News Cut Category Archive: Politics

Should Sarah Palin have a platform?

Posted at 1:03 PM on November 17, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

MPR Midday featured a fascinating -- if slightly uncomfortable -- moment today when the question came up of whether news organizations who talk about Sarah Palin are being irresponsible.

The question also revealed that the Tim Pawlenty vs. Sarah Palin camps may already be forming.

National Public Radio national political correspondent Mara Liasson was Gary Eichten's guest to talk about Palin's new book, "Going Rogue: An American Life."

It started when a caller to the show made this point:

"Aren't you by giving this person and this book the kind of coverage that you're giving right now on this program and consulting a national correspondent and so on, aren't you lending a cachet to this sort of mental lightweight that she doesn't deserve? We have... there are very good people on all sides of issues -- qualified people; Tim Pawlenty is one of them. Tim Pawlenty is a guy I don't agree with very often, but he's served many terms in office. He's knowledgeable. He's well spoken. He's well traveled. He understands gray matters and complicated issues. This person does not deserve a national spotlight or the limelight. This is showbiz. This is not how we need to be conducting national politics."

It brings up an interesting question: Do listeners learn more by hearing about people in the news? Or should it be filtered and should someone decide which political players -- we're not seriously arguing that Palin isn't a political player, right? -- deserve to be heard? Are we interested only in hearing our own views reflected back at us?

It's bait that Eichten usually doesn't take. And he didn't.

"Well, obviously Willie is not going to be supporting Sarah Palin."

But Mara Liasson specializes in this sort of thing:

"Well, no, but that's a good question for you. By doing this aren't you giving her a platform... by doing an hour-long show about her?"

Eichten still didn't take the bait:

"No, I'm quizzing a national political correspondent... who covers national politics why Sarah Palin is such a polarizing and interesting figure to America?"

The answer to the caller's question seems obvious. Palin is going to run for president, and Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com today explains why.

But the original point sets up an either/or scenario. You can either talk about Palin or you can talk about Pawlenty. To the extent that's true -- and for the most part, it's not -- the blame has to go to Pawlenty. He rejects most every request from Midday for an interview. The last time he accepted was April 13, 2009.

But both Pawlenty and Palin have similarities. Both claim not to be thinking about being president, even as the actions of both clearly suggest they are:

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The presidential bow

Posted at 1:05 PM on November 16, 2009 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

You knew this was going to get folks going, didn't you? President Obama bowed when greeting Japanese Emperor Akihito with Empress Michiko over the weekend.

True, it might be an act of tradition and manners but there are two long-standing tenets of protocol in America: The flag never flies lower than any other country's and the president bows to no one. Others disagree, of course.

The usual suspects said the usual things, according to AFP:

The gesture appears to have touched a particularly raw nerve among Obama critics who said the president has hastened America's decline as a world superpower by being too apologetic and too deferential in his dealings with other world leaders.

While most of the commentary about the bow in Japan was decidedly negative, some political observers, like longtime Democratic activist Donna Brazile, came to the president's defense.

"I think it's a gesture of kindness," she told CNN, adding that the bow appeared intended to show "goodwill between two nations that respect each other."

Both comments pretty much mirror those uttered last spring when the president appeared to bow to a Saudi king:

And some even said he showed too much deference to Queen Elizabeth:

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Health care: Better than nothing?

Posted at 11:40 AM on November 11, 2009 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Politics

The health care reform effort at the Capitol is raising an old dilemma for some politicians: Is a bill always "better than nothing"?

North Dakota Nebraska Democrat Sen. Ben Nelson is the latest facing the issue, and he's decided it's not.

"Faced with a decision about whether or not to move a bill that is bad, I won't vote to move it," Nelson told ABC News.

Nelson is opposed to a public option.

Minnesota politicians may be faced with the same dilemma, only this one is over a tax on the medical device industry that's in the House bill, according to MPR's Elizabeth Stawicki.

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Bucks for the buck

Posted at 5:54 PM on November 10, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Minnesota's deer hunt is big business for the state, but promoting it doesn't come all that cheap.

It creates 5,300 jobs and $260 million in retails sales according to the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.

Last weekend, Gov. Tim Pawlenty held his 7th Governor's Deer Opener. He took the state airplane to Thief River Falls, where he attended the Friday luncheon, went out and shot -- maybe -- a buck on Saturday, then left on another plane (paid for by Iowa Republicans) to make a speech to Republicans in Iowa, home of the first-in-the nation test for would-be presidents.

The $3,144 tab for the state plane to ferry the Pawlenty party to the hunt wasn't charged to Pawlenty's budget, but to the Minnesota Department of Tourism and the Department of Natural Resources. The flight took only an hour but the plane and pilots had to stay for a day in case an emergency required the governor to fly back to St. Paul. The cost of their time, hotel, and meals isn't known.

But the plane didn't fly back empty after the governor left. Deputy Chief of Staff Paul Anderson, Greater Minnesota Press Secretary Alex Carey, the governor's security personnel, a representative from the Office of Tourism, and one from the DNR hitched a ride back.

The cost is likely a wash over commercial air service to Thief River Falls from the Twin Cities, which costs $500 round trip. But you have a 15-minute layover in Chisholm/Hibbing.

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Behind the health care vote

Posted at 8:46 AM on November 8, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Politics

The House last night voted 220-to-215 to pass the health care bill. The vote was not surprising. All but one Republican voted against it, joined by mostly conservative Democrats, including 7th District Rep. Colin Peterson of Minnesota.

The New York Times, however, has a fascinating graphic showing the "no" Democrats. Peterson had the 4th largest margin of victory in his last election of those who voted no (and weren't unopposed).

Not far behind was Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota.

Eight of the Democrats represented districts carried by Barack Obama in the last election, an increasingly questionable yardstick for political punditry, since the presidential election is at least as much about the opponent who's running (and his vice presidential pick, occasionally) as it is about the candidate who carried the district.

The Times attempted to link the percentage of uninsured residents of each district (who weren't elderly) with the "no" vote. In Peterson's district, for example, only 11% of non-elderly residents don't have insurance.

The intent of the graphic appears to be to show the factors that went into the "no" vote besides the bill itself. But it actually suggests that most of the "no" votes among Democrats had more to do with their opinion that it's a bad bill.

The Washington Post, meanwhile, took a different approach to linking external factors to the votes. It provides a graphic showing campaign contributions from the health care industry. Curiously, however, it shows that most of the lawmakers with the biggest war chests from the health care industry voted "yes."

And with all of the votes displayed, rather than just the Democrat "no" votes, the Post does a better job of relating the percentage of uninsured in a district, with the representative's vote.

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The "awesome" candidate

Posted at 2:33 PM on November 3, 2009 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The state that gave us the Lizard People has done it again. At the bottom of the Minneapolis mayoral ballot, we learn that there is an "Is Awesome" political party.

Here's Joey's Web site statement:

Unlike other politicians, Joey has no experience and is thus unable to have become corrupted. Furthermore, Joey has a proven record of awesomeness that can be counted on should the city face natural disaster, war, famine, Act of God, or any of a hundred other things that other candiates aren't busy thinking about.
Should Joey be elected this year, he will be sure to express his gratitude by humbly taking office and putting his years of playing Sim City to use. He'll not only improve the city but will do so with a smile.

But he gets serious on his blog describing his party choice:

What if we just got rid of the party system? Everyone runs independently, based on what they think will be best for the district they will be representing. And those constituents could vote for the person they think will do the best job for their district. And everything would probably work out a whole lot better I think. But that's just my opinion, maybe I'm just off in my own world, but I'm really sick of having 2 main parties and a couple ones that no one listens to. Let's scrap it entirely. George Washington didn't need to be party-endorsed to be a great leader...

(h/t: Derek Schille)

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Should presidents salute?

Posted at 12:07 PM on November 3, 2009 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

No presidential deed goes unpunished anymore. The latest controversy appears to be whether President Barack Obama should have saluted when he went to Dover Air Force Base to meet the "transport cases" of dead soldiers and DEA agents arriving home.

Carey Winfrey, the editor of Smithsonian magazine, says Obama's salute was impeccable, but he's discomforted with the act. He says it was President Reagan who started the practice:

"He had sought advice on the matter from Gen. Robert Barrow, commandant of the Marine Corps. According to John Kline, then Mr. Reagan's military aide and today a member of Congress from Minnesota, General Barrow told the president that as commander in chief he could salute anybody he wished. And so it began."

A few years ago, Garry Wills, then a professor at Northwestern, suggested presidential saluting reinforces that the president is commander in chief of everyone.

The glorification of the president as a war leader is registered in numerous and substantial executive aggrandizements; but it is symbolized in other ways that, while small in themselves, dispose the citizenry to accept those aggrandizements. We are reminded, for instance, of the expanded commander in chief status every time a modern president gets off the White House helicopter and returns the salute of marines.

We used to take pride in civilian leadership of the military under the Constitution, a principle that George Washington embraced when he avoided military symbols at Mount Vernon. We are not led -- or were not in the past -- by caudillos.

Presidential salutes range "from halfhearted to jaunty," according to Winfrey.

Let's see:

Perhaps no president saluted more than Billl Clinton.

To the untrained eye -- mine -- none of those look particularly unappealing. But maybe the key is not in the show of a salute but in the sincerity of what's behind it. Jack Lucas' salute here is pretty pitiful, by the standards Winfrey described. He was the nation's youngest Medal of Honor winner. He lied his way into the military at age 17, then jumped on a grenade on Iwo Jima to save the lives of three others.

"I hollered to my pals to get out and did a Superman dive at the grenades. I wasn't a Superman after I got hit. I let out one helluva scream when that thing went off," he recalled in 2008, shortly before he died. How should he have saluted? Any way he wanted to.

Political arsonist Rush Limbaugh is behind this latest "controversy" with his comments on Sunday about Obama. He said Obama's salute was "a photo op precisely because he's having big-time trouble on this whole Afghanistan dithering situation," Limbaugh told "Fox News Sunday."

Then again, Limbaugh once proclaimed that Michael J. Fox was faking his Parkinson's.

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How much will health care cost you?

Posted at 3:29 PM on November 2, 2009 by Bob Collins (19 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Politics

How much will the middle class pay for health care under the House bill being considered in Washington?

The Congressional Budget Office today released its assessment of how much you and your family will pay for health insurance under the various plans being considered in Congress. You can read the entire letter to Rep. Charles Rangel, the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee here, but here are the major examples it gives under the House bill:

♦ A single person with income of $26,500 in 2016 (225 percent of the FPL) would pay a premium of about $1,900 (after getting a premium subsidy of 64 percent) and could expect to pay another $900 in cost sharing (net of federal subsidies); thus, the average payment by such a person for the premium and cost sharing combined is projected to be $2,800, or about 11 percent of income.

♦ A family of four with income of about $54,000 (also 225 percent of the FPL in 2016) could expect to pay about the same share of its income for premiums and cost sharing.

♦ The average premium for a family policy would be $15,000 -- $9,500 after subsidies.

♦ A family of four making $102,500 (four times the current federal poverty level) would pay $15,000 a year plus $5,500 in "cost sharing" (such as co-pays and percentages not covered by insurance) for a total of $20,500 per year.

Question: How many of you keep track of what your health care is costing you now? If so, would you care to share? I'll be happy to go first. It's about half of these numbers, but my plan is shared by my employer).

Meanwhile, a North Carolina congresswoman had an interesting take on this today. Rep. Virginia Foxx said health care reform is a greater threat to the country than any terrorist in any country.

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Live-blogging Midday: Mayoral debates

Posted at 11:48 AM on November 2, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

This is, of course, the last full day of campaigning for mayoral candidates in both St. Paul and Minneapolis (Not sure where to vote? Go here.) and MPR's Midday is hosting a mini-debate for each city.

Up first is St. Paul, where DFL-endorsed incumbent Chris Coleman is being challenged by Republican-endorsed Eva Ng. Then, it's Minneapolis' turn with incumbent DFLer R.T. Rybak is being challenged by Papa John Kolstad, who has both the Independence Party and Republican Party endorsements.

I'm live blogging (starting at noon) and you can listen to the debate here.

COLEMAN VS. NG

12:07 p.m.- Coleman introductory. Says "we've done a good job" getting through the worst economic times in the country.

Ng introductory. Says she found she could not make a living as an engineer during the oil bust. Became a business consultant, turning businesses around.

12:09 p.m. - Q: If elected, can residents expect tax and fee increases?

Coleman: The challenge we've had is since 2003, we've lost over $160 million in local government aid. "If the state continues to balance the budget on the backs of the cities, it'll be hard to do that (not raise taxes)"

Ng: Says she'd freeze raises and budget. "LGA is not a fixed number. It's a false thing to say we lost $160 million; it's a variable number every year."

Q: Where would you cut city budget?

Ng: This is what consultants do. They look for efficiencies and look to grow the revenue. "Properties and assets need to produce income." (Didn't really answer the question)

Coleman: If you're going to say you're going to freeze/cut taxes, you have to have a specific program. Are you prepared to close libraries, cut firefighters, police? In a business you can close unprofitable businesses. But you can't get out of the firefighting or snowplowing business.

12:14 p.m. Q: Is Central Corridor light rail line good for the city?

Coleman: It's the most important project that the city has ever seen. "It puts the East Metro on a part with what's happening in Minneapolis. If St. Paul is going to continue to thrive, we have to be part of a first-class transportation network.

Ng: This plan that we have is not the best one I've ever seen. We're taking an existing system, compromising it -- safety, cost, businesses losing parking. I project it will cost $2 billion by the time we finish. We should consider it doing north of there.

Q: Is the project so far down the tracks that you can't make those kind of changes?

Ng: We talked to Ray Lahood, the Transportation Secretary, and he says it's not too far down the road.

Coleman: The project has to have enough weight behind it that President Obama puts it in the budget. Says it won't cost more than $914 million.

12:17 p.m. Q: You (Coleman) made education a top priority when you ran four years ago. Had education improved in the last four years?

Coleman: We've received national recognition for the out-of-school programs. We've seen growth of new daycare facilities. We've opened college-access centers in libraries and have been able to leverage a network to provide out-of-school time for our children. We have made significant progress in helping people understand that one of the most important things we can do is provide quality out-of-school time.

Ng: The mayor's role is an advisory one. The mayor is saying he has funded three, four and five-year olds and that program is an overreach because the school department controls that budget; we shouldn't be spending city budget money. It's good to take kids off the street, but that program is not well administered. People on the East Side watch empty buses going up and down the street every hour. Our kids have a bigger achievement gap than ever. We have a 62% graduation rate.

Coleman: The money we spent on out-of-school programs is out of parks and recreation and library budget. The mayor has to be a critical and integral partner with the school district.

Ng: The mayor needs to convene the resources, but spending the city's money as opposed to the school board... there is budget in there to take care of the children.

12:22 p.m. Q: Should garbage collection be operated by city or individual contracting?

Ng: Residents like having choice. But they don't want to see wear-and-tear in their alleys. But they like their freedom of choice. The mayor should do listening and arrive at a solution.

Coleman: The city got out of the garbage business in the mid-'70s. You don't put that back in the box. Where people don't have garbage service, though, it impacts the neighborhood. We've tried to be aggressive on garbage cleanup.

12:25 p.m. Q: GOP National Convention. Success, failure or in-between?

Coleman: In between. There was a regional impact. Let's remember why we asked both parties to bid on it. If someone has been here, they rate is as one they want to come back to. If they've never been here, they rate it as one they don't want to come to.

Ng: Abysmal failure. To this day a lot of St. Paulites won't forgive the fact the banner at Xcel Center put Minneapolis on top of St. Paul. Guests were bused out of here.

12:27 p.m. Q: What the biggest challenge?

Ng: Taxes

Coleman: Transportation and Central Corridor.

Q: Your opinion of instant runoff voting.

Coleman: No opinion.

Ng: "We can chill on that for awhile."

RYBAK VS. KOLSTAD



There are 11 candidates, Gary Eichten says, but "this being radio, we couldn't feature all 11 candidates so we chose the two endorsed by the major parties."

12:35 p.m. Introductory statements

Kolstad: I'm president of Mill City Music. I've done A Prairie Home Companion show when it was a morning show. The last 20 years I've been more active in civic life.

Rybak: When I ran for office, I said we'd be very focused, and we have been. We've had lower juvenile crime, we've created jobs, and we've created systems to help our young people for out-of-school time.

12:36 p.m. Q: What are the major issues:

Rybak: Public safety and job creation.

Kolstad: Increasing business, and the cost of a special election if Rybak runs for governor.

12:36p.m. How much of the lower crime rate is because of mayoral policies?

Kolstad: It's a national trend; it's not something controlled by what's going on in Minneapolis. This happened during the Great Depression. The most important thing to do to prevent crime is to have good jobs available. If you have that, they're not going to get involved with crime.

Rybak: If you ask the citizens of Chicago if it's a national trend, they'd say absolutely not. Minneapolis has led the nation in so many areas. We put 100 more police officers on the street. "They took down some key gangs." Launched youth violence prevention initiative.

12:38 p.m. Q: What would you do about complaints about the relationship between police and minority communities.

Rybak: We've made tremendous progress, but when police officers step over the line, they have to be accountable. Chief Timothy Dolan has removed three times as many police officers as any recent police chief. We'll continue to diversity police force, which is 18.6 officers of color. The recruit class is 50 percent officers of color.

Kolstad: There's mismanagement going on. The police are not being held accountable. There's a track record of the Minneapolis police ... there's serious cases of police violating civil rights, using excessive force, being absusive. If an officer does that, it's a criminal act and they should be held accountable. Too often, it's dealt as an internal affair.

12:41 p.m. How would you increase business?

Kolstad: Ninety percent of new jobs come from small business. They're being so burdened with taxes and fees and penalties. Their biggest problem is capital and when you rob them of that capital,you're harming business.

Rybak: John is wrong. Small business has a lobbyist in city hall and it's me. My parents ran a corner drug store. The first thing I did was to make it more efficient to get a business opened in Minneapolis. Before I took office, it took 37 days to get a permit. Today, it takes about nine days. We've done a tremendous amount for small business.

12:44 p.m. What would you do to make unemployment situation better?

