Forum Communications endorsements for congressional candidates are made by the newspaper chain's management.
The chain's papers in Minnesota's Eighth Congressional District have Pick[ed] Schultz in the 8th, her vow to 'represent everyone':
For eight years, Jen Schultz served in a politically divided state legislature — and was able to get important measures passed anyway to help everyday Minnesotans facing addiction, mental health challenges, homelessness, difficulties affording their prescription drugs, and other matters. She has stepped up where the government is counted on to provide help and make a real difference.
Schultz is running now to represent an 8th Congressional District that largely has been abandoned by an incumbent seemingly more focused on party, and even extreme tangents within his party, than on the people he was elected to serve. Perhaps most disqualifying, Republican U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber of Hermantown signed on to the Texas lawsuit that sought to overturn the will of the voters following the 2020 presidential election, making him part of the same coup that led to the violent and deadly Jan. 6, 2021, overrun of the U.S. Capitol.
“I will represent everyone,” Schultz vowed, in stark contrast to the current representation, in an exclusive interview this fall with Forum Communications.
In the Nov. 8 election, the Democrat from Duluth can be given that chance by those eligible to cast ballots in the massive 8th, which stretches more than halfway across the state’s northeast, from the Canadian border to the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities. The district includes the Iron Range, Duluth, Brainerd, Aitkin, all seven of Minnesota’s Anishinaabe reservations, and more. . . .
Meanwhile, in Congress, Stauber’s votes increasingly have become partisan rather than what’s in the best interest of Minnesota and his constituents. He voted against lowering pharmaceutical and insulin costs, against an independent investigation of Jan. 6, against equal pay, and against grants to make needed repairs to regional airports, as just a few examples. Despite voting against the airport grants, he attempted to publicly tout them anyway .
Mostly in press releases, Stauber repeatedly explains away such votes with political bombast about free-spending House Speaker Nancy Pelsoi, President Joe Biden, and the Democrats. Such rhetoric can be expected to a degree, especially on the national stage, and is easy to dismiss and ignore. But many of the votes, the congressman had to know, would pass anyway, leaving the impression he was more interested in being on the record for his party and base than for the people back home.
Stauber is no longer the same devoted representative Northeastern Minnesota first sent to D.C. on our behalf in 2018. He’s become unresponsive to constituents and the media alike. He seems to only attend events populated by supporters. This fall he declined to participate in a candidate forum co-hosted by the Duluth News Tribune and Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce, a forum that over a decade has become the pre-eminent election-season event for the 8th District, the best chance for voters to hear directly from candidates. This was the first time a candidate declined to participate. . . .
Read the entire editorial in the Duluth News Tribune and other Forum papers across the Eighth. I've admired Schultz's work in the Minnesota House and am pleased to see the thumbs up.
To the west in Minnesota's Seventh District, management isn't so generous. In Fischbach and her challenger haven’t earned our endorsement for Minnesota’s 7th District, the media bosses note: " Michelle Fischbach's irresponsible vote to dispute Electoral College votes in the 2020 presidential election set a "horrible precedent" and we cannot endorse her for re-election," while observing "Fischbach’s DFL challenger, Jill Absahain, hasn’t mounted much of a campaign."
Go read both editorials at the chain newspapers.
Related post
Photo: Inside the Duluth City Hall rotunda, Jen Schultz of Duluth smiles as a crowd of supporters cheers her announcement in March that she was running for the 8th Congressional District. Jed Carlson / Superior Telegram.
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