnesota Environmental Congress are a dogwhistle for anti-Agenda 21 paranoia.
For Representative-elect Jim Newberger at the Central Minnesota Tea Party Blog, it's no dogwhistle, but a full-throated tornado siren shrieking across the prairie and Granite City quarries. In Agenda 21 Coming to St. Cloud!, he writes:
It is time to act. The Environmental Quality Board is organizing an Agenda 21-style "congress” for Minnesota. I have received reports from folks who have attended the Rochester and Bloomington “congresses”. This is a huge move by the state to force a “Green Agenda”.
We have an opportunity to attend, to vote, and to speak at these events. The Liberals have been stuffing these rooms FULL. I was told there were 160 at the Rochester event! I was also informed that the majority of these people were government union people, or staff members from one of the MANY agencies behind this “congress”.
St. Cloud is Central Minnesota. This is OUR home turf. We need to be there. If we pull together: Liberty folks, TEA Party folks, Republicans and Conservatives then we CAN make an impact. We must stand together!
GET YOUR PEOPLE to the St. Cloud event. I will be there.
I will also be having an organizational meeting BEFORE this takes place so we are united and can work as a team. Stay tuned. Details to come.
God’s peace,
Jim Newberger
763.482.9486
Since Newberger hasn't been sworn into office yet, we suspect open meeting laws don't apply. Will his pre-Citizen Forum organizational meeting for his kindred spirits be open to the public and the press?
Newberger's post echoes the nonsense that first saw the light of day in a post-Thanksgiving email sent out by state representative Steve Drazkowski (R-ALEC). It was picked up by a couple of the Group Home bloggers at True North and the Rochester Tea Party Patriots, and the emotional flooding of fear continued.
The basic outline of the narrative is that these is an attempt at takeover by environmental extremists led by the evil (and rich) Alida Messinger (subtext: Or Agenda 21! The United Nations! Scary!). To execute this infernal plot, only environmentalists and other dirty hippies have been invited or so implied Steve Drazkowski in a scary email about extremists hijacking EQB citizen forums.
What's more, so goes this fabulist narrative, the congress and the citizen forums were hatched after the Republicans lost their majorities in November (possible only if Messinger is funding time travel, since Environmental Congress is a product of a November 2011 executive order signed while the Republicans still held both chambers of the Minnesota legislature--and when no one predicted that the MNGOP would lose both the house and senate).
That the Environmental Quality Board, a tiny agency staffed by two people and composed of commissioners from such unlikely bastions of eco-terrorism like the Departments of Commerce, Transportation, Administration, Natural Resources, and Agriculture, as well as citizen members from groups like the AgriGrowth Council, is the vehicle for a sneaky socialist takeover of property and liberty, is more than ludicious.
It's completely cray.
Indeed, complete bullshit like this gives the cray a bad name, and perhaps it's time for Minnesotans to start taking about Republican overreach after their defeat in last month's state legislative elections. Those hoping that the Republican Party of Minnesota will get its feet firmly planted back on the ground need only look to new reps like Cindy Pugh and Newberger (and others) to realize that the MNGOP overreach isn't going away.
Facts: The Environmental Congress was first ordered in November 2011, and the forums have been promoted to a wide range of groups, from state and local chambers of commerce, the AgriGrowth Council to environmental organizations. News releases have been sent to local papers and trade publications. Bluestem wrote about this outreach in Scary MN: Draz gets a polite letter from EQB chair & MN Ag Commissioner Dave Frederickson, in Scary MN: EQB Czar Dave Frederickson talked up Enviro Congress to Dairy Star in Nov. 2011, in Drazmania: more evidence emerges of Dayton admin pitching citizens forums to farmers and in Scary MN: John Rouleau sees first DFL 2012 victory overreach in order issued Nov. 16.....2011.
Once more: the letter Frederickson and Anderson sent to The Draz (perhaps representative-elect Newberger needs to get an epistle of his own):
12 3 12 Letter to Rep Drazkowski Re Citizen Forums Outreach
Who is Jim Newberger? There's a short profile here in PIM, and a longer feature in the St. Cloud Times by Mark Sommerhauser, Faith and family guide Newberger in politics, government. Sommerhauser writes:
State Rep.-elect Jim Newberger has made eight mission trips beyond the former Iron Curtain.Newberger has visited Russia, Ukraine and Romania as a volunteer with church-based and other groups. Seeing the state of affairs in formerly Communist nations galvanized Newberger’s beliefs about government and human nature.
“Ronald Reagan said that when the government gets bigger, people get smaller. You see that in the former Soviet Union everywhere,” Newberger said. “I’ve seen the aftermath of big government, and it takes generations to fix.”
Newberger, a paramedic and tea party activist from Becker, was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives on Nov. 6. He’ll represent District 15B, a rural district that covers much of Benton and Sherburne counties, including Becker, Clear Lake, Clearwater, Foley, Gilman and Rice. There was no incumbent in the district because of this year’s redistricting.
Newberger is an evangelical Christian who cites his faith and family as cornerstones of his beliefs about politics and government.
