Former GOP state Rep. Ron Erhardt of Edina is exploring a run for his old House seat as a Democrat.
“I’m looking to run. I raised money earlier in the year,” said Erhardt today in a telephone interview with PIM…
…Erhardt said it appears his chances of winning are strongest by running as a Democrat.
“I’m exploring the possibility to run as a Democrat. If that doesn’t work I’ll run as an independent,” Erhardt said.
Sounds like Erhardt is pretty committed to running, he’s just trying to figure out which party label to run under. If he decides to run as a Democrat, however, he’ll have competition. 2008 DFL endorsed candidate Kevin Staunton is running again.
Looks like Edina is going to be a critical battleground once again in 2010.
There are two Holy Cow! moments to deal with today. The first being AFSCME’s amazing endorsement of Mark Dayton, which we’ll deal with shortly, and the amazing announcement that the local OFA organizer is planning to take on Phyllis Kahn. What makes it so amazing is that it comes in an article in the New York Times.
Mr. Griffin also has a more direct plan to keep the ball rolling. He is contemplating running for Minnesota’s Legislature — against a 19-term incumbent, Representative Phyllis Kahn. Ms. Kahn is not an obvious target for the progressives Mr. Griffin hopes to rally. A Yale-educated biophysicist, she rides a bike to work and has championed the environment and — of interest to college students — later closing hours for bars.
But to Mr. Griffin, she stands for the inertia that takes hold in local politics when incumbents are re-elected by a handful of voters and rarely face primaries. She represents the district that includes his campus and is home to thousands of students who campaigned for Mr. Obama or registered to vote in that election. So he believes he can challenge her in the Democratic primary, ride Mr. Obama’s coattails and take her by surprise….
…[H]e may face an uphill battle to get those students to turn out for a local primary. Mr. Griffin, who was asked to run by a classmate who is starting a career in political consulting, said he would pray hard and make a decision soon about whether to run.
I’ve got to think this was a neophyte candidate making a neophyte mistake, but that isn’t the place to announce ones intentions, particularly in Mike’s case.
I was formerly Representative Kahn’s campaign manager, so I’m a bit biased, but if there is going to be a challenge that knocks off Phyllis it will come out of a cohesive campaign engaging the University students. This has been attempted before, and didn’t work. While that was 10 years ago and plenty has changed one key peice will change as well, the DFL primary will be before school starts, making his road even harder.
As Matt noted yesterday, Speaker Kelliher has announced that she will not be seeking re-election to the Minnesota House, regardless of the fate of her gubernatorial campaign. Assuming Democrats are able to retain control of the House (and given the size of their majority, that is very likely), the DFL Caucus will have to elect a new leader late next year.
So who will it be?
Current House Majority Leader Tony Sertich is the obvious successor, but not everyone thinks he is a slam dunk for the job. In fact, when I spoke to House insiders earlier this summer, many thought Sertich would face a tough road to the Speaker’s chair. Some worried about his youth, others about geography (Sertich is an Iron Ranger in a caucus that has a lot of metro members) and still others worried about his positions on environmental issues. Sertich, however, has strengthened his position substantially since the early summer. Though it would still not be shocking for Sertich to be challenged from the left (St. Paul Rep. Michael Paymar is apparently interested), he now has to be viewed as the heavy favorite to hold the Speaker’s gavel in January 2011.
Why the change? Well, as Speaker Kelliher has been ramping up her gubernatorial campaign these last few months, Sertich has taken increased responsibility for managing the caucus, including taking control of the House DFL Caucus campaign apparatus. By all accounts, Sertich has handled this increased responsibility well. He’ll still have to navigate the 2010 session and the midterm elections, but if he manages to avoid a major mistake, he’ll probably be Speaker.
Of course, this presents an entirely different question. If Sertich is the Speaker, who takes his place as Majority Leader? The new Leader will almost certainly be a metro area legislator. The House DFL Caucus has an unwritten rule of geographic balance (a metro area Speaker means a rural Majority Leader and vice versa). But even with that restriction, there are a number of plausible candidates and no true frontrunner. I guess we’re just going to have to wait and see.
As I predicted yesterday, State Representative Kurt Zellers has been elected the next Leader of the House Republican Caucus. Zellers was probably the best choice for the House Republican Caucus, especially considering his opponent was failed CD1 candidate Randy Demmer (who I mistakenly called Paul yesterday, an error all the more inexcusable given the number of posts I wrote about Demmer during his incompetent congressional campaign).