Rybak: When I came into office, we merged programs and it's worked. The Sears building has 1,400 jobs for Allina. We've done things for smaller businesses. Standard Heating was thinking about moving out of the city; now we have 80 news jobs for Minneapolis. Wants more attention on job centers. Will continue to look at green and clean energy and medical technology.

Kolstad: He says small business has declined in the city. "I wish what he was saying was true, but East Lake St., looks like Detroit in the '70s. Things are not going well."

We have to find ways to support businesses. Green jobs is a great opportunity for the city. I'd like to turn it into a center for green technology. If I become mayor, I'd want to have an empowerment zone just for cities doing that and focus on small and independent businesses.

12:47 p.m. Can we assume taxes will go up?

Kolstad: Some people are hurting very badly. It's taking almost all of my capital to pay taxes, fees, and fines. They just started a new 20 percent penalty for fees that aren't paid on time. There are non-essential things; there hasn't been an internal audit in more than three years.

Rybak: The city is audited every year by the state auditor. Over the last eight years, I've made a series of tough choices and significant cuts. We cut $1.4 million out of budget last year. The city has navigated through incredibly difficult time. When I came into office, the city's debt rating was going down. First thing we said is we'd cut spending, then reform services and lay out a five year plan that would require people to put more money in. I'm very concerned about property taxes. Part of this issue rests on my shoulders. People who want property taxes should propose any cut they want to make, but we're not going to retreat on the process we've made. Not going to take cops off the street, or cut job creation strategies.

12:51 p.m. Why should people vote for you if you're going to run for governor?

Rybak: They knew three years ago when I became first mayor to endorse Obama that I would spend a lot of time campaigning for Obama. The years when we lowered unemployment, I was campaigning for Obama, but I was also working hard as mayor. The only thing I don't love about my job is the fiscal chaos.

Kolstad: He's appeared at three governor forums already. It's clear from what he's doing that he'll run. We've tried to get him to mayoral debates and he hasn't attended a single one. In 2001, there were 20 debates, in 2005 there were 10 debates for mayor. This year there were none. The mayor should make a choice.

12:54 p.m. Q: Do you support Republican and Independent Party platforms?

Kolstad: I'm endorsed by the GOP of Minneapolis, which is a little different than the statewide party.

FINAL STATEMENTS

Kolstad: I'm heading up a broad coalition across the political spectrum. These people are tired of mismanagement in Minneapolis. Are we better off than we were eight years ago? Most of us are not and it has to do with mismanagement by mayor and city council. Will remove regulatory burden on small business. I have 30 years of experience.

Rybak: I walked into our workforce center at Chicago and Lake and found something in short supply: hope. If that was the only sign of hope, I'd say our work has been successful. But then you look at Allina in the old Sears building, the streets are cleaner, in North Minneapolis you see crime dramatically down and improvements on West Broadway. There's been strong fiscal management. When a bridge collapses, when a tornado goes through a neighborhood, I've been a mayor who shows up.

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For many in Congress, it's not the economy

Posted at 9:24 AM on October 29, 2009 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Politics

At this hour, an utterly amazing exchange is taking place on Capitol Hill on an issue that is clearly the most important and fundamental issue facing the nation.

It's a brutally honest discussion between Tim Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the few members of the House Financial Services Committee who showed up for work today.

Geithner is, basically, calling out Congress for its inaction on closing loopholes that led to financial meltdown in the first place

It's a rare honest debate in which both sides are speaking frankly.

For example, Geithner was incredulous when one member of the committee suggested the "too-big-to-fail" banks should not be subject to the same regulation that smaller, community banks are.

"The important thing to recognize is -- and it's just worth going back to what it was like last fall -- without the ability for the government to step in and manage the failure of a large firm, to contain the risk of the fire spreading, we will be consigned to repeat the experience of last fall. It's a stark, simple thing. And there is no... I know of no person who has stood in my seat -- this is true of (Fed) Chairman Paulson -- in any central bank in any major country that would say the country should be run with no authority to step in and act in that case."

"They are getting into the fundamental issue of regulatory reform and that is the issue of pre-emption by the authority; do they have the right to go in and tell a bank they can't do a certain business, what is the right to take over a certain company if there's deemed to be a systemic risk?" a CNBC analyst noted. "This whole concept of prevention has been out there for, really, decades, that Congress has decided not to do because of these issues that have just been brought up."

Is that an important discussion -- the fundamental philosophical on the role of government -- for the people who were elected to Congress to hear? Not for many of them.

I count at least seven empty chairs. Even the committee chair, Rep. Barney Frank, left after his opening statement, in which he defended Congress by saying the committee has passed legislation that further regulates the banking industry. In fact, however, that legislation has not become law.

Three Minnesotans -- Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rep. Keith Ellison, and Rep. Erik Paulsen -- sit on the committee.

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Was Rudin wrong?

Posted at 1:32 PM on October 27, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

NPR "Political Junkie" Ken Rudin has apologized for comparing Barack Obama to Richard Nixon.

NPR ombudsman Alica Shepard calls attention (via Twitter) to her column today, in which she says what Rudin said "was a dumb thing to say."

Here's what Rudin said about the Obama administration's spat with Fox News.

"Well, it's not only aggressive, it's almost Nixonesque. I mean, you think of what Nixon and Agnew did with their enemies list and their attacks on the media; certainly Vice President Agnew's constant denunciation of the media. Of course, then it was a conservative president denouncing a liberal media, and of course, a lot of good liberals said, 'Oh, that's ridiculous. That's an infringement on the freedom of press.' And now you see a lot of liberals almost kind of applauding what the White House is doing to Fox News, which I think is distressing."

Rudin caught it pretty quickly, and apologized:

"Comparing the tactics of the Nixon administration --which bugged and intimidated and harassed journalists -- to that of the Obama administration was foolish, facile, ridiculous and, ultimately embarrassing to me."

Rudin played it well to settle the matter quickly, but it's worth pointing out he didn't compare Obama's tactics with Nixon's intimidation of the media via illegal means. He compared it to Nixon's "enemies" list and their (presumably rhetorical) "attacks on the media."

It was Steve Benen of Washington Monthly who extended the meaning of Rudin's comments:

Now would be an excellent time for a reality break. Has the Obama White House ordered the Justice Department to spy on Fox News employees? Has the administration ordered the IRS to start digging through Fox News' books, hunting for irregularities and auditing on-air personalities? Has the president directed thugs to break into Glenn Beck's psychiatrist's office?

"As he noted in his apology, what the Obama administration is doing is a "far cry from illegal and unconstitutional activities," Shepard wrote. She said "it was a dumb thing to say." But what was dumb? What he said as fact, or saying it imprecisely so that it could be misinterpeted?

Back to Benen:

And what as (sic) the Obama team done? They've dared to point out a simple reality: an obviously-partisan propaganda outlet in (sic) not a legitimate news organization. That's it. That's the totality of the White House's efforts -- criticizing a network that operates as an arm of a political party. There's no boycott, no punishment, no vendetta. All we have here are some White House aides who've criticized a network.

Not exactly. The White House has also frozen out Fox News whenever it could. That's their right.

"We're going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent," Anita Dunn, the White House communications director, told the New York Times. "As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don't need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave."

Regardless of whether you like or hate Fox News (and you either like or hate it; there's no middle ground), you have to at least consider the comment from Tom Edsall, the author of Building Red America:

"Reacting to criticism is a very dangerous thing for any kind of publication to get involved in, especially when the criticism is ideological... I do think that Fox has often been tilted to the right, but if they're now inhibiting their coverage - if these Tea Parties [that they didn't cover] were newsworthy - that's not good."

Curiously, the director of the First Amendment Center at the University of Kentucky, Mike Farrell, invoked the same language that Rudin did:

"The White House has basically said that they don't believe in the marketplace of ideas, they're not willing to engage in debate, and they are going to be associated with John Adams and the Sedition Act and Richard Nixon and his 'enemies' list - is that the company they want to be in?"

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Patients or prisoners?

Posted at 3:08 PM on October 20, 2009 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Politics

Gov. Tim Pawlenty's reaction to a Star Tribune story on TVs for sex offenders confirms the reality of Minnesota's "treatment program" for sex offenders -- it's really just a jail for people who haven't been charged or convicted of crimes they might commit in the future.

"They don't need 50-inch, flat-screen plasma televisions for sex offenders," Pawlenty said today of the $1,576 TVs in the Moose Lake facility."Clearly, somebody just made a bonehead decision, and I'm going to reverse it."

The reversal comes over the objection of some of the staff at the facility who say there is a clinical benefit to the TVs. Indeed, the Associated Press refers to the people housed in the facility as "patients," not inmates.

"Patients" in Minnesota's sex offender "treatment" program have already served their jail time. They're housed under the guise of being in treatment, even though experts say there is no evidence that there's a treatment for sex offenders, and nobody who was committed under state law has ever come out of the program.

Dennis Linehan came closest. In 1965, Linehan kidnapped, raped, and killed a Minnesota teenager, was sentenced to 40 years in prison, escaped and was captured after sexually molesting a 12-year-old in Michigan. When he was scheduled for supervised release in 1994, then Gov. Arne Carlson ordered him held until he could get the Legislature to enact the Sexually Dangerous Persons Law, which allows Minnesota to lock up people who haven't been charged, under the theory -- upheld by the courts -- that the rights of the public outweigh the rights of the individual.

The Moose Lake "treatment" facility is, in fact, a wing of a prison. Whether the "patients" are pampered -- as suggested by the Star Tribune's TV story -- is a matter of some dispute, especially considering a complaint from the ACLU earlier this year:

* Detainees are subjected to strip searches and are handcuffed and shackled as part of standard operating procedure whenever detainees are transported (for example, to attend patient advisory committee meetings at the MSOP facility) and after contact visits in violation of their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

* Detainees' incoming legal mail has, on numerous occasions, been opened outside the presence of the detainee in violation of their Sixth Amendment right to counsel.

* Detainees allege that they are not allowed incoming calls and that their calls are monitored in violation of their First Amendment right to telephone access.

* Detainees are denied their right to Procedural Due Process by being deprived of their access to freely move around the Annex without escorts, and, consequently, access to the privileges afforded to all other civilly committed detainees including daily access to the gym, access to library services, the ability to communicate with other Annex detainees, and free access to outside activities. The conditions imposed on Detainees are similar to what the Minnesota Department of Corrections imposes on inmates who are in Administrative Segregation. Inmates in A-Seg are entitled to procedural due process before being housed in that restrictive setting.

* Detainees are subjected to potentially severe health risks due to inadequate sanitation in violation of their Eighth Amendment rights includinng:

1. Communal showers and bathrooms are only cleaned once a day;
2. Urine and fecal matter are frequently found on the bathroom floor or toilet seats;
3. No sanitizer is readily available to disinfect the floors and toilet seats;
4. Dining room tables are not adequately sanitized prior to serving each meal;
5. Mops and brooms used to clean the bathrooms and showers are also used to clean cells, thereby spreading germs to their cells;
6. Towels, blankets and cleaning rags are washed in one unit washer and the water does not reach a temperature needed to properly sanitize them.

* Detainees who had purchased 20 inch televisions at the Annex had their property seized and were forced to send them out of the facility at their own expense to comply with a MNDOC rule allowing only 13 inch clear televisions on the Moose Lake prison property.

* MSOP retaliated against two of the plaintiffs (Beaulieu and Yazzie) for their participation in litigation challenging their access to religious activities while civilly committed to the MSOP. The retaliation took the form of a reduction in their access to religious services, attorneys, the court and visitation by family; unreasonable restraint of Yazzie leading to injury; unreasonable searches of Beaulieu's property; and the seizure and copying of Beaulieu's legal papers.

"It has to be treated like a hospital -- it is not a prison," said Rep. Thomas Huntley, DFL-Duluth.

Wink.

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Wither Vermilion

Posted at 12:03 PM on October 13, 2009 by Than Tibbetts (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

A little more than 2 years ago, Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced a plan to create a state park at Lake Vermilion, about 90 miles north of Duluth. By May 2008, the governor had secured $20 million from the Minnesota Legislature to pay for the park, all 3,000 acres and five miles of shoreline.

Except that price wasn't good enough for U.S. Steel, the current owner of the land, and since then, Britt Robson reports for the Capitol Report, not much has been done.

Yet even now, the proposed state park has its die-hard supporters, and they remain convinced that the land sale can eventually be completed. They are heartened by the fact that, nearly six months after getting the bureaucratic green light to develop the site, U.S. Steel has not turned a shovel's full of dirt to further the project.

"I drive by it at least 10 times a week, and I haven't seen any improvements on the road going in, or any other activity," reports Mike Forsman, one of the St. Louis County commissioners who voted for the development last spring. "My own suspicion is that the downturn in the economy has made it harder to buy and build housing up here. It certainly is not like it was three years ago. I imagine [U.S. Steel] will wait for the market to improve."

It was poor market timing by U.S. Steel, but they have time on their side. Gov. Pawlenty will likely have other things on his hands this legislative session. The state's revenues are running millions of dollars short and Pawlenty seems intent on running a practice presidential campaign.

In short, unless the market for high-value lakeshore developments makes a spectacular recovery in the near future or Pawlenty reopens negotiations, it will likely mean little closure to the state park question until after the next governor of Minnesota is seated in 2011.

Despite the political gamesmanship, or lack thereof, this never addresses the fundamental question: Do we need a new state park on Lake Vermilion?

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Capitol showbiz

Posted at 10:05 AM on October 1, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Politics

Congress hasn't done much in the last year to close some of the loopholes in the nation's banking system that led to the worst economic crisis in America since the Great Depression, and it's not hard to figure out why. They're not that interested in the subject.

Today, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke testified before the House Financial Services Committee, which is "considering" changes in regulations.

Bernanke did something, however, that a lot of members of the committee didn't do: He showed up. Here's the revealing image off CNBC this morning:

What's the point of being on an important committee, if you don't show up -- preferably for the entire hearing -- to listen and participate in the discussion?

But discussions are rarely part of these hearings. Congresspeople show up for a few minutes when it's their turn to ask questions, then use most of their time to make a speech, and leave.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., for example, had five minutes to quiz Bernanke this morning, but used all but 3 seconds of her time to read a statement criticizing the possibility of the dollar not being the international standard, criticizing President Obama for saying he 'inherited' the financial mess, and wondering whether a new regulatory agency would regulate funding to ACORN. She then invited Bernanke to respond.

That earned her a rebuke from committee chair Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. "I've asked you before... there's only 3 seconds left in your time.... This practice of going right up to the end and then taking another minute or two is unfair to the other members."

Frank gave Bernanke 30 seconds to answer Bachmann's "questions," and said the dollar is in danger and punted on the question of funding for ACORN.

People watching on TV tend to get more information about the state of the economy and the options for fixing it than people who are elected to fix it. That might explain why it's broken.

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Did money talk?

Posted at 2:04 PM on September 29, 2009 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Politics

The so-called "public option" component of health care reform died today when the Senate Finance Committee's Health Care Subdivision (essentially the entire committee) rejected an attempt to include it in legislation the panel is considering. Other bills circulating at the Capitol still have "public option," but Sen. Max Baucus removed it from his bill under pressure from Republicans, who considered it Socialist. The number of Democrats refusing to support the idea pretty much sinks it.

The vote was 15-to-8, with Democrats Baucus, Sen. Tom Carper, Sen. Kent Conrad, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, and Sen. Bill Nelson joining all of the committee's Republicans with "no" votes.

Most of the Democrats voting against the bill, were among the biggest Democratic recipients of health care cash in campaign fundraising. Coincidence? Who can say? The campaign finance system is such that one can only speculate what role it plays when legislation is considered that affects the campaign contributors. So you have to decide.

Here's the breakdown by committee members. The numbers in parentheses represents its rank for that senator in the grouping of contributions by industry. Keep in mind, these numbers are the amount raised through the end of June, well before the health care issue dominated the national dialogue.

DEMOCRATS

John D. Rockefeller, West Virginia (Chairman) - $255,950 from health professionals (2nd),

Jeff Bingaman, New Mexico - $210,563 from health professionals (3rd) and $92,000 from pharmaceutical industry (7th).

Sen. Kent Conrad, North Dakota - $239,533 from health professionals (3rd), $233,625 from the insurance industry (4th).

John Kerry, Massachusetts - $91,036 from insurance industry (7th). $64,948 from health professionals (13th)

Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas - $298,700 from health professionals (2nd), $153,304 from pharmaceutical industry (5th) and $131,850 from insurance industry (8th).

Ron Wyden, Oregon - $173,475 from health professionals (1st), $83,299 from insurance industry (7th).

Charles Schumer, New York - $155,300 from insurance industry (5th) , $108,650 from health professionals (9th).

Debbie Stabenow, Michigan - $338,455 from health professionals (4th). Second-biggest contributor was Blue Cross Blue Shield ($59,700)

Maria Cantwell, Washington - $206,001 from health professionals (11th).

Bill Nelson, Florida - $332,179 from health professionals (6th)

Robert Menendez, New Jersey - $256,950 from health professionals (7th)

Thomas Carper, Delaware - $238,680 from insurance industry (2nd), $139,520 from pharmaceutical industry (7th).

REPUBLICANS

Sen. Charles Grassley, Iowa - $241,856 from health professionals (1st), $201,148 from insurance industry (2nd), $152,650 from pharmaceutical industry (3rd), $139,137 from hospitals and nursing homes (4th). Blue Cross Blue Shield ($26,750) is second-largest contributor. Select Medical Group is third-largest contributor ($23,000).

Orrin G. Hatch, Utah. Ranking member - $481,081 from insurance industry (1st), $242,550 from health professionals. Blue Cross Blue Shield is second-largest contributor ($45,603)

Olympia Snowe, Maine - $174,074 from health professionals (2nd), $163,585 from insurance industry (3rd). Aetna Inc., is second-biggest contributor.

John Ensign, Nevada - $269,325 from health professionals (3rd), $211,462 from insurance industry (7th).

Michael Enzi, Wyoming - $218,700 from pharmaceutical industry (1st), $144,049 from health professionals (2nd), $124,250 from insurance industry (4th). Blue Cross Blue Shield is fifth-largest contributor ($15,000).

John Cornyn, Texas - $759,113 from health professionals (4th), $350,294 from insurance industry (9th).

