The Name

The “MN” part is simple enough: This blog is dedicated to the status of politics in Minnesota. The “Publius” part seems to cause a little confusion.

First of all, it is pronounced “poob-lee-us” not “pub-lee-us” or the worst, “pube-lee-us.” The reference is to the three gentlemen above: (from left to right) John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton. These three historic Americans produced and published a collection of 85 essays from 1787-1788 in order to rally support for the newly drafted Constitution. The essays, collectively known as The Federalist Papers are considered some of the most eloquent essays on government in the history of the English language. The essays were published in papers across the colonies under the pseudonym “Publius” in honor of Publius Valerius Publicola who played a crucial role in establishing the Roman Republic.

This blog is dedicated to continuing intelligent political discourse in the same vein as our forefathers (although we do not pretend to be as intelligent or eloquent).

A Brief History

• MN Publius was founded by Matt Martin (me) in March of 2005 while attending Dartmouth College in NH.
• Zack Stephenson joined the blog in the summer of 2005.
• Zack and I continued work on the blog through our senior years of college (Zack at Knox, me at Dartmouth).
• Jon-David Schlough joined Publius in late May of 2006.
• Zack joined the Klobuchar campaign as a media monitor in late June of 2006 and, as such, stopped blogging.
• I joined the Center for Independent Media in July of 2006 with the understanding that I could continue to blog on MN Publius with zero influence from the center
• I requested that I be given a more peripheral role with the center after the election and now merely provide occasional commentary.
• Jon-David was hired by the Al Franken campaign as Director, Interactive/New Media in mid-February of 2007 and, as such, stopped blogging to keep MNPublius independent and objective in the ‘08 cycle.
• Zack came back to Publius in late February of 2007 while working for the House DFL with the understanding that he would not blog about anything related to the legislature while in that position.
• Sean Broom joined the blog in May of 2007
• Zack is currently attending the University of Virginia law school in the fall and Matt is attending the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

The Authors

(More on us coming soon) Matthew Martin is the founding editor of the blog, Zack Stephenson has been with us off and on since 2005, Jon-David Schlough joined in 2006 but is now on sabbatical, and we have one new person joining our ranks shortly