It's no longer an all-woman show in the Minnesota House District 14A special election with Todd McKee's filing in Stearns County as an Independence Party candidate.
DFLer Joanne Dorsher and Republican Tama Theis have been endorsed by their parties; other Republicans who filed for office have withdrawn their candidacies for the open seat created by the resignation of Representative Steve Gottwalt. Gottwalt left office to become a lobbyist.
The special election will be held on February 12, 2013.
WJON has reported McKee's filing but has no information about the candidate; St. Cloud Times reporter Mark Sommerhauser tweets that he has a story in the works. Bluestem will update when that article is posted at the Times; for now, there's a news brief up mentioning the filing.
Independence Party in the Legislature: two (sort of) women senators, one representative
Since the Independence Party has not enjoyed success in electing candidates in open seats or defeating incumbents, it's still likely that a woman will be elected on February 12 to represent St. Cloud in the state House for the first time.
Sheila Kiscaden of Rochester switched to the Independence Party on July 9, 2002, after failing to keep the Republican Party endorsement. She was re-elected as an IP candidate that year but caucused with the GOP until asked to leave in 2004; Kiscaden caucused with the DFL in the second half of her term.
Sitting State Senator Martha Robertson of Minnetonka was not endorsed by the Republican district convention in 2002; she switched parties to run as Independence Party candidate for Lieutenant Governor in the 2002 election.
Once a DFL state representative, Bob Lessard ran for his last term as a small-"i" independent in 2000, but joined the IP on January 3, 2001 and didn't caucus with either party.
Image: Bluestem doubts that this mysterious Todd McKee isn't the actor who played Jake McClaine on the Bold and the Beautiful. On the other hand, this is Minnesota politics and stranger things have happened.
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