Did Minnesota House Minority Leader trade up when he exchanged pitching Lexuses and Acuras for restoring vintage Deere tractors and a 1966 Ford Bronco for his personal collection?
One thing's missing in T. W. Budig's description of the pastoral splendors enjoyed by Minnesota state representative Kurt Daudt, House minority leader thinks he’ll be speaker some day:
Republican House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt sat on the farmhouse porch with a smiling lab at his feet and a cooing mourning dove in a nearby tree.
“When I am in St. Paul, I am so busy — and I really love what I do down there. But I can’t wait for the weekend to come,” Daudt said of returning to Crown.
Although Daudt spends many nights in St. Paul, his cabin on Spectacle Lake, the farm his grandfather bought in 1938, about a mile from the crossroads of Crown in southwest Isanti County, is old home ground. . . .
He grew up on a sheep farm near Princeton, a big operation with as many as 400 animals, But after graduating from the University of North Dakota, it was on his grandfather’s farm, 62 remaining acres, Daudt went to live.
Daudt and his brother Shane share the place, along with a coop of Cornish Cross chickens who will not live to see the autumn, six Black Angus, three of which are calves, and a black lab, Kurt Daudt’s pet, Lucy.
The lights of Crown do not blemish the evening sky.
A gentleman farmer, with an adoring dog. Who better to reclaim the Speaker's gavel from Paul Thissen, a lawyer who represents the fleshpots of Minneapolis in the legislature?
This honest yeoman farmer, this salt of the earth who restores John Deere tractors and uses the Green to haul manure and firewood. The manure is from six Angus cattle and a chicken coop. And on and on.
Budig does mention that Daudt and his brother don't farm any of the 62 acres they share:
The Daudts don’t work the farm fields. Instead, they rent 24 acres to a neighbor who works the land.
In the fall there’s deer hunting, pheasants, a pond for waterfowl[.]
What's missing--amid detailed explanation of Daudt's township, county and legislation service, is just what this neo-Cincinnatus does for a living. Ginseng hunting? Day trading? Surely it's not just the meager $31,000 and change that he makes as a citizen legislator or the rent money he splits with bro.
According to his economic interest statement (EIS) online at the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, Representative Daudt is self-employed.
However, his EIS was updated on April 15, 2013, so he may have recently changed careers. When Daudt announced his bid for the legislature in 2010, his Facebook post noted:
Commissioner Daudt, 36, has been a resident of Isanti county and active in local and statewide politics for most of his adult life. For the last 15 years, Daudt has lived on the farm once owned by his grandparents in Crown, MN. . . .
Daudt currently works as a business manager for Buerkle Acura [link added], a position he has held since 2004. . . .
According to the luxury car dealership's web site, the Brookyn Park business serves Minneapolis. Not quite as rustic and pure as tinkering with vintage 1966 Ford Broncos and tractors, but we suppose that's all in the past now.
Also in his past? Selling Lexuses. In Kurt Daudt excited to begin next chapter in political career, ECM Publishers staff writer Rachel Kytonen reported:
When Daudt was elected county commissioner, he took a $40,000 decrease in salary. He had been in sales at Lexus in Maplewood, but his schedule as county commissioner required him to find a part-time job.
He now works 21 hours a week as a businesses manager at Buerkle Acura in Brooklyn Park. He said if it’s possible, he’s planning on still working while serving as state representative.
According to a January 9, 2013 article in the Isanti County News, the 2009 base salary for an Isanti County Commissioner was $27,013. Commissioners also receive a per diem, although we have not been able to determine what that amount was during Daudt's service. It's not as if the part-time position was as unpaid volunteer.
This leaves us curious: if Daudt required a part-time job while serving as county commissioner, and hoped to keep that job while serving in the legislature, what does he do in self-employment? It's obviously not the self-employment of a farmer. Does country gentleman on an old family estate--the only occupation delinated in the latest article--pay well enough to supplement that part-time legislative salary?
Photo: Kurt Daudt in December 2010, via Minnesota Public Radio.
If you enjoy reading posts like this on Bluestem Prairie, consider throwing some coin in the tip jar:
62 acres? Unless he or his neighbor are doing heavy-duty fruit and veggie growing for CSAs, or really lucrative-yet-illegal cash crops like marijuana or opium poppies, there's no way he'd make any kind of "gentleman farmer" money from 62 acres, much less 24. Last I checked, USDA won't even loan money to farmers with less than 500 acres.
This makes me wonder: Is some super-rich Twin-Cities-area sugar daddy propping him up? Perhaps one (or more) of the people to whom he's sold luxury cars in the ritzier parts of the West Metro? And why am I thinking of the relationship between the TCF Coopers and Tony Sutton?
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | Jun 19, 2013 at 09:08 AM