The attorney for Michael Brodkorb's wrongful termination case has filed notice in federal court that he intends to take depositions from several current and former legislators and the former secretary of the Senate, Cal Ludeman.

Attorney Greg Walsh also requested video depositions of Sen. Dave Senjem and former Sens. Chris Gerlach, Geoff Michel and Claire Robling. The depositions are to be taken in St. Paul the week of June 3.

Senjem was the leader of the Senate's Republican majority caucus when former communications director Brodkorb filed his lawsuit, claiming he was wrongfully fired because of a personal relationship with Senjem’s predecessor, Amy Koch.

Brodkorb claims that other staff members of the Legislature had similar relationships with supervisors but were transferred to other positions, not terminated.

Robling, Gerlach, and Michel were part of the Senate leadership team in the fall of 2012 that confronted Koch about her affair and insisted she give up the leadership position.  Ludeman, as secretary of the Senate at the time, made the decision to fire Brodkorb. 

The current Senate majority leader, Tom Bakk, has agreed with his predecessors that Brodkorb was an at-will employee and thus far has rejected attempts at settling the case. Legal fees reported thus far have cost the Senate nearly $200,000.

The Senate defense attorneys have pushed for a protective order to keep the proceedings private, but the U.S. magistrate has yet to rule on the request.

Action Thursday by the state Office of Administrative Hearings has ended the legal dispute over the Minnesota Republican Party’s handling of how to pay for the vote recount in the 2010 governor’s race.

Responding to a complaint from Common Cause Minnesota, a three-judge panel ruled that the corporation that the Republican Party created to collect money for the recount violated the campaign finance law that prohibits corporations from contributing to a political party but that the violation “was negligent and had no impact on voters.”  The corporation, Count Them All Properly (CTAP), was fined $600.

The panel individually fined CTAP board member Dan Puhl $600 for establishing the entity as a corporation instead of a non-profit, which would have allowed CTAP to contribute to the state party.

The Republican Party got some good news from panel. It dismissed charges that former party chair Tony Sutton and former party finance director Ron Huettle deliberately formed CTAP to evade campaign finance laws.

 “The judges clearly understood and recognized that a mistake was the result of negligence,” said John Gilmore, the attorney for CTAP.  “It wasn’t intentional and that what was done had no effect on the voters.”

In July of last year, the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Disclosure Board issued a similar ruling but that resulted in more substantial fines.  The party was fined $26,900 for directing a $30,000 contribution from Robert Cummins to CTAP. Sutton was fined $3,000 and CTAP was fined $3,000.

There’s been a good amount of movement in the various ethics investigations into Rep. Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign this week, so let’s recap.

Here’s one potentially new detail right off the top: A source close to former advisers of the campaign has confirmed to MinnPost that the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) included in its investigation an Iowa woman who alleges campaign staffers stole and used an email list she maintained.

Barb Heki, a former outreach coordinator for the campaign, has sued Bachmann and former campaign staffers for the alleged theft of the email list, which Bachmann’s Iowa Chairman, state Sen. Kent Sorenson, is said to have taken and used without her permission. An Iowa police department is investigating the incident and Sorenson's involvement is the subject of an Iowa Senate Ethics Committee inquiry.

OCE had originally been investigating allegations of potential under-the-table payments made to former staffers, but by talking to Heki, it seems to have expanded the inquiry, which is said to be its final days.

Beyond that, the other news this week was the emergence of former Bachmann aide Andy Parrish as a witness in a related Iowa ethics case. Parrish’s attorney said he would submit an affidavit to the Iowa Senate ethics panel sometime next week corroborating claims that the Bachmann campaign paid Sorenson for his work, which may go against Iowa Senate ethics rules.

Parrish’s attorney, John Gilmore, has said the affidavit will likely indicate Bachmann knew about he payments, but, as he told the Des Moines Register, there is no evidence she knew they were against Iowa rules.

Gilmore maintains Parrish has no underlying political motivation in wading into the case. “He doesn’t have an ax to grind,” Gilmore said. “He wants to let the ethics committee know that a complaint made about the payment is valid.”

Sorenson and Bachmann have maintained that they did nothing wrong. In a statement, Bachmann’s attorney told MPR: “As we have previously stated, the campaign denies that it has engaged in any inappropriate activities. We are confident that any fair and objective review of the record will demonstrate that neither the campaign nor Congresswoman Bachmann engaged in any wrongdoing."

Additionally, the Star Tribune reported this week that the OCE is interested in a book tour for Bachmann’s “Core of Conviction” memoir. According the report, investigators are looking into whether Bachmann campaign staffers improperly helped promote the book through the campaign, which could violate election and House ethics rules.

Again, Bachmann officials say everything was above-board.

“It’s been really frustrating this legislative session. We thought with the Democratic control, there would be more priorities on longer-term care and seniors.”

That disappointment, expressed by Jack L’heureux, administrator of the St. Clair Living Community nursing home in Mora and others in the nursing home industry, is directed at the DFL-sponsored House and Senate bills that increase senior-care funding by 2 percent after a four year funding freeze.   The frustration has not been lost on legislative Republicans who at a news conference today said that DFLers should re-evaluate their priorities. 

“You’ve got a crisis in the long-tem care industry, especially in nursing homes,” said Julie Rosen, Republican senator from Fairmont. “You have nursing homes that are in the red, constantly. They can’t provide their employees anything [in wages and benefits]. They can go walk down the street to Wal-Mart and get better.”

The industry finds the House and Senate bills a particularly bitter pill to swallow given DFL proposals to raise revenues by almost $3 billion.   L’heureux has pointed out the discrepancy to his state representative, DFL-er Tim Faust, for whom L’heureux worked as a campaign volunteer.   

“Both Senator [Tony] Lourey [the chair of the human services finance committee] and Representative Faust have been at my facility and my staff and I have been hammering them,” he said. “Both of them are very supportive but the problem is they need a better target to work with.”

Some Democrat legislators have shown a willingness to buck their leadership. Sen. Kent Eken, DFL-Twin Valley, has authored a bill to increase nursing home and senior care funding by 5 percent or $56 million over the next two years.   

“I do feel that it’s necessary to address this issue because of the pending crisis with the age wave,” he said. “I do think the target was insufficient.”

Eken has authored a second bill to pay for the increase by extending the social security payroll tax beyond the income limit of $113,000. The state would pick up the additional tax for a Minnesota social security fund to pay for senior care and the disabled.

Rosen maintains the DFL just needs to rethink funding goals. “I think that they have so many wants and so many interests groups banging on their doors, they have lost their priority and they lost their focus, which is seniors, the vulnerable, and children.”

With the open disagreement about nursing home funding, the DFL’s internal debate about spending priorities could result in an external political problem. Asked whether the DFL was taking the senior voting bloc for granted, L’heureux replied, “My gut feeling is that they are going to be surprised if people have strong memories. Right now, I’d like to say all seniors are going to look to the Republican Party because they didn’t get much on the Democratic side.” 

Orono businessman Scott Honour is the first Republican out of the gate with an official campaign to challenge Gov. Mark Dayton in 2014.  He needs to put the extra time to good use because most Republicans — and even fewer voters in general — know who he is. 

The DFL tried to step into the identity void earlier this week by immediately offering its own definition of the candidate: “Scott Honour is Minnesota’s Mitt Romney… getting rich at the expense of everyday people.”

In an interview with MinnPost, Honour swatted back.

“My own life story is one of a middle-class upbringing, and we had some hardship along the way, and we got through that,” he said of growing up in Fridley, and ultimately making his fortune as a venture capitalist in California.

