Reading Gabriel LaGarde' story, Nystrom lambastes state GOP for not passing insulin act, but Gazelka pushes back against allegations, posted Friday night at 9:00 p.m, we paused at this passage:
Nystrom alleges Novo Nordisk -- one of the largest insulin manufacturers in the world -- made a concerted effort to derail bipartisan legislation in session, hiring lobbyists and spending large sums of money in March to persuade members of the GOP to kill the bill.
Bluestem recalls reading the registration of two lobbyists by the insulin behemoth on the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board: Ben Golnik and David Moody (designated lobbyist). Both individuals registered in March. Novo Nordisk is Moody's only client and his email is a Novo Nordisk address; in 2010, Moody gave $175 to the Kandiyohi County DFL.**see update below
One of the ultimate Republican insiders, Golnik was hired first, on March 4. At Golnik Strategies, the political hand outlines most of his biography:
Most recently, Ben served as executive director for the Majority Caucus at the Minnesota House of Representatives. In this role, Ben oversaw all operations of the House of Representatives, including 250 staffers and an annual budget of $16 million. On the political side, Ben directed independent expenditures of nearly $2 million each election cycle.
In 2013, Ben founded the Minnesota Jobs Coalition, a political committee and non-profit that quickly established itself as the leading outside group on the center-right in Minnesota. This group revolutionized the use of data and analytics in legislative campaigns in Minnesota. These efforts contributed to Republicans taking control of the Minnesota House in 2014 and growing their majority in 2016 to a historic high after a Presidential election. In the 2010 election cycle, Ben served as the general consultant to the Minnesota Senate Republicans. Ben helped engineer the campaign strategy that gave Republicans their first majority in 38 years and a net pick-up of 16 seats, the most of any Senate caucus in the nation. . . .
Golnik leaves out a bit of biography here, serving as Executive Director of the Republican Party of Minnesota from 2005-2007 as well as this tidbit eagerly supplied by John Gilmore in Minnesota Republicans’ Catastrophic Night at Alpha News on the morning after the November 6, 2018 election:
. . .We also lost the Minnesota House: did you see that coming? You can blame Ben Golnik and the Speaker of the House, Kurt Daudt, who as I write is sounding out members about his position as Minority Leader. The two made a fearsome combination of self interest, political competence need not apply. Today minions are touting how House Republicans did better than Jeff Johnson in their races. We’re supposed to be comforted by this. Minnesota Republicans were the only ones in the midwest who failed to keep their legislative majorities. . . .
With Daudt's loss of power, Golnik moved back to his public affairs firm, signing on associations in the pharma and solar energy spheres. For a loving pre-lapse hagiography, read J. Patrick Coolican's 2017 Capitol player Golnik plots path to greater power for Minnesota Republican.
Of course, Golnik's hire had nothing to do with killing the Alec Smith bill. In the Brainerd Dispatch copy, Gazelka pooh-poohs that silly little girl organizing on this issue:
“I don’t know what ‘House of Cards’ things that these people do, frankly,” Nystrom said. “But all I know is that during that 11th hour, that the Senate cited a clerical error, which I believe is complete b.s.
“I go back and look at the pharma lobbying dollars put in, and also the pharma lobbying funds put in to reelect the Senate Republican leadership,” Nystrom added. “Now, call it a coincidence, but I have a hard time believing that didn’t influence the decision. I would like for them to go to special session and pass this bill and save Minnesotan lives, but there’s been no talk of that.”
Speculating that political opponents might be using the Alec Smith Emergency Insulin Act as a disingenuous ploy, Gazelka noted it can take years for legislation to pass the finish line in some cases. Even emotionally charged or divisive bills, such as those pertaining to preventing traffic fatalities, can fail at the end of session, just to overwhelmingly pass the following year.
“This is a serious issue that needs to be addressed and we are addressing,” Gazelka said during a phone interview Friday, July 12. “Quinn Nystrom has never been an elected legislator. She doesn’t know all that goes on end of session. We have taken significant steps in this last session and will continue to take more steps related to insulin and all other life-saving drugs.”
Okay then. Of course none of those lobbyists had any influence whatsoever.
And Nystrom is simply being emotional in tweeting about the latest victim to the cost of insulin:
My heart breaks for everyone who’s close to this MN 21-year-old man who died from insulin rationing. This is a death that could’ve been prevented if the Alec Smith Emergency Insulin Bill would’ve been passed.We knew if it didn’t pass, lives would be lost.This puts a face to that. https://t.co/pKOFcExhkB
— Quinn Nystrom (@QuinnNystrom) July 10, 2019
Update 7/14/2019, 12:34 a.m.:A reader writes to tell us that a David Moody has been the treasurer of the Kandiyohi County DFL party unit for many years; this David C. Moody has a different address--in Willmar as opposed to one in Ann Arbor, Michigan enjoyed by the lobbyist--than the registered lobbyist. As the Kandiyohi County treasurer Moody is a Willmar attorney, we suspect that the View lobbyist contributions link on the registered lobbyist's place in the database is an error on the part of the CFB. We apologize for the confusion. We will contact the board to make sure this conclusion is correct.[end update]
Update 7/19/2019:
In a new post, MN Campaign Finance Board: Willmar area attorney is not Novo Nordisk lobbyist, we added this:
In an email from Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board Executive Director Jeff Sigurdson in response to a query left in voicemail, the board director replied:
Ms. Sorensen,
You were correct about the David Moody contribution, that contribution was made by another David Moody at a different address. The master name match in the donor database that identifies lobbyist donations somehow failed in this case. My database administrator is trying to find the reason, but in the short term the record for that contribution was corrected.
Thanks for pointing out the error.
In our turn, we're grateful to the reader in Willmar who pointed out that the David Moody who gave $175 to the Kandiyohi County DFL in 2010 was the committee's long-time treasurer and unlikely a pharma industry lobbyist. Our apologies to Mr. Moody
Photo: Ben Golnik, a registered lobbyist for Novo Nordisk, whose hire in March had absolutely no bearing on the legislative process. Indeed, if Gazelka is correct, we're surprised the insulin manufacturer hasn't fired this schlubb. From Golnik's twitter profile, image cropped.
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Ben Golnik is from Florida and studied politics in Russia.
Posted by: Barbara Mahowald | Jul 15, 2019 at 07:24 PM