John Kyl, Arizona - $649,383 from health professionals (4th).

Jim Bunning, Kentucky - $86,433 from insurance industry (1st), $63,650 from health care (3rd). Kindred Healthcare is fourth-largest contributor ( $12,100).

Pat Roberts, Kansas - $178,299 from pharmaceutical industry (9th).

(Source: OpenSecrets.org)

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Creative writing, politics style

Posted at 1:19 PM on September 29, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Tomorrow marks the end of the quarter for politicians to report their campaign contributions, so today their fundraisers are sending out solicitation letters to try to pry money out of some wallets by creating straw men and challenges.

Rep. Keith Ellison raised the specter of "special interests."

"Special interests," of course, are in the eye of the beholder. This summer, Ellison was in the spotlight for accepting a privately-funded gift of a trip to Mecca.

Rep. Michele Bachmann meanwhile is using Nancy Pelosi as the "boogeyman" in her fundraising letter.

"I must show a solid bank account to keep the Democrats from pouring millions into my opponents' campaigns," Bachmann said in her letter, as if anything could prevent Democrats from pouring millions into the 6th District race.

If you've gotten a fundraising e-mail today, please forward it to me.

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A tax to love?

Posted at 2:17 PM on September 28, 2009 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The great thing about being governor is you can vehemently oppose a bill, and then take credit for its accomplishments later.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty's office sent out a news release today with a fair amount of back-patting for traffic congestion-relieving projects:

Motorists and transit riders in the south Twin Cities metro area will have an improved commute as several key components of a traffic congestion relief initiative open this week.

Governor Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota Department of Transportation Commissioner Tom Sorel, Metropolitan Council Chair Peter Bell, and Federal Highway Administrator Victor Mendez celebrated the opening today of two new transit stations in Lakeville and the launch of a new MnPASS Express Lane on I-35W.

"Moving people and goods efficiently around the Twin Cities is important for our economy and our quality of life," Governor Pawlenty said. "Over the past several years we've made significant investments to improve our transportation system, including an additional lane on 494/694, MnPASS on I-394, the 'Unweave the Weave' project and many more improvements around the metro area. Now, thousands of people who use I-35W will have additional options to get to work or home faster."

Let's hit the Wayback Machine to find out where many of these projects came from.

What we have here is one example of what can happen when you raise taxes, for many of these projects came from the most contentious issue of the 2008 legislative session: The gax tax increase. You may recall Gov. Pawlenty vetoed the bill and it was one of the few times he lost a showdown with the Legislature.

Pawlenty called the bill "ridiculous."

Update 4:18 p.m. Here's the press release list of projects being cited by Pawlenty:

Express Bus Service

Lakeville residents now have new commuting options to downtown Minneapolis as Metro Transit began service today on I-35 from the new 750-space park-and-ride ramp at Kenrick Avenue in Lakeville, and Minnesota Valley Transit Authority (MTVA) also began offering express bus service today. MTVA began service this morning from a temporary park-and-ride at Crossroads United Methodist Church until the Cedar Avenue park-and-ride lot opens in two to four weeks.

"The UPA grant allowed us to accelerate the debut of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in the metro area, helping to grow transit ridership, ease congestion and improve mobility. We also welcome the City of Lakeville to metro-area transit services," said Council Chair Bell

Metro Transit express route 467 will offer nonstop service, with six morning trips to downtown and six return trips in the afternoon. Buses will travel on the new I-35W MnPASS lanes. New coach buses, which seat 57 customers, will be used on the route, featuring high back chairs, reading lights and overhead storage compartments. Travel time to downtown Minneapolis is about 30 minutes.

MVTA Route 477V offers five morning and five afternoon trips each weekday, also on coach buses.

MnPASS on I-35W


On Wednesday, almost 12 miles of a new MnPASS Express Lane will allow solo drivers the option to pay a toll to use the high occupancy vehicle lane on I-35W. Car pools with two or more occupants, motorcycles and transit buses will still use the Express Lanes free of charge. Similar lanes are in operation on I-394 and have proven popular with commuters with up to 150,000 vehicles a day driving on some portion of the 11 miles of roadway that runs from downtown Minneapolis to the western suburbs.

"The I-35W MnPASS Express Lanes will provide commuters with a more reliable commute between the south Twin Cities metro area and downtown Minneapolis," said Commissioner Sorel

The new I-35W MnPASS Express Lanes include two segments: from Highway 13 in Burnsville to I-494 and from I-494 to downtown Minneapolis.

On the segment from I-494 to downtown, transit vehicles, carpools and MnPASS customers will be able to use a converted shoulder lane north of 42nd Street during certain times when traffic is congested. Electronic signs will alert drivers when the shoulder is open or closed. Construction on the Crosstown project continues, and the MnPASS Express Lane segment between I-494 and 42nd Street will open in fall 2010.

MnPASS drivers lease a small electronic transponder that attaches to their windshield behind the rear view mirror. The toll is automatically deducted from their pre-paid MnPASS account by toll recording equipment located on the road. Fees vary in amount by the level of traffic congestion in the MnPASS lanes. Commuters can open a prepaid MnPASS account in less than 10 minutes online at www.mnpass.net or by calling the MnPASS Customer Service Center at 1-866-EZ-RIDE4

Urban Partnership Agreement


The Urban Partnership Agreement is a series of transportation projects aimed at improving traffic conditions by reducing congestion on Interstate 35W, Highway 77/Cedar Avenue and in downtown Minneapolis. Through a combination of transit, road pricing, technology and telecommuting, project partners anticipate that commuters will experience more transportation choices, less traffic congestion and reduced commute times on some of Minnesota's busiest roads.

Minnesota's UPA partnership includes Mn/DOT, the Metropolitan Council/Metro Transit, Minnesota Valley Transit Authority, University of Minnesota; Anoka, Dakota, Hennepin and Ramsey counties; the city of Minneapolis, and Transportation Management Organizations. This innovative partnership allows Minnesota to leverage federal dollars and keep project costs low while pioneering new ways to move traffic. Project components include:

Transit

· Expansion of the single-bus lanes to two-bus lanes on both Marquette Avenue and 2nd Avenue in downtown Minneapolis will nearly triple the capacity for the number of buses while reducing bus travel time by up to 10 minutes through the 16-block downtown area.

· Construction of nearly 2,700 new parking spaces at six new or expanded park and ride facilities along the Highway 77/Cedar Avenue and I-35W corridors north and south of downtown Minneapolis.

· Purchase of 27 new buses for new or expanded express service from the Highway 77/Cedar Avenue and I-35W corridors to downtown Minneapolis.

· Construction of a transit-only left turn lane at Highway 62/Crosstown and Highway 77/Cedar Avenue, completed in November 2008, is resulting in more predictable and quicker rides.

Road Pricing

· Existing high occupancy vehicle lanes on I-35W from Burnsville Parkway to I-494 are being converted to MnPASS Express lanes.

· Upon completion of the Crosstown project, a new I-35W MnPASS Express lane from I-494 to 46th Street will be opened.

· From 46th Street to downtown Minneapolis on northbound 35W, current bus-only shoulders are being replaced with priced dynamic shoulder lanes. Buses travel at free-flow freeway speeds instead of the current 35 mph limit on bus-only shoulders. The priced dynamic shoulder lanes will be used during peak periods and will operate as shared rapid transit lanes for buses and carpoolers and MnPASS express lanes for single occupancy vehicles.

Technology

· Electronic signage above the lanes on I-35W that provides real-time information that improves safety and keeps traffic moving to avoid congestion.

· Lane guidance technology using global positioning satellites and other techniques will be installed on ten buses to keep transit vehicles centered in narrow shoulder lanes, ensuring safe and fast operations on highway shoulders.

· Real-time electronic commuter information signage is being used at select locations along the I-35W corridor to alert motorists about the estimated time of the trip by auto and bus, and how many parking spots are still available at the nearest park and ride.

· Real-time bus arrival and departure signage will be used on Marquette and 2nd Avenues and at select transit facilities along the Cedar Avenue/Highway 77 and I-35W corridors to alert transit customers about arriving and departing buses.

· Transit signal priority on Central Avenue from 2nd Street to 53rd Avenue will provide an advantage for transit and help maintain transit schedules.

· Cameras and instrumentation on Highway 13 connecting to the I-35W and Cedar Avenue/Highway 77 corridors will provide traveler information for motorists and improve traffic flow.

Telecommuting

· Partnerships with major employers along the I-35W corridor and in downtown Minneapolis will be established to promote flex-time and telecommuting programs with a goal to increase the number of telecommuting workers by 500 individuals by 2011.

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What do you want?

Posted at 8:42 AM on September 27, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Republicans in Minnesota have long criticized the Star Tribune's Minnesota poll for inaccuracy -- against the protestations of DFLers and the Star Tribune -- but we're wondering today how they feel about this headline:

Obama's support declines sharply

Accurate? Inaccurate? Who knows? But at the very least it's somewhat misleading. Why? Because the high point of the Obama presidency was in April, according to the poll, when Obama's popularity hit 63%. How hard is it to have high popularity in your first months in office? Not hard at all, assuming tanks aren't involved.

But last November, Obama's popularity rating -- as measured by election results -- was only 53% in Minnesota.

Disappointingly -- and, really, unacceptably -- the Minnesota Poll doesn't make the questions asked or the breakdown available online. Heck, even the methodology of the poll isn't provided.

We know, for example, that health care insurance reform -- it's not really health care reform -- is the main reason for the decline in popularity. But we don't know what Minnesotans expected. Obama ran on several platforms, including health care insurance reform. What did people think that meant way back then?

People are funny -- and fickle.

For example, President George Bush's job approval rating -- as measured by an MPR poll -- six months after he took office -- was 53 percent, statistically equal to Obama's current rating. But an October 2001 survey showed his job approval rating at 76 percent.

What changed? He launched attacks on Afghanistan in response to 9/11.

The poll showed people also favored expanding federal powers to wiretap, significant support for detaining Muslims without charges, and support for requiring us all to carry national ID cards. All things that would sink a job approval rating now. And the very thing that propelled Bush's job approval numbers then, is an anchor on Obama's now.

So perhaps the most important question in these polls of Minnesotans is: What do you want? Job approval ratings reflect a politician's ability to (a) figure it out and (b) adjust their actions to give it to you.

Clearly, Obama's concept of change is that (b) isn't part of his game. And while people might nod their heads that they want leaders not to bend to the polls, in practice that's exactly what we want.

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History or politics

Posted at 1:40 PM on September 25, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics, Schools

You let the president of the United States speak to school children and the next thing you know they're singing about him.

The school in New Jersey says the kids were learning a song for Black History Month last winter.

It's become a YouTube sensation in the last few days, even though it was uploaded in June.

New Jersey's education commissioner today ordered a review of the teaching of the song, and wants to find ways to celebrate Black History Month without "inappropriate partisan politics in the classroom."

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Action figures then and now

Posted at 2:52 PM on September 25, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Marketing and advertising, Politics

Today's first look at the Michele Bachmann action figure...

... has me wistful for the time when the idea of action figures in politics was fresh and new:

It was also a time when the action figure even looked something like the person it was supposed to portray. Rep. Bachmann's action figure looks more like Gladys Knight.

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Obama on racism

Posted at 8:30 AM on September 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

If President Barack Obama doesn't think racism plays a significant role in opposition to his policies, why do so many people think it does?

Obama appeared on David Letterman's show last night and delivered the money quote when asked about racism. "It's important to realize that I was actually black before the election," he said.

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I see your 'dumb,' and I raise you an 'elitist'

Posted at 10:24 AM on September 21, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The latest debate on the ability of America to hold a political conversation was on display on today's first hour of Midmorning.

The show purported to ask, "Is racism fueling criticism of the president?" But the fix was in on the answer because both guests had the same perspective: "Yes."

That's not to say they didn't make good points in rebutting David Brooks' column last week, "No, it's not about race."

Given all of this, it was guaranteed that he would spark a populist backlash, regardless of his skin color. And it was guaranteed that this backlash would be ill mannered, conspiratorial and over the top -- since these movements always are, whether they were led by Huey Long, Father Coughlin or anybody else.

A pretty poor example, said Jack White, who writes about politics for The Root. Father Couglin was an anti-Semite, he said.



The discussion intertwined with the "lack of civility" angle right up until it got hit in the kisser with an irony pie.

"The problem is, what is the Republican Party doing to make a bigger space for people like himself?" he said, addressing a caller who said he was a moderate Republican. People who have a disagreement with the president's policies but don't want to fall into this trap of falling back on fear and prejudice to move their party forward. You have a handicap, it seems to me, even though you have someone like Michael Steele, who is black, as Republican Party chairman, I would argue that Michael Steele is exactly the wrong kind of person to have?"

"Why? Kerri Miller asked.

"Because Michael Steel is dumb," White said.

Caller Tim from Minneapolis provided the other side of the discussion.

"Thank you for calling another Republican dumb," he said. "Ronald Reagan was portrayed on the one hand as being a tired, pre-senile old fool who, nonetheless, stayed up late at night masterminding the Iran contra deal. We still hear jokes about Dan Quayle misspelling potato. Bush was consistently portrayed -- hammered, hammered, hammered -- on late night comedy shows, everybody that he was dumb. And yet he was also an evil genius who masterminded -- in the eyes of some admittedly paranoid people -- that he masterminded the 9/11 tragedy."

"Are you saying there has long been disrespect towards...." Kerri Miller asked.

"What I'm saying is disrespect... has been going on consistently from the left and you mentioned populism and populism is the response to political elitism and I think what you fail to recognize is that the Democratic Washington power circle, as well as the liberal side of the media, is viewed as being highly elitist and certainly Barack Obama did not help his case anywhere along the line when during the election, for example, when he made the comment about the price of irrugula arugula, You've assembled a nice panel of people that all seem to see things only one way," he said.

And that brings us back to Brooks:

What we're seeing is the latest iteration of that populist tendency and the militant progressive reaction to it. We now have a populist news media that exaggerates the importance of the Van Jones and Acorn stories to prove the elites are decadent and un-American, and we have a progressive news media that exaggerates stories like the Joe Wilson shout and the opposition to the Obama schools speech to show that small-town folks are dumb wackos.

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Ramstad for governor?

Posted at 11:31 AM on September 18, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Former Third District congressman Jim Ramstad dropped a little bit of a bombshell -- for now, we'll call it a firecracker -- when he told Gary Eichten a few minutes ago that he's leaving the door on the possibility of his running for governor "open just a crack."

A few minutes later, however, he said there's a 99 percent chance he wouldn't run.

Ramstad, a moderate by any definition, has no shot at winning a Republican state convention, but in his scenario he made it clear he'd do what former Gov. Arne Carlson did and run in a primary.

The former congressman had announced earlier this summer that he would not run.

Ramstad made his comments during the early part of MPR's Midday show, when he strongly criticized "the hard core right wing Republicans who are in charge of the Republican House caucus."

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Health care debate has been polite for some, survey says

Posted at 3:42 PM on September 17, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Politics, Surveys and trivia

We love surveys. We love to give them attention they don't deserve and this week, two surveys from the same organization caught our attention.

The first, which I won't belabor, was a Pew survey that said "the public's assessment of the accuracy of news stories is now at its lowest level in more than two decades of Pew Research surveys, and Americans' views of media bias and independence now match previous lows." Sounds interesting, but I posit that it doesn't necessarily mean stories are (or aren't) more inaccurate these days. It only means that people think so.

But perhaps it's more a reflection on people who turn increasingly to news sources that they think will report stories the way they want to hear them (Let me save you the trouble of posting the predictable comment: Yes, I know some people think this is why liberals tend to listen to Public Radio).

The other day we got an e-mail from someone who claimed we were covering up the story that global warming was created in a conspiracy between the liberal media and the United Nations in order to effect a redistribution of wealth. To prove it, he noted that he read about it on the Internet, not in the liberal media.

Well, OK, that's one for the power of the Internet.

Today's survey is even more puzzling. The headline:

Health Care Debate Seen as "Rude and Disrespectful"

So far, so good. According to Pew, 53% of those surveyed said the health care debate has been rude and disrespectful. Sixteen percent said they didn't know how to characterize it.

Thirty-one percent said the debate has been polite and respectful. That should be the takeaway. It's true, those most likely to be accused of being rude and disrespectful -- in this case, Republicans -- are also the most likely to disagree. And the survey showed that, indeed, 44 percent of them said the debate has been polite and respectful. But 24% of Democrats agreed with the assessment.

Democrats, however, are much more likely to put the blame for the lack of civility on opponents of health care legislation. Forty-five percent of Republicans say they're at fault.

Who are these people? Pew doesn't say. But we can deduce that 17% of those surveyed weren't paying any attention to what was going on. Only eighty-three percent said they'd heard "a little or a lot" about Rep. Joe Wilson's "you lie" moment, a news story that was nearly impossible to miss.

(Photo: A driver shows his polite side on Robert St. in West St. Paul on Wednesday. Click the image for a larger view).

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Too late for ACORN?

Posted at 1:47 PM on September 16, 2009 by Bob Collins (27 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The ACORN scandal is mushrooming.

It started after BigGovernment.com, a site run by commentator Andrew Breitbart, sent a couple of kids into an ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) office to try to get funding for a prostitution ring. Hidden video revealed an intake worker ready to help.

For conservatives, it was proof of a story they claim mainstream media has been ignoring: that of a fraudulent organization tied to the president.

ACORN's response has been -- charitably put -- uneven. At first, according to a press release, the group said an intake worker was just kidding:

When the actors approached Ms. Kaelke with their provocative costuming and outlandish scenario, she could not take them seriously. So she met their outrageousness with her own personal style of outrageousness. She matched their false scenario with her own false scenarios.

But another press release today from ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis suggests now that they weren't:

"As a result of the indefensible action of a handful of our employees, I am, in consultation with ACORN's Executive Committee , immediately ordering a halt to any new intakes into ACORN's service programs until completion of an independent review. I have also communicated with ACORN's independent Advisory Council, and they will assist ACORN in naming an independent auditor and investigator to conduct a thorough review of all of the organizations relevant systems and processes. That reviewer, to be named within 48 hours, will make recommendations directly to me and to the full ACORN Board. We enter this process with a commitment that all recommendations will be implemented."

