MN House 26A DFL primary: a look at both candidates' environmental action claims

Much of Sarah Kruger's environmentalist cred hangs on the endorsement of former governor Arne Carlson. That's no small commendation, given the former governor's continued advocacy for the defense of Minnesota's water against ruthless mining interests. I'll go into the details of Carlson's work in a bit.

The screenshot at the top of this post--from the Winona Chamber of Commerce's guide to candidates shares this claim but looking at Kruger's claims of working with Carlson on this crusade made Bluestem wonder about the basic timeline of Kruger's environmental activism.

When did Kruger work on this project?  According to her campaign website, here's Kruger's work experience in politics (I've added some dates in hope of creating a timeline):

Sarah Kruger is the Chief of Staff at FairVote Minnesota, a pro-democracy nonprofit (2023-2024). She holds a Master of Research in Political Science with a focus on electoral politics and is a passionate advocate of rural organizing across southern Minnesota. Sarah Kruger founded the Southern Minnesota Democratic Action Group, which empowers Greater Minnesotans across our region (2021) RuralOrganizing.org hired her to run public affairs for the American Rescue Plan Act in the upper Midwest (2021). Recently, she served as Campaign Manager for congressional candidate Jeff Ettinger (beginning June 2022, according to FEC records). 

She ran for the Minnesota Senate in 2020. filing paperwork for her race with the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board on January 10, 2020.

Why does this timeline matter when considering her claim for being an environmental activist? As she told the Chamber of Commerce, she's worked "closely on clean water initiatives with former Republican Governor Arne Carlson."

Indeed back on March 9, an endorsement letter from Carlson appeared in the Winona Daily News Arne H. Carlson: Sarah Kruger will protect healthy water supply

Note the part I've put in bold face:

Today some 85% of Americans do not fully trust their government, and 80% blame this on the influence of monied interests. Frankly, this is a crisis that builds political instability.

All of us have a responsibility to immediately turn this around and elected honest and capable leaders that will only work for the people. That is why I am fully committed to the election of Sarah Kruger to the Minnesota Legislature.

For some six years, Tom Berkelman and Janet Entzel, both retired DFL legislators, and I have been trying to alert our state government to take action to preserve our remaining and dwindling supply of healthy water. We are making progress, but not enough. Kruger has been a vital part of this effort.

She is intelligent, dead honest and resolute — reminiscent of the traits we saw in Walter Mondale, Dave Durenberger and Paul Wellstone.

When I read the statement by Bruno Borsari, professor emeritus of biology at Winona State University, about Kruger’s opponent, Dwayne Voegeli, I become alarmed:

“His swing vote to allow factory farming in Winona County was unexplainable and oblivious of the consequences that this decision had, and continues to have, about the fate of farming in this county.”

No, we need sturdy leadership committed to our well being, and Sarah Kruger is the person we need in our state’s Capitol.

Arne H. Carlson

Lake City

Note six year time frame, as well as the observation "Kruger has been a vital part of this effort."

Closer to the endorsing convention later in the month, the Kruger campaign mailed delegates to the endorsing convention the following letter of endorsement. In his document, Carlson claims that Kruger joined him early in this effort.

Arne Carlson Endorsement Letter... uploaded on Scribd by Sally Jo Sorensen

To assess the claims made in both documents, I had to research the project Carlson discusses. While the report for the project was posted several places online at the time of publication, none of the links connected with it are still live.

Fortunately, I was able to obtain a copy of the August 23, 2021 report, the Future is Today, from the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library. I embed it below.

A column about the study was published at the Faribault Daily News in September 2021 under the headline, Call to action: The future is today.. 

Not long afterward, the four authors published Standing up to special interests, an opinion piece at the Minnesota Reformer.

There are more op-eds from around the same time.

I was curious whether Kruger had worked on the report,

 

Future is Today uploaded by Sally Jo Sorensen.

What was Kruger's role in creating this document? The report notes that the team started working on the project 2019.When did she sign on to the team? And what has her role been?

I was able to obtain Arne Carlson's phone number and called him with my questions about Kruger's involvement on July 23. In the call, Carlson spoke highly of Kruger, but noted that he had drafted the report before he met her. Nor was he certain of the exact circumstances of their meeting. He suggested that I call Kruger.

Later that day, I reached Kruger by phone. She said she'd met Carlson when citizen advocate for health care reform and Pathfinder leader Lois Quam was scheduling Carlson to speak to the Southern Minnesota Democratic Action Group in 2021.They hit it off and have kept in touch since.

Given that Kruger met Carlson after the report--documenting the work he and his fellow activists did--was published--and her life was filled with running a congressional campaign, then the FairVoteMN effort to pass ranked choice voting in the legislature, it's hard to view her as an environmental activist, I contacted clean water lobbyists in St.Paul and none had any knowledge of her.

Nor did I find any evidence in the legislative record that she had testified about any environmental bills in hearings or press conferences.

As far as accusations of Voegeli's derelict votes as a Winona County commissioner, that seems to be based entirely on a November 2006 Counterpunch article, Green Stench in Minnesota. I was a bit puzzled by the text, since none of the votes in question involved giving a feedlot a variance over the county's animal unit cap.  Indeed, using the piece now seems to confuse Voegeli's decade's old votes with Daley Dairy's efforts to punch its herd up to 4,600 cows.

Looking at Voegeli's record on environmental action, there's a distinct absence of vaporware. Here are examples of endorsements. Here's former state senator Steve Morse:

 

And the Sierra Club's endorsement:

 

And the endorsement of chair of the Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resources Finance and Policy Committee Rick Hansen, who stressed hoe having real experience on the ground is a good start for creating solid environmental policy:

 

The primary is Tuesday and Bluestem hopes district residents get out and vote.

Screenshot: The Winona Chamber of Commerce candidate profile for Sarah Kruger.

Related posts

• Watch the July 30 Winona League of Women Voters MN House of Representatives District 26A Primary Forum 
• Who's funding Minnesota House District 26A's pricey DFL primary? Looks like an expensive general ahead too given GOP cash reserves
• Fact checking: Was MN House District 26A candidate Sarah Kruger charged with a felony?
• Winona district write-in candidate seems confused about Pelowski voting record

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