“I’ve had great success, and I want to see people in this state have that kind of opportunity for themselves and for their kids.”

Honour has no public-sector experience, but he is not a political neophyte. He raised money for Tim Pawlenty’s presidential campaign and then for Mitt Romney, impressing Republican insiders with both his fundraising prowess and knowledge of the issues. 

“If you get down to brass tacks about it, it’s about making good decisions. It’s about having teams of people that can evaluate the problems we face and come up with solutions and effect them,” said Honor, 46, who graduated from Pepperdine University and has an MBA from the Wharton School of Business. “Sure, you’re doing it in the public eye, but when I bought and fixed companies, well that was in the public eye, too.”

Honour offered his solutions to a variety of legislative and political issues. Here are excerpts from his responses.

MinnPost: Are you going for the endorsement of Minnesota Republican Party?

Scott Honour: I’m going to seek the endorsement.

MP: Will you go to primary if you don’t get the endorsement?

SH: I haven’t made a final decision on that yet.

MP: How will you fund your campaign?

SH: I saw what Mark Dayton did in his last campaign, which was pretty much self-funded.  I’m not looking to replicate that model. I’ll make sure our campaign has the financial resources that it needs, but I’m planning to have a broad base of support from donors.

MP: Turning to the state budget, how would you change one of the biggest cost-drivers in the budget — health and human services?

SH: I don’t have the access to the data that our government officials have to be able to tell you in exact detail what to do. But I think conceptually, it’s the idea of potentially modifying eligibility levels and making sure that the neediest people are getting benefits and that we’re not creating a disincentive for folks that perhaps are not as in need, to perhaps try to improve their lot thorough their own efforts. 

We need to have people have skin the in the game. The idea of having systems that reward people taking charge of their own health care, their own wellness, and there's ways to do that that have proven to be effective, to reduce costs and to improve outcomes.

I think that the idea of trying to reform government in general in a way that gives better outcomes through reduced costs is very possible. 

You could probably eliminate the budget deficit we have just by managing health and human services more effectively.

MP: How would you modify the new health care exchange?

SH: I think we’re going to have to see what it looks like when it gets launched to figure out what to do. Do we move back off of it? Do we have a federal government exchange? Do we try to combine with some other state? Do we stay in a go-it-alone system?

MP: How would you improve education outcomes in lower-achieving schools?

SH: Let’s take north Minneapolis, where we clearly have issues. Couple of weeks ago, I toured the KIPP charter schools.  What a great job they’re doing.  Their operating budget is about 20 percent less per student than in comparable middle schools. They’re paying teachers 15 percent more, and their proficiency ratings are twice that. So the idea that you can get better outcomes with less money and have teachers paid more, it’s being done right now.

We’ve got to focus on giving parents more choices and letting these kinds of programs that we know work, flourish. I want to set a real goal. I’d like to see us in 10 years lead the nation in terms of high-school graduation readiness for career or college. To do that, I want to set interim goals. I would expect to have a team of people that are education experts work with me on how do we set definable goals and make sure that we have policies that are driving toward those goals.

MP: Would you support raising the minimum wage?

SH: No, I would leave minimum wage where it is. I think what we need to do is try to improve the economy and give people at every level of wage earning the opportunity to have a job and to have a better job. And the best way to get someone higher than minimum wage is to have a robust economy.

I started out working for minimum wage, and I got a lot out of that.  It helped create the foundation of my future success.

MP: How can state government grow jobs, given the global economic pressures?

SH: First thing is, stay out of the way. Let’s clean up the regulation burden. Let’s make sure we have a competitive tax rate.  We’ve got to reform our tax code in this state. It needs a complete overhaul. So we have to put the right freedoms in place to let companies flourish. And I think there are some things that we can do proactively to promote industries where we could have a real advantage, like agriculture, health care, energy.

MP: Would you support increase background checks for gun control?

SH: I’m a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. I would not look to modify the state’s gun control laws. Frankly, I think we ought to focus more on being tough on crime. And I think we need to focus more on mental health issues as well.

MP: How would you improve transportation, which many businesses say is a concern?

SH: One of the roles of government is to provide goods that only government can provide. One of them is roads, infrastructure. Drives me nuts to go up to Cabela’s in Rogers on Friday because you get totally jammed up in traffic.

One of the things I want to do conceptually is take waste out of the burdensome administrative cost in the state budget and spend it smartly in capital expenditures.  

MP: Would you support a gas-tax or sales-tax increase dedicated to transportation?

SH: No. I think the way we have to deal with all these issues is we’ve got to take a holistic view of all the things that governments do and create what we think is the right prioritization around them.

MP: Do you support gay marriage or civil unions?

SH: I support traditional marriage. At the same time, I think Rep. [Tim] Kelly’s proposal to allow civil unions is one that makes sense, and I support it.

MP: Would you support further restrictions in Minnesota’s abortion laws?

SH: I’m pro-life, but I would not look to change the current status of our regulations on abortion.

MP: What kind of state would you like Minnesota to be in five years?

SH: I think it’s a state where you have a feeling of exceptionalism. That people, when they are sitting around their dinner tables, that their children are coming home happy. That they’re not talking about "Geez, my cousin just got laid off, or my son had to move out of state to get a job." That’s the opposite that they’re talking about — upgrading their Twins tickets because things are going well.

I think just having a sense of optimism for the future of the state.

Michael Brodkorb’s lawsuit against the Minnesota Senate for wrongful firing  gets a Thursday pre-trial hearing — but with a twist.

Federal Magistrate Arthur Boylan has changed the setting from a conference call to his courtroom and required the parties themselves to attend.

A pre-trial hearing is usually a routine procedure for determining case management, such as the number of depositions and the time frame, and often involves only the attorneys for the plaintiffs and defendants.   

The requirement that Brodkorb and Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk or a Senate representative attend makes this a “non-routine” hearing, according to an attorney with knowledge of the case but not directly involved.  A spokesman for Bakk says he will not be in attendance at the hearing.

“The court wants to deliver a message directly to the parties before very expensive and problematic discovery is undertaken,” said the attorney, who believes the court will strongly encourage the parties to settle.

Brodkorb was fired from his job as communications director for the Senate Republican caucus after news of his relationship with former Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch became public in December 2011.

To prove his case of gender discrimination, Brodkorb has said he is prepared to name other legislative staff members who had similar relationships with their bosses but were not dismissed. 

Court documents show that Brodkorb, who was paid $90,000 a year, is claiming $600,000 in damages. The Minnesota Senate has incurred nearly $200,000 in legal fees defending itself. 

If the case proceeds to trial before U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson, it is not expected to start before June 2014.

Update:

The pre-trial hearing, scheduled for May 2, was cancelled and will be rescheduled, according to a court document filed today, "to a date when all counsel and party representatives can be present in-person for said conference." 

Brett Stevens

Brett Stevens, a paralegal with a Twin Cities law firm and a columnist for Lavender magazine, has riled supporters of gay marriage.

Stevens is gay, and he and his partner celebrated the 15th anniversary of their relationship this year. In his columns and in testimony at legislative committee hearings on a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in Minnesota, Stevens has urged lawmakers to consider civil unions as an alternative.

In an interview with MinnPost, Stevens argues that despite the defeat of the proposed marriage amendment last fall, same-sex marriage is a step too far for too many legislators. He fears that without an effort to push for civil unions, gay couples will still find themselves unprotected by state law when this legislative session is over.

MinnPost: Do you in principle support marriage for same-sex couples?