Read the rest at the St. Cloud Times. Like Cindy Pugh, Newberger appears to be totally heaven-sent for bloggers.
Photo: Jim Newberger, from his website.
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Dec 04, 2012
Scary MN: Draz gets a polite letter from EQB chair & MN Ag Commissioner Dave Frederickson
One of the silliest talking points Bluestem has been following in the emerging Republican "DFL overreach" frame is the "Scary MN enviro extremists at the Environmental Quality Board" frame that Steve Drazkowski and various bloggers at the True North group home have been pushing.
It taps into overt fear-mongering on the right about environmentalism, while dog whistling to less polite phobias about the planning and permitting process nurtured in Tea Party meetings about Agenda 21. Paranoia about sustainable planning predates the Tea Party, of course, with folks like Michele Bachmann and Allen Quist creating exemplary Hofstadterian rants in advent of the post-2008 coming of Barack Obama, but it's gotten its realhead steam in the profound critical thinking that comes out of Teabaggery.
In the fractured fairytale told by Draz and the group home bloggers, the Citizens Forums across the state that began last week and continue through December 17--as well as next year's Environmental Congress--have only been promoted among extremist environmentalists, while the hard working yeoman farmers and small business people at the core of our democracy have been left behind like wretched sinners at the Rapture. The most laughable iteration of this fabulist fiction is the claim that Environmental Congress was planned only after the DFL legislative victories in the 2012 elections last month--rather than a year before.
According to this clarion call against DFL "overeach," citizen statements gathered at the Forums and shared at next year's Environmental Congress will simply end with former Dayton spouse and current liberal deep pockets Alida Messinger in control of all your property rights via the EQB.
Can "all your base are belong to her" be next?
It's profoundly inventive in a purely bonehead way. Boneheaded because the Citizen Forums and the Congress were widely promoted across the state---and to groups representing the farmers and business interests the right supposedly defends, as well as to environmental organizations.
In short, Draz and company have simply been making this shit up.
Yesterday, Ag Commissioner Frederickson and Dayton advisor Ellen Anderson sent the following letter to Representative Drazkowski explaining that tens of thousands of Minnesotans had gotten emails announcing the forums and congress, and the Minnesota Farm Bureau, the Minnesota Farmers Union, the AgriGrowth Council, and local and state chambers of commerce had been sent notice while being asked to encourage their members to attend.
Frederickson andAnderson also write:
In addition, we convened two Advisory Groups, which included farmers, farm organizations, and other business and industry groups, along with a wide range of other Minnesotans, to review the draft Environment and Energy Report Card.
Here's the letter.
12 3 12 Letter to Rep Drazkowski Re Citizen Forums Outreach
Surely, Draz and the Group Home bloggers will continue to pimp their Snopes-worthy urban legend about the EQB. None of the rest of us should.
Instead, Bluestem recommends that readers weigh in on the process in person or online.
Photo: Steve Drazkowski, R-ALEC, complete fabulist.
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Dec 01, 2012
Scary MN: EQB Czar Dave Frederickson talked up Enviro Congress to Dairy Star in Nov. 2011
While logic and evidence may be futile when trying to get Minnesota's conservative blog to abandon the hive of talking points about the 2013 Environmental Congress, more evidence is surfacing that the Dayton administration hipped farmers to the coming attractions within days after the DFL governor signed EO-11-32 on November 16, 2011.
None other than EQB czar Dave Frederickson spilled the milk on the top secret plan.
In a November 28, 2011 column, Dairy Star columnist Don Wick wrote in Super committee is unable to come to terms on deficit reduction:
Environmental Quality Board challenged to find consensus
At the request of Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, the Environmental Quality Board is being challenged to streamline permitting and the regulatory process. Chairman Dave Frederickson, who also serves as the state agriculture commissioner, said new life is being breathed into the EQB. "We're going to be looking at an environmental congress in 2013; we're going to be looking at a report card on the state of the environment in Minnesota and I think it's good," Frederickson said. "At my ripe old age, I'm becoming somewhat impatient and I just want to make sure we do right by this state, do right by the environment, and do right for future generations." Farmers and environmental activists are often at odds, but Frederickson believes the two sides can find consensus. "We're all part of the problem, so let's all be part of the solution."
Never hear of Dairy Star? Apparently, none of the nervous nellies fretting about the Rising Tide of EQB Power have either.
From the looks of it, it's cows, cows and more cows. Princess Kay of the Milky Way contributed a totally wholesome column that made Bluestem go chug a nice glass of moo juice. It's the sort of publication that tells readers Farms using robots milk more cows, get higher production. Environmental extremists all the way.
Other than that, one supposes the November 28, 2011 article is just another example of time-travel funded by the combined mad fortunes of the Dayton-Messinger clan, who so knew that the Houses of Brodkorb, Koch, Zellers and Sutton would fall and the Republican brand with it....
Or: rational souls looking at the mounting evidence might conclude the current Republican talking points about how the Citizen Forums, the 2013 Environmental Congress and "new life being breathed into the EQB" are 1) signs of DFL overreach mounted after the party's 2012 electoral victories that will 2) let environmental extremists have their way with property rights, since nobody else was told about this, are just so much more manure in the lagoon.