Said Ms. Lewis: "We have all been deeply disturbed by what we've seen in some of these videos. I must say, on behalf of ACORN's Board and our Advisory Council, that we will go to whatever lengths necessary to reestablish the public trust. For nearly forty years, ACORN has given voice to communities, and gotten results. Right now, our nearly 500,000 member are working their hearts out for quality, affordable healthcare for every American and to help stop the foreclosure crisis. We must get this process right, so the good work can go forward."

It may be too late. Earlier this week, the Senate voted to prevent the organization from getting -- and distributing -- any housing money. When Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken line up against you, it's over.



And today, according to MPR's Tom Scheck, Gov. Pawlenty has ordered a halt to any state money going to the group, if any.

(Update 4:47 p.m. MPR's Tom Scheck reports Pawlenty appears to have put a halt to something that didn't exist in the first place.)

Conservatives, meanwhile, are claiming the mainstream media are ignoring the story, which puts it squarely in the lap of comedians to figure out:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Audacity of Hos
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

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Political lightning round

Posted at 1:01 PM on September 15, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

There's a period at the beginning of session of the U.S. House when members make one-minute speeches to a near-empty chamber. It's the daily "lightning round" of American issues.

Here's today's:

Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., objects to what Hamas is teaching in its schools.

Rep. Steven Kagen, D-Wisc., advocates reform in health care.

Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., congratulates a teenage tennis player at the U.S. Open.

Rep. Betsy Markey, D-Co., congratulates Congress for passing an economic stimulus

Rep. Christopher Lee, R-NY, pays tribute to a soldier killed in Afghanistan.

Rep. John Yarmuth, D-KY, says people are frustrated that they're not being heard and says it's because of campaign contributions from big money.

Rep. Ted Poe, R-TX, notes the high attendance of people protesting Obama's health care "These people don't like the attitude that disagreement with government is frowned upon." He says people object to the characterization of "these people as unAmerican."

Speaking of viral:

Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-NC, says people with health care coverage don't know what they've got.

Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mon., says Congress should adjourn for 30 days so the reps can "listen to real Americans" on health care.

Rep. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, says people need health insurance.

Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif., says the administration raised taxes by adding tariffs on tires from China.

Rep. John Hall, D-NY (former lead singer of Orleans) says health care must pass.

Rep. John Boozman, R-Ark., says proposed health care bill will force small businesses to close.

Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-NJ, says surging health care costs slow job growth.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-TX., says 40 percent of medical practice suits are without merit.

Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., says people are mostly worked up over things that aren't in the health care bill. He calls them "hallucinations."

Rep. John Fleming, R-La., says health care reform plan will increase national debt.

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Tex., says it's time for insurance companies "to come to the table, spending the millions they're spending to spread falsehoods" and work out a plan on health care.

Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-WV, who honors a police officer who was killed in the line of duty.

Rep. Steve Driehaus, D-Ohio, honors the late Cincinnati Pops conductor Erich Kunze.

Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., advocates public option in health care reform.

Rep. Paul Tonko, D-NY, pats himself on the back for passage of a wind energy bill.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., says Democrats are calling everything a crisis. "We still don't get it; the crisis is here in Washington," he says.

Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-NY, recounts stories of problems with people who have pre-existing conditions.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, says 1 of 5 adults lacks health insurance.

Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis. recognizes 15th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act.

Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, D-Ohio, says a woman who worked for GM and took early retirement, has found she's lost her health care and her retirement savings.

Rep. Rush Holt, D-NY, says Americans are living sicker and dying younger.

And that's today's lightning round.

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Jody Powell, 1943-2009

Posted at 4:30 PM on September 14, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The news today that Jody Powell died has sent us scurrying for the News Cut Wayback Machine.

It's 1977. And Time Magazine hates the new administration in town, and the new press secretary, a Mr. Jody Powell:

Jody Powell, the other principal staff strategist in the Lance affair, turned out to have some of the Machiavellian instincts of Nixon's Ziegler--and about the same skill --when he tried to send newsmen chasing after Chuck Percy on a provably false charge. Surely there have been times in the past when presidential press secretaries have called up newsmen and suggested they check out rumors of wrong-doing by Senators. But that sort of thing is probably done less in reality than in the Washington novels.

Looking back at that story, it's almost laughable to note that people once believed that White House officials didn't orchestrate media assaults on political opponents. And Time's observation came after experiencing the Nixon administration.

Powell was also responsible for leaking the one presidential story that should have died : The one about the "killer rabbit."

Although an experienced reporter, Brooks also failed to appreciate the significance of what he had heard. He did not rush to file an "urgent" story. In fact, he continued the conversation for some period of time and several more cups of tea. Not until the next day did he get around to sending this gripping account out over the wires to a waiting public. And even then it was a pleasant, lighthearted piece. Although he may not admit it now, I had the definite impression at the time that Brooks thought it was nothing more than a mildly amusing incident, too.

We were soon corrected. The Washington Post, exercising the news judgement (sic) that we in the White House had come to appreciate so keenly, headed the piece President Attacked by Rabbit and ran it on the front page. The more cautious New York Times boxed it on page A-12. That night, all three networks found time to report the amazing incident. But that was just the beginning.

In one of Powell's last "appearances," he talked to NPR in January about what it's like to move out of the White House.

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Checking the speech

Posted at 5:52 PM on September 12, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

As Larry Jacobs told Gary Eichten after Saturday's speech at Target Center by President Barack Obama, it was a rally speech, not a policy speech. By design, it should have capitalized on the momentum from his speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night, except that most of the discussion afterwards was about a guy who yelled something stupid, rather than the issue. So the president needed to use Saturday's speech to jumpstart things... again.

There usually isn't a great deal of meat in a rally speech, but that's not to say there weren't many interesting parts. Let's look at a few segments of his speech.

In the last twelve months alone, six million more Americans lost their health insurance. And today, we received more disturbing news. A new report from the Treasury Department found that nearly half of all Americans under 65 will lose their health coverage at some point over the next ten years. More than one-third will go without coverage for longer than one year. In other words, it can happen to anyone. There but for the grace of God go I.

The president used this on his Saturday radio address. We'll have to take his word for it; the report isn't online. But it makes sense because health insurance is tied to employment in this country and we know in the last 12 months, people have lost their jobs. It's interesting that only 6 million lost their health insurance, because nearly 15 million are currently unemployed. COBRA allows people to keep health insurance for a few months -- until they can figure out how to pay for private insurance when they don't have income.

At some point, opponents are going to have to acknowledge the validity of this aspect of the problem. Many of them did in the last campaign.

Another woman from Texas was about to get a double mastectomy when her insurance company canceled her policy because she forgot to declare a case of acne. By the time she had her insurance reinstated, her breast cancer more than doubled in size.

Her name is Robin Beaton of Waxahachie, Texas. Obama mentioned her situation in his speech on Wednesday.

It has now been nearly a century since Teddy Roosevelt first called for health care reform.

I was alive during the debate over Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. Trust me, plenty has been done to help provide it since Teddy Roosevelt. The suggestion that nothing has been done since Teddy Roosevelt is, of course, wrong.

If we do nothing, we will eventually spend more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined. That is not an option for the United States of America.

On this Republicans agree. The comment mirrors Gov. Tim Pawlenty's comments in recent years about health care in Minnesota. His view is the state shouldn't provide health care to the extent it does. Obama's is that someone should. That's really the issue here.

First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.

This, of course, is the "money quote" and has been for some time. But the concern of opponents is that employers -- if there is a cheaper option available via public option -- will drop their private-insurer coverage and force their employees to go on whatever public "exchange" is available. Why should employers pay for something that would be provided directly to their employees via this option?

We will do this by creating a new insurance exchange - a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for an affordable health insurance plan that works for them.

Lacking details as almost every plan does, what would you consider affordable when it comes to health insurance premiums?

And it would require changes for those who have Medicare. The Congressional Budget Office says the provisions currently in the House version of the health care bill will add 5 percent to Medicare premiums in 2001 and 20 percent in 2019 (although spending on prescriptions would fall. Is this a wash? It depends on whether you buy a lot of prescriptions).

Now, if you still cannot afford the lower-priced insurance available in the exchange, we will provide tax credits so that you can. And in the few years it takes us to set up the exchange, we will immediately offer Americans with pre-existing conditions low-cost coverage that will protect you from financial ruin if you become seriously ill.

Again, these are the details we don't have. What does low cost mean?

I have also said that one of the options in the insurance exchange should be a public insurance option. Let me be clear - it would only be an option. No one would be forced to choose it, and no one with insurance would be affected by it. What it would do is provide more choice and more competition. It would keep pressure on private insurers to keep their policies affordable and treat their customers better, the same way public colleges and universities provide additional choice and competition to students without in any way inhibiting private colleges and universities.

We know by experience how insurance companies lower their costs. So if the public option is intended to apply pressure on private insurers to keep their policies affordable, how does that likely square with the claim that having such a public option wouldn't affect anyone with insurance now? I'm not saying it will. I'm not saying it won't. I'm not inviting another round of T-shirt slogans. I'm asking how the theory works in detail?

And I will make sure that no government bureaucrat or insurance company bureaucrat gets between you and the coverage that you need.

There seems to be almost no way to provide a public option without a bureaucrat working on administering it. But giving Obama the benefit of the doubt that what he means is a bureaucrat won't deny "the coverage you need," it invites the question, "who decides what coverage you need?" We know who does now. The insurance companies. But the promise is a bureaucrat won't be involved in this. Suppose your health care provider -- however you define that -- suggests laetrile to treat cancer. Who's going to be the one to say that's not an acceptable treatment?

First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits - either now or in the future.

According to the "Congressional Budget Office":http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=332" target="_blank:

According to CBO's and JCT's assessment, enacting H.R. 3200 would result in a net increase in the federal budget deficit of $239 billion over the 2010-2019 period. That estimate reflects a projected 10-year cost of the bill's insurance coverage provisions of $1,042 billion, partly offset by net spending changes that CBO estimates would save $219 billion over the same period, and by revenue provisions that JCT estimates would increase federal revenues by about $583 billion over those 10 years.

By the end of the 10-year period, in 2019, the coverage provisions would add $202 billion to the federal deficit, CBO and JCT estimate. That increase would be partially offset by net cost savings of $50 billion and additional revenues of $86 billion, resulting in a net increase in the deficit of an estimated $65 billion.

Keep in mind, that refers to the House version of the bill, which nobody thinks is ever going to be enacted in its present form.

Right now, too much of the hard-earned savings and tax dollars we spend on health care doesn't make us healthier. That's not my judgment - it's the judgment of medical professionals across this country.

And it's also true that this isn't a serious point of debate.

The only thing this plan would eliminate is the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud, as well as unwarranted subsidies in Medicare that go to insurance companies - subsidies that do everything to pad their profits and nothing to improve your care. And we will also create an independent commission of doctors and medical experts charged with identifying more waste in the years ahead.

This also mirrors what the president said Wednesday. The New York Times said the president overreached.

Critics of the president's plan have said Americans ages 65 and over could find their Medicare benefits reduced as a result of the health care overhaul. Congressional Democrats certainly do not intend to cut benefits, but they are proposing big cuts in government spending on Medicare and not all of it would come from eliminating waste. The legislation seeks to trim Medicare payments for most services, as an incentive for hospitals and other health care providers to become more efficient. Other cuts would come from reduced payments to drug makers. Such cutbacks could inadvertently reduce access to some types of care.

The changes could also create new co-payments for services, including some laboratory tests that are now provided without charge.

So don't pay attention to those scary stories about how your benefits will be cut. That will never happen on my watch. I will protect Medicare.

Even if he's re-elected president, Medicare isn't expected to run out of money until 2017, right after his term would expire.

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Can undocumented immigrants get government subsidized health care?

Posted at 9:34 AM on September 10, 2009 by Bob Collins (23 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Politics

There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms -- the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.

That was the point at which Rep. Joe Wilson shouted, "you lie," and led to today's national dialog about whether people who are here illegally will have access to health care. Notice, however, that the president didn't say they would. He didn't say they wouldn't. He said "the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally."

That's different than saying government won't pay for access to health care for people who are in the United States illegally. It already is. Technically.

Take Minnesota, for example.

Technically, "Nonimmigrants" and "undocumented persons" are not eligible for General Assistance, welfare, Minnesota Supplemental Aid, SSI, Food Support, Emergency General Assistance, and MinnesotaCare. But, again technically, they have access to government-subsidized health care even though they don't. How can both be true?

The 2003 Legislature eliminated GAMC coverage (General Assistance Medical Care) for nonimmigrants and undocumented persons who are under age 18, age 65 or older, blind, or disabled. It also eliminated GAMC coverage for all other nonimmigrants and undocumented persons.

But, according to the Minnesota House of Representatives Research Department, "Nonimmigrants and undocumented persons who meet MA eligibility criteria, such as children under age 21, parents of children under age 18, people who are age 65 or older, blind, or disabled, may be eligible for treatment of emergency medical conditions (including labor and delivery costs for pregnant women) under Emergency MA." That's federally funded.

In Minnesota and the U.S., SCHIP, the children's health insurance program, provides undocumented and nonimmigrants prenatal and delivery care through the end of the month in which the child is born.

Technically, that's government-subsidized health care.

So who's right? That's the problem. Technically both sides are. Especially when it's boiled down to sound bites and talk show rhetoric. That's why there needs to be more attention to the details of the various plans being discussed. The "immigrant issue" is a technicality being used to sway people who can't be bothered with such things.

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USA the Franken Way

Posted at 8:57 PM on September 4, 2009 by Bob Collins (17 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

If you listened to Midday via the radio on Friday -- MPR Day at the State Fair -- the whole "Al draws the USA thing" might not have been that impressive. So ... here:



Here's Gary Eichten's full interview with the senator. Health care, of course, was the big topic. Franken would not commit to an answer on the question of whether he'd support a health care bill without the "public option."

"I'm not going to negotiate with myself at the State Fair," he said.

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Senator Schilling?

Posted at 2:41 PM on September 2, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Minnesotans are familiar with the odd backgrounds of its political candidates. See Ventura, Jesse and Franken, Al.

But what would it say about the U.S. Senate if someone can go from the starting rotation for the Boston Red Sox to the United States Senate?

In an interview with New England Cable News, Curt Schilling -- a Republican -- says he's considering running for the seat vacated by the death of Ted Kennedy.

Republicans had Stuart Smalley to use to undercut Al Franken's candidacy. Is this enough for Massachusetts Democrats?

Prepare your Massachusetts jokes, Minnesota!

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Live-blogging: The Gang Strike Force hearing

Posted at 5:15 PM on August 26, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Politics

A joint legislative committee got a first-hand look at wrongdoing in the Metro Gang Strike Force on Wednesday, although there was disagreement over whether it constitutes "corruption." According to an independent review issued last week, members of the gang unit confiscated property from people who often had nothing to do with gangs, and brought the property home. Other property simply disappeared. (Read the report here)

The hearing also touched on a question of the disproportionate targeting of communities of color by the Gang Strike Force. This morning, MPR's Cathy Wurzer talked with Rep. Michael Paymar, DFL-St. Paul, who chairs the House Public Safety Finance Committee.



Here's the live blog of the hearing. Please join the discussion below.

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The health care debate: Marginal treatments

Posted at 2:00 PM on August 25, 2009 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Politics

Sen. John McCain is back on the stump with a "town meeting" style event for health care today.

"You know in England, the NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) has denied treatment for women with breast cancer, and people with Alzheimer's, and denied life-saving drugs for people with MS," the former presidential candidate said to a group of mostly senior citizens, the one demographic he won in last year's election.

True?

Apparently so. And it comes directly from a briefing paper prepared by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which said:

* NICE restricted access to two drugs for Age-Related Macular Degeneration, Britain's leading cause of blindness.[6] The first drug, Macugen, was completely blocked, while the second, Lucentis, was limited to the approximately one in five disease sufferers who have a specific type of the disorder.[7] Even then, Lucentis was restricted to patients with that type of the disorder in both eyes--and could only be used in the less-diseased eye. In the words of Tom Bremridge, chief executive of the Macular Disease Society, "allowing one eye to go blind before treating the second eye is cruel and totally unacceptable." Winfried Amoaku of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists explained, "There are differences in action between these two drugs, which may be important in individual cases, and so we do not wish to be limited in our treatment options in this way."

* NICE limited several Alzheimer's drugs to use in patients whose disease had advanced from early to middle-stage. Even though doctors argued that starting treatment at the onset of dementia would be most effective in slowing the progression of the disease,[8] NICE decided that patients would have to wait until they became sick enough for the treatments to meet the cost-effectiveness threshold. A charity has taken legal action, accusing NICE of "ignoring totally the proven benefits of the drugs for careers of those with mild symptoms, and grossly underestimating the savings they bring to the state by enabling suffers to remain in their own homes longer. [The charity] accused NICE of implying careers are far better off when the condition of their sick relative deteriorates so much that they are forced to move into a residential home."[9]

* NICE blocked access to Glivec, a leukemia treatment. Ann Tittley, a 55-year-old patient, was being treated for breast cancer when she was diagnosed with leukemia. After realizing she would be denied access to Glivec even though her physician had recommended she start it immediately, Ms. Tittley wrote a letter to then-Prime Minister Tony Blair. "Glivec was my lifeline, at least it would give me a chance of beating this disease," wrote Ms. Tittley. "Life is precious.... I appreciate that cost is important, but to deny patients this potentially life-saving treatment on this basis is totally unforgivable and criminal."[10]

In a June article, the Economist noted the concerns and suggested, however, there are provisions which could prevent them in a reformed health care system:

In America, the drugs and devices lobbies are violently opposed to a NICE-style agency that could issue mandatory rulings. They paint a scary picture of Americans being denied access to life-saving new drugs by faceless bureaucrats. In Britain NICE has come under fire for rulings that limited access to expensive drugs for Alzheimer's and cancer on the NHS. America could get around this problem by requiring and perhaps even funding studies, but leaving insurers and individuals to decide whether to pay for treatments.

As with many aspects of the health care debate, there's more to the story. Aricept is the drug NICE originally kept off its formulary, according to the New York Times. It costs about $2,200 a year and some Medicare drug plans pay for it; some don't, says The Times' Caring and Coping blog.