Brett Stevens: Absolutely.  I have been advocating for it for a long, long time. If same sex marriage happens, I‘ll be very, very happy.  I’m just afraid it simply will not.

MP: What makes you believe the current bill to legalize same-sex marriage will fail?

Stevens: I don’t think it can get the votes in the House. It doesn’t have the votes at this point, and I don’t think it’s going to pass. 

Immediately after the defeat of the marriage amendment, I believed there would be some movement toward getting recognition for our relationships. [Then] Minnesota United came out and said they were going to fight for marriage equality and marriage equality only. And I support it. I support the marriage equality idea, but I also am seeing the political side. There just doesn’t seem to be the votes. The rural DFL don’t appear to be interested in voting for this and the Republicans are not interested in crossing to vote for it either.

I looked at polls and I saw that civil unions are overwhelmingly popular. So what I have been doing is, I have been trying to open up the conversation so if same sex-marriage doesn’t pass, that there’s something else that would recognize my relationship.

MP: Why should gay couples accept the lesser status of a civil union?

Stevens: This is a serious issue that matters to people right now. Here’s one example of why we need something done now. I did an interview with an attorney and he said there were people going off and getting married in Canada or in Iowa. They’re coming back and living in Minnesota and then they realize that getting married was probably not a good idea. Well they can’t get a divorce in Minnesota because the courts don’t recognize it. And to get a divorce in Canada or in Iowa, there’s a residency requirement. So there are people actually right now living in a precarious situation that cannot find relief in the courts.

MP: What is your opinion of the civil union legislation offered by Republican Rep. Tim Kelly?

Stevens: I think it’s a good first step. The bill repeals the state DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act] law. It would allow the courts to recognize and deal with LGBT couple issues.

As far as I can tell from reading it, it appears to me it covers the same rights and the same obligations. And I think the obligations are important as well – for us to take care of each other. As far as I can tell, they’re the same except for the name.

MP: With so much movement in the U.S. and around the world toward acceptance of gay marriage, why do you think progressive Minnesota would be opposed?

Stevens: When I looked at the results of the election and I looked at the results from the marriage amendment and I saw the number of rural DFL legislators who were in districts where the marriage amendment passed, I am just concerned that they won’t be persuaded to vote for same sex marriage. And it looks like that is coming true. 

MP: In your columns, you’ve suggested the DFL isn’t addressing gay concerns strongly enough, that they take the gay community for granted. Why?

Stevens: They don’t just take us for granted, they use the gay community. We are a huge supplier of volunteers. We’re a huge supplier of money. They just consider us to be an incredibly reliable source of help in getting them elected. And then they turn around and after the election, and say we’re not going to use our political capital on that.

MP: But the DFL has put forward the gay-marriage legislation, over the objections of some of their leaders.

Stevens: I interviewed John Marty in early December, and he said he was going to introduce the bill the first day of session. Well it didn’t get introduced until February 28, and it’s the exact same bill that Marty had proposed before. It went to two committees and it passed through these two committees that didn’t have any rural DFL people on it. They were loaded committees and everyone knew they were going to pass.  

There’s no discussion going on about this issue, and that’s not the way to persuade people to change their minds.

MP: What have you heard from gay marriage supporters on the position you’ve taken?

Stevens: What I’ve heard from many gay people and many gay allies is that something should happen. We need something to happen. In fact, the reason I didn’t chicken out and I did go and testify before the House and the Senate committee hearings and said we need to introduce a compromise so we get something if same-sex marriage doesn’t pass – the reason I did was because I had people who told me that they want their relationships recognized. And I feel like no one is speaking for them.

At an old-fashioned community center in Hamel, Hennepin County commissioner Jeff Johnson hosted an old-school rally Sunday to announce that’s he’s running as a Republican candidate for governor.

The room, packed with supporters in "Johnson for Governor" red shirts, offered a contrast to Johnson’s only Republican competitor for now, Scott Honour, who announced his candidacy with a series of media interviews. Johnson, 46, a former legislator from Plymouth, said he wasn’t drawing any distinctions between him and Honour and said he expects the Republican field to widen. But he told his supporters he considers himself to be the strongest Republican candidate to beat Mark Dayton.

He elaborated in an interview with MinnPost prior to the campaign event and discussed some of the issues likely to be hot topics in the 2014 campaign. Here are excerpts from that interview:

MinnPost: Are you going for the endorsement of Minnesota Republican Party?

Jeff Johnson: Yes.

MP: If you don’t get the endorsement do you intend to go a primary?

JJ: I don’t. I intend to abide by the endorsement. 

MP: How do you plan to differentiate your campaign from the other Republican candidates?

JJ: There are two things that I will focus on to show that I am the strongest Republican candidate in the race.  I am the strongest challenger to Mark Dayton. I’ve got the best shot at winning.  If I win, I have a record to show that I can actually be effective in divided government. 

I actually think the endorsement piece is important. I know there are some people in the party that say the endorsement doesn’t mean anything anymore, but I think they just don’t want it to mean anything. It will particularly mean something if we can endorse someone who is trusted and liked enough by non-Republicans to actually pick up a lot of independent votes.     

I throw one other thing on top of that: I have a very strong electoral base in Hennepin County, and we just have not done particularly well as Republicans in Hennepin County in statewide races lately and I think that will help a lot. 

If I'm elected I think I have a unique history of someone who was in the Legislature in the time of divided government and actually can prove that I am able to accomplish my goals rather just fight about something or just talk about something. I carried some of the biggest, most difficult free-market conservative bills that we had in that six years. In almost every instance I figured out how to work with Democrats in the Senate and actually get it done, whether it was eminent domain reform or the meth bill or “joint and several,” the biggest lawsuit reform we’ve seen in decades in the state.  

MP: How do you expect the DFL to criticize you and how do you intend to respond?

JJ: I’ve been thinking about that quite a bit, trying to think of what video they will put out against me the week after I announced.  I don’t think there’s a lot there, although when you’re in the Legislature for six years, I’m sure they can dig up plenty of things that were in omnibus bills or maybe some other bills that I voted on. I suspect they will try to make me or anybody else that’s a Republican who’s been in the Legislature look like a right-wing arch-conservative.  

Interestingly, as I think about the endorsement battle and our conservative activists, I think opponents on the Republican side can just as easily go in and pick apart an omnibus bill to suggest you’re not conservative enough. 

MP: Are you suggesting you are not a right-wing arch-conservative?

JJ: I would call myself a mainstream conservative Republican, but that probably means different things to different people. I am fiscally conservative first. That’s the set of areas that are very important to me. And then, education issues are very important. I think we need to be much more innovative when it comes to public education in Minnesota. I’m also a social conservative. I’ve never run because of those issues, and frankly I’ve never been elected because of those issues. I think my constituents have always elected and re-elected me because of my leadership on the fiscal side of things.

MP: What would be your approach to balancing the state budget?

JJ: My approach would be not to raise taxes. I can say that right off the top. And part of that comes from my experience on the county board. I will be very open to tax increases when I am convinced that government is already spending every penny we have efficiently and effectively and responsibly, and I think we are far from that right now.

We would start with the assumption that we don’t need more revenue and go from there.

MP: In what areas could wiser spending choices be made?

JJ: Certainly, the human services area.  [A recent study] compared Minnesota to similar states in size, population and budget.  We tracked with a lot of those states where we spent in certain areas, including education. But the one biggest outlier was still our human services area. I think the biggest problem is that at the state level, it’s real work to reform and in some cases to cut some of those programs so that we’re a little more in line with the states that surround us.  

MP: How would you modify the new health care exchange?

