On Tuesday May 15, 2012, 164 delegates and alternates gathered at the Chaska High School for the purpose of endorsing candidates for the State Legislative seats in Senate District 47. The convention was chaired by Chris Andryski from Dakota County.
In the Senate seat race there were three candidates: Incumbant Julianne Ortman and challengers Kevin Masrud and Bruce Schwichtenberg. When Kevin Masrud received no more than about 18% of the votes on the first ballot, he dropped out and passed his support on to Bruce Schwichtenberg. Four more ballots followed with Senator Ortman retaining a very small lead. The delegates seemed very entrenched and there was very little movement on any of the four ballots. After the fifth ballot, there was a motion of non-endorsment. The motion passed by a very close vote. It appears that the candidates will go on to the primary to see who will carry the banner for Senated District 47 Republicans in the State Senate race.
On the House side, HD47A Representative Ernie Leidiger was endorsed without a challenge. HD47B Representative Joe Hoppe was challenged by Gary Heyer but Representative Hoppe prevailed on the first ballot by a vote of 67% to 33%.
The whole process lasted about 4 1/2 hours. It was a great opportunity for activists and any interested parties to get some great insight into what Republican Voters in Carver County are interested in and concerned about.
Reported by Steve Nielsen, Chair
Reminder from the Chair: Our Senate District 47 Endorsing Convention will be held on Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at the Chaska High School. Registration opens at 5:30 pm and will close at 7:00 pm. No one will be allowed to register who is not in line by 7:00 pm. If you are a delegate or alternate elected at the February Caucus, please plan to attend. The agenda and rules are now available.
Steve Nielsen
Chair
The bill passed the Judiciary Committee and was moved to the Senate Rules Committee. Senator Ingebritsen was the only Republican on the committee who voted "no."
Senator Ortman was among the seven Republicans who voted for the bill. She stated that the voters of Minnesota "are perfectly capable of deciding the issue."
Star Tribune Article: HERE
Politics in Minnesota Article: HERE
Dear Friends,
Greetings from St. Paul! The State Capitol gets incredibly hectic just before the Minnesota Legislature adjourns each year. This year has been no exception. From authoring a comprehensive jobs and tax relief bill to the whole debate over public funding for a new Vikings Stadium, this year’s legislative session has been an incredibly busy one.
My highest priority this year has been to craft a jobs and tax relief bill that Governor Dayton would sign. Unfortunately the Governor decided to veto the bill that we sent him (House File 2337/Senate File 1972). This bill was crafted within the parameters that the Governor set in negotiations and the conferees responded to his concerns by reducing spending tails and eliminating renters credit reductions. Conferees also included a Dayton priority and $6 million for a tax credit for hiring veterans.
If you have the time, please come and visit the State Capitol. Minnesotans are blessed with one of the grandest State Capitol buildings in the nation. In the coming months, the great weather combined with students getting out of school for summer break, make for the perfect time to visit our Capitol. The door is always open here at the people’s building. I was elected to the Capitol to serve you.
If you have any questions or concerns, my staff and I are always ready and willing to assist you. Warm Regards,
Senator Julianne E. Ortman
VIKINGS STADIUM UPDATE…
The Minnesota Vikings are an asset to our State. They are an important part of our economy and our culture. On May 8, the Minnesota Senate voted 38-28 to approve building the Vikings a new stadium. However, I believe that the mechanism to fund the stadium (new e-pull-tab gambling in 1,500 – 2,500 more establishments across the state) is not a good way to pay for the state's $400 million proposed share. It is a tax increase on Minnesotans who will never use or benefit from the state's building a new stadium and an expansion of gambling.
User fees to fund the stadium would be a much more straightforward and fair approach (taxes on tickets, seat licenses, boxes & suites, parking, concessions, and naming rights), but the Vikings have refused. They’ve claimed all those revenues to fund their owner's share. They also have refused to pay for cost overruns (as the Twins did).
There are many legislators that believe they have negotiated the best deal possible. I am respectful of the efforts of my colleagues and have been respectful of their Majority in the Senate.