This is the sort of Republican platform that Magnus Johnson would have understood.
Planning for the Environmental Congress began when Republicans still controlled the Minnesota House and Senate. EQB chair and ag commissioner Frederickson (a fourth-generation farmer originally from Murdock) wasn't shy about talking it up. Press releases about the forums and Congress went out to hundreds of newspapers.
The MNGOP needs to find the embodiment of its terror at the loss of both houses of the state legislature, and a small board that now employs two staff members seems ripe for projection of their fear of a DFL planet.
Photos: EQB chair and Minnesota Ag Commissioner Frederickson before (top) and after (bottom) these losers started in with this post-moronic malarky. It's a monster! Scary!
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Nov 26, 2012
Steve Drazkowski sends scary email about extremists hijacking EQB citizen forums
In an announcement sent to sunscribers to his email lists, Representative Steve Drazkowski claims that citizen forums across the state and an Environmental Congress are intended to send a message friendly to "extreme
environmental advocates" and that "efforts by our state government to notify
farmers and other business owners throughout the state, about these
meetings, has been extremely limited."
These statements run counter to Bluestem's own experience in learning about the Citizen Forums and the Environmental Congress.
What we read & when we read it
Back at the begun of November, Bluestem first read about a series of citizen forums to take place in advance of a larger meeting in 2013. The Hutchinson Leader reported in Minnesotans are urged to speak up about the environment at Citizen Forums:
What do clean water, the economy, energy and the health of our environment all have in common?
These topics will be discussed by Minnesotans this month and next at six Citizen Forums around the state. The forums, free and open to the public, will afford Minnesotans an opportunity to voice their opinions and concerns. State leaders will consider the citizen input next March at a Minnesota Environmental Congress summit, where they will begin to plan a blueprint for Minnesota’s environmental and economic future. (For more information about the Minnesota Environmental Congress, visit http://mn.gov/EnvironmentalCongress">http://mn.gov/EnvironmentalCongress.)
The Minnesota Environmental Congress and the Citizens Forums leading up to it are the result of Governor Dayton’s Executive Order 11-32. To assess Minnesota’s progress toward clean air, water and energy, the Environmental Quality Board is convening the Citizen Forums around the state to engage citizens in constructive dialogue, identify environmental challenges, and define a vision for Minnesota’s environmental future.
Here are the locations, dates and times for the six regional Citizens Forums:
Rochester: Nov. 27, 9:30 a.m. to 12 noon, at Wood Lake Meeting Center
Bloomington: Nov. 27, 6:30 to 9 p.m., at Normandale Community College
Duluth: Nov. 28, 5:30 to 8 p.m., at Lake Superior College
Worthington: Dec. 10, 3:30 to 6 p.m., at Worthington High School
St. Cloud: Dec. 12, 5:30 to 8 p.m., at Stearns County Service Center
Moorhead: Dec. 14, 3 to 5:30 p.m., at Minnesota State University
Minnesotans are encouraged to come out and be heard at the Citizens Forums. This is our state and our future, and every voice matters
For more information about the Citizens Forums and to indicate your intention to attend, visit: http://mn.gov/EnvironmentalCongress/">http://mn.gov/EnvironmentalCongress/. If you have questions, call Anna Sherman at 651-201-6607 or send a message to anna.sherman@state.mn.us.
That was the first notice, but the news brief published on the website of the largest circulation newspaper in largely agricultural McLeod County was not the last time we saw it in rural newspapers. (McLeod County is also quite conservative; we're represented by Senator Scott Newman in the Minnesota Senate, and Glenn Gruenhagen and Dean Urdahl in the state House).
On November 12, 2012, we recieved an emailed copy of Minnesota Farmers Union Director of Government Relations Thom Petersen's Notes From the Farmers Union that included the following information:
Minnesota Environmental Congress
The Minnesota Environmental Congress will be a gathering of many Minnesotans, individuals, state leaders, and agencies working to help guide Minnesota's state leaders in shaping our environmental and economic health, and creating a long term vision for clean air, clean water and clean energy in our state. Nine state agencies, environmental policy experts, business leaders, local governments, and a diverse group of citizen leaders will convene an Environmental Congress to engage Minnesotans in constructive public dialogue about our state's environmental and economic health. The actual Congress will be next year and there is more info on their website here: http://mn.gov/EnvironmentalCongress/about.html
In the meantime, MFU encourages members to attend the citizen forums that will lead up to Congress with Minnesota’s top environmental experts:
Nov. 27: Wood Lake Meeting Center, Rochester, 9:30 a.m.-12 noon
Nov. 27: Normandale Community College, Bloomington, 6:30-9 p.m.
Nov. 28: Lake Superior College, Duluth, 5:30-8 p.m.
Dec. 10: Worthington High School, 3:30-6 p.m.
Dec. 12: Stearns County Service Center, Saint Cloud, 5:30-8 p.m.
Dec. 14: Minnesota State University, Mankato, 3-5:30 p.m.