Daniel Callahan, a bioethicist at the Hastings Center, says the drug -- and several others that are linked to the anecdotes above, can slow the progression of a disease, but only for a short time and have only marginal benefits given their cost. It's a question, he says, Americans don't want to ask or discuss.

The most generic way this is done is to declare that life is priceless and even to pose such a question is immoral; and so also with the idea of rationing beneficial treatments. Considerations of cost should simply have no place in our reform calculus.

But there are more subtle ways that cost are sidelined in the reform debate. One of them is the powerful role of the pharmaceutical industry, also taken up in the New Old Age. By treating any consideration of cost as a threat to innovation, both the profit motive is protected (patents run out), and the American romance with endless medical progress is pandered to.

At the end of the debate where McCain traveled today, each side -- proponents and opponents -- can approach the same issue with two different questions.

(1) Why should the government tell me what drugs I can have when it should be my choice?

- or -

(2) Why should taxpayers -- or the other members of your insurance pool -- pay for a drug for you that has little value?

Pick your poison.

(AP Photo/Matt York)

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Transportation funding: How much do you need?

Posted at 3:40 PM on August 24, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

There was a reason why transportation advocates were relatively quiet last spring when just about everyone else who gets money from the state was decrying the fallout from the economic crisis, the massive state budget shortfall, and then Gov. Pawlenty's unallotment.

Over the objections of Gov. Pawlenty, the Legislature increased the state's gas tax in 2008 to pay for maintaining and upgrading the system.

"Transportation one exception to funding crisis," the headline on Dan Olson's story read last January.

The increased revenue means the Minnesota Department of Transportation construction budget for this year over last rises by more than half. In two years, spending will more than double from last year's.

Good times? Apparently not. Today, the Minnesota Department of Transportation released its spending outlook for the next 20 years and found it's $50 billion short, more than twice the projected gap cited in its previous report, issued five years ago. And that was before the Legislature approved the additional $6.6 billion funding plan.

The problem, aside from inflation, is that people are driving more fuel-efficient cars, using less gasoline.

"If we continue to let our roads deteriorate the cost is going to be exponential," said Murphy, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, echoing virtually the same argument he applied in the legislative debate over the gas tax. "Instead of building new roads, we're going to have to tear up all of our old roads and build them again.

One idea: A program for people with fuel-efficient vehicles whereby the government gives them money to buy more gas guzzlers.

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Health care rationing?

Posted at 9:53 AM on August 19, 2009 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Politics

At the same time MPR's Kerri Miller was hosting a discussion today on where the money goes that's dumped into health care, and why health care costs so much, a Harvard professor was sounding an alarm that health care reform will lead to rationing, and getting significant pushback from an unlikely source.

"The best solution to this problem of private overconsumption of health services would be to eliminate the tax rule that is causing the excessive insurance and the resulting rise in health spending, Martin Feldstein wrote in a Wall St. Journal column today called ObamaCare is all About Rationing." Alternatively, Congress could strengthen the incentives in the existing law for health savings accounts with high insurance copayments. Either way, the result would be more cost-conscious behavior that would lower health-care spending."

Feldstein went on CNBC this morning, where anchor Mark Haines found his view objectionable.

Haines: Why would that lead to rationing?

Feldstein: Because that's what the administration strategy is. They've said they're going to cut the projected rate of growth on health care spending by 30 percent over the next two decades. That came from a White House study released in June. And the way they're going to do that is by setting rules for doctors and hospitals, what they call 'cost effective forms of treatment' that will limit the kinds of things that can be done.

Haines: And we don't have rationing now?

Feldstein: We have some of it, but this...

Haines: You bet your bippy we've got it. C'mon. You have profit-motivated bureaucrats making rationing decisions.

Feldstein: But I can talk to my doctor. I can talk to my hospital and say, 'should we do this or not do that?' And people with private insurance today have those kinds of options.

Haines: And then the insurance company has the final say on whether it actually happens, right? Rationing care.

Feldstein: They turn down very, very few things and, again, it is not the government that's doing it. So if my insurance company doesn't allow certain drugs, or doesn't allow certain kinds of treatment, I can choose a different kind of policy. And the idea as I see it in the Obama proposal is to force us all into a certain kind of spending pattern because the government is concerned -- the administration is concerned -- about how much the government is spending on health care, and Medicare, and Medicaid, but in order to control that, they want to change the kind of treatments that you and I -- outside the Medicare and Medicaid system -- can get on our own.

Haines. I'm sorry, but how are you being... how are we being forced into anything? You will be allowed to keep your private insurance.

Feldstein: Yes, but what the administration is talking about, what they describe in this White House report, is what they call 'comparative effectiveness research.' In other words: Their studies will say whether a particular kind of treatment is worth the money. And that's what concerns me.

Haines: Wait a minute! You want to be able to have anything regardless of its cost vs. its effectiveness?

Feldstein: No, I want to make that decision.

Haines: How are you qualified to make that decision?

Feldstein: I and my physician together will talk about whether something is worse spending the money to do. Whether the risks associated with not doing this test or that test are risks that we want to take. And I think that individuals who want to pay out of pocket, there ought to be higher co-payments. But I think individuals and their physicians rather than a bureaucratic process should be making the choice.

Haines: First of all, the private insurance companies are a bureaucracy, so this bureaucrat argument is nonsense. And, second, you'll pardon me sir, but your argument is a very easy one to make by someone who has money.

Feldstein: But 85 percent of Americans have insurance. So it's not that we're talking about a small handful of people who have insurance. And one of the nice things is there's choice. I can, here in Boston, I can join any of a number of plans and they're going to differ (Bob notes: He didn't mention that Massachusetts has universal health care) in the kinds of hospitals I would have access to and the kinds of limits on various things. So there's choice and it seems to me that's one of the things that's made the American health care system so good. That it has stimulated research. It has stimulated new technologies...

Haines: Well I'll say, again, sir, you have these choices because you can afford them. A lot of people can't afford them. And we're 29th in the industrial world in infant mortality. We spend two-and-a-half times what Britain spends for worse outcomes...I'm sorry.

Haines got so worked up, he turned the interview over to his co-anchor.

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Barney Frank opens new front in health care debate

Posted at 8:18 AM on August 19, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Opponents of President Obama's health care plan are never going to vote for Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., so that gives him the luxury of telling them off.

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Picket-line politics

Posted at 12:10 PM on August 17, 2009 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Today, President Obama was in Phoenix, speaking to the VFW about his health care plan. Then it's on to Colorado.

Both sides in the debate were out in force early.

If we didn't have their signs, could we still tell which side they're on? Why? Or why not?

Here's one side:

Here's the other:

Click on the image for a larger version.

Think it's easy? Maybe. Maybe not.

Charles Quimby at Across the Great Divide had a great question on this picture.

Can you guess who stands for what in whatever this disagreement is about?

Answer later on the photos above.

1:38 p.m. Answers -

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Live-blogging Midday: St. Paul and Minneapolis budgets

Posted at 11:04 AM on August 14, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Politics

Both Minneapolis and St. Paul mayors have released their budget updates. Both call for increases in property taxes and reductions in some services. Mayor R.T. Rybak and Mayor Chris Coleman are Gary Eichten's guests on Midday. Listen to the program here. React below.

11:07 a.m. - Coleman says the city is "relatively strong," and looking at doing things "more efficiently." Says the city is focusing on "what really matters," which brings up the obvious question: "What doesn't matter?"

11:09 a.m. - You can watch Rybak's budget message here.

11:10 a.m. - Coleman says St. Paul is "down 40 officers." Gives props to Obama for stimulus. Rybak gives props too, and criticizes state cuts to cities and says stimulus money will go away. "Every budget I've presented in five years has been balanced, which is in sharp contrast to the state."

Rybak says more than 100 positions were eliminated yesterday.

11:12 a.m. - Gary plays sound bite of Pawlenty says some good things in Minneapolis wouldn't have happened without him. He cites Guthrie, Northstar, Twins stadium, light rail, and "all of the money pumped into the University of Minnesota."

11:14 a.m. - "I wish he'd stick around because I'd love to have him come on this program,' Rybak countered. He says spending in Minneapolis increased 1 percent, during Pawlenty's term, state spending jumped 12 percent. "I don't need a lecture." He says Pawlenty sat on his hands for Twins stadium. Rybak says he led initiatives and Pawlenty 'was there for the signing.'

11:17 a.m. - Coleman says Pawlenty did not solve budget problems this year. "He just pushed it into the future."

"This whole country has been engulfed in this negative tone where people get up and scream. I wish we could have a dialog about where we need to go and stop blaming everyone for our problems," Coleman said.

Q: Are you running for governor?

A: Coleman: I've made no secret I'm exploring that?
A: Rybak: "I'm likely to do that."

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Q: Have you laid off more firefighters? (Question from wife of firefighter)

A: Everyone is taking a cut, public safety taking less of a cut. Didn't accept grant for firefighters because it required us to spend more money.

Q: To Coleman: How can you call a 6 percent hike in property tax, "more service at a better price"?

A: We have merged departments, invested up-front money to save money in the long run. We're making long-term investments in which we'll see huge paybacks. We're asking employees to do more with less. Layoffs after the first of the year.

Q: Caller: In 1967 the Legislature passed first sales tax. 100% were to go to reduce property taxes. That was the purpose. Now the state is fighting increases in sales tax and has no regard for local property taxes.

A: Rybak: Correct. We should say "let's have the sales tax but earmark it for property tax relief."

Q: Without Gang Strike Force, will gang activity increase?

A: Coleman; We have great anti-gang cops. "Unfortunate that the sideshow has taken away from what our officers are doing."

Rybak: "Doesn't have a significant impact on what we're doing in the city." Says Minneapolis cops have lots of intelligence (informers?)

11:29 a.m. - Coleman just mentioned the Harlem Children's Zone as a model. Here's the Web site.

Q: (Caller to Coleman) I live in Highland Park. We can save money by not cleaning the streets in the summer. They're not dirty.

A: Coleman: You're going to get your wish; it's one of the things we're going to have to clean the streets (Ah, but will there be towing on days you're not going to clean anymore?). It's not all about aesthetics; it ends up in the river.

11:36 a.m. - Why do the cities have different policies on things like trash collection?

Rybak: There's a whole long history of garbage in Minneapolis. It works well for us. St. Paul's works well for them. Same with snow plowing.

(Of course, this brings up an old question: Why do we need two big cities? Why not just be like businesses and merge)

Q: Does downtown St. Paul have a future?

A: Coleman: "It's unbelievable. I'm so excited it's impossible to contain (bob: Is a lunch joint staying open after 2 p.m. downtown?). Cray is coming downtown. Microsoft wants to be a part of downtown. Light rail is a critical piece of that. High-speed rail is a critical part of that.

Q: Block E has reputation for intimidation and violence. When is the mayor going to do something?

A: Crime in downtown is dramatically down, Rybak says. Putting more people on the street -- via the Twins ballpark -- will help. So does all the residential properties "we've built."

Q: Re: Central Corridor light-rail. There are still a lot of critics. Businesses are worried on University Ave., etc. Are these problems going to be resolved?

A: Coleman: "This line is going to be built. We've all but begun construction. I've sat through mitigation meetings at the University of Minnesota. Communities along the corridor have deep concerns and we are taking proactive steps -- adding money for parking mitigation and beautification of University Ave., and another stop on Western Avenue. How we get there is an open question.

It's like the 7 minute blackout when a rocket ship is coming back from space.

Rybak: We have to figure out how to get Uptown connected. We're doing bus rapid transit on 35W. None of these will be easy. Everyone needs to bring their points to the table, but stay at the table.

Wrapping up, Gary asked how they thought Obama is doing. Surprisingly, they both think he's doing great.

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How much attention should Obama opponents get?

Posted at 1:13 PM on August 12, 2009 by Bob Collins (12 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Why wasn't President Obama's health care town hall forum in New Hampshire yesterday as raucous as some of the video clips we've seen at forums around the country recently?

"I doubt we're seeing a representative sample of any series of town hall meetings despite the food fight on cable every day," Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said at his daily briefing today. The Boston Globe reports:

"People want to take the opportunity to find out from the president -- to have him answer their questions about why he's doing what he's doing and the concerns they may have on the legislation," he added. "I think most people took that opportunity as something that was positive.

"I think some of you were disappointed yesterday that the president didn't get yelled at," Gibbs told reporters, chiding them for paying too much attention to the back-and-forth between protestors outside."

"A bunch of your stories had more to do with the fact that the -- the sideshow on each side of the street outside than what was actually going on inside of the town hall," he said.

Nothing in politics happens in a vacuum, of course. Presidential town hall forums are staged affairs with attention to detail about how it'll play on the TV screen in the evening.

They're not inherently phony, of course, and provide a piece of a larger contextual story. But so do the sometimes staged affairs going on outside, too.

Meanwhile, the White House is pushing back in the public-relations war, creating a Health Insurance Reform Reality Check page.

Conservative sites are already setting up a Health Insurance Reform Reality Check reality checks.

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People-watching politics

Posted at 2:05 PM on August 11, 2009 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

For pure theater, the growing protests over President Obama's health care initiative makes for a compelling people-watching moment or two. The scene today shifted to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in a state that knows how to make life miserable for visiting Democrats.

Pixelating of the image above (you can click for a larger version) makes some of the material difficult to read, so let's take a closer look:

We've got the woman with the bad grammar:

The always lame attempt to turn a name into an acronym:

Irony, anyone? The flag-waving American with the foreign-automaker (BMW) hat, holding a sign about fascism. BMW, the company whose largest shareholder family allegedly had a Nazi past:

And the tourist-town T-shirt shop's best-seller:

Across the street we have an entirely different looking crowd. This is the side that says the other side isn't "grassroots" because they're coordinated in their demonstrations. Note the coordination.

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Stuck in the middle

Posted at 12:21 PM on August 11, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

By now, you've no doubt been following the controversy surrounding protests breaking out at political town halls. I mean, everyone's doing the story:

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(If the video doesn't load, try here)

Us against them. Good vs. evil. You're either for us or agin' us. The perfect scenario for our let's not scratch the depth too much society.

Today, the story moves to Portsmouth, New Hampshire where President Obama gets to experience the love firsthand (live blog)

With supporters of Obama on one side of the street, and opponents of Obama on the other side of the street, Greg Meyer, 39, of Hampton Falls, N.H., was able to get a mention in Boston Globe coverage by standing in the middle of the street.

"If we did not believe in that separation, maybe we'd find a way to work together," Meyer said. "I'm on the side of the dialogue."

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Protesters and protests

Posted at 12:09 PM on August 7, 2009 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Depending on your party persuasion, there are two narratives going on today regarding political discourse and the apparent backlash against Democratic policies.

If you're a Democrat: There's an incivility from Republicans that's impinging intelligent discussions.

If you're a Republican: Funny, but dissent was patriotic when Democrats were doing it.

Regardless of which camp you're in, a confrontation in St. Louis County was the predictable progression. Warning: There are obscenities in this video.

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Drops in a very big bucket

Posted at 2:08 PM on July 29, 2009 by Than Tibbetts (9 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Remember when President Obama ordered federal agencies to shave $100 million from their budgets? Well, The Wall Street Journal reports they did it with $2 million extra on top.

With the budget deficit soaring toward $2 trillion, the Department of Justice has figured out how to play its part: double-sided photocopying.

There are other acts of national sacrifice. The Forest Service will no longer repaint its new, white vehicles green immediately upon purchase. The Army will start packing more soldiers onto R&R flights. The Navy will delete unused email accounts.

The Journal, it seems, could barely hide its contempt for the initiative, calling it a “savings shocker” in the headline and calling out “Front-and-Back Copies, Other Wonders” in the subhead.

That is 0.006% of the estimated federal deficit.

Still, a penny saved is a penny earned, right?

Update: It seems the Minnesota Senate is getting into the cost-cutting act as well. The AP says the Senate is cutting $2.2 million from its budget by spending “less on everything from employees to Kleenex.”

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Keeping up with Congress

Posted at 5:00 PM on July 28, 2009 by Than Tibbetts (0 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

It's 5 o'clock. Do you know where your Congressional representatives are?

Sen. Al Franken (D) railed on "judicial activism" today as the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to confirm Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D) said she was "irritated" by "mostly anonymous" critiques of Sotomayor's judicial temperament.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R) yesterday briefly held up a House resolution commemorating the 50th anniversary of Hawaii's statehood. The resolution was ostensibly designed to pinch Republican lawmakers who have skirted the edge of the "birther" movement by noting in the text that President Barack Obama was indeed born in Hawaii.

Salon reports that the resolution later passed the House unanimously with Bachmann voting "yea."

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The revolving school superintendent door

Posted at 2:45 PM on July 23, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Politics, Schools

The Minneapolis school system, it seems, has tried everything. But, like so many other metro school districts nationwide, it can't keep a school superintendent in office for more than a few years; barely long enough to make a difference.

Bill Green announced on Thursday that he will not seek another contract as the superintendent of Minneapolis Public Schools. He has been the district's interim and permanent leader since 2006. He said he plans to return to teaching and writing as a history professor at Augsburg College in Minneapolis.

Here's a timeline of the last 15 years in the city:

1993 - The school board turns over the schools to a for-profit private firm. Peter Hutchinson and his three-person Public Strategies Group operate the schools on a performance-based contract. "We need to make whatever changes are necessary to see all children learn and see that the gap between children of color and white children closes," Hutchinson says. It's the first time a private company took over an entire school district.

1997 - Hutchinson leaves. Some minority groups didn't want Hutchinson as superintendent, and charged him with failing to meet minority students' needs," MPR's Laura McCallum reported.

1997 - Carol Johnson is hired

2003 - Carol Johnson leaves. She became superintendent of schools in Memphis, and superintendent in Boston

2003 (September) - The Minneapolis School Board taps Dave Jennings as new superintendent. "I have confidence because he's shown to be a warrior for public education in the city of Minneapolis. And I think that's what we need," Board member Audrey Johnson says of the ex-legislator.

2003 (October) - Jennings quits after "some African American leaders, who claimed the search process was flawed and Jennings lacked the necessary qualifications," MPR's Tim Pugmire reported. "While the noise is coming from a small group of folks, it is beginning to get in the way of the work, and time is short," Jennings said.

