A source in tiny Vernon Center, Minnesota, population est. 318 in the 2018 Census community survey, sent Bluestem the cell phone photo above, snapped during the tiny town's robust Independence Day parade. While it's hard to make out in the sun-dappled photo, our source said that it depicts former state representative Tony Cornish driving the parade entry for Minnesota state senator Julie Rosen; our source tells us Rosen rode shotgun in the truck.
A photo Cornish posted to his Facebook page on July 4 shows him dressed in the same shirt and hat. Moreover, reliable area residents confirmed to our source that Rosen rode in the truck during the parade.
According to the source, current state representative Jeremy Munson, New Republican-Lake Crystal, who replaced Cornish after the powerful Public Safety chair resigned after credible sexual harassment allegations emerged during the national #MeToo movement's heyday, marched in a parade unit two blocks back in the patriotic civic celebration.
While the Munson parade unit featured a Hagedorn sign on a vehicle, Hagedorn's Facebook page makes it appear that the first term congress member participated in parades in Austin ..., Harmony and Stewartville.
#MeToo revisited in Southern Minnesota
Given Senator Rosen's reputation as a strong power broker and a formidable Republican woman lawmaker, it's curious to see her appearing in public with the former state representative. Wikipedia notes:
He resigned in disgrace from the Minnesota House on November 30, 2017, following multiple accusations of sexual harassment. . . .
In November 2017, state Rep. Erin Maye Quade and another woman, a lobbyist, accused Cornish of sexually harassing them.[6] In response, Cornish said that his interaction with Maye Quade was taken out of context and meant as a friendly, joking exchange.[6] He said the incidents in his office alleged by the lobbyist never happened, though he admitted that he did send her a string of text messages soliciting sex.[6][7] House Speaker Kurt Daudt suspended Cornish as chairman of the Public Safety Committee following the allegations.[7]
Subsequently, former House Speaker Kurt Zellers said that during his time as speaker from 2011 to 2012 he had confronted Cornish about sexually harassing women at the State Capitol and called for him to resign.[8] In interviews with MPR News, 25 people who worked with or around Cornish the past seven years described alleged unwanted sexual advances to unwanted flirtatious contact.[9]
We're not sure what the probation period for that is, but we're guessing few lawmakers would have the courage to pick Cornish as their driver.
Does the parade gap represent a division between district Republicans?
As we noted in Julie Rosen and Bob Gunther go to bat for Rapidan Township--where's Jeremy Munson?, Rosen looked beyond Rapidan Township's own state representative (Munson) when seeking a House companion bill sponsor for a run-of-the-mill aid package for a township that was faced with a $238,000 bill from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
The Mankato Free Press reported:
There's no timeline to pay the money back, but the township can't produce the cash on its own.
Senate Finance Committee Chair Julie Rosen, R-Vernon Center, is sponsoring the bill in the Senate [SF843] . Rep. Bob Guenther(sic), R-Fairmont, is authoring similar legislation [HF615 ] in the House.
"Those poor people," Rosen said. "There's no way they can foot that bill on their own."
Remedying that predicament seems ready made for a small-government House New Republican Caucus guy like Munson, but whatever on that.
Moreover, Munson seems to have a radically different view of legislation praised by the Mankato Free Press editorial board in Our View: Opioids Resources to fight epidemic finally pass:
. . . Kudos to Sen. Julie Rosen, the Vernon Center Republican who carried the legislation in that chamber. It’s been a multi-year fight with Big Pharma to get this done, and Rosen and others involved in passing the measure view it as only a start. They promise more legislation in future sessions.
One of the few opponents was Rep. Jeremy Munson, R-Lake Crystal, who represents half of Rosen’s Senate district. His argument is that the fees will be passed on to consumers with legitimate need for the painkillers.
Apparently Munson would prefer to continue to starve the response to the deadly epidemic of funds. While Minnesota has not been as hard-hit as some other states by opioid addiction (meth has consistently been a greater problem in the North Star State), it has been a problem, as evidenced by the number of legislators who have lost adult children to opioid-related deaths.
Rosen has been vocal in her scorn for the drugmakers’ consistent refusal to bear any responsibility for their role in creating and fueling the wave of addiction. She is more correct — far more correct — on this issue than is Munson.