WHY are the Democrats SO afraid of election Integrity?
"Carver County Commissioner Randy Maluchnik made several assertions in his commentary of last week Re voter ID that were very much at odds with reality.
To suggest that Minnesota local governments do an excellent job administering fair and open elections is terribly misleading and off point. A few bad apples are all it takes to get the wrong Senator seated in Washington. The Wednesday morning after the 2008 election Al Franken was behind by 725 votes. That lead was shaved to just 210 votes by within a few days. How so?
The Minneapolis Director of Elections said 32 absentee ballots were found in an election worker’s car a day or two after the election, and all votes happened to go to Al Franken. Precincts in Two Harbors, Minnesota and Partridge Township, Minnesota sent Al Franken a net gain of another 350 votes, claiming miscounts, in the days immediately following the election. No additional votes went to Norm Coleman in these examples. Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie allowed 900 felons to vote but did not have the right to do so. Studies have demonstrated that felons vote heavily Democrat. And now Minnesotans must live with an abomination called Obamacare, and regulations that are killing jobs and the private sector as a whole, etc.
Mr. Maluchnik did not refer to the fact that voter ID will be free to those who need it, and Minnesota will offer a provisional ballot to those who wish to vote but are not properly registered. Provisional votes (votes counted after the election when a voter without proper credentials on Election Day has been verified as eligible) WILL be a part of any election law enacted in Minnesota, thus guaranteeing everyone the opportunity to vote who wants to do so.
He seems to think it’s a wonderful thing that Minnesota has high voter turnout. What is so good about elections with high turnout that have unverifiable results and thousands of voters that shouldn’t be voting?
WHY do verifiable election results scare Democrats? Why do Democrats cling to the honor system and chaos in Minnesota voting booths and shun election inegrity? Above all how can I possibly have confidence in Minnesota elections that get us elections such as Coleman/Franken 2008? I don’t!
Vince Beaudette
Victoria
On Friday evening and into the night, The Senate Tax Committee took up the Vikings stadium proposal (SF2391). After nearly six hours of testimony, discussion, debate and amendments, the bill was passed on to the full Senate with a vote of 7-6.
I voted "no", along with three other Republicans and two Democrats. There is a good article on what happened in the Tax Committee hearing on the Stadium Bill on the Pioneer Press website.
The Vikings have asked the people of Minnesota for extraordinary assistance, and I have always said that it is bad tax policy for the State to pick winners and losers in the marketplace. Let me be very clear: Before we even consider a vote on a Stadium to benefit one business enterprise, we must secure permanent tax relief for ALL Minnesota businesses and property tax payers.
As Deputy Majority Leader of the Senate and Chair of the Tax Committee, I have positioned Tax relief as a higher priority than a stadium. We passed the tax bill out of the Conference Committee on Saturday. This bill would provide permanent tax relief to Minnesotans estimated at $200 million dollars over the next three years. The Tax Bill will now go to the House and Senate Floors and then on to the Governor on Monday. Another good article appeared Saturday on the Star Tribune website: Vikings bill gets in line behind tax cuts.
As always, if you have questions or ideas, please contact me or my staff - we love hearing from you!
Senator Julianne Ortman
I have to respond to the letter from my County Commissioner Randy Maluchnik in regard to voter ID. There are several things wrong with his and other DFL’ers assertions regarding voter ID.
The first notion that requiring a voter to have proper identification to vote somehow disenfranchises voters is absurd. If someone feels it is their civic duty to vote, then that someone should be willing to go get an ID beforehand. I frankly find his statement that minorities might not have an ID to be mild racism. Why wouldn’t a minority have an ID? Does your race actually preclude you from attaining a valid ID in this state? And I’d also like to point out that you need an ID to purchase certain cold medicines. Why do we prevent the elderly, the poor, college students, and apparently minorities from receiving cold medicine from their local pharmacy? Where’s the outrage?