2004 - Thandiwe Peebles is introduced as the new Minneapolis school superintendent, telling people she didn't think things in Minneapolis are as tough as people said they were.

2006 (January) - Peebles resigns, embroiled in controversies over her management style and over allegations that she used district employees to conduct personal business for her.

2007 - Green, an African American, is named interim superintendent. "I would not do this if I felt that we were in a death spiral," Green said. "I do feel we can turn this around."

St. Paul has spun through a few superintendents, too, but they tend to stay longer. Meria Carstarphen left in February after a short tenure. But her predecessors -- Pat Harvey and Curman Gaines -- stayed for a combined 13 years.

Johnson, by all accounts, was brilliant and in great demand. And that's part of the problem. There are apparently so few game-changing school superintendents available, that a small-market city can't keep them.

The average lifespan of a superintendent is three years.

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The hidden issue of health care

Posted at 11:55 AM on July 23, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Politics

When I checked a few minutes ago, of the few dozen people who answered the question posed in this morning's Five at 8, 83% said they knew little to nothing about the specifics of the health care debate taking place in Washington.

How could that be? Because it's happening in Washington where process is most important.

Example. Read this article from the Associated Press. I'll wait right here.

Welcome back. Did you notice something about the article? There wasn't a single word about what's in the legislation or what the major points of contention are. Not one word. There is a reference to the Blue Dogs -- conservative Democrats -- being concerned about "tax increases and the impact on rural health care and small businesses." That's it. So what's in the House bill that specifically has them concerned?

It's no wonder that talk shows -- which boil legislation down to small talking points, some of which are occasionally in context and accurate -- steer the political debate.

But what if you want to be informed about the specific issues?

For the most part, it's piecemeal. Pick an editorial here or there, read a blog and piece it together.

Here are a few salient points.

Des Moines Register editorial

Democrats propose increasing taxes on the wealthiest Americans - about 2 million taxpayers - to help pay for reform. The surtax would be imposed on families earning more than $350,000 a year and individuals earning more than $280,000 a year. The tax rate would range from 1 percent to 5.4 percent.

The New York Times provided separate views of this proposal in a blog post here. "Should the Rich Pay for the Uninsured?" Included were these details.

Doctors' reimbursements:

The baseline budget calls for large cuts over the next decade in doctors' reimbursements under Medicare. Congress has always voted to waive these cuts. The health care reform bill will make this waiver permanent at a cost of more than $200 billion. It is disingenuous to get outraged over this expense, since we always knew that Congress would not allow the baseline cuts to go into effect.

Capping health insurance premiums:

Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, wants to cap the tax exclusion to put a lid on inflationary health insurance and restore fairness to the tax code. Workers could still keep their health insurance at work, but they would have a new incentive to stay under an annual cap of, say, $15,000 for a family policy.The company could still deduct any amount it spends on insurance, but employees would be motivated to stay under the cap.

Maggie Mahar, who writes the Health Beat blog for the Century Foundation, says misinformation is growing. She took apart a Wall Street Journal editorial which, she says, are full of falsehoods. She provides a few more details of what's actually in the bill.

The House bill actually protects and increases employer-sponsored insurance. According to official CBO numbers, 2 million more people would be covered under employer-sponsored insurance than is projected to be the case today - 164 million compared to 162 under current law.

But the best analysis of what's in the House bill -- which is H.R. 3200, by the way -- may be the Congressional Budget Office:

The legislation would establish a mandate to have health insurance, expand eligibility for Medicaid, and establish new health insurance exchanges through which some people could purchase subsidized coverage. The options available in the insurance exchange would include private health insurance plans as well as a public plan that would be administered by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The specifications would also require payments of penalties by uninsured individuals, firms that did not provide qualified health insurance, and other firms whose employees would receive subsidized coverage through the exchanges. The plan would also provide tax credits to small employers that contribute toward the cost of health insurance for their workers.

... and ...

Changes to the Medicare Part D program... would establish a new prescription drug rebate program for some people who are eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare, while expanding drug coverage to beneficiaries that are currently subject to a gap in coverage (often referred to as the Part D "doughnut hole"), saving $30 billion over the 2010-2019 period.

A read of the actual bill shows a few other provisions: >> A grant to train more nurses, and to provide more diversity in the nursing profession.
>> Health clinics in schools
>> Low-interest student loans for primary care students.
>> Home visitation programs for families expecting children.
>> Optional Medicaid coverage for low-income HIV individuals.

It's not a perfect way to get up to speed on the actual issue of health care, but it's better than what we've had so far.

As for the politics of the debate, which are getting the lion's share of coverage, a guest on this morning's Midmorning program succinctly told us all we needed to know about that:

"Every dollar in the health care system is someone's income."

It was good listening.

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Live-blogging Obama's news conference

Posted at 8:13 PM on July 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

5:47 p.m. - David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo suggests health care is to the Obama White House what oil and energy was to the Bush-Cheney White House.

6:59 p.m. - NPR ran an excellent piece on All Things Considered tonight, documented how health care interests have access to the chair of the Senate Finance Committee. If you make more than $7 million from PACs, and a little more than $650,000 from your own state, who are you most beholden to?

7:00 p.m. - We're underway. Here are his opening remarks.

If you already have health insurance, the reform we're proposing will provide you with more security and more stability. It will keep government out of health care decisions, giving you the option to keep your insurance if you're happy with it. It will prevent insurance companies from dropping your coverage if you get too sick. It will give you the security of knowing that if you lose your job, move, or change your job, you will still be able to have coverage. It will limit the amount your insurance company can force you to pay for your medical costs out of your own pocket. And it will cover preventive care like check-ups and mammograms that save lives and money.

If you don't have health insurance, or are a small business looking to cover your employees, you'll be able to choose a quality, affordable health plan through a health insurance exchange - a marketplace that promotes choice and competition Finally, no insurance company will be allowed to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing medical condition.

His opening statements didn't say specifically how we'll pay for this. If my out-of-pocket costs are limited, what's to stop my premiums from going up? "It will be paid for," he said, "while reallocating money being wasted." Is there that much waste out there? This thing has a $1 trillion price tag.

7:08 p.m. - "Not all of the cost containment was included in Congress's initial bill," he said. That reminds me of Jon Stewart's chronicle of the climate change bill.

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QUESTIONS

Q: Have you told Congress how you want this paid for?

A: Obama initially ignores question and talks about the problem of rising premiums. "That's what reform is all about." He then says "the entire thing has to be paid for." He says taxpayers are already putting money into the kitty. Through eliminating waste, he says two-thirds of it are already being paid for. He wants to limit itemized deductions for wealthiest Americans. That, he says, would raise sufficient funds for the remaining one-third. None of the bills include that provision. "I don't want that final one-third of the cost of health care to be completely shouldered on the backs of middle class families who are already struggling in a difficult economy.

He says he's opposed to tax on middle class. Didn't say he'd veto that.

"If someone told you there is a plan out there that is guaranteed to double your health care costs... and is the biggest contributor to the national deficit, I think most people would be opposed to that. That's what we have right now," he said.

7:17 p.m. - A CBS poll last month showed the president's problem. Most say health care is a big problem. But no solution has much support.

Q: Why the rush?

A: "I get letters every day from people," the president says. "If you don't set deadlines in this town, nothing happens. The default setting is inertia." He says it's important to "get it right" and "if at the end of the day I see we do not have it right, I'm not going to sign a bill that doesn't reduce health care inflation... that I don't think will work."

Q: Will all uninsured Americans be insured under your bill?

A: I want to cover everybody. Unless you have a single payer system, there's always going to be someone that's not covered. He says his plan would cover 98 percent of Americans.

Q: You mentioned two Republicans in your opening statement. But you have 60 seats. Isn't this a fight in the Democratic Party?

A: "You haven't seen me out there blaming Republicans. I'm frustrated with some of the misinformation coming from Republicans. That's politics." Gave props to Chuck Grassley. Says even if "you don't see Republican votes, you see Republican ideas."

Says some Democrats are opposed to low reimbursement rates for Medicare. (This is the concern of the Minnesota congressional delegation)

Q: What sacrifices will Americans have to make?

A: "They're going to have to give up paying for things that don't make them healthier. That's the kind of change you want. If hospitals and doctors aren't coordinating enough... and nobody's bother to send the last test you took to the next doctor, you're wasting money."

7:29 p.m. - Personal story time: I needed a painkiller shot in a shoulder last year. I had to go to four different doctors who did four different tests -- many of them the same. Total cost of one shot: $6,000. He's got a point. It's pretty silly. Share your horror story below.

"It will (force) people to be better consumers," the president said. (See my post earlier today. How can this possibly be anything more than you'll decide to do without some health care you need? In the above example, I could've been a better consumer -- which insurance companies say they want me to do -- and I wouldn't have gotten treatment for an injured shoulder. I had to go to doctor I had a referral to go to, in the order I had to go to them, paying every step of the way.)

Q: When you talk about bending the long term costs downward, you talk about cuts in Medicare but there are never many specifics. What kind of sacrifice are you calling on beneficiaries to make?

A: Obama talks about the MEDPAC program to cut Medicare costs. Here's the report.

"It's not going to change Medicare benefits, it's going to change how efficiently those benefits are delivered," he said.

Q: Your administration turned down a request for a list of health care execs who've visited the White House (see link at top of this ost), you promised to hold health care negotiations on C-SPAN, an agency said it's not getting enough information on TARP. Are you fulfilling your promise of transparency in the White House?

A: "You guys have been in there taking pictures, so it hasn't been a secret who's in there. You'll recall ... our kickoff event was here on C-SPAN and at a certain point you start getting into all kinds of different meetings. If they wanted those to be on C-SPAN, I would welcome it."

"Let me take a look at what they say we haven't provided (TARP). I think we've provided much greater transparency than the previous administration. I'll find out and I'll have an answer for you."

Q: Do you think your administration should take a harder line with Wall St? Would you support a fee on risky activities that go beyond traditional lending?

A: "We were on the verge of a complete financial meltdown. Wall St. took extraordinary risk with other people's money." (aside: Be sure to catch the first 5 minutes of John Hope Bryant on Midmorning this morning discussing this)

"We've stepped away from the brink. Now, banks are starting to make profits again. Some have paid back the TARP money they received. That's a good thing. What we haven't seen is the kind of change in practices on Wall Street."

Obama said financial regulatory reform must be passed.

7:47 p.m. Speaking of TARP repayments. From Marketplace:

As banks start paying back TARP funds, taxpayers are getting about 12.4% return on their investment. Now lawmakers are trying to decide whether to spend that money to help the housing market or to pay down the national debt. Steve Henn reports.

Q: Can you guarantee the government will not deny (health care) coverage?

A: "We want a public option to keep the insurance companies honest... having a public plan that also shows that if you take the profit motive out, reduce administrative costs, that's going to incentivize the private sector to do even better."

"There've been reports of insurance companies making record profits.

"Can I guarantee that there are going to be no changes in the health care delivery system? No. The whole point of this is to try to encourage changes that work."

7:52 p.m.: Note that he changed the question. Then answered his. We all know what "deny coverage" means. It means coverage the consumer needs, but can't get funding for. The president could've ended the fear about government involvement here by answering the question asked. He didn't. So now we can expect even more analysis not only about whether the government would lead to less quality health care, but why he didn't choose to end the fear.

7:55 p.m. - Obama is told the guy he called on for the last question isn't the guy who stood up and asked one. It was supposed to be a reporter from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Q: You cited the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic as models. The Mayo Clinic has problems with the House proposal (way ahead of you, Steve)

A: "The Mayo Clinic was initially concerned about whether there were enough cost-saving measures. After they found out we put forward specific criticisms, they wrote in their blog the next day, this would make a difference."

8:02 p.m. - Fact Check: If the goal was to imply that Mayo is on board, that's not even close to true. Here's what the blog said:

Although there are some positive provisions in the current House Tri-Committee bill - including insurance for all and payment reform demonstration projects - the proposed legislation misses the opportunity to help create higher-quality, more affordable health care for patients. In fact, it will do the opposite.

And today, Mayo sent this letter to Congress

Q: What does the arrest of Prof. Gates (Harvard) say about race relations in America.

A: "Skip Gates is a friend so I may be biased. If I were trying to jigger into my house -- well, this is my house now, let's say my old house in Chicago. Here, I'd get shot. (laughter). My understanding is at that point, Prof. Gates is already in his house. The police officer comes in, and my understand is he showed his ID to show this was his house. At that point he's arrested for disorderly conduct."

"Not having been there, I don't know what role race played in that but it's fair to say any of us would be angry. The Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting someone when there was already proof he was in his own home."

"There's a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by police disproportionately. That's a fact. This still haunts us. The fact that blacks and Hispanics are picked up frequently -- and often times for no cause -- casts suspicion."

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Gun bill fails

Posted at 2:24 PM on July 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

South Dakota Sen. John Thune's attempt to expand the boundaries of concealed carry gun laws has failed.

Thune attached an amendment to a defense appropriations bill that would allow people in states that have concealed carry laws -- like Minnesota -- to continue to carry in other states whose residents don't enjoy the same privilege.

A majority of the Senate voted for the measure, but it fell two votes short of the 60 needed.

The vote also showed the deep divisions within the Democratic Party on the issue, the Washington Post notes:

Democrats, who have traditionally championed gun control as a way to reduce crime, are suffering from their own political success of the past two elections. Schumer served as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for the 2006 and 2008 election cycles, specifically recruiting supporters of the Second Amendment to run in states where gun ownership is common. Going from 45 seats in the fall of 2006 to 60 seats this summer, Democrats now have about 25 senators who are strong supporters of gun rights.

Minnesota's senators -- Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken -- voted against the amendment. Wisconsin's Russ Feingold and North Dakota's Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad were among the Democrats who voted for it. (See roll call vote here)

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The health care debate

Posted at 1:01 PM on July 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Politics

Rochester's Mayo Clinic is getting plenty of attention as the health care debate has eclipsed the economy as the number one domestic issue.

President Obama holds a news conference tonight (7 p.m. CT with live-blogging here) to try to win support for his proposals, amid growing punditry that his entire presidency is on the line.

Mayo Clinic, and particularly its CEO Denis Cortese, doesn't like the president's proposals. In a story on National Public Radio on Tuesday's All Things Considered, it was described as "one of the health-care industry's great bargains, with costs 28 percent below the national average."

So when Mayo speaks, people in high places tend to listen. Here's the clinic's blog speaking:

"The proposed legislation misses the opportunity to help create higher-quality, more affordable health care for patients. In fact, it will do the opposite."

... and ...

"Unless legislators create payment systems that pay for good patient results at reasonable costs, the promise of transformation in American health care will wither. The real losers will be the citizens of the United States."

Dr. Cortese told NPR further that "by higher value, we mean better outcomes, better results, better safety, better service -- at lower cost over time."

How to do that isn't exactly spelled out. But in a response to a New York Times blog post on how much health care really costs ($15,000 a year per family), a Mayo physician, Randall Walker, offered his idea.

It's a lengthy comment that deserves a full reading (several times, in my case. Such is the nature of the health care debate).

The government simply needs to do what it has always done best: to obtain money from those who have more to help those who have less.

The key is to structure this within a frame-work that nonetheless gives everyone, across all levels of income and employment conditions, more first-dollar responsibility for health care expenses, with the opportunity that comes with it to directly retain the savings of their wiser health care choices.

Dr. Walker says later in life, health savings accounts could be tax-free gifts to heirs...

In this way, many consumers would forgo a lot of the futile, expensive medical interventions toward the end of life that do not significantly improve the quality or duration of one's life -- knowing they and their heirs can directly enjoy the financial benefits of these choices.

It all starts, quite simply, with comprehensive means-adjustment -- for both the below-deductible payments to providers and the premiums to insurers that consumers would pay in relatively high-deductible / low-premium insurance policies.

At the heart of much of the health care debate, it seems to me, is the notion that people are simply wasting the health industry's time by seeking treatment without regard for its true cost. Perhaps, but is that what you"re seeing at the end of the health care food chain?

I don't dismiss the logic, but I also don't see how it meets the intent to raise the quality of care. There are plenty of stories about people who die of heart attacks because they didn't choose to go to the ER when the chest got tight.

The other day, a family member told me the story about getting hit in the head during an athletic contest. His head hurt and his vision was blurry and common sense dictated a trip to the doctor was in order. But he didn't go because he knew a CT-scan would be prescribed and those cost too much.

I fell off a roof last year and didn't go to the doctor for exactly the same reason. That might make financial sense, but it doesn't make medical sense.

And that's the issue that's making everyone's head hurt in the health care debate. How can a system do both?

Writing on the Health Care Blog, Matthew Holt suggests the question doesn't matter, because the legislation being considered doesn't do either.

Of course we'll be back here in a few years because the fundamental problems of the health care system--employment-based insurance & fee-for-service medicine--will remain whatever happens this summer. And they continue to be a recipe for disaster. Although of course it's a disaster that has lots of supporters.

It's almost enough to make you tune out and turn on Fox. Almost.

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Report: More whites stayed home on Election Day

Posted at 12:19 PM on July 20, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The Census Bureau sure knows how to ruin a good narrative.

The bureau released figures today showing a smaller percentage of registered voters went to the polls last November than in 2004. Even in voting-intensive Minnesota, more whites stayed home.

According to the national data, more older whites opted to stay home compared with 2004, citing little interest in supporting either Barack Obama or John McCain.

By race, the percentage of registered voters in Minnesota who voted was higher for whites (71.6%) than blacks (69%). In 2004, 78% of registered white voters showed up. Among black voters , 64.7% voted.

"The 2008 presidential election saw a significant increase in voter turnout among young people, blacks and Hispanics," said Thom File, a voting analyst with the Census Bureau's Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division said in a news release. "But as turnout among some other demographic groups either decreased or remained unchanged, the overall 2008 voter turnout rate was not statistically different from 2004."

The study also reaffirmed an existing maxim: Generally speaking, young people couldn't care less about voting. Among whites, the smallest turnout was among 18-to-24 year olds (43.8%). Among blacks, this age group also had the lowest turnout (52.3%).

But for all of the jokes about Minnesota in the wake of the Coleman-Franken race, one fact remains: Minnesotans vote. The state had the highest turnout (75%). Hawaii (51.8%), Utah (53.1%), West Virginia (53.4%), and Arkansas (53.8%) brought up the rear.