In addition to being sent to Farmers Union members, the Notes are posted to the MFU website. Petersen included news of the Congress in his November 19, 2012 Notes as well.
Dear friends,
Please consider attending one of more of the forums outlined in this note (at bottom) from a handful of Governor Dayton's commissioners.
A bit of background: Last session, under Republican control, the legislature entertained legislation that would have ended the Environmental Quality Board, as it's usefulness as and agency, has been almost non-existent. Ultimately, that bill was not adopted.
With a change in control in each House of the Legislature, the government itself, accompanied by the governor and his staff, is attempting to find ways to legitimize the growing of this agency. Undoubtedly, these meetings and the March 2013 "Environmental Congress" will be used by these same government officials and extreme environmental advocates to bring forward a message to the legislature and to Minnesota that says "Minnesotans don't believe that their government is big enough or that environmental laws are stringent enough to adequately protect our resources from the people of our state."
If enacted into law, the resulting effect of these efforts will undoubtedly include the killing of even more Minnesota jobs than our high taxes and regulation in this state have already provided. The threat to property rights is very great.
As far as I can tell, the efforts by our state government to notify farmers and other business owners throughout the state, about these meetings, has been extremely limited. This may have been by design. I encourage you to attend one or more of these sessions to represent common sense in the discussions. Please notify your friends and neighbors in other parts of the state, as well.
Have a great week!
Steve.
Steve Drazkowski
State Representative
District 28B
The headnote was accompanied by this forwarded "Dear Colleague" email:
Steve Drazkowski
State Representative
District 28B
Room 401 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St. Paul, MN 55155-1298
Office: 651-296-2273
Fax: 651-297-7523
Sign up for email updates at http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/members/join.asp?id=15286
>>> "Anderson, Ellen (MDA)" 11/21/12 3:30 PM >>>
November 21, 2012
Dear Rep. Steve Drazkowski,
In response to Governor Dayton's Executive Order 11-32, the Environmental Quality Board will be convening a series of Citizen Forums as part of the Minnesota Environmental Congress. We would like to welcome and encourage the participation of you and your colleagues at the local Citizen Forum events on the dates listed below.
Together, we will engage in a dialogue with Minnesotans about the current state of Minnesota's environment and the quality of life in Minnesota. We will evaluate Minnesota's performance and progress on protecting our valuable air, water, land, and energy resources. The Citizen Forums are free and open to everyone, and our goal is reach as many Minnesotans as possible. This is our state and our future - every voice matters.
Minnesota Environmental Congress - Key Dates
* Citizen Forums
* Rochester: Wood Lake Meeting Center, November 27 - 9:30am - 12:00pm
* Bloomington: Normandale Community College, November 27 - 6:30pm - 9:00pm
* Duluth: Lake Superior College, November 28 - 5:30pm - 8:00pm
* Worthington: Worthington High School, December 10 - 3:30pm - 6:00pm
* St. Cloud: Stearns County Service Center, December 12 - 5:30pm - 8:00pm
* Moorhead: Minnesota State University, December 14 - 3:00pm - 5:30pm
* Statewide Environmental Congress Coming March 2013 (date and location TBD)
The Statewide Environmental Congress event in March will gather state leaders for a one-day summit to discuss public feedback received at these six regional Citizen Forums and begin planning a blueprint for Minnesota's environmental and economic future.
For more information or to RSVP, visit: http://mn.gov/EnvironmentalCongress/ . Contact Anna Sherman with questions at 651-201-6607 or Anna.Sherman@state.mn.us.
We look forward to seeing you at a Citizen Forum event soon!
Sincerely,David J. Frederickson, Chair
Environmental Quality Board
Commissioner, Department of Ag.
Spencer Cronk, Commissioner
Department of Administration
Brian Napstad, Chair
Board of Water and Soil Resources
Mike Rothman, Commissioner
Department of Commerce
Katie Clark, Commissioner
Department of Employment and
Economic Development
Edward P. Ehlinger, Commissioner
Department of Health
Tom Landwehr, Commissioner
Department of Natural Resources
John Linc Stine, Commissioner
Pollution Control Agency
Thomas K. Sorel, Commissioner
Department of Transportation
What the Tea Party newsletter said
Surely, rural newspapers and the Minnesota Farmers Union didn't have exclusives. Indeed,even the Rochester Tea Party Patriots' latest newsletter included notice of tomorrow's meeting in their latest newsletter:
Environmental Congress
An Environmental Congress Citizen Forum will be held at the Woodland Center in Rochester on Tuesday, Nov 27 starting at 9:30 am. The purpose is to collect citizen input on Minnesota Environmental issues and to give citizens the chance to talk with Minnesota State employees. This will likely be a put up job with a predetermined outcome, but if you can attend, it would be helpful. For details, click here.
What the Citizen Forum planners said
Seeking to reconcile Representative Drazkowski's dark vision of the motives of the Dayton administration and those scary, scary extreme environmental advocates with the wide distribution and publication of press releases and notice of the Citizen Forums and Congress, Bluestem called the EQB to ask about who had been let in on the secret.