JJ: I’ve always supported the concept of an actual marketplace exchange but unfortunately this exchange never even had a chance of being market-based because there’s so much federal and state control over it. I’d have to say I’m not a fan of it. However, it passed. I would be aggressive in making it less expensive and, more importantly, at least somewhat more market-based. 

MP: As a county commissioner, how do you view mandates that are passed on from the state level?

JJ: Every mandate is not evil but there are certainly many that are unnecessary.  A great example, one of the very first bills I carried as freshman legislator, I found eight or 10 mandates that the state passed down to school districts. I tried to eliminate them because that was an issue I heard from teachers and parents and administrators. I can tell you that was one of the most difficult bills I every carried because every mandate was in there based upon some interest group getting it there in the first place. That would be the thing that I would focus on as governor – more local control, fewer state mandates.

MP: How would you improve education outcomes in lower-achieving schools?

JJ: One of my priorities is to tackle the achievement gap head on because I just think it is shameful that we are the worst or one of the two or three worst in the country and we have been for a few decades now. It really comes down to more empowerment of parents, more choice for parents. 

I would really encourage charter schools. In general, they are success stories for students.

I would get administrators and teachers involved in my administration who have proven they can succeed in some those tough circumstances. Harvest Prep is a great example of that. They have taken kids who have fallen into a demographic that says they are probably not going to succeed and they get them to succeed. I think we need to bring them in and learn from them.

[Another possibility is] the “parent trigger” enacted in three or four states that says that if your kid is in a school that is failing, then you as a parent have the opportunity to force change. It really gives power to the parents. I love that idea. We have to wait a couple of years to see if it actually makes a difference.

MP: Would you support raising the minimum wage?

JJ: I would not. I wouldn’t because I think the main consequence of that is that young people and the least experienced people who are looking for jobs are just going to have fewer options. 

When we require them to pay more, generally business owners will either cut costs or raise prices to make up the difference, and cutting costs almost always means laying off employees or cutting hours or not hiring anyone. That’s a form of mandate.

MP: What can state government do in increase employment?

JJ: This one is not rocket science. The more government taxes and the more government controls and the more government regulates, the weaker our business climate becomes. 

A couple of things that I would focus on is to reduce the regulatory burden in Minnesota. I have heard from so many business owners that the permitting process in this state is very onerous because there are often layers of duplication. 

I think taxes are extremely important. We need to have a competitive tax structure in Minnesota. I think that means more than just saying, we need lower taxes. I think we have to look at reform of the whole system.

MP: What would you propose in tax reform?

JJ: A couple of things that [Governor Dayton] proposed I think actually make sense. I do believe that we need to broaden the sales tax base and lower the sales tax rate. Exactly where you expand it to is difficult and it’s a politically ugly question. I give him credit for proposing that because I think that concept is correct. His problem is that he broadened it and then he lowered it just a little bit rather than making it revenue neutral. It became a way to raise more money. And then, of course, the business-to-business piece was disastrous. That was something he should have dropped.

I think we should be looking at the corporate tax rate so that at least it is competitive with the states that surround us.

MP: Would you support increased background checks for gun control?

JJ: I would not. What I would have supported is the compromise bill that Representative Deb Hilstrom came up with. Generally, it strengthened penalties for existing gun laws and it dealt with “straw” purchasers. It cracked down on that. It improved data sharing, so background check databases had more current and accurate information.

We could have done something that was positive with respect to guns and gun violence. My concern is that gun-control advocates, they really focus on restricting the rights of law-abiding gun owners rather than improving the laws we already have. 

MP: Would you support the legislative proposal to legalize medical marijuana?

JJ: You stumped me. I don’t know.     

MP: Do you support gay marriage or civil unions?

JJ: Here’s where I am. I support traditional marriage and I think it should be the law in Minnesota, so I do not support gay marriage. But I also believe that any couple should be allowed to enter into contractual unions that allow for certain rights like hospital visitation or inheritance rights or end-of-life decisions, things like that.

Regardless of what issues like this are before me as governor, I’m not going to be focusing on it. I just believe the governor should be focused on issues of the budget and education because that’s what most of the people of Minnesota want us to work on.

MP: Would you support further restrictions in Minnesota’s abortion laws?

JJ: I am pro-life so I would likely sign pro-life legislation if it came before me but I would not expend any political capital on the issue or be proposing any changes at all.

MP: How would you improve transportation in the state?

JJ: I think we have to focus on the infrastructure we have and make sure that what we already have is in good repair and safe because that’s not even the case in some places. And I don’t think we should be proposing – an example would be hundreds of millions for a train from Minneapolis to Duluth that not a lot of people will ride and then claim that we can’t maintain the highways we already have.

Every decision that I would make on transportation, I would measure every transportation request, at least in the metro, on whether it would relieve congestion.  

I will have a significant bias when it comes to roads because 98, 99 percent of Minnesotans use the roads, a very small percentage use public transit.  So in prioritizing, think we have to have our greatest focus on roads and bridges.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be open to other modes of transportation because especially in the metro area, we simply have to. I believe one of the most cost-effective forms of mass transit is our bus system. 

MP: Would you support a gas tax increase?

JJ: I would be ready to think about a gas tax increase or frankly any tax increase when I am convinced that state government is spending every penny wisely. I think we are just so far from that right now. Certainly right now I would not be supportive of a gas tax increase. 

MP: What have you learned as a legislator and county commissioner that you think would serve you well as governor?

JJ: I’ve learned that you can have a good idea to change something and get it done if you are willing to work really hard at it and sit down with people who don’t agree with you on anything else and figure out how you can get that one thing done.

I have learned that government is not very careful with our money and I see that more up close in local government. It’s been closer to me on the Hennepin County Board than it was in the Legislature.

One thing I really learned on the Hennepin County Board is that public employees often have the best ideas of how to reform government and that they are, many times, afraid to say anything because they might get in trouble or eliminate one of their friend’s jobs. [So] we created a way for public employees to suggest or create cost-saving reform measures anonymously and we actually got a lot of good ideas from that.

The Minnesota Jobs Coalition is tweaking Mark Dayton’s campaign operation for use of the state plane on political trips.

The independent expenditure group has filed a complaint with the state Campaign Finance and Disclosure Board alleging that Dayton’s use of a state plane for political purposes was improperly reported. 

The Dayton campaign has acknowledged that trips to Bemidji and International Falls last October were part of a campaign swing for DFL legislative candidates. The campaign has paid the state $2,800 for use of the plane.

But, according to the complaint the Dayton campaign failed to report the expense in its year-end report.  The plane use was reported on a voluntary report in early January of this year.

“This complaint is frivolous and a cheap attempt to gain publicity,” said Dayton’s campaign director, Julie Hottinger. “The governor has been scrupulously honest in his use of state resources, and even GOP leaders have commented on his honesty in these matters.”

 “The bottom line is that campaign finance laws require that you book expenses when you get them,” said Kevin Magnuson, attorney for the Minnesota Jobs Coalition.

Ben Golnik, the executive director of the Jobs Coalition who served as executive director of the Republican Party of Minnesota in 2006, notes that Republicans have also been caught in the web of campaign finance reporting requirements.

Part of the investigation of the finances of the Minnesota Republican Party in 2010 centered on the party’s failure to report debt when it was incurred.

The complaint also alleges that Dayton used the state plane for two other trips that included campaign appearances and asks the Campaign Finance Board to determine if the Dayton campaign must repay the state for those trips as well.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Honour has fleshed out his campaign team with a group of GOP veteran operatives.

