A recent letter to the editor published in two Minnesota House District 12A area newspapers damning former state representative Jay McNamar for a metro-area fundraiser raises more interesting questions than those created by hypocritical place-baiting.
The writer, Cindy Solvie, does not appear to have checked the voting records on recent buffer legislation on the part Minneapolis DFL state representative Jean Wagenius, at whose home the fundraiser took place, nor that of Representative Jeff Backer, R-Browns Valley, whom the letter writer supports over McNamar.
As Hancock-area resident Cindy Solvie's letter is nearly identical in the Fergus Falls Journal and the Morris Sun Tribune, we'll be citing the letter that was published first, Thursday, June 30th's McNamar isn’t a ‘voice for rural Minnesota’ in the Fergus Falls paper. The Morris paper's version has corrected the word "restive" used in the copy below to be "restrictive."
Jay McNamar, “a voice for rural Minnesota,” went to the metro for a fundraiser on June 23 hosted by Rep. Jean Wagenius. As one of the most aggressive metro environmentalists in the House of Representatives, I don’t think she has found one restive environmental regulation that she does not like. She especially likes buffer strips which apply only to rural landowners. Search Facebook, “Fundraiser for Jay McNamar.”
I wonder why McNamar goes to the metro for his campaign funding. Surely he must know that they expect favors back from him. He has never come out publicly to support or fight the buffer bill or other important bills that affect rural areas. To me it looks like the metro is buying his silence on the critical issues out here. . . .
Downtowner Jeff; or, placebaiting for everyone
Let's dispatch the "metro money evil" claim. Readers are left to assume that Representative Backer never attends fundraisers in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Do rural candidates from both sides travel to the metro?
Or is this just a practice of rural Democrats?
A fundraiser for Backer and a lawmaker representing an adjoining rural district at the Downtowner Woodfire Grill on the morning of November 19, 2015, according to a calendar of fundraising opportunities kept by law and lobbying firm Messerli and Kramer. The listing doesn't include the sponsor or host for the event, but page 46 of the year-end report for HRCC, the Minnesota House Republican's campaign committee, lists a $53.16 expense for a meeting at the Downtowner Grill on November 19, 2015.
An invitation (above) listed Rep. Paul Anderson, R-Starbuck, and suburban Dakota County (part of the seven county metro area) Rep. Denny McNamara, R-Hastings, as hosts. Anderson chairs the Ag Policy committee, while McNamara runs the Environment committee.
The disclaimer lists Backer's own committee, as well that of the other Republican. However, neither one of the committee's campaign finance reports lists any expenses for the fundraiser; presumably the costs for the space and refreshments were too small to be itemized.
So who attended this fundraiser? A tiny snapshot is provided by Backer's 2015 year-end campaign fundraising report, with the note that the Minnesota Business Partnership's PAC (2015 report here) contributed $250 and the Minnesota Hospital's PAC (2015 report here) tossed $400 in the kitty on November 19, 2015, (amended report, page 8). Other checks were likely under the threshold for revealing the contributor's name.
One would think that the Minnesota Hospital PAC's coffers would consist of contributions from hospital employees and the like, but anyone who is legally able to make a contribution in Minnesota may do so.Thus, in the 2015 year-end report, we find contributions from lawyers, public affairs specialists, $1000 from the Faegre Baker Daniels State-Reg Political Fund, and the like. The other candidate for whom the fundraiser was held was not given a check in the amount that triggers disclosure.
The Minnesota Business Partnership PAC's 2015 year-end report lists the contribution to Backer as being issued on November 12, so perhaps this listing in Backer's report is unrelated to the fundraiser. Again, the other candidate on the menu at the Downtowner Woodfire Grill didn't get a check that needed to be itemized.
Fundraisers in the metro? Not a problem for Jeff Backer. We're curious if he's going to attend another fabulous event on the Messerli and Kramer master calendar of fundraising opportunities: there's the HRCC's candidate speed dating--er, speed screening with political committees at the Embassy Suites in downtown St. Paul from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on July 26, 2016.
What strings do these folks attach to their funds? We're not that close so Bluestem hates to speculate.
We do give Rep Backer credit for not going the route of greater Minnesota Republican HD21A candidate Barb Haley, who's having a July 14 fundraiser at the Pool and Yacht Club in St. Paul.
Urban legends: public water buffers only oppress country folk
But there's more than just hypocrisy at work in the Solvie letter. There's the central claim that:
As one of the most aggressive metro environmentalists in the House of Representatives, I don’t think she has found one restive [restrictive- see note above] environmental regulation that she does not like. She especially likes buffer strips which apply only to rural landowners.
Oh really?
Let's start with the claim that "buffer strips" only apply to rural landowners. According to MinnPost's Ron Meador's July 13, 2015 article, The many misconceptions about Minnesota's new buffer program:
Speaking at an Environmental Initiative forum on the water-quality impacts of agriculture, Sarah Strommen, who manages the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ side of the new buffer initiative, said it has been commonly believed (and reflected in news coverage) that state law has long required 16½-foot buffers along public drainage ditches and 50-footers beside most lakes and streams.
In fact, she said, about 80 percent of the public ditches in Minnesota’s agricultural counties – and nearly two-thirds of watercourses overall – hadn’t been subject to buffer requirements prior to enactment of Gov. Mark Dayton’s landmark program this year.
But there's more than meets the reader in Meador's excellent piece: the "buffer law" language doesn't apply only to rural landowners whose property borders on public waters and public ditches; there's nothing in the legislation that carves out an urban (Ramsey or Hennepin County) or seven-county metro area exemption solely because it's "metro."