Kate Frantz, the harried but extremely professional staffer (the EQB has exactly two people on its payroll) was packing materials for tomorrow's meeting in Rochester in her vehicle, but took time to note that the press release had been sent to news media across the state, to chambers of commerce for cities in the regions where the meetings taking place and to stakeholder email lists kept by each of the commissioners who serve on the EQB.
She directed Bluestem to Pamela McCurdy at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), who had been helping with getting the word out; McCurdy had also been monitoring social media chatter about the Citizen Forums.
McCurdy had not seen the Drazkowski email, although she did know about Thom Petersen's tweets and the Rochester Tea Party Patriot's attention to tomorrow's meeting. She noted that the MPCA's email distribution lists include farmers, since many need permits from the MPCA or have worked on watershed and water quality issues.
"Everybody's invited," McCurdy said. "We're happy the word is getting out," noting that having everyone from local soil and water boards to the Rochester Tea Party Patriots tell constituents and members to show up was what those planning the forums had in mind.
Update 11/27: Rochester Post Bulletin political reporter Heather Carlson writes in Drazkowski warns of 'extreme environmental advocates' pushing more regulation:
Ellen Anderson, senior adviser to the governor on energy and environment, said Drazkowski's assertion that notification about the meetings has been limited is "completely false." She said the board has sent out hundreds of email invitations to various stakeholders including farm groups, chambers of commerce, mining groups, environmental groups and energy groups — just to name a few.
It doesn't appear that registration is required--though it is encouraged, and the Environmental Congress page notes that the discussion will continue online:
The Citizens Forum will continue with an online forum which will be open for your follow up comments.All of the input gathered at the Forums will be compiled and presented to the Dayton Administration at the statewide Environmental Congress. Your ideas will be used to inform the Administration’s vision and to help set their top priorities in an environment and energy blueprint for Minnesota.
If you want to know what Minnesotans have to say, we will send you the report from the citizen forums (just give us your email address) or check our website for updates. It will be delivered to state legislators and other state leaders as well.
One of the concerns was that the spaces the EQB had been able to secure for the forums would be big enough. McCurdy noted that over 100 people had RSVPed for both the morning meeting in Rochester and the evening forum in Bloomington.
Bluestem had questions about the legislation Drazkowski mentioned, but since he did not provide a House file number, it's not entirely clear what language he was refering to in his email. That mystery may be the subject of another post.
Blog begathon: Bluestem is supported by reader contributions. If you liked this post, consider throwing some coin to the tip jar. If you don't like using PayPal, email at the address on this page for a snail mail address. We'll be running our twice-yearly "bleg" though Christmas.
Photo: Steve Drazkowski, via the Hastings Gazette.
Nov 19, 2012
Loonshine and local hops: Minnesotans find niche in spirited local economic development
A couple of items in Southern Minnesota newspapers suggest that the state's craft alcohol movement may be branching out--into distilled spirits and hops tailor-made for growing in Minnesota.
The Northfield News reports in Northfield graduates return home with the hope of making whiskey:
. . .the pair are setting out to open a craft distillery in Northfield, which would be just the second in Minnesota.
With an initial product of white whiskey that Rossi called a “whiskey and vodka hybrid,” the Northfield High School graduates are planning on calling their initial offering “Loonshine.”
“We’re both diehard Minnesota boys,” Rossi said. “We’re hoping to source our stuff locally, and environmental stewardship will be a big part of our operation.”
Standing between the pair and their launch is the issue of money; for that they have turned to Indiegogo, a fundraising platform for startup projects that facilitates financial pledges. Schiller and Rossi are planning to use the site to sell preorders and take pledges, rewarding investors of different amounts with signature bottles, their name and five words carved into equipment at the future distillery site, and tours with distilling lessons. . . .
Bluestem wishes them well in their effort to bottle a bit of the Minnesota spirit from locally grown ingredients.
It wasn't unusual for our editor's farmer neighbors in rural LeSueur County to keep a personal still when she was a child, though these weren't commercial ventures, merely the stuff of legend. The gentlemen in Northfield plan to adhere to the law, and so face far more business challenges than her gentle corn-growing neighbors.
The Mankato Free Press reports in Waseca hops research follows growth in craft beer:
For hobbyist home-brewer and horticultural scientist Charlie Rohwer, it’s a research project made in beer heaven.Rohwer, a research associate at the University of Minnesota’s Southern Research and Outreach Center in Waseca, has been growing hops at the facility since 2010.
Object: To create a Minnesota-friendly plant that will benefit the state’s agricultural interests while catering to the needs of Minnesota’s burgeoning craft beer industry. . . . .
Rohwer said the goal of the research is to increase the knowledge base for people who want to get into growing hops, a viney growth supported by tall trellises whose flower clusters look like pot buds for a reason — the plant is in the marijuana family.
Until the 1960s a hop was essentially a hop, but USDA hybridizing efforts since then have produced dozens of varieties, including citra hops, which impart fruity notes to trendy flavored beers.
According to the American Brewers Association, craft beer production in the nation grew by 13 percent in 2011, with retail sales nearly 15 percent ($8.7 billion) of the $95 billion U.S beer market.