Pat Shortridge, former chair of the Minnesota Republican Party,  takes on what is effectively the role of campaign manager with the title of general consultant and lead strategist.

Valentina Weis, a veteran of congressional campaigns and the Romney presidential campaign, is deputy campaign manager. Shanna Woodbury, a top Republican fundraiser in Minnesota, is finance director.

Scott Howell & Co. will handle advertising, and Linda DiVall will provide polling. Both firms have worked nationwide for Republican candidates, including former President George W. Bush.

Digital-communication duties will be handled by Push Digital.

Brian Clark, a longtime friend of Honour and small-business owner, is the campaign chair.

Like the most popular kids in high school, Republican state Sens. Dave Senjem and Carla Nelson are getting lots of phone calls, emails and personal visits. They are among a handful of Republicans in the Senate who may vote "yes" on the gay-marriage bill that comes up for a floor vote later today.

It’s not coincidence that anti- and pro-gay marriage activists are targeting Senjem and Nelson. They both represent districts in Rochester where last fall's vote on the gay-marriage amendment split evenly. Like their constituents, they seem conflicted.

“I get swamped with lots and lots of calls and emails for and against, and they’re very nice about it,” Senjem said. “I suppose if you waffle a little bit, you become a target for robo calls. I can live with that.”

Senjem wouldn’t say which way he was leaning but indicated he was close to making a decision. Nelson said she had “a good idea. But I’m definitely going to listen to the debate.”

When the vote is taken, the eyes of two dozen lobbyists will be boring into them, along with GOP Sens. Karin Housley of Stillwater and Jeremy Miller of Winona. Housley has indicated she is undecided about her vote. Miller is seen as a possible "yes" vote because his district includes a college campus where students cast “no” votes on the marriage amendment last November.

Their votes won’t be necessary for the bill to pass. All but one of the 39 DFL senators is considered a "yes" vote, which would allow the bill to pass easily.  (LeRoy Stumpf, whose district is in the far northwestern part of the state, has said he will vote "no.")  Also, Republican Sen. Branden Petersen, who serves a district in Anoka County, has said he will vote "yes."

But gay-marriage proponents want passage to be bipartisan. They believe the amendment offered in the House by Republican Rep. David FitzSimmons, which states that only same-sex civil marriages, not same-sex religious marriages, must be allowed under state law, will allow Senate Republicans to follow the lead of four House Republicans and vote "yes."

That argument has not persuaded Senjem. The FitzSimmons amendment, he said, “was trying to soften the language and find a middle ground to gain some acceptance. I think it’s semantics. I don’t think it changes the tone or temper of the argument.”

Furthermore, Senjem and Nelson object to the timing of the vote. “This, in my mind, is coming at a horrible time in the session,” Senjem said. “We are right in the cross hairs of trying to get a budget together and get this session wrapped up.”

Nelson agreed: “It’s a very important topic, but we don’t even have our budget yet. I do wish we had focused on the budget first.”

But gay-marriage supporters and opponents have little control over the timing of the vote and follow the direction of the leadership. In the case of the House vote, the timing did supply supporters another argument to offer to undecided senators — namely that in some Republican districts, a "yes" vote may improve their standing in their districts. 

They point to Andrea Kieffer from Woodbury and Jennifer Loon from Eden Prairie, two Republican representatives who voted for the measure in the House. They represent districts that are solidly Republican and voted solidly against the marriage amendment. New independent voters would offset any votes they could lose because of their gay-marriage position. FitzSimmons’ Albertville district has a libertarian tilt that fits with his "yes" vote.

But this is legislation that even the most practiced lobbyists acknowledge will not pass because of tactical arguments. This is legislation, they say, that lawmakers are really thinking through.

Even the weekly newsletter from the state Republican Party, in stating its opposition to the gay-marriage bill, struck a pensive note: “Republican Legislators will need to be vigilant, and not because sincere gay couples will receive marriage licenses, but because the underlying principles of the legislation are profound and the implications are yet to play out,” wrote party Chair Keith Downey.

“There will be great respect for people who support the bill and for people who do not support it,” said Nelson. “I don’t promise my vote because that’s not what we’re sent here to do.”

Senjem said: “It’s not about love. It’s about what’s right going forward in our society, whether or not this advances our society the way we would want it to advance."

With passage of gay-marriage guaranteed, the vote for many Republicans becomes nothing less than a vote that defines their placement in Minnesota history. And within the context of historical change, the vote they will make will come from their heart as much as their mind.

Lawyers for Michael Brodkorb and the Minnesota Senate will finally have a pre-trial conference meeting prior to the formal start of Brodkorb’s wrongful termination case against the Senate. Judge Arthur Boylan has ordered a pre-trial conference in his chambers Friday morning. 

The conference, usually a routine procedure and often conducted by phone, was originally scheduled for May 2, with the judge’s stipulation that the parties appear in person. It appeared that the legislative session presented a timing conflict, resulting in the re-scheduling.

A spokesman for Senate majority leader Tom Bakk says Bakk will not attend the Friday conference.

The court’s earlier requirement that “all counsel and party representatives can be present in-person for said conference” indicated to some legal observers that the hearing was not routine and is, in fact, the court’s nudge to the Senate and Brodkorb to settle the case before an expensive and time-consuming trial.

Court documents show that Brodkorb, who was paid $90,000 a year as communications director for the Senate Republican caucus, is claiming $600,000 in damages. The Minnesota Senate has incurred almost $200,000 in legal fees defending itself against the wrongful termination charge.   

Brodkorb was fired in December 2011 after his relationship with former Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch became known. He has said that to prove a case of gender discrimination, he will name other staff members of the Legislature who had similar relationships with their bosses but who were not dismissed.  

The FBI is investigating complaints of alleged campaign finance violations in Rep. Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign.

The FBI joins the Office of Congressional Ethics, the Federal Elections Commission and an Iowa state Senate ethics committee in probing whether Bachmann's presidential campaign paid an Iowa state senator from her MichelePAC, a fund that should not have been used for campaign expenses, and whether the state senator stole the email list of an Iowa home-school group from another Bachmann staffer, Barbara Hekki, prior to the Iowa caucuses in January, 2012.

Andy Parrish, former Bachmann chief of staff and one of the directors of Bachmann's Iowa GOP presidential campaign, will be interviewed by the FBI, according to his attorney, John Gilmore.

"I can confirm that Andy Parrish has been contacted by the FBI for a scheduled interview next week," Gilmore said.  "He will cooperate fully."

Parrish has filed an affidavit with the Iowa ethics committee stating that state Sen. Kent Sorenson was paid for his work on the Bachmann presidential campaign through a fundraising firm that had ties to MichelePAC.

The entry of the FBI into the investigation raises the possibility that there were potential criminal violations.  In addition to the alleged theft of the home-school list, the FBI is said to be looking into the campaign's demand that certain former employees, whose pay was withheld at the end of the campaign, sign non-disclosure agreements before receiving their compensation.

As the investigation widens into alleged campaign-finance violations in Rep. Michele Bachmann’s 2011 campaign for the Republican nomination for president, no one seems more surprised or concerned than the man who started the investigative ball rolling. 

“How did the darling of the Tea Party, a former federal prosecutor for the IRS, a sitting member of Congress, an individual who is rare and few, one of the rare who is selected to sit on the House Intelligence Committee, how did this particular person get in a situation where hundreds if not thousands of newspapers have now reported on the Michele Bachmann campaign?” wondered Peter Waldron, an organizer of faith-based coalitions for the Bachmann’s Iowa campaign in 2011.