The second notion I hear from the left is that there is no voter fraud in Minnesota. A felon voting is one aspect. But another much larger issue is the number postal verification cards (PVC) that are returned with “no such address” and the like. People sign up to vote claiming to live at a place that doesn’t exist. Thousands of these PVC’s returned every year as phony addresses. These votes disenfranchise those of us who legally vote. And it should be noted that for the Franken vs. Coleman race, decided by less than 400 votes, these invalid voters may have made the difference. You cannot remove an invalid vote under current law. There’s no way to track it, and it is already part of the total count by the time the PVC might be returned.
The third notion that Maluchnik and other DFL’ers bring up is the cost to implement this new system. But I don’t recall their outrage when the law requiring identification to purchase cold medicine was implemented. There’s a state database that tracks who has purchased these medicines, and store owners everywhere had to incur costs to implement this as well as the cost to government. I guess we’re supposed to ignore that the only time the DFL considers government spending is when it affects votes they might receive from those who are voting illegally.
The final result will be a more accurate and accountable voting system, and while Minnesota enjoys a very high turnout rate, we owe it to ourselves to have a fair and accurate system. This measure is a step in the right direction, to end the fraud that occurs each and every year in our state. We have a huge majority in Minnesota who agree. There are so many things that we do that require an ID, including health care, purchases of medicines, alcohol, tobacco, travel, and others. Minnesotans overwhelmingly understand that requiring identification for this important civil task should be a requirement, and is at best a minor inconvenience for some to make sure they have their ID when they vote.
John Brunette
Chaska
To the editor: (of the Waconia paper, who did not reply or print)
I have to respond to the letter last week regarding the GOP finance situation at the state level. I recently watched a story on At Issue on KSTP, where they noted that both parties are actually in debt at the state level. Also in this story, Larry Jacobs from the Humphrey Institute made the ridiculous argument that this looks bad for the GOP, because of their stance on fiscal responsibility. This simplistic view of party platforms is also touted in last week’s letter to the editor from David Jeska.
I’d first like to note, as we all know or should know by now, that party platforms, and individual actions are two very different things. When individuals falter, this is not a reflection on the party, and some would like you to believe. If this were true, one could suggest that the Democrats are in favor of President’s dalliances with young naïve interns. As we seen many times throughout history, a leader is just as capable of falling short of party idealisms, as a junior member.
Mr. Jeska notes that if the GOP can’t run its house, it should not try to run his. The interesting part of this theory, is that the GOP is not trying to run other people homes. Our party is working to get the shackles of an ever expanding government off the backs of all of the citizenry, and to stop growing at unsustainable rates.
It should be noted that no party forces people to donate to support their platform. Both the DFL and the GOP rely on donations from people who agree with the tenets of a party, and both will be out of debt at some point in time in the near future, including any rent that is due. We can’t say that about our national government, and it is this spending that is a major concern for the GOP, and it’s about time it became a concern for the DFL as well.
Locally, by slowing spending growth in our state, we have a surplus, and even longer range projected deficits are smaller than they’ve been under DFL control. I’d say given what the GOP has delivered to us thus far at the state level, the Minnesota Houses are in better fiscal shape, and I’m extremely pleased that the tenet of fiscal responsibility is one of the highest priorities our party has on the platform.
If Jeska and Jacobs are truly concerned the GOP is failing in their leadership roles, perhaps they could join the GOP as a delegate someday, and help to guide us from any failings in the future. But realize that we have some pretty solid platform goals, and if you can’t live up to them, we’ll help you. Nobody’s perfect after all.
John Brunette
Chaska
Late Friday night, the Minnesota Senate passsed SF2738, the Voter ID Amendment, letting the voters decide the issue on the November ballot. If you remeber, the Legislature passed a similar measure in the 2011 session, but Governor Dayton vetoed it.
The five-hour debate was contentious, several amendments were offered by the DFL. Many were defeated on procedural grounds, and others were voted down by the Senate. When at last the measure came to a final vote, 36 Republicans voted "YES" (including our own Senator Ortman) and 29 DFL +1 GOP voted "NO."
In Senate Tax Committee Hearings this morning (March 22, 2012) Senator Ortman sparred with Management and Budget Commissioner Jim Schowalter. Schowalter complained that further budget cuts in State administrative offices would be hard to find.
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