Minnesota has ascended to 26th in the nation in the number of breweries per capita. . . .
This is good news, akin to the development of northern-hardy grapes that has spurred Minnesota's growing family of vineyards.
While these developments might make the ghost of St. Olaf graduate Andrew Volstead restless in the Granite Falls museum in his former home, Bluestem thinks that the spirits of the Minnesotans who kicked him out of office in 1922 for his prohibitive nature are probably cheering.
Photo: Andrew Volstead is not impressed. Bluestem still likes the Capper-Volstead Act, though, which helps cooperatives.
Nov 14, 2012
Will Minority Leader Kurt Daudt remain as a senior political adviser at P2B Strategies?
Please note the November 26 update on the bottom of this page.
Last year, political campaign services firm P2B Strategies announced that freshman state representative Kurt Daudt was joining the firm as a senior political adviser.
Now that he's Minority Leader, will he stay in that role? Given the potential for conflicts of interest and other ethical issues, perhaps Representative Daudt and P2B Strategies might rethink the arrangement. With his selection as leader of the minority caucus, the need to govern may conflict with a role as a paid campaign strategist.
While Bluestem doesn't know of any law forbidding the dual role, the complications of leading at a time when voters want an end to bickering and partisan division for the sake of electoral gain might make a prudent individual forgo the lucre of the partisan fee in favor of the larger public service.
It's a judgment call.
The company's website notes Daudt's value as an adviser (before elevation to Minority Leader):
P2B Strategies is proud to announce that State Rep. Kurt Daudt has joined our team as Senior Political Adviser. Kurt is an Assistant Majority Leader in the Minnesota House and has an impressive resume of political experience ranging all the way from local elections to statewide elections for Governor. Prior to his election to the Minnesota House, Kurt served six years as Isanti County Commissioner and as a Township Supervisor before that.
The payments by Republican candidates for the Minnesota House to P2B Strategies are listed below. Please note that while Daudt could possibly have received a consulting fee from the firm--owned by veteran political hand and House spouse Gregg Peppin and Dax Bennett--he was not leading the caucus or the campaigns. (Update: a reader notes in the comments that Dax Bennett works at the House as well)
Yet because payment to the Crown legislator and now Minority Leader-- by the firm are not subject to public disclosure, the arrangement could pose temptations for special interests or ambitious and well-heeled candidates. Will they re-think this arrangement? Especially in that there is no disclosure in Minnesota when a firm performs "public affair" work.
Here are the amount paid by Republican House candidates to P2B Strategies in 2012, as indicated by the pre-general election reports filed with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board.
Expenses Paid to P2B Strategies by 2012 MNGOP Endorsed Minnesota House Candidates
District Candidate Amount
1A Fabian* $5032.72
1B Kiel* $4330.03
2A Hancock $1331.50
3B MacDonald $1960.43
4A Reimche $8126.95
5A Howes $11992.34
8B Franson* $6092.28
9B Kresha* $6846.61
11B Wiener $2829.78
12A Dutcher $316.35
17A Miller $5388.60
18B Gruenhagen* $1672.20
20A Woodard* $5485.86
20B Wermerskirchen $2917.71
24A Petersburg* $3793.11
30B Fitzsimmons* $623.98
32A Johnson* $13,360.40
32B Barrett* $3820.53
34A Peppin* $7028.03
34B Zellers* $899.69
35B Scott* $5713.41
36A Uglem* $6164.71
37B Sanders* $10195.62
38A Runbeck* $7606.00
39A Dettmer* $10663.39
41A Helm $6508.79
42A Bertsch $5590.31
48A Stensrud* $8778.63
48B Loon* $8825.83
49A Glahn $22830.54
49B Jacobson $20308.79
50B Bohnen $2758.57
52A Blum $7047.63
52B Tuschy $1343.82
56A Myrha* $6894.91
56B Peterson $22265.40
64A Ojeda $1798.87
By Bluestem's early morning calculation, that's just over $249,000. While that figuremight seem like a lot of money, readersshould bear in mind what P2B Strategies often does for candidates is procure lawn signs and campaign swag, buy advertising, and secure other services like parade planning. It's not pure profit by any means. (Nor are the books of the firm transparent, so Bluestem won't guess what the markup is).
It is possible that P2B Strategies provided more services for Republican candidates, as committees are allowed to prepay in the off year. For example, the committee for one-vote winner Mary Franson spent $1500 in 2011 to prepay for advertising for 2012.
Photo: Minnesota House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt, via the Twin Cities Daily Planet.
UPDATE: On November 26, 2012, Bluestem received this email from Peppin at P2B Strategies:
.
Hi Ms. Sorensen,
It was brought to my attention that in a recent post you commented on Rep. Kurt Daudt's employment status with P2B Strategies. We have been very pleased to have had Kurt as part of our team. However, due to his elevation to the position of House Republican Leader, Kurt will be serving the people of Minnesota and his legislative district in this new full-time role and is no longer on the payroll of P2B Strategies. We look forward to working with Kurt to help House Republicans regain the majority in 2014.