Waldron filed two ethics complaints involving Bachmann's presidential campaign in 2012. The first alleged that the campaign’s Iowa chair, state Sen. Kent Sorenson, and campaign political director, Guy Short, were illegally paid from Bachmann’s political action committee, MichelePAC.  The second complaint alleged that Sorenson stole a list of names of home-school parents from the computer of another campaign aide, Barbara Heki.

The FBI has now joined the Federal Elections Commission, the Office of Congressional Ethics and the Iowa Senate Ethics committee in investigating whether Bachmann’s presidential campaign broke any laws or violated any elections guidelines.

In a telephone interview with MinnPost from the home of one of his children in the state of Wyoming, Waldron made it clear that while he still respects Bachmann, he considers the actions of her former campaign advisers borderline immoral.

“I have nothing against Mrs. Bachmann,” he said. “I do take strong exception to her senior advisers who put her through what they put her through.”

Waldron, a former radio minister, has led an exceptional life: He was arrested in Uganda on weapons charges; he was a contractor in Beirut; and he ran a charitable youth group in Tampa, Fla. From there, he entered politics. “I’ve worked on a number of presidential, Senate and congressional campaigns as a value-voter organizer,” he said.

Waldron said to understand why he decided to expose Bachmann campaign secrets, “It’s important to understand that I am a Christian.”  

Before he filed formal complaints, Waldron said, he informed his superiors more than once of the transgressions he alleges. He said he spoke to Bachmann and her husband, Marcus, on three occasions about his concerns. Ultimately, he said, their lack of action left him no choice.

“These are the issues that must be resolved,” he said. “The theft of the mailing list must be resolved, the cover-up of the mailing list must be resolved, the payments to Guy Short must be resolved, the under-the table-payments to chairman Kent Sorenson had to be resolved.”

Waldron’s version of events that started in August, 2011, after Bachmann won Iowa's presidential straw poll depicts the campaign as deliberately engaging in a cover-up of the alleged theft of the home-school list. He describes his own efforts to correct these problems before they became bigger issues. And he reveals the missteps of a campaign that squandered a straw poll victory and left the candidate – in his words – “physically, emotionally, mentally psychologically depleted.” 

To understand what happened, it’s helpful to understand the structure of Bachmann’s Iowa presidential campaign. Prior to the Iowa straw poll in August 2011, GOP super-consultant Ed Rollins served as Bachmann's overall campaign manager. Waldron was one a dozen paid campaign workers. Bachmann replaced Rollins in September, 2011. Campaign manager Keith Nahigian, state campaign director Sorenson, political director Short and debate coach Brett O’Donnell formed Bachmann's new inner circle.

Waldron said he decided to give his first wide-ranging interview on the subject because “I thought it might be of value to understand not only who Peter Waldron is but, more importantly, how this process began.”  Here are excerpts from his interview with MinnPost and a timeline of events: 

Early 2011

Waldron: I went to work with Michele at the invitation of a long-time friend with whom I have worked on several presidential campaigns who thought I brought a certain skill set to the table. I would reach out and talk with pastors and evangelicals and pro-life and born-again Catholics, and that has been my job description since 1980 with the Reagan-Bush campaign. 

I think with Michele in particular, I really enjoyed it. I identified with her politics, I identified with her policies, I identified with her statements. I thought she was hitting all the pistons, hitting all the cylinders.   

We saw that at the straw poll in Ames, August 13, 2011, that she won the straw poll. She was figuratively carried on the shoulders of like-minded people not only in Iowa but across the country, specifically in South Carolina, which is a primary state. We saw a critical mass forming in Florida. We saw momentum in New Hampshire.

September, 2011

Waldron: After the straw poll, there were changes in the campaign. Ed Rollins left; his chief deputy, he left. For about 30 days, from the end of the straw poll to the middle of September, we saw no leadership. You can’t take 30 days away from any momentum that the straw poll may have generated. 

REUTERS/Euan DenholmPeter Waldron in a photo from 2006

Finally, on or about September 15, Keith Nahigian, who was an advance man, he was named overall presidential campaign manager. Assisting him was the speech coach, a gentleman named Brett O’Donnell.   

We saw changes immediately after Mr. Nahigian took charge. It became more difficult as a faith-based organizer. We recruited about 100, 150 endorsements from pastors and other faith-based leaders to support Representative Bachmann.

However, in that process I began to receive more complaints from pastors in Iowa that the advance team was rude, discourteous, tried to impose their will on the church, tried to change liturgy. I went from recruiting pastors to apologizing to pastors. 

MinnPost: Did you try to explain this to Michele Bachmann?

Waldron:I explained it to my senior advisers. I’m an old army guy. I go through the chain of command. I go to my supervisor. I go to my supervisor’s supervisor. I went to the campaign manager. I put it in writing.   

Lest you should think this is an isolated concern, the entire New Hampshire staff resigned in one day and issued a public letter talking about the rudeness of the campaign. It’s unprecedented. I’ve never seen anything like this. An entire staff walked off the job, then issued a blistering letter.

Mid-November, 2011

Waldron: I learned that a home-schooling list was removed from a private laptop of a staff member, Barb Heki. We agreed that something had to be done. We alleged that our campaign chairman in Iowa [Kent Sorenson] had taken the list.   

That’s where the story begins. The Iowa campaign manager [Eric Woolson] and I, we alleged with strong conviction that a mailing list had been taken from Mrs. Heki. We also knew that this person who took the list would not go to Mrs. Heki and apologize or explain what had happened. 

I sat there for probably two weeks and watched Mrs. Heki deteriorate emotionally. The list was a private list that a private home-school association had allowed Mrs. Heki, who was a board member, to use. We all knew in the office that that list was off limits – it was no trespassing. She would not use that list to benefit the Bachmann for president campaign.

December, 2011

Waldron: On December 18, I drove to Fort Dodge, Iowa, and met privately with Mr. and Mrs. Bachmann in their hotel room and I shared with them what I knew was a fact – that a list had been stolen. I shared with them that I was uncomfortable with some of the under-the-table payments that I alleged were going on. I told them about the rudeness and mistreatment and that the senior staff was causing more problems leading up to the caucus than they were solving problems.

At that meeting, she and her husband tasked me with locating a new campaign adviser, new campaign manager and a new speech coach. I left that meeting in Fort Dodge somewhat encouraged that we were looking for solutions.

What I had hoped is that the representative would have suspended the alleged party until there was a formal investigation, but that didn’t happen.

For all [Mrs. Heki] knew in December was that she must have made a mistake, that she must have inadvertently sent out the list. She blamed herself. It was torture watching her blame herself. It was torture watching her, knowing that she had nothing to do with it and that she was truly a victim.

MinnPost: Did the Bachmanns believe your statements?

Waldron:I believe that Mr. and Mrs. Bachmann did believe what I said. They understood the dynamic. Remember, though, I am only one voice. She took what I said back to Keith Nahigian, Guy Short and Brett O’Donnell. Somehow in their wisdom they convinced her otherwise.

Jan. 3, 2012

After the Iowa caucus, Bachmann suspends her presidential campaign.

Waldron: It was whittling away on Mrs. Bachmann’s strength, her stamina, her emotional physical health. It was really taking a toll on her. She was exhausted. It came to light that the campaign was not, as the Bachmanns understood, a quarter of a million dollars in debt. It was in fact over a million dollars in debt.  That was a staggering blow.   