The Census Bureau data also showed -- again -- that the higher your income, the more likely you are to vote.

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Pawlenty in Iraq

Posted at 11:51 AM on July 20, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Politics, War

Minnesota's commander-in-chief of the National Guard looked soldier-like in the U.S. Army images of Gov. Tim Pawlenty's meeting with the troops in a surprise visit to Iraq over the weekend. The governor wore an Army-olive t-shirt and blended in with the troops.

Pawlenty is traveling with Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon who went with khaki:

And Gov. Jim Gibbons of Nevada, who went with the golf shirt and jeans look:

(Above photo from Red Bulls south newsletter)

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Romney makes money, political friends

Posted at 12:51 PM on July 16, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Pawlenty, Politics

Today's Gallup Poll makes clear the size of the task Gov. Tim Pawlenty has of getting the Republican nomination for president in 2012 (assuming he wants it). The big green bar up there (click for a larger image)? That's former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. The little one? That's Tim Pawlenty.

It's not an impossible task, of course, but Romney is making powerful friends the old-fashioned way. He's giving them money. The Boston Globe reports Romney's political action committee has taken in $1.6 million so far in 2009, and given away thousands of dollars to state and federal candidates (none from Minnesota).

Romney also has another advantage over Pawlenty. When his gubernatorial term ended, his state wasn't an economic basket case.

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Little substance at Sotomayor hearings

Posted at 1:37 PM on July 14, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Politics

Some senators at the Supreme Court nomination hearings of Sonia Sotomayor seemed to chafe a bit today because the answers seemed evasive. Now they know how voters feel when the politicians provide vague and evasive answers at debates around election time.

Their goal is to get re-elected. Her goal is to get the Supreme Court job, and weighty political and judicial discourse will have to wait for the lecture circuit.

If there was ever a subject that could have led to a wonderful discussion on the Constitution, it was the one asked by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisc., on whether Sotomayor had any constitutional qualms in the days after 9/11.

Oh, gosh, where to begin? Eavesdropping of conversations and e-mail, the Patriot Act, government snooping on library records, arresting people without pressing charges? Are we too quick to throw the Constitution under the bus when we're scared?

Sotomayor's answer made it abundantly clear that she had been well coached to say nothing interesting, let alone controversial.

Of course, Feingold's question may well have been an attempt to draw the judge into the brewing controversy over a reported hit squad program in the CIA in the days after 9/11. But she did not take the bait.

Still, it's becoming clear that a Supreme Court nomination hearing is not the time for honest dialog about the law. Again.

Tom Goldstein, who is live-blogging the hearings on ScotusBlog, says he's not surprised.

"She's following the tradition of saying very little. Ideologically, I'd say the hearings so far have confirmed to me that she's on the middle left. Intellectually, she does seem quite well informed and very capable of covering a lot of complicated topics without difficulty. So, she's quite smart," he said.

Certainly smart enough not to say anything that will get her nomination in trouble.

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Franken's first comments

Posted at 1:31 PM on July 13, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Politics

Sen. Al Franken made his first prepared remarks in a Senate hearing this afternoon when he got to read his remarks at the nomination hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

"I may not be a lawyer but neither are the overwhelming majority of Americans. Yet all of us, regardless of our backgrounds and professions, have a huge stake in who sits on the Supreme Court," he said, invoking Winona, Duluth, and the Twin Cities in his remarks.

Franken turned the tables on Republicans by saying, "I am wary of judicial activism. The judicial branch is supposed to show deep deference to Congress." It's a key Republican point. But then Franken used several Supreme Court decisions applauded by Republicans as examples. "Looking at voter rights, appropriate deference may not have been shown in the past few years and there are ominous signs that judicial activism is on the rise in these areas."

I posted Sen. Amy Klobuchar's comments here earlier. Here's the audio from Klobuchar:

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Doc in the house

Posted at 12:36 PM on July 13, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Politics

Say whatever you want about President Obama's selections to the cabinet and courts, but you can't deny they often have fascinating personal journeys.

Sonia Sotomayor? No. Regina Benjamin. She has been selected to be the next surgeon general.

She founded the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic, then rebuilt it when Hurricane Katrina destroyed it. Then had to rebuild it again, according to President Barack Obama.

When Hurricane George destroyed the clinic in 1998, she made house calls to all her patients while it was rebuilt. When Hurricane Katrina destroyed it again and left most of her town homeless, she mortgaged her house and maxed out her credit cards to rebuild that clinic for a second time. She tended to those who had been wounded in the storm, and when folks needed medicine, she asked the pharmacist to send the bill her way.

And when Regina's clinic was about to open for the third time, and a fire burned it to the ground before it could serve the first patient, well, you can guess what Dr. Benjamin did. With help from her community, she is rebuilding it again. One disabled patient brought her an envelope with $20 inside. Another elderly man said simply, "Maybe I can help. I got a hammer."

She's not it in for the money. There are only 2,500 residents in the town where it's located.

She was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in 2008:

She has established a family practice that allows her to treat all incoming patients, many of whom are uninsured, and frequently travels by pickup truck to care for the most isolated and immobile in her region. Benjamin is skilled, as well, in translating research on preventive health measures into accessible, community-based interventions to decrease the disease burdens of her diverse patient base, which includes immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, who comprise a third of Bayou La Batre's population. A committed local physician, she also plays key roles statewide and nationally, helping others establish clinics in remote areas of the country and serving in leadership positions in such health-related organizations as the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Family Physicians. With a deep, firsthand knowledge of the pressing needs and health disparities afflicting rural, high-poverty communities, Benjamin is ensuring that the most vulnerable among us have access to high-quality care.

She had big plans for the money: Expanding the clinic:

She's also the first African American woman to serve on the American Medical Association's board of trustees.

Back in 1995, she was named Person of the Week on the late Peter Jennings' nightly news program.

It's not clear now, however, what happens to the clinic when she leaves town.

(h/t: Chris Worthington)

Here are her remarks today:

Continue reading "Doc in the house"

Klobuchar on Sotomayor

Posted at 10:49 AM on July 13, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Politics

Here's Sen. Amy Klobuchar's opening statement as written for the Sonia Sotomayor hearings(you can listen to the hearing here), as provided by her office:

Welcome, Judge Sotomayor.

It's a pleasure to see you again today, and I enjoyed the meeting we had in my office a few weeks ago. We had a good conversation - although you did confess to me that when you once visited Minnesota in June, you felt the need to bring a winter parka. I'll try not to hold that against you this week!

I know you have lots of family and friends with you today, supporting you during this important hearing, and we welcome them too. In particular, it's been an honor for me to see your mom here.

When President Obama first announced your nomination, I loved the story about how your mom had saved up money to buy you and your brother the only set of encyclopedias in the neighborhood. It reminded me of when my parents bought a set of Encyclopedia Britannicas in the seventies that always occupied a hallowed place in our hallway. For me, those encyclopedias were a window on the world and a gateway to learning, as they clearly were for you.

From the time you were nine years old, your mom raised you and your brother on her own. She struggled to buy those encyclopedias on her nurse's salary, but she did it because she believed deeply in the value of education.

You went on to be the valedictorian of your high school class, to graduate at the top of your class in college and to attend law school.

After that - and this is an experience we have in common - you became a local prosecutor. Most of my questions during this hearing will be about opinions you've authored and work you've done in the criminal area. I believe having judges with real world, frontline experience as a prosecutor is a good thing.

Continue reading "Klobuchar on Sotomayor"

Who's in charge?

Posted at 7:04 PM on July 11, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics, War

If there's one story that's yet to strike a significant nerve with folks outside of Washington, it's the revelation that the Central Intelligence Agency had a secret counterterrorism program that it didn't tell Congress about.

Oh, and it didn't tell Leon Panetta, who is director of the Central Intelligence Agency, according to Panetta, who says he ended the program when he heard about it on June 23 after he heard about.

As befits Washington, it's Republicans on one side; Democrats on the other, according to National Public Radio's All Things Considered on Saturday..

Details of the program have not been released. Some Republicans say the revelation is no big deal, and that Democrats are playing politics. A man at the center of the controversy -- Democrat Silvestre Reyes of Texas, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee -- tells NPR's Guy Raz that his committee has pinpointed numerous instances where it was not given "full and complete information" and in at least one case, "we were deliberately lied to."

But wait, there's more, according to the New York Times, which cites its sources claiming it was under orders from former VP Dick Cheney that withheld information about the program from Congress:

The disclosure about Mr. Cheney's role in the unidentified C.I.A. program comes a day after an inspector general's report underscored the central role of the former vice president's office in restricting to a small circle of officials knowledge of the National Security Agency's program of eavesdropping without warrants, a degree of secrecy that the report concluded had hurt the effectiveness of the counterterrorism surveillance effort.

Amid all the controversy over who knew what, we still don't know what the counterterrorism program was. The Times says it didn't involve domestic spying, or waterboarding and that it never became fully operational.

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Sotomayor's rulings

Posted at 3:43 PM on July 9, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Politics

Minnesota Public Radio will be providing live coverage of the nomination hearings for Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Minnesota's two senators -- Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken -- sit on the Judiciary Committee.

Perhaps you'll want to get started reading some of the newly released papers about her nomination. The New York Times forced the release of more than 5,000 pages of White House documents on Sotomayor.

The documents are now available online at the National Archives Web site. There are also links to Sotomayor documents in the archives of President Bill Clinton and President George H.W. Bush.

Several news organizations today provided analysis of her Appeals Court record. The Times has just posted an article claiming he was tougher on criminals than her colleagues. The Washington Post's Jerry Markon held an online chat today on his analysis of her rulings.

The hearings start on Monday

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Brod suspends gubernatorial aspirations

Posted at 10:39 AM on July 8, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

State Rep. Laura Brod has suspended her exploratory campaign for governor, according to Gary Miller, who writes at Truth vs. the Machine and helped spearhead a Draft Brod movement.

Miller posted a letter from Brod which said some undisclosed health problems prevent her from running at the moment:

Recently I went in to the doctor for a yearly check up, and unfortunately, found that I had some results from routine diagnostic tests which were concerning. Last week, a second opinion confirmed what I originally learned and set forth a treatment plan, after which I am certain I will get a clean bill of health. Over the holiday weekend, my family and I decided right now is not the right time to begin a campaign for the Governor so we are suspending the conversations I have been having related to the potential of my candidacy so we can focus our energy where it needs to be and will evaluate where things are at in late summer.

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A look at congressional office expenses

Posted at 12:07 PM on July 7, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The U.S. Senate is following the lead of the U.S. House and is entering the 21st century soon. On Monday, the Senate passed an appropriations bill funding Congress' own budget. The bill would provide senators with office budgets of $3.1 million to $4.9 million next year, depending on the population of their state and other factors. It included a provision requiring Congress to post their office expenses online. Currently, they're kept only in paper records.

But the data is already available online thanks to LegisStorm.

I've put together Minnesota's congressional delegation spending up to the latest full year available. Where possible, I compared it to the same office's spending back to 2004.

	FY 2008	FY2007	FY2006	FY2005	FY2004	Increase
Klobuchar	$2,455,415	$1,599,638
Walz	$777,158
Ellison	$878,792
Bachmann	$754,929
Oberstar	$1,153,911	$1,029,835	$1,056,817	$1,046,012	$921,187	25.3%
McCollum	$1,004,280	$892,103	$849,939	$871,002	$813,563	23.4%
Coleman	$2,288,895	$2,162,587	$2,138,923	$1,955,451	$1,889,943	21.1%
Sabo			$966,036	$836,820	$800,529	20.7%
Kline	$836,655	$815,467	$846,007	$821,164	$696,507	20.1%
Dayton			$2,508,160	$2,339,313	$2,174,434	15.3%
Peterson	$1,005,940	$1,005,239	$954,052	$943,859	$886,238	13.5%
Ramstad	$861,371	$865,602	$865,980	$859,810	$797,103	8.1%
Gutknecht			$720,731	$783,798	$688,906	4.6%
Kennedy			$733,192	$809,807	$767,066	-4.4%

In most cases, the biggest expense -- aside from the congressional salary -- is the salary for the lawmaker's chief of staff or administrative assistant. These numbers are not necessarily the annual salary, because they may include bonuses and they don't include time a person may have split with a campaign committee.

In the last full fiscal year, these were the top earners in the position per congressional office:

Aide	Assigned to	Disbursement
Lee Sheehy	Klobuchar	$160,692.60
Mark Brownell	Peterson	$158,940.97
Bill Richard	Oberstar	$155,837.02
Kari Moe	Ellison	$155,434.75
Jean Hinz	Kline	$119,883.33
Joshua Syrjamaki	Walz	$104,166.70
Michelle Marston	Bachmann	$103,804.67*
William Harper	McCollum	$22,459.35

* - Includes salary of previous chief of staff.

Meanwhile, the Center for Public Integrity has drilled down the political food chain and examined financial disclosure requirements for state lawmakers around the country. Minnesota was ranked one of the worst.

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On the attack against Franken

Posted at 10:33 AM on July 7, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The end is near now that Al Franken is in the Senate, according to the latest video from the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Perhaps you recognize the images of Franken from an anti-Franken ad that showed him screaming during some sort of speech. You can't see the ad anymore because the NRSC has made it "private" on YouTube.

That ad prompted the Franken campaign to reveal where the video came from:

It will be interesting to see if Franken becomes the Republican poster child for the Democratic majority in the Senate.

Here's the oath being administered to Franken today by Joe Biden:

(h/t: Eric Ringham)

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The health care bills

Posted at 12:02 PM on July 2, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Politics

As the economy continues to collapse, it appears health care has overtaken it as the most important issue facing Washington politicians.

The Senate's giant health care bill has been posted here. It's 615 pages long. The chairman's amendments are another 175 pages.

How many people who boil the characterization of the bill down to talk-show-sized bites will actually read it? How politicians will actually read it? And this is just the Senate version.

Most people won't. But that won't stop them from having an opinion.

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Is a marital affair worse for Republican politicians?

Posted at 9:01 AM on July 2, 2009 by Bob Collins (52 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

I'm live blogging Midmorning's first hour on Thursday, a discussion about politicians and their affairs. Over our neighboring cubicles on Wednesday, I gave Kerri Miller my view: marriage is about as serious as a commitment as there is, and if you're willing to sell it out, the chances are pretty good you'd think nothing of taking a lesser route on the road of ethics. It's more a question of character than a matter of hypocrisy.

But is it a more egregious violation if it's a Republican who walks the Appalachian Trail?

"This is a very disturbing trend that some of their leaders can't abide by some of the values they as a party used to esteem, or should esteem," David Woodard, a Republican consultant and political science professor at South Carolina's Clemson University told the Los Angeles Times last week.

"As other Republicans come up for consideration, this is certainly one of the first things they'll have to address," Woodard said. "Voters will be looking at their private lives much more than before."

Fine. But does that mean a Democrat who admits to an affair gets a pass?

"The American public is often forgiving of personal mistakes," Julian Zelizer, a political science professor at Princeton University, wrote in the New York Times. "There have been many instances when voters re-elect politicians who have suffered through damaging events. But voters don't like it when a politician does something that directly contradicts the core arguments that they or their party have been making in the public arena."

Both Zilizer and Woodard are the guests during the hour (starting at 9:06 a.m.), and I'd like to have a corresponding discussion here to share during the hour. So please share your thoughts below.

LIVE BLOGGING

9:02 a.m. - Let's start by trying to separate the political from the moral. Take this poll.

9:04 a.m. - Some of the comments are getting mailed in. Just got this one:

"We are born with two innate urges. One is to eat, the other is to reproduce. There should be no surprise that infidelity is part of the human condition."

9:07 a.m. - Here's Kerri's intro she read just now:

There are new calls this morning for South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford to resign--A dozen Republican state senators have asked Sanford to step down...and a handful of county GOP chairs are calling for him to quit. One of the largest newspapers in the state has also editorialized that Sanford should tender his resignation.

The chorus for the governor to leave office grew louder this week....after he disclosed more details about his extra-marital affair. In a lengthy interview with the Associated Press... Sanford said he was no longer in love with his wife...that his Argentinian mistress was his "soul mate"...and that he'd had other encounters with women during trips with friends. At one point he told the journalists: "I will be able to die knowing that I had met my soul mate."

Attorney General Henry McMaster has asked the State Law Enforcement Division to review all of Sanford's travel records to determine whether he broke state laws.
So far, Sanford has said he will fulfill the remaining 18 months of his term...but there are diverging opinions on whether he can still be effective.... There are also differing perspectives on whether marital fidelity tells us anything about the kind of leader someone can be?

And that's where you, our audience, comes in this morning.

9:09 a.m. - We're starting with Woodard. "I feel like I'm watching a marital autopsy," he says. We're all still trying to figure out why Sanford felt the need to make matters worse by saying he doesn't love his wife anymore, has found his soulmate and still hopes to reconcile.

9:10 a.m. "Do Men See Mark Sanford in the Mirror?" the Los Angeles Times asks this morning.

Call me crazy, but amid all this finger-wagging, am I detecting just a little bit of -- gasp -- empathy? Is there something about Sanford's puppyish comportment, not to mention the fact that, unlike many adulterous politicos, he seems to be truly in love with his mistress (or at least truly convinced that he is) that's making him less a pariah and more a symbol of the male midlife crisis? For all his duplicity and entitlement, are some Americans -- particularly men -- feeling as much pity as outrage? Consider this small sample:

You can read the rest for yourself but it seems to me the suggestion is most men are doing this. Quite a generalization. Does Mark Sanford represent you, gentlemen?

9:13 a.m. - "There's a few people on the Democratic side enjoying this," Woodard says.

9:14 a.m. - Can you be an effective leader after having admitted to an affair? "Yeah, I think you can," Julian Zelizer says. He uses the fact Wilbur Mills got re-elected. But lots of crooked politicians have been re-elected. Does that make them good leaders, or just good crooks?

9:18 a.m. - Chuck (caller): "He seems to be extremely selfish and putting himself in front of everything else and these aren't the times for that." Zelizer says bad economic times can make people angrier. The condition of the Republican Party could make people shakier about "having someone like this in the spotlight." On the other hand, the Great Depression involved FDR having some behavior issues, and yet is considered one of the greatest presidents.