Munson fired back In Response: Opioid legislation fell short, is legally suspect:
In the May 23 “Our View,” The Free Press editorial board failed to accurately summarize the opioid legislation, understand the impacts, and appreciate our Constitutional restrictions.
Had The Free Press bothered to contact the 29 Republican legislators who voted against the opioid bill to understand both sides before it proclaimed its opinion, it may have presented a less biased view of the legislation and my position.
The Free Press’ assumptions do not reflect my position, nor are they supported by my statements or votes. I support paying to fight this crisis now; not two years from now, as this bill does. Four times, I voted in favor of using money from our Health Care Access Fund, which is available immediately, to fund the programs in this legislation, instead of relying on this bill’s unconstitutional fine, which will likely be held up in the courts.
Recently, in Healthcare Distribution Alliance v. Zucker et al. a New York federal court found a similar opioid tax to violate the interstate commerce clause. The role of the Legislature is not to be judge, jury and executioner, assessing punitive damages just so it looks good on campaign mailers. We should not be supporting crony capitalism, as reflected in this bill. We should not pass bad legislation to fix in future years. And, we should not be increasing the cost of health care.
Minnesotans’ number one issue is the cost of health care. After New York passed a similar opioid tax, generic manufacturers stopped distributing there. (In Minnesota, 90% of legal opioids come from generic manufacturers.) In New York the judge stayed similar opioid legislation until after the lawsuit was decided. Court testimony predicted a 1,200% increase in the cost of opioids.
We do not decrease the cost of anything by taxing it. This new $20.5 million annual opioid tax, the proposed $10.4 million annual insulin tax, and the new 1.8% tax on all medical bills will increase health-care costs and are wrong. They create another tax to pass on to the sick.
The Free Press failed to mention the bill, as signed by the governor, takes many of the fees, originally aimed at Big Pharma, and assesses them to veterinarians, suppliers of medical oxygen, and non-opioid drug wholesalers. Of the $20.5 million in annual fees, $12 million will be assessed to everyone else taxed under this bill. Furthermore, the sunset eliminates fees for opioid manufacturers, but permanently increases health-care costs for everyone else.
Your editorial board’s biased approach prevented it from seeing the truth: Big Pharma put the screws to the authors of the opioid bill and rewrote it to benefit Big Pharma. As I stated on the house floor, “This is crony capitalism at its finest.”
Instead of assessing the fees in proportion to market share, a flat fee is assessed to all manufacturers in an effort to box out competition. Finally, the bill funds additional bureaucrats, extending their reach to more drugs than just opioids.
Minnesotans want Big Pharma to pay for their role. However, assessing punitive damages is not the role of our Legislature; it is the role of our courts. Thus, on May 17, Attorney General Keith Ellison joined other states in a lawsuit against opioid manufacturers. I support this suit, which is expected to produce over a trillion dollars for states to combat addiction and opioid crimes.
If your editorial board understands the role of our courts and Ellison’s suit, how can it support punitive damages assessed by an emotional Legislature? Where is its support for the 29 lawmakers who repeatedly voted to use available funds to fight addiction now, who fought against increasing health-care costs and who honored their oath to legislate within the confines of our Constitutions?
The bill’s authors made excuses for it being poorly written, “hoping to fix it in the years to come.” Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Vernon Center, acknowledged, “clunkers” in the bill. Rep. Liz Olson, DFL-Duluth, the House author, admitted frustration with how Big Pharma changed this bill and said: “We’ll have more work to do. This isn’t the end, this is the beginning.” This is not how good laws are created.
We need to address the opioid problem, but the opioid legislation passed this year in Minnesota is not even a good start. It is an unconstitutional punitive penalty that unfairly increases expenses for farmers and patients and will likely be held up in the court instead of actually helping to fight addiction now.
Could such exchanges create distances between local old and new Republicans? We certainly can't fault Congressman Hagedorn for marching in larger towns like Harmony to the east of sunny Vernon Center and so not having to mind the gap.
Meanwhile, on July 2, Governor Walz [Held a} Signing Ceremony for Bill Combatting Opioid Epidemic in Minnesota. Judging from the reaction to it on our social media stream, many Minnesotans would rather march with Rosen on that one.
Photo: The Rosen parade vehicle in the Vernon Center July 4 parade. Supplied photo.
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