Obviously, Mrs. Bachmann did not do well in the caucus. She went from being first, first female to win the straw poll.  We lose 30 days. New leadership is brought in. Complications began to rise from the grass roots among pastors and churches and pro-life leaders. The New Hampshire staff walks off the job. We have a theft in the office. So everyone returns to their respective homes.

January- February, 2012

Waldron: Then it was a matter of: Are we going to get paid? The initial reaction is that we can’t pay you now because Michele is running for re-election and we just don’t have the money to pay the staff of the presidential campaign.

July, 2012

Waldron: On July 31, Mrs. Heki surprises everybody and she files a lawsuit against the campaign. [Bachmann’s] legal team, their response was to file a motion to dismiss, this has nothing to do with Bachmann for president campaign, when in fact it all had to do with the Bachmann for president campaign. 

MinnPost:But Bachmann, you say, knew the truth. Why did she allow her lawyers to claim otherwise?

Waldron: Common sense is what you just said. A reasonable person would say -- you have an attorney, not just an attorney, she was a federal prosecutor. She put a lot of people behind bars. She knows the law. Does it smell right to you?

MinnPost:Do you think that health issues or stress clouded her decisions?

Waldron: What I can say, and I can testify, under oath I would testify, that on January 1st, the woman was physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically depleted.  She had reached the end of her human capacity. There was nothing left in her. The January 3rd caucus saved her life. It brought an end to the running into the ground strategy deployed by three inexperienced campaign advisers. They ran her into the ground.

I will testify under oath, if given opportunity and if it were necessary, that the January 3caucus of 2012 saved Michele Bachmann’s life. Has she recovered? I do not know. I do not know if her lack of television appearances up until now is because she still is recovering or is it because of all the investigations. 

January, 2013

Four campaign staffers were still not paid in full and were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements before they receive the balance of what was owed to them.

Waldron: Every one of us who has worked on a campaign at one time will sign a non-disclosure agreement. But you don’t ask someone to sign a non-disclosure agreement after you have been interviewed by the police a dozen times. You don’t ask the person to sign a non-disclosure agreement after you have agreed to a deposition with the plaintiff in a lawsuit. This was nuts to me. 

[The non-disclosure] required that I tell the Bachmann attorneys everything that I tell the lawyers in the lawsuit.  They tried to circumvent the process. "If you’re going to get paid …  you’ve got to tell us everything you told your attorney and you told the detective."

Can you imagine? Can you imagine? For me, I took great offense. I had played the game. I had submitted myself. I had gone up the chain of command. I had gone to Michele and Marcus privately. I went to their campaign manager privately. I respected the chain of command. I was willing to go along until I woke up and realized that Mr. Heki and Mrs. Heki are very modest people. They have a modest life, modest income. They’re the salt of the earth. And I saw and observed these professionals come out of Washington like mercenaries. They swoop in. 

They live the high life; they stay in the better hotels. And here’s Mrs. Heki. Mrs. Bachmann probably makes as much in two months as the Hekis make in an entire year. 

To ask us to sign this non-disclosure agreement as a condition of being paid, I can’t do it in good conscience.

In January, 2013, Waldron filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission and the Iowa Senate ethics committee. Last month, Andy Parrish, a senior adviser to the Bachmann presidential campaign, submitted an affidavit to the Iowa committee, saying that Bachmann “knew and approved” of payments to Sorenson from a non-campaign fund.

Bachmann’s attorney has denied any wrongdoing on the part of her presidential campaign. The Bachmann campaign has begun a settlement discussion in the lawsuit filed by Heki. The Office of Congressional Ethics is expected to make its findings next month.

Waldron: None of this, at the end of the day, is the assassination of JFK.  This only required that one or two people humble themselves and apologize. But we’ve gone from where we began. I’m a Christian who adheres to the Ninth Commandment: Thou shall not bear false witness.

“I have great respect for Ben Golnik. He’s one of the top operatives of the Republican Party,” said the party chair – the DFL party chair, Ken Martin.

Martin’s respect has grown along with Golnik’s rapid-response, campaign-style operation, and independent-expenditure group called the Minnesota Jobs Coalition.

Since the start of this year's legislative session that concluded Monday, Golnik and the group’s one paid staffer, Tom Erickson, have sent out dozens of news releases criticizing DFL Gov. Mark Dayton's budget, filed a campaign-finance complaint for his use of a state airplane, played a role in the St Cloud special election with a radio ad and -- for a day -- controlled the political message of the moment with a tracking video of Dayton snapping at participants at a town hall meeting in Shakopee.

Golnik says he wants the group to not only lead on Republican response to the 2013 legislative session, he wants to set the stage for a 2014 Republican election strategy. His chief inspiration for the Minnesota Jobs Coalition is the DFL’s Alliance for A Better Minnesota (ABM).

Controlling the message

He praises Martin for taking control of the DFL’s message and money machinery and hopes the GOP will be as well coordinated in 2014. “Now the challenge is to stick together,” he said.

Martin said: “One of things on the progressive side of the ledger -- we only have one organization. We are not splintering off.”   

The proof of that came seemingly within seconds of the conclusion of the 2013 legislative session. ABM released a video praising DFL legislators for their budget decisions and clubbing Republicans with a reminder of budget cuts, a proposed constitutional amendment on gay marriage and a government shutdown that dominated legislative attention when Republicans controlled the House and Senate.

It’s true that the Minnesota Republican Party is “not some targeted, rapid-response political response team,” said party Chair Keith Downey. “But I am more convinced than ever that we are on the side of everyday Minnesotans. As compared to some political position, we have a bunch of evidence and it’s not that hard to present because people are going to see it and feel it directly.”

MinnPost photo by Brian HallidayBen Golnik

Downey said the party’s response to the session is to do a “deep dive” into budget documents. The thousands of pages will take time to analyze, but the party took an initial swipe in a newsletter, claiming to bust budget “myths.”  

“There is no reduction in the statewide property tax,” declares one of the newsletter's bullet points. The newsletter also disputes the claim the budget did not use accounting gimmicks and asserts that the DFL made up for a decade of budget cuts: “Our current 2012-13 budget is $35 billion, a 10 year increase of $8 billion or 30 percent!”

Meanwhile, the Minnesota Business Partnership and the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, through their independent expenditure group, United for Jobs, makes the argument that the budget will hurt small employers. And another pro-business group, Americans for Prosperty-Minnesota, maintains that the one-party ruled that produces higher taxes and spending imperils "economic freedom."

And that, according to Martin, is too many messengers on behalf of the GOP. The DFL, he said, is not “trying to figure out which message works and which doesn’t. We are unified on that front.”

Room for many groups

Golnik contends that “there’s space for an infinite number of groups,” but that for Republicans to win back the House and the governor’s office, “we need a year-round campaign-type operation.”

The Minnesota Jobs Coalition is “agile, nimble and quick,” Golnik says. He takes particular pride in the quick response to video of Dayton's town hall meeting. “The Dayton town meeting was at 7 p.m.," he said. "The next morning the clip was sent to reporters; in 24 hours, the video had 10,000 hits on YouTube.”

The aggressive, no-holds-barred style is reflected in Golnik’s political resume, which includes a stint as executive director for the state Republican Party, work with the Republican caucus in 2010 when the GOP took control of the Minnesota Senate and two losing congressional campaigns in 2012.

 “I joke with people about anybody who does campaigns,” Golnik said. “It’s long hours, little pay, no job security. And Minnesota is a hard state for Republicans.”

That’s why the MN Jobs Coalition will not focus exclusively on campaign tactics, Golnik said. “We want to do some smart stuff with research. Why did we lose those swing voters?”