Sincerely,
Gregg Peppin
If you enjoy reading original research and analysis on Bluestem Prairie, make today Give to the Hacks Day:
Oct 17, 2012
At GOP rally, SD24 candidate Swedin calls DFLers "rats," Nov. "Rodent Removal Month"
There's nothing like an old-fashioned political rally, featuring failed 2010 gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, Senate Majority Leader wannabe David Hann and former congressman Gil Gutknecht, to get the Steele County Republicans going.
Then there's the local talent.
Owatonna People's Press staff writer Ashley Stewart reports in Republicans rally in Steele County to show support that Senate District 24 Republican candidate Vern Swedin has mastered the art of exterminationist rhetoric. Stewart writes:
The message for changing the course of those representing the state and the country continued throughout the rest of the rally.
Swedin made those in attendance laugh with his “spelling lesson.”
“The last four letters American is ‘I can.’ The last four letters in Republican is ‘I can.’ The last four letters of Democrats are ‘rats,’ and remember November is Rodent Removal Month,” he said.
Steve Swiggum, Minnesota Senate communications director, said what is ahead of the country is a lot better than what is behind it if Republicans dominate this year’s elections.
“There’s something better coming for this state and this country, folks. There is,” Swiggum said. . . .
Swedin usually isn't such a hyper-partisan kidder--at least not while out in public among nonpartisan crowds.
Update: it looks like Swedin--original thinker that he is--borrowed his rhetoric from a "joke" making the rounds on the innertubes. This stroke of genius puts him in the Mary Franson School of Deep Thinking. [end update].
Take his campaign webpage, for instance. On the front page, in the Vern Swedin Radio Spot, there's this:
This is Vern Swedin, your "first things first" candidate for the open District 24 Senate seat in Southern Minnesota. As your next State Senator, I want to help put truth back into politics, hold leaders accountable to hear and represent their people and to work across partisan lines to accomplish meaningful initiatives for our state.
. . .And the truth is that I will not engage in attacking my opponents or their party. I am committed to cooperation, understanding and working together across party lines to focus on human need, not political gain.
Surely, that starts with calling one's opponents "rats" and calling the election part of "Rodent Removal Month."
Swedin's remarks are in response to a radio spot produced and paid for as an independent expenditure by the Alliance for a Better Minnesota.
And then there's the letter from supporter Larry Tindall, "Honesty In Politics - Part 1," which states in part:
If "we the people" understand how this daily process works, why do so many of our aspiring leaders appear to have sold their integrity for a party endorsement? Why do they and their parties seem more engaged in burying their opponent at all costs, than in honestly displaying their own core values and effective solutions? People of heroic quality simply don't have a personal need to attack the opposing side.
At least not most of the time.
And it's not just on his website. Earlier in the month, Mankato Free Press veteran political reporter Mark Fischenich wrote in District 24: Jensen, Swedin seek Parry’s Senate seat:
While he might share some policy positions with the Republican senator he hopes to succeed, Swedin said he would bring a different style to the Capitol. And he’s confident that senators from all political perspectives can share one goal.
“I don’t like to be adversarial,” he said. “... We have to make sure our 67 senators are focused on the same priority — good-paying local jobs.”
This week, Minnesota's voters learned from Ousted GOP insider Brodkorb: Marriage amendment about votes, not values:
Ousted state Senate Republican insider Michael Brodkorb says GOP leaders put the proposed marriage amendment on the Minnesota ballot this fall not to protect family values but to drive social conservatives to the polls. . . .
In an interview Tuesday, Oct. 16, Brodkorb said that when Republicans took control of the Legislature two years ago, leaders discussed how to ensure high conservative voter turnout in 2012 so they could retain the majority. . . .
Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, said Brodkorb's assessment rings true.
Dibble, who is gay, said several GOP senators told him they voted for the amendment for political reasons, not personal beliefs, and some even asked for his forgiveness.
"They have violated their own conscience for political reasons while claiming to be standing on principle," Dibble said. . . .
Proclaiming one value in public while violating it elsewhere for political reasons? Sounds like Swedin will fit right in with that crowd.
Photo: Vern Swedin, present master of exterminationist rhetoric. At least among friends.
Related post: UPDATED! Third GOP Jensen mailing, ABM radio ad dishing Swedin's business record raises rancor in SD24
Oct 03, 2012
UPDATED! Third GOP Jensen mailing, ABM radio ad dishing Swedin's business record raises rancor in SD24
UPDATE: Bluestem has received an email from Vern Swedin disputing the
information in the Alliance for a Better Minnesota radio ad. He has
asked Bluestem Prairie to pull the YouTube, the factcheck document that ABM prepared, and the post that discusses
it.
Bluestem's editor has asked for a public statement from Vern Swedin about his objections, as he now asserts that his emailed objections about the ad and post are confidential.
We will certainly publish a rebuttal of the claims alleged in the radio ad and fact check should Mr. Swedin decide to make this information public. However, Alliance for a Better Minnesota prepared and produced the radio ad, not Bluestem Prairie, and we believe that it, like the Republican Party of Minnesota flyer, are part of the story about the race in Senate District 24. [end update]
October is still young, but two new independent attack pieces illustrate how the race between Vicki Jensen (DFL) and Vern Swedin (R) for the open seat in Minnesota Senate District 24 is heating up.