In fact, most urban landowners along shoreline, rivers and other public waterways find their use of their property restricted by city and county ordinances that follow the 1977 statute that aims to protect public waters--and some measures that predate the public waters and public ditch protection.
In the metro, for example, those along the 72-mile course of the Mississippi River Critical Area Program face state and local regulatory that grew from a designation that began in 1973. Many cities have posted their plans online; that published by the City of Rosemount provides a good example of the rules under which landowners along the river in the Dakota County city operate.
Bluestem has heard talking points at several public meetings in Renville County where someone will pipe up about the freedom from shoreline, public water and public ditch legislation that metro landowners enjoy. Talk about an urban legend.
Were 2015 & 2016 buffer bills the rural-hating spawn of Rep. Wagenius?
Wagenius--who was removed by Speaker Daudt a seat on newly configured ag and environment committees upon his assumption of the office after his caucus swept the 2014 elections, taking control of the House--didn't author this legislation that Solvie loathes or led into through the committee.
Nor did she author the language for the original 1977 statute that calls for a one-rod uncultivated strip after "the county, watershed district or other local ditch authority had gone through a proceeding known as a 'redetermination of benefits,' " as Meador writes. Wagenius would not be in office for another ten years.
Let's take a look at the 2016 legislation first, as it has a simpler path to becoming law. Here's Paul Torkelson's original language for 2016's HF3000, the first engrossment and the final version passed into law. SF2503 was substituted for the House bill on April 15, and the House voted for that version on April 21, 2016, in a 105-24 roll call vote.
Here's where Wagenius finds a buffer law she didn't like. She was a no vote, while Backer is a yes.
This year's bill clarifies language passed in 2015. Once again, Wagenius wasn't a factor in the bill--but Backer's most anti-buffer supporter wrote letters to local papers talking about how Backer did heavy lifting in turning back a "land grab" by the governor and how There is a friend in desperate times:
Let’s review the controversial buffer strip bill. There was already a buffer strip law in place for lakes and public waterways to prevent erosion but the existing laws were not being uniformly enforced as they should have been. [see the Meador article on that one]
Governor Dayton worked to get 50 foot buffer strips in fields and drainage ditches. Supposedly, these buffers would cure all the problems of nitrates and phosphates in the water. But there was no compensation at all to the land owners.
Though no buffer bill previously passed the House, during the wee hours on Sunday morning, a surprise buffer bill came before committee at 12:30 a.m. The hope was to let this new bill, unread by rural legislators, sail through committee under the cover of darkness.
It would have worked had it not been for Jeff Backer. He waged war along with three other rural legislators from 12:30 to 3:30 in the morning to stop this bill. He went head-to-head against the DFL and even against the metro-based leadership of his own party to protect our rural interests.
The battle continued the next day and a bi-partisan bill passed that the governor said he would sign, but subsequently vetoed. Yet, this same bill was signed by the governor in the special session. . . .
So the bill that had to be "clarified" in 2016? Backer and "three other rural legislators" were important contributors in shaping the 2015 bill. In the debate over the new bill, Representative Hansen established that two of the other three lawmakers were Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa, and Tim Miller, R-Prinsburg.
While Solvie may claim that Wagenius never meet a buffer law she didn't like, we find that unlike Backer, she voted against the omnibus bill into which the buffer language was folded, and against the passage of the bill containing the language in the 2015 special session.
Backer--not the urban host of the recent McNamar fundraiser--helped craft the 2015 bill and voted for it. Twice. He voted for the 2016 clarification. Wagenius didn't.
It's astonishing to watch this chucklehead campaign against a bill he helped write--and two years of votes in favor of the buffer language he now descries
Letter writer got talking point from metro-based GOP front group
Backer used the "metro Jay" epiphat in the 2014 race, but this new round of malarky was generated initially by the MN Jobs Coalition based in a St. Paul office. The head honcho tweeted:
ICYMI | MJC LF statement on "Metro Jay" McNamar raising money alongside Minneapolis liberals last night. #mnleg pic.twitter.com/Fg36wea8Hk
— MN Jobs Coalition (@MNJobsCoalition) June 24, 2016
Less than an hour later, St. Cloud conservative blogger Gary Gross posted about the talking point at the Examiner.
Following that launch, Solvie's letter began appearing in district newspapers. Solvie, of Hancock, contributed to the HRCC in 2006 and Tom Emmer's gubernatorial campaign in 2010, but does not appear to be an active letter writer to the Fergus Falls Daily Journal or Morris Sun Tribune or other newspapers, site and Nexis searches indicated.
We're not sure where Solvie got her sense that Wagenius was responsible for the 2015 buffer law or its 2016 clarification, but it certainly doesn't seem to have come from roll call votes. That legislator would be freshman Jeff Backer not only voted for the bills, but worked on them behind the scenes, as well as co-authoring go-nowhere CYA bill to abolish the entire notion of riparian buffers.
We suspected there must be something Solvie didn't want us to notice when she pointed her finger at Jay McNamar for not opposing legislation for which her BFF Jeff Backer voted.
None of this mattered for Rep. Backer--including his own voting record nor that of his DFL colleague--when he shared Solvie's letter on twitter:
Letter: McNamar’s metro fundraiser https://t.co/ByyOv4wvex
— Jeff Backer (@JeffBacker) July 2, 2016
Downtowner Jeff is quite the fellow: condemning laws he helped write and for which he voted, as well as condemning metro fundraisers when he's enjoyed one of his own. My, my.
Note: several changes were made to this post within the first fifteen minutes after it first appeared. Long day.
Photos: Downtowner Jeff Backer (top); the Downtowner in St. Paul (second from top); the invitation to Backer's fundraiser (middle); View of part of Rosemount's piece of Mississippi River Critical Area Corridor (second from bottom); the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities (bottom).
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