On Friday afternoon, Bluestem posted about the GOP House minority caucus's election of Kurt Zellers as Minnesota House Minority Leader over Hayfield Republican Randy Demmer.
Since both Zellers and his deputy minority leader, Steve Smith, live in suburban Hennepin County, I asked whether Minnesota's Republicans were about to lose their bitching point about the DFL's Speaker and Senate Majority Leader hailing from Minneapolis.
Saturday afternoon, Polinaut's Tom Scheck posted about Zeller's creation of a fifth assistant minority leader position in the diminutive caucus. The new Minority Leader had sent an email--passed along to Scheck--announcing that Rod Hamilton had been picked for the new slot.
According to Scheck's answer to a question I raised in the comments, Zellers had sent the email announcement of the additional post and its occupant that very day:
Zellers sent out the e-mail on Saturday.. . . I was told by a few folks that this was an attempt to ease concern about a suburban heavy presence in leadership.
A couple of things surprise us. First, we're not sure why the Incredible Shrinking Caucus needs another Assistant Minority Leader. Like land in rural Minnesota, it's not as if anyone is making any more Republicans in the Minnesota House's next session.
Second, if the caucus were concerned about "a suburban heavy presence in leadership," what took so long? I looked through Nexis (sorry it's a subscription service and thus no links) for earlier appointments and elections to Republican state house assistant leadership roles following the election of the top dogs in the caucus. Typically, the caucus issued a press release to the media about the choices, or the news appeared in the media within three to four days.
As the screenshots that accompany this post reveal, the official House web pages for leadership (below) and for Representive Hamilton (above) show that while the bipartisan leadership page was changed to relfect Zellers' new job, news of the creation on another assistant minority leader postion had yet to be communicated to the House web master.
Nor had Hamilton's page been updated, since he's still an assistant whip in Sunday's shot. (As Scheck notes, the GOP Caucus had not updated its own page to note the transition from Seifert to Zellers).
Thus, it's fair to conclude that the decision to elevate Hamilton was made relatively late in the week, since the news about Hamilton was circulated to caucus members, rather than the media, on Saturday.
Finally, given that Rod Hamilton was already serving in a leadership role (a whip) during the session, Scheck's observation:
The other interesting nugget is that House Republicans appear to be past the 2008 override vote of Governor Pawlenty's veto of the transportation bill. Hamilton was one of the "override six" that lost his leadership position after that vote.
You can check the House GOP Caucus Stucture here (Note that link is dated since Zellers has replaced Marty Seifert at the top of the pyramid).
isn't really all that interesting of a nugget. None of the assistant whips are listed on the GOP House caucus's web page, so those only checking it wouldn't know that if being given a leadership role is a sign the the caucus would "appear to be past" Hamilton's override vote, the Southwestern Minnesota Republican was forgiven months ago.
Those pundits who might want to read Hamilton's appointment as signaling anything other that fretting about rural Minnesota's perceptive of the House minority caucus as a west metro guys club---say as an olive branch to RINOs, should check again.
Seifert and the caucus already made that move months ago.
The nod to rural Minnesota late last week, on the other hand, looks like a bit of an afterthought on the caucus's part after picking two leaders who live in Hennepin County.
Images: Rod Hamilton's official House web page on Sunday (above); Minnesota House Leadership web page on Sunday (below).
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