The Republican Party of Minnesota has sent a third, rather generic direct mail piece attacking small business owner and school board member Vicki Jensen as a tool of "Teacher Union Bosses and their special interest group allies who are spending millions (the horrors!) to elect candidates like Jensen" who will block reforming education by ditching seniority. The back of the mail piece is shown above.
Just as with the first pieces, this has the feel of boilerplate--there's nothing specific to Jensen's service on the Owatonna School Board, work as an active member of the local chamber of commerce, or anything tailored to be district.
The Alliance for a Better Minnesota Action Fund radio ad is an entirely different matter. The 60 second spot makes a direct Rovian attack on what many might say is Vern Swedin's strength: his business career. Swedin is accused of allegedly leading companies that outsourced jobs, piled up debts, were slapped with hundreds of thousands of tax liens, and faced nearly a million dollars in lawsuits from unpaid lenders.
Here's the audio: [note 11/25/2012: Swedin has asked Youtube to pull the ad over privacy concerns; if the youtube is no longer available, listen to the clip here on LiveLeak.]
A friend in the district sent the audio file. Bluestem contacted ABM for supporting documentation of the claims made in the ad, and received the following document. As the friend who sent the audio file said, "It's going to get ugly." The material against Swedin is very specific. Here's the fact check document:
Related posts: In SD24, MNGOP has money for stamps but not competent oppo research in attacks on Jensen
Attack mail drop: bank account isn't only negative thing about MN Republican Party
Zombie crawl: Mike Parry remains in spotlight in Senate District 24 in the worst possible way
Sep 11, 2012
In SD24, MNGOP has money for stamps but not competent oppo research in attacks on Jensen
Pity poor Republican Party of Minnesota state chair Pat Shortage. Weak candidates on the top of the ticket, public discontent with the Republican-controlled state legislature, anda money situation that threatened to send the state office into the mean streets of St. Paul.
But the chair has gathered enough coin to send out two attack independent expediture mailings targeting SD24 DFL-endorsed candidate Vicki Jensen of Owatonna. The front and back of the second mailer are posted here.
Having paid for postage and scraped together printing costs, apparently the pachyderms have had to do a generic cut-and-paste against the businesswoman, school board member, Chamber of Commerce activist and mother.
In the Gospel according to Shortage, Jensen isn't any of those things, but "a rubber stamp for special interest with an extreme agenda."
Oh. Scary.
Jensen's stands on issues--improving local schools, strengthening small businesses, creating efficiencies in government--are on her website.
The first mailing which claimed that Jensen was "hand-picked" by these unnamed groups, prompted the 2010 DFL candidate, who had been endorsed by area Democrats over Jensen, to write to the local paper and point out the foolishness.
In Senate candidate Vicki Jensen not 'hand-picked' by special interest groups, Alexander de Marco writes:
This weekend, I received an outrageous piece of filth from the Republican Party. It was a hatchet job, asserting that Senate candidate Vicki Jensen was "hand-picked" by "ultra-liberal special interest groups."
It then went on to assert her and these groups' alleged agenda, spinning vague right wing rhetoric about "raising taxes on families and small businesses" and "huge, new government spending programs." The piece fails to articulate a single interest group, or provide any citation whatsoever to the GOP's assertions about her or anyone's positions. It's not even a functional campaign piece.
It's as if they just transcribed some disorganized a.m. talk radio bloviator, printed it and mailed it. This sets the tone for the next two and half months. The GOP has no affirmative policy agenda whatsoever, so instead of working hard to develop one, they reach into a bucket, pull out a fist full of darts, and whip it frantically at a wall hoping one hits a bulls eye.
I ran for this office, and I've been on the inside track of it since Dick Day left the seat. Vicki Jensen was picked by the same "interest group" that nominated Engbrecht in 2009 for the special election, and myself in 2010: Your neighbors who stepped up to be delegates at a district convention.
If she's the one these "groups" wanted, why did I get nominated in 2010? The fact is, multiple people are not clamoring for this difficult job, and she stepped up to the plate as a known public servant in the community, a school board member, a committee member of the Owatonna Chamber of Commerce, and a small business owner. She alone sought nomination.
Nothing stopped anyone else from nominating someone at the convention. If you disagree with her positions, fine, but the idea that some shadowy Manchurian candidate style cabal has its fingers in humble district 24 is ridiculous fear-mongering nonsense, and that's all the GOP has this year, apparently.
With the retirement of Mike Parry, the open seat is considered competitive by many observers.
Photos: The second Republican mailer against Vicki Jensen in SD24 (above); Vicki Jensen (below).
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All of the statements, opinions, and views expressed on this site by Sally Jo Sorensen are solely her own, save when she attributes them to other sources.
The opinions, statements, and views of contributing writers are their own.
Sorensen, editor and proprietor of Bluestem Prairie, served as a New Media training and strategy consultant for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party from October 2009 through mid-April 2010. She now serves clients in the business and nonprofit sectors.
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