In a radio debate on KWLM (AM 1340, FM 96.3) Friday, Republican candidate Tim Miller stated that he disliked negative campaigning and the outside money being spent in Minnesota House District 17A.
The on demand audio of this fourm has yet to be posted, so we don't have an exact transcript, but when the station posts it (here), we'll update this post.
For anyone following this race, Tim Miller's declaration is the sort of thing that would make an entire barn full of cats laugh.
First, Miller shares the MN Jobs Coalitions Legislative PAC's IE material on his own social media platforms. Here's a sample from his Facebook page:
And then there's his defense of the group's tactics in a recent letter to the editor of the Montevideo American News and other district papers:
At least the Minnesota Jobs Coalition represents small businesses like the many that are the foundation of our small communities in West Central Minnesota.
Hi, I’m Tim Miller and I’m running for the Minnesota House because our representative does NOT represent us. Andrew Falk voted to build a lavish ninety million dollar legislative building in St. Paul. That’s ninety million dollars of taxpayers hard-earned money. Designs include soaring glass windows, a reflecting pool and a gymnasium. We don’t need to spend ninety million dollars on a politician’s playground. We don’t need this kind of waste and we don’t need Andrew Falk. I’m Tim Miller and I ask for your vote on November 4th.
ANNC: (fast paced read) prepared and paid for by Citizens of Tim Miller
As WCCO pointed out in a Reality Check on similar claims in a Freedom Club State PAC ad:
Democrats and the governor are not building a luxury space for themselves: It’s for senators only, Republicans included, not for the governor.
Republicans helped: serving on a special panel that voted unanimously for the architect and builder.
And John Croman reported in Minnesota GOP keeps focus on new senate office building:
Senators and their staff will be displaced by the Capitol renovation project for much of the 2015 calendar year, prompting Senate leaders to ask the Dept of Administration to run cost estimates on several temporary housing options.
The Admin Dept. analysis found it would cost $187,000 per month to rent space short-term.
Eventually DFL legislative leaders and Capitol planners gravitated to the idea of a new office building northwest of the Capitol, and inserted it into the 2013 tax bill. They said the $77 million price tag compared favorably to the cost renting space for 30 years, which ranged from $165 million to $220 million.
"This is a necessary project to have the Capitol complex ready for the next 100 years for the people of Minnesota, and that's the way it should be viewed," Gov. Dayton told reporters earlier this month.
"A bipartisan commission, which included Republican legislators, picked the architect and the general contractor for this," Dayton said, "They seemed to be on board until campaign season started."
The original plan featured a $90 million building that wouldn't house all the Senators. The revised plan lowered the cost to $77 million and included space for all 67 Senators. The revised design also replaced much of the glass exterior with concrete, to answer critics -- including Gov. Dayton -- that the glass skin was too showy. . . .
The project is $77 million in one-time spending, compared to $19 billion dollars in annual ongoing spending. It's being financed by bonds, so it will be repaid over a 20-year period with interest. But even if it were paid for all at one time the project would represent less than half of one percent of one year's spending.
What's more, just as Miller can't be bothered to read bills like WESA or that which provided funding for research on fighting superweeds, he doesn't seem to have noticed as Bring Me The News reported in April in Senate building plan loses reflecting pool, gym; passes key House committee:
After a two-month hold-up, a key House committee approved a plan for a new Senate office building – although without some of the gaudier features of the original blueprints.
The House Rules and Legislative Administration Committee voted 14-13 in favor of a new $77 million building, the Session Daily writes, down from the original number of $93 million and minus features such as a large reflecting pool out front, a giant windowed wall that would have faced the Capitol, and a fitness center.
So Miller's ads tell voters that those features are still in the works, while telling listeners today that he's against negative campaigning.
We have words for that sort of thing on this stretch of the prairie--and we suspect that our readers, wherever they live, do as well.
Photo: Miller ranting on Pioneer Public Television about a bill he doesn't know much about. He does that a lot, and he's so anti-negative campaigning that he just can't stop himself for doing it and sharing that created by others.
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