This morning I got another video from the House DFL demonstrating how Governor Pawlenty’s proposed budget cuts would hurt real Minnesotans. This one startled me…
I know the man in this video. He’s not a close friend, or a family member, but I recognize his face. When I worked for Amy Klobuchar in 2006, one of my responsibilities was to walk down the street to KSTP every so often and check the public file to find out who was buying ad time and how much they were spending. The man in this video, Mark, worked at the front desk. I remember him as being an unnaturally friendly man. He seemed to know the name of every single person who came through the lobby, and he even remembered my name after only two or three visits. I am sad to learn of Mark’s misfortune. I think its all too easy, especially when you are dealing with a problem as big as a multi-billion dollar deficit, to focus on the numbers and forget the human consequences of budgeting. But when you see how someone you know will be directly affected by these proposed cuts, it really brings it home.
After watching a video like this one, its easy to understand why the DFL legislators at the Capitol are unwilling to go along with Gov. Pawlenty’s budget. Its reckless and cold-hearted.
“Let’s cut the bull. Let’s start compromising and get this deal done,” said Sertich. “Why do we have to wait for the last weekend? Why do we have to do a silly dance of, ‘I’m going to tell you what I think over and over again? I’ll just restate my position over and over again.’ I’m sick of it.”
I couldn’t agree with Sertich more. Enough grandstanding — it’s time to see some compromise at the legislature. Isn’t coming to a consensus our policymakers’ job? They should be working to build consensus 24/7, not just in a mad scramble during the last few days of the session.
Particularly this year, when there’s so much at stake, we really need both parties to cut the bull and come together on a compromise. The DFL should accept greater cuts, particularly to Health and Human Services, while the GOP should accept tax increases. Maybe between the increased revenues and reduced spending, we can eliminate unhealthy and dishonest budget gimmicks.
Ann Lenczewski (DFL-Bloomington), the chair of the House Tax Committee, asks conservatives to tone down their rhetoric on the tax bill. She argues that many of the provisions in her bill are based on policies enacted by conservative hero Ronald Reagan.
She also points out that Republicans are focusing only on tax deductions that were removed, and not on tax credits added. For example, the tax deduction for organ donation was replaced by a tax credit. After all, the way it was previously structured, wealthy Minnesotans would receive a large tax break for organ donation, while poorer Minnesotans would receive nothing. Is that really what we want?
Lenczewski argues that she’s doing something similar to what Reagan did at the Federal level two decades ago: Cleaning up and simplifying the tax code. Reagan himself cut many tax deductions, such as a sales tax deduction and a credit card debt deduction.
I don’t think anybody envies the DFL for having large majorities in the House and Senate during this biennium. Our enormous deficit means that DFLers have some tough choices to make. It’s easy for Republicans — even Tim Pawlenty — to criticize the DFL’s plans, but it’s another thing altogether to be responsible for the outcome at the end of the day.
I don’t agree with all the choices being made by leaders in either house, but I do appreciate that they’re doing what needs to be done. The legislature is well on its way to balancing to budget by raising taxes and cutting spending. The House and Senate each released a tax increase plan this week, and now the House Health and Human Services Finance Division has approved a funding bill that would make $400 million in cuts.
Ultimately, there will probably have to be deeper cuts to Health and Human Services funding, but DFLers have made a good start so far. They seem to recognize that everyone will have to make sacrifices in order to balance the budget; there’s simply no way around that, unfortunately. It’s probably not going to make them popular — nobody likes being asked to make sacrifices — but I think Minnesotans will appreciate that the DFL leadership has made some tough choices that will benefit our state in the long run.
It’s that time again. Every year, as the Minnesota Legislature’s commitee deadlines approach, a non-democratic tradition rears its head: The combination of many small bills into large omnibus bills. These bills can often weigh in at hundreds of pages, combining dozens of bills that have come before the committee. It’s no surprise, then, that lawmakers sometimes find they’ve passed provisions they were not even aware were in the omnibus bills.
Once bills in the legislature get so large and complicated that citizens are unable to follow them, we can no longer truly stay involved in the legislative process. It’s nearly impossible to follow these bills without paid staff; thus, ordinary citizens need to rely on special interest groups to stay informed towards the end of the legislative session.
Many Minnesotans praise our system of part-time citizen legislators, but I would gladly trade our system for one in which the combination of bills into large omnibus bills is prohibited, even if the legislators needed to work for most of the year.
Here’s a bill that’s bound to ruffle a few feathers over at the Capitol.
The bill, H.F. 770, is authored by Rep. Ron Shimanski (R-Silver Lake) and co-authored by Rep. Tim Kelly (R-Red Wing) and Rep. Steve Drazkowski (R-Wabasha).
The bill calls for two-term limits for the office of Governor and Lieutenant Governor
The bill would not effect Pawlenty’s ability to seek a third term (it wouldn’t take effect until after 2010), but the fact that Republicans are proposing term limits at the same time that the Governor is considering a re-election campaign cannot be seen as a sign of confidence.