Democrats, he said, have created a data machine. “We want to do the same thing – data analysis, voter analysis," he said. "The research piece is huge.”

And Golnik promises that research will be shared, campaign efforts will be legally coordinated and that a year from now, Republicans will be as well organized as the   DFL machine they want to defeat.

Of the names that have surfaced to run as a Republican to replace Rep. Michele Bachmann, none is better known that Mary Kiffmeyer.

The state senator from Big Lake, former state representative and two-term secretary of state said the possibility is “definitely there.  There’s no decision, yes or no.”

Bachmann’s decision to not run again, announced in a video to her supporters early this morning, came as a surprise to Kiffmeyer.  “It was quite a surprise,” she said.  “I was anticipating her running again and winning again.”

Kiffmeyer characterized Bachmann’s announcement as “thoughtful. I’m just glad she made a decision in time for there to be an opportunity for a good replacement.”

There’s no shortage of elected Republicans in the sixth congressional district.  In addition to Kiffmeyer, the legislative delegation includes state representatives Kurt Daudt , Matt Dean and Jim Abeler, and state Sens. Michelle Fischbach and Michelle Benson.

Of that group, Kiffmeyer has the most extensive political background, which will provide ammunition for Republican and Democratic opposition. She was a strong champion of the defeated proposal to make voter identification part of the Minnesota constitution.  She described former legislator and Iraq war hero John Kreisel as having “no courage” when he decided not to run for re-election, suggesting his decision was linked to his vote to support a new Vikings stadium.  She is unafraid of invoking faith and religion in her discussion of political issues.

But her positions marry well in the strongly conservative sixth district.    “Name I.D. and so forth make a difference, but is that enough?” she said.  “It’s a great district for so many of us on the Republican side.  I recognize that I bring some things to that.”  

One factor in any decision, Kiffmeyer said, is that she enjoys being a state senator and “a candidate has to want to run.”  Still, she said, the possibility was on the table and that, after another cup of coffee, she would be talking about it with her husband.

Phil Krinkie

There’s another "maybe" from the list of possible Republican contenders to fill the 6th District congressional seat following Michele Bachmann’s announcement she will not seek re-election.  Phil Krinkie, former state representative, president of the Minnesota Taxpayers League and owner of a heating and air conditioning business, says he is considering a run.

“It’s going to take time. I want to sit down and talk with my wife,” he said from his office at The Snelling Company. “And I have a 17-year -old daughter who will be going off to college in a year. I have to take that into consideration.”

Krinkie is well aware of what he calls the “nitty-gritty” of politics.  He served 16 years in the Legislature representing the Lino Lakes area.  In 2006, he competed for the GOP endorsement for the 6th District congressional seat, losing to Bachmann.

“I suspect it will be a crowded field with at least four or five other people who will jump into this race because, number one, it’s a significantly Republican-leaning district,” he said.

Krinkie does not underestimate Jim Graves, the Democrat who ran and almost beat Bachmann in 2012 and is running in 2014.  Graves poses a “significant” challenge, he said. “Never assume you are an odds-on favorite even with the Republican endorsement,” he said.

Krinkie didn’t specify a timeline for making a decision.  “Even the last time, we didn’t gear up until 15, 16 months out,” he said.  “There’s still some time here."

State Rep. Matt Dean of Dellwood said today he is giving strong consideration to running for the Republican endorsement for the 6th Congressional District, a seat that Michele Bachmann said she will vacate at the end of her term in 2014.

Dean, the former Republican majority leader, worked with Bachmann on her congressional races and worked with Republican legislative candidates on their races in the 6th district.

“I’m very familiar with the people in the district,” Dean said. “Obviously we want to keep this district in the category for our party. I also want to make sure we are leading the state forward in a fast-growing area.”

Dean, like other candidate possibilities, said he needs to consult with his family before making a final decision. State Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer and Taxpayers League President Phil Krinkie also have said they are considering entering the race.

Dean, 47, was first elected state representative in 2004.

"I will be looking at it very closely and should know in a very short time," he said.

Conservative women muscled a meeting with former U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe on Monday.

Snowe, a Republican who represented Maine, was in Minneapolis for a $500-a-plate luncheon fundraiser for Women Winning, a nonpartisan group that promotes pro-choice women candidates.

Jennifer DeJournett — the president of Voices of Conservative Women, a group that promotes women candidates solely on their stand on economic issues — said she felt she couldn’t attend the Women Winning event.

But, as a huge fan of Snowe, she managed to snag a half-hour of Snowe’s time after the luncheon.

“We talked about what appeals to women and what women of the center-right need to do to appeal to women,” she said.

Republican state Sen. Karin Housley and Republican state Rep. Jennifer Loon joined her.

De Journett made a point of noting that Loon had voted yes on gay marriage, Housley had voted no: “See, no discrimination on social issues.”

DeJournett said that Snowe observed how politics in the last decade has centered more on personality and less on policy. “We all agreed that has hardened the dialogue,” DeJournett said.

Would Voices of Conservative Women want Snowe, a promoter of abortion rights, to headline a fundraiser for them?

“We didn’t have time to talk about it,” DeJournett said, “but we would love to have her.”

Perhaps the biggest challenge that Tom Emmer will face as a Republican candidate for Congress in the 6th District is running a campaign that will meet the high expectations he already faces.

Even with no other announced candidates, Emmer enters as the front-runner in the contest for the Republican endorsement to succeed four-term Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who said she would not seek re-election in 2014.

“I’m running for Congress to change the culture in Washington and restore Americans’ trust in our government,” Emmer told a group of about 100 supporters gathered Wednesday in his hometown of Delano, a Wright County community in the conservative heart of the 6th District. “Let’s get excessive regulation and taxes out of the way.”

He likely will face competition for the Republican endorsement, which he said he would respect.

State Sen. John Pederson of St. Cloud said he intends to file as a candidate by the end of the month. Former legislator Phil Krinkie, a 16-year legislator who now is president of the Taxpayers Leauge of Minnesota, and state Rep. Matt Dean have said they’re considering entering the contest.

However, Emmer, a former three-term state representative and the GOP nominee who lost to Gov. Mark Dayton in 2010, already has a base to build on.

“From the minute Bachmann got out, Emmer was in very strong position,” said political consultant Michael Brodkorb.

“He has a donor file, access to major fundraisers and the ability to pull together a team quickly," he said. "He lost a very close race for governor. It will make him a disciplined and hungry candidate who will assemble a team that will put him in a position to win.”

Emmer’s advantage as a seasoned campaigner is also his liability.

DFL Party Chair Ken Martin was quick to point that out in a statement: “In Emmer’s unsuccessful 2010 run for governor, he drained Republican Party resources and turned off the party’s major donor community. Many attribute his Ron Paul- and Sarah Palin-backed candidacy to sending Republican and independent votes Tom Horner’s way.”

The battle scars may have been worth it, according to Brodkorb.

“Tom did well in the 6th when he ran for governor,” he said. “This is an absolutely different kind of race, but Emmer comes in with an appreciation of knowing where he’s going to hit.”

At his announcement, Emmer did away with one likely controversy. He indicated he would be leaving his job as a host on talk-radio station KTCN. “I think it’s better that I do this full time, sooner. If you’re offering to do a job it seems to me that you should devote your full time to the job,” he said.

And the job of running for Congress from the 6th district will be a marathon, not a sprint.

With businessman Jim Graves'recent decision not to run again for the seat, there is no declared DFL candidate at this point. However, there has been an explosion of statements and announcements from other likely and potential Republican candidates.

With the election nearly 18 months away, the race has barely begun.