Shimanski and company also want to term limit the other constitutional officers and the entire state legislature. Talk about a solution in search of a problem. Over half of the Minnesota House is made up of members in their 3rd term or less. That’s a lot of fresh blood. In addition, no Governor in the history of Minnesota has been elected to more than eight years in office (Rudy Perpich served 10 years, but two of those were after suceeding Wendall Anderson and only eight years were consecutive).
The truth is, Minnesota already has term limits. They are called elections. Minnesota voters are engaged and smart enough to know when it’s time to make a change. Its too bad that the MN GOP has such a low opinion of voters.
Regular readers know that I’m no fan of the budget plan proposed by DFLers in the House. However, it’s at least better than Tim Pawlenty’s plan. And while I may not be thrilled about the House plan, Rep. John Lesch (DFL-66A) makes some excellent points about how the DFL plan contrasts with Pawlenty’s plan.
In particular, Lesch writes that we have to raise revenue to balance the budget. Even the Governor’s plan raises revenue — it just raises it more unfairly:
The critical disagreement in the two proposals is how we generate the revenue and who pays. The House proposal would raise $1.5 billion largely through a progressive tax increase on the wealthiest Minnesotans. The Governor would borrow $1 billion through a 20-year loan (to be paid off by future generations) and assumes $600 million in property tax increases through deep cuts to local government aid.
Whether or not to raise revenue isn’t the importation question - we already know the answer. The question is how do we raise the revenue? Do we raise it today, or should we ask our next generation to pay for it? Should the wealthiest Minnesotans share in the burden or should it only be lower and middle class homeowners? [MN Progressive Project - Emphasis Added]
For too long, Tim Pawlenty has sought to avoid the consequences of his decisions by passing the buck — first to cities and counties, and now to future taxpayers. He refuses to raise state taxes, but he can’t bring himself to impose the sort of cuts his rhetoric would actually require. So he finds sneaky ways to raise revenue without calling it a “tax”. However you raise $1.6 billion, though, it’s still $1.6 billion. Let’s pay for it today, instead of making our kids pay for it.
At first glance, a proposal by Rep. Paul Marquart (DFL-Dilworth) to create a local-option sales tax makes sense, given dramatic cuts in Local Government Aid (LGA) and County Program Aid (CPA). Because of huge cuts in LGA and CPA during the Pawlenty years, local property taxes have skyrocketed (see chart). Marquart’s plan aims to avoid continued property tax increases by giving counties the option to increase their sales tax instead.
There’s one huge problem with the idea, though, as far as I’m concerned. It accepts cuts to LGA and CPA and lays the groundwork for a system in which they no longer exist. Giving counties a tool to raise money in place of CPA is sending a signal that CPA is never coming back. Once CPA goes, so will LGA. There are major reasons why we shouldn’t accept an end to the LGA/CPA system:
State mandates should be paid for by state funds.
Local levels of government have a more difficult time raising revenue than higher levels.
Locally-based taxes mean more larger gaps between rich and poor counties.
A cynical person might say that Tim Pawlenty knew exactly what he was doing what he cut LGA and CPA every year; he wants to seriously cripple local governments by cutting off their access to funding. I am one such cynical person. And looking at Marquart’s proposal, I can’t help but think it will allow Pawlenty to win the debate on LGA once and for all
House Democrats would raise taxes by $1.5 billion over the next two years, cut spending by $843 million and employ a larger accounting shift than Gov. Tim Pawlenty proposes in an effort to balance the state’s budget without resorting to borrowing. [Emphasis added]
At least it’s more honest than the Governor’s budget, which relies on $1 billion in borrowed money despite our constitutional requirement to have a balanced budget. But the use of accounting shifts is a sign that lawmakers are shirking their responsibility to sustainably fix our budget problems, in favor of political expedience. Yes, it sounds better to say you’ll be cutting less and raising fewer taxes. But all that really accomplishes is pushing our problems into the next budget cycle.
I firmly believe that Minnesotans will support the DFL if they have the courage to put together an honest budget that makes the tough choices and structural changes we need to keep our state healthy for the coming decades. The formula is simple:
Cut spending
Raise revenues
Eliminate the use of budget gimmicks
Minnesotans can understand that we’re in a tough situation right now, and they’ll side with the party that makes the hard choices to fix our budget problems for the long term.
There are two Holy Cow! moments to deal with today. The first being AFSCME’s amazing endorsement of Mark Dayton, which we’ll deal with shortly, and the amazing announcement that the local OFA organizer is planning to take on Phyllis Kahn. What makes it so amazing is that 
At first glance, a proposal by Rep. Paul Marquart (DFL-Dilworth) to create a 
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