9:21 a.m. - Katherine (callers) says the issue isn't personal transgressions but incompetence to govern.

9:23 a.m. - "He's telling us much more than any of us need to know," Zelizer says. "People don't understand why he can't stop himself." Dave Woodard reacts to my comment so the air just now that 100% of the people taking the News Cut poll says the crime here is "being a hypocrite." "I think that's accurate," he said.

9:25 a.m. - Thelma of Minneapolis writes:

"It matters very much when it takes a hypocritical stance. Didn't Gov Sanford publicly reprehended Pres Clintion for his indiscretions? "

Why, yes, that's true. And funny you should mention that:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Clinton Curse
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Jeff Goldblum

9:28 a.m. - Woodard says Sanford makes it hard to attract candidates to run for office. He says since Watergate, we're telling people more than they want to know. It's an interesting comment because very little about Watergate coverage had anything to do with personal lives.

9:30 a.m. - A revelation that everyone knows but few acknowledge. Woodard says bill and proposals such as Defense of Marriage are designed more to increase voter turnout than actually "defend marriage."

9:35 a.m. - We're back after the break. Kerri and I have been talking about what great guests Woodard and Zelizer are.

9:36 a.m. - Caller says it's not about hypocrisy etc. It's about whether or not "you're lying to me. If you're lying to me or the voters, you're out, bucko, because lying means I can't trust you about anything else." Kerri asks if he holds his politicians to 100% truthfulness. He says a broken promise well explained isn't lying. But "if you ask where are you and I lie about that, that's deceit. That's just bald-faced lying."

9:38 a.m. - Responding to that, Dave Woodard said, "I did not have sex with that woman." He says you can lie and get away with it in office. But, for the record, Clinton never came up for a vote after lying to the American people.

9:40 a.m. - The Digitel in Charleston, SC:

The point here is, yes, flay Sanford for his marital indiscretions, but we've got to recognize the real problem is how South Carolina has been starved in education -- and that's the real root of our job problems.

9:41 a.m. - Zelizer: "We don't elect angels, we elect politicians. Ideally we'd love a government full of truth-tellers but I'm not sure we're ever going to have that and I think most voters know that."

9:43 a.m. - Talk shifts a bit to Sanford's presidential aspirations. "Mitt Romney is smiling," Woodard says. "If after a big-spending administration like the Obama administration and you want to cut taxes, I think Gov. Sanford could've stood very tall. But it's a moot point now."

What about Tim Pawlenty?

"There's a lack of a clear farm team of leaders not only to run for president, but to define what the party is all about. In 2004, people said the Democrats were done. Parties can remake themselves very quickly. It's too early and the loss of Sanford isn't a huge detriment.... it's not a sign the party can't rebound. These scandals happen. We hear that these are the people who are natural leaders, but nobody had ever heard of them until then. Pawlenty and Romney are two of the leaders still standing. Romney is more formidable."

9:47 a.m. - I thinking maybe I should add a poll question: Is it wrong to have an affair?

9:49 a.m. "I factor in hypocrisy, don't we expect it?" Kerri asks. "Yeah, but we don't like to see it in our face," Zelizer says.

9:51 a.m. - "People will give politicians give and take if they make a position and they can't take it later on because of the circumstances. What they can't seem to accept is when they take an oath or a vow," says Woodard. "When they violate those kind of things (marriage vows), they violate something in a serious situation and they're on record as being hypocrites and that's why hypocrisy is winning." (He's referring to the poll posted above)

9:52 a.m. - Time to turn this hypocrisy thing around. Suppose a governor spends two terms telling you taxes are wrong. Is he a hypocrite if he raises taxes? Would we hold that against a governor?

9:54 a.m. - Caller's observation: "If the governor were a woman, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"The images of politics is smoking, drinking, and fooling around," Zelizer says. "It's hard to see a woman candidate surviving thise."

It's not much of an issue in South Carolina, Woodard notes, because the state has the lowest number of elected female politicians.

9:57 a.m. - Gail Collins in the New York Times today

Talking about money was familiar ground for South Carolina conservatives, and for a while it looked as if they might settle on a rule that sex is irrelevant unless it leads to a tax increase.

This was a great hour. I hope you continue the discussion down below in the comments section!

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Franken faces

Posted at 1:01 PM on July 1, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Faces in the crowd at today's rally for Sen.-elect Al Franken. You'll need to click the image to enlarge it.

It's near impossible to keep that Election Night excitement alive for 8 months.

11/4/08

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Coleman-Franken: The reaction

Posted at 5:13 PM on June 30, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

MPR has been getting plenty of comments in the wake of the end of the Minnesota Senate race. Our Public Insight Network has been posting them here. You can also find reaction on the Polinaut blog.

The Network's Michael Caputo and I were on All Things Considered with Tom Crann on Tuesday evening. Listen in:

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Q&A on the Franken-Coleman fight

Posted at 2:19 PM on June 30, 2009 by Bob Collins (18 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Q: What happens now?

A: Al Franken needs an election certificate before he can enter the Senate. It has to be signed by the Secretary of State and the Governor.

Update 3:57 p.m. - Coleman has conceded the election. "I have always believed you do the best you can and leave the results up to a higher authority. I'm at peace with
that," Coleman said. "It's time to move forward."

Listen

Q: Where's the governor and what's his plan?

A: He's in Washington and released this statement shortly after Coleman conceded:

The Minnesota Supreme Court has today addressed the issues surrounding the accuracy and integrity of our election system during the 2008 U.S. Senate race in Minnesota. In light of that decision and Senator Coleman's announcement that he will not be pursuing an appeal, I will be signing the election certificate today as directed by the court and applicable law.

"I would like to thank Senator Coleman for his service. As state solicitor general, Mayor of Saint Paul and United States Senator, he has been an extraordinary leader and public servant for Minnesota.

"I also want to congratulate Al Franken and wish him well as he serves the people of Minnesota."

Sen. Harry Reid issued the following statement:

"I congratulate Senator-elect Al Franken, the next Senator from the state of Minnesota. The people of Minnesota will now finally get the brilliant and hardworking new senator they elected in November and the full representation they deserve. After all the votes have been counted and recounted, the Minnesota Supreme Court has made the final determination that Minnesotans have chosen Al Franken to help their state and our country get back on track. "The Senate looks forward to welcoming Senator-elect Franken as soon as possible. He will play a crucial role as we work to strengthen our economy, ensure all Americans can access and afford quality health care, make our country more energy independent, confirm the President's outstanding nominee to the Supreme Court, and tackle the many other challenges we face. "I once again encourage Governor Pawlenty to respect the votes of his constituents and the decisions of his state's highest court. He should put politics aside, follow his state's laws and finally sign the certificate that will bring this episode to an end."

The Senate is not currently in Washington. It's on its July 4th break.

Franken told reporters today he's "going up to the Range to do some parades." So it'll be a few days before he's sworn in. Listen

Q: Did judges on the Supreme Court all agree?

A: Yes. The decision was unanimous -- per curiam, in legal speak. Two members of the court abstained because they served on a panel that considered the issue earlier.

"Whatever your political point of view, you had someone on the court from your perspective, who from a political perspective would share your point of view. And yet, given that diversity, they all saw the law the same way. That's significant," Ned Foley said.

Q: Why did it take so long?

A: "One of the things that's always on the mind of judges and justices is not wanting to be reversed," said Prof. Rick Hasen of Loyola Law School, who also writes the Election Law blog. He says the decision was intended to keep Coleman from winning had he attempted to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.

Q: Could Coleman have continued the fight?

Yes, according to Hasen. He had two options. "One is an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court , the other is federal appeals court. He certainly has federal and constitutional issues, "and the Supreme Court is open for business to hear those."

A lawsuit to the federal appeals court would likely not have been successful, the professor said, because the court was likely to say the issues had already been decided at state court.

Q: Why didn't Coleman continue the fight?

A: Larry Jacobs at the University of Minnesota says Coleman is "busted" and also has to pay some of Al Franken's legal bills. Jacobs says Coleman also has his eyes on running for governor in 2010.

There was also little chance of success. Realistically, the federal options are only a few days' delay, Ned Foley of Ohio State told MPR's Gary Eichten this afternoon. "It's not going to delay it much further," he said.

Q: Will Coleman run for governor?
A: Not saying "no" when asked that question is saying "maybe." Coleman said he's more concerned with catching fish.

Q: How does this affect Washington?

A: Franken becomes the Democrats' 60th vote. That's the number required to avert filibusters. "...with both Senators Edward M. Kennedy and Robert C. Byrd absent due to illness, the Democrats have sometimes scrambled to make sure they had lined up enough votes," the New York Times notes.

Closer to home, we will likely start hearing opinions on critical issues from Sen.-elect Franken.

Q: So that's it, then? The Democrats get everything they want?

A: These are the Democrats. In-fighting is part of the party DNA. Just look at the veiled shots President Obama has sent Congress' way in the last month. As Forbes noted on Tuesday:

... rifts over climate change and energy policy tend to be more regional than partisan. Last week, a sweeping bill that addresses both issues barely squeaked by in the House. Even before the Minnesota court's ruling, the bill's future in the Senate was in doubt. Opponents worry that it would lead to rising energy costs and is too watered-down to be meaningful anyway.

The Democrats' biggest foe in climate change legislation last week wasn't a Republican. It was a Democratic congressman. From Minnesota.

"I'm not going to Washington to be the 60th Democratic senator. I'm going to be the second senator from Minnesota," he said on Tuesday.

Q: What committees will Franken serve on in the Senate?

The Health Education, Pension and Labor Committee; the Judiciary Committee; the Committee on Indian Affairs, and the Committee on Aging.

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The money quotes in the Coleman-Franken decision

Posted at 1:11 PM on June 30, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Politics

Here are the money quotes from today's Minnesota Supreme Court decision confirming Al Franken as Minnesota's junior U.S. Senator:

On absentee ballots:

The distinction between errors by voters and errors by election officials is an important one. We have drawn "a clear distinction between the provisions and prohibitions in the election laws which are personal to the elector and those which apply to election officials over whose conduct he has no control."...Fitzgerald v. Morlock, 264 Minn. 520, 524, 120 N.W.2d 339, 345 (1963). We have said that "any reasonable regulations of the statute as to the conduct of the voter himself" are mandatory, and a vote is properly rejected if the voter fails to comply with the law. Id. at 524, 120 N.W.2d at 345. But if a voter complies with the law, his vote should not be rejected because of "irregularities, ignorance, inadvertence, or mistake, or even intentional wrong on the part of the election officers."

We conclude that our existing case law requires strict compliance by voters with the requirements for absentee voting. Thus, we reject Coleman‟s argument that only substantial compliance by voters is required. Having rejected this argument, we also conclude that the trial court‟s February 13 order requiring strict compliance with the statutory requirements for absentee voting was not a deviation from our well-established precedent.

Is absentee voting a right or a privilege?

At oral argument, Coleman posited that because of the increased use of the absentee voting method, it should now be treated as a right, not a privilege. But that is a policy determination for the legislature, not this court, to make.

On the differing standards from county to county for how absentee ballots were judged:

Coleman was required to prove either that local jurisdictions ‟differences in application or the trial court‟s application of the requirements for absentee voting was the product of intentional discrimination. Coleman neither claims nor produced any evidence that the differing treatment of absentee ballots among jurisdictions during the election was the result of intentional or purposeful discrimination against individuals or classes. Nor does Coleman claim that the trial court‟s February 13 order, establishing certain categories of ballots as not legally cast, was the product of an intent to discriminate against any individual or class.

On Coleman's claim that some ballots were counted twice:

Coleman called no witnesses with direct knowledge of the handling of duplicate ballots in the relevant precincts, but he did introduce at trial voter rosters, envelopes from accepted absentee ballots, copies of ballots challenged during the manual recount, and machine tapes from the identified precincts in which he alleges double-counting of absentee ballots occurred. On appeal, Coleman has identified nothing additional that an inspection of ballots under section 209.06 would have produced.We therefore hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the petition for inspection.

On missing ballots in Minneapolis:

The ballots are missing, but Coleman introduced no evidence of foul play or misconduct, and the election day precinct returns are available to give effect to those votes.

The Supreme Court did not order Gov. Pawlenty to sign an election certificate.

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Fact-checking Bachmann

Posted at 5:15 PM on July 10, 2009 by Bob Collins (12 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Rep. Michele Bachmann overreached today when she delivered her latest salvo against the U.S. census. Bachmann proposed allowing people the option not to answer questions on the census.

ASSERTION: "Beginning last weekend, the Pentagon was broken into, its computers, as well as Homeland Security's computers, and North Korea may be the culprit," she said. "What we know is that the government's computer systems are not hacker proof."

FACT: According to the Associated Press, "Treasury Department and Federal Trade Commission Web sites were knocked out by the blizzard of digital requests, while others such as the Pentagon and the White House were able to fend it off with little disruption." No one has been "hacked" in this cyberattack from -- reportedly -- North Korea. Instead, access to a computer service is blocked through "denial of service" attacks. No information actually is pried from a targeted computer. And no computer was "broken into."

As the AP report characterized it:

Denial of service attacks against Web sites are not uncommon, and are usually caused when sites are deluged with Internet traffic so as to effectively take them off-line. Mounting such an attack can be relatively easy using widely available hacking programs, and they can be made far more serious if hackers infect and use thousands of computers tied together into "botnets."

ASSERTION: "And so American's private information, including their home telephone numbers..."

FACT: But you can get people's home telephone numbers from a telephone book.

ASSERTION: ".. and very private information about their personal lives could be subject to a hacker."

FACT: True, a computer could be hacked into. But that doesn't stop Bachmann from accepting donations on her Web site that require you to reveal your credit card number, your occupation, your address and your email address. One has to calculate the risks and evaluate the return.

A couple of weeks ago, Bachmann said the census data might be used to round Americans up, making a connection to Japanese internment in World War II.

If Bachmann is worried about what the government might do, it's not as if it hasn't given some reason to be. In 2004, the Electronic Privacy Information Center said it obtained documents to show that data "on people who identified themselves on the 2000 census as being of Arab ancestry" had been given to the Department of Homeland Security. But the DHS said that was to figure out what language to use on signs at airports.

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I have a confession to make. I can't remember ever filling out a census form. I can't remember anyone coming to the door and asking me questions. A young man stopped by a month or so ago to confirm that my address is correct, apparently to be sure I didn't put four large numbers on the post by the garage to fool the Census people.

"I know for my family the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home," Rep. Bachmann told the Washington Times last month. "We won't be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn't require any information beyond that."

That, of course, is wrong, according to Census officials. It also ignores the reality that the Constitution provides a framework for laws. There's nothing in the Constitution, for example, about a 55 mph speed limit, but my argument fell on deaf ears in White Bear Lake not long ago.

What's the point of the census? Let's look at a couple of the questions.

Question: How old are you?
Reason for asking: The voting age population census could help Minnesota lawmakers decide, for example, which House district could be eliminated if, as reported, the state loses a congressional seat.

Question: Last week did this person work for either pay or profit?
Reason for asking: Helps to identify the impact of immigration and job markets, according to the Census Bureau. It's an issue that's been important to some representatives like Bachmann and could provide facts to back up assertions, should that ever comes back into style in Washington.

None of this is new. The census people have been making this point for decades:

Many of the questions claimed as "personal" are actually on the American Community Survey, rather than the Census short form that most people will get.

Bachmann is making the claim that government intrusion by way of the Census is an expanding universe. But there's evidence that the opposite is true. Past census records, for example, reveal that Clark Haley of Anoka County got $18 a month in a government pension for having a "diseased lung" in 1869. George Fairbanks, also of Anoka County, got $4 a month for chronic diarrhea.

Let the record show, there are no questions planned in the '10 Census about diarrhea.

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Dishonorable mention

Posted at 4:02 PM on June 24, 2009 by Bob Collins (26 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

It's not the heat; it's the hypocrisy.

Maybe Mark Sanford had a real shot at presidential politics; maybe he didn't. It's all over now that he's admitted he was having an affair with a woman in Argentina (See emails) and that's why he disappeared for several days and nobody -- including his wife -- knew where he was. The fact his wife said she wasn't concerned told me everything I need to know about the Sanford marriage.

Why do politicians have affairs? Perhaps for the same reasons everyone else who's running around has one: they don't think they're going to get caught, ego, and, sex; -- not necessarily in that order.

Twenty-two percent of adults in monogamous relationships have cheated on their current partner. The rate is even higher among married men, according to a recent survey. If politicians cheat at the same clip, 91 members of Congress are fooling around.

"We think everybody is out there doing it," says Janet Lever, a sociologist at California State University, Los Angeles, and the study's lead researcher told MSNBC. "Well, they're not."

Our reaction -- usually disappointment -- reveals our basic idealism toward politics. "I think why this gets so much attention in the news is because these are people we want to trust - they are people who make important decisions that affect our lives. When they turn out to be dishonest, we are not only disappointed, but we can't trust them at all," Emily Brown, a marriage counselor, told the Washington Post after one politician's fling went public.

The list of pols getting caught, though, seems endless. My ranking of the top 10 political "affairs."

10. Gov. James E. McGreevey - With his wife standing by his side, the New Jersey governor acknowledged he had an affair, then admitted he was gay.

9. Gov. David Patterson - One day after replacing the philandering Elliot Spitzer, Patterson admitted that he also had an affair... or two, causing a communal forehead slap among New York residents.

8. Rep. Vito Fossella - The New York congressman broke down on the House floor last May after acknowledging his arrest for drunk driving and admitting he had a daughter with a woman who wasn't his wife.

7. Sen. John Ensign - It was just last Tuesday -- two days before Sanford took off for Argentina -- that Ensign admitted he had an affair with a family friend. "I take full responsibility for my actions," reading from the first chapter of the "Politician's Guide to Admitting Your Affair."

6. Rep. Newt Gingrich - One of President Clinton's biggest critics during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Gingrich admitted he was fooling around, too, around the same time. "There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There's certainly times when I've fallen short of God's standards," he said, while insisting he wasn't a hypocrite. Gingrich, considered a potential presidential contender, may end up proving that having an affair isn't a political death sentence.

5. Sen. David Vitter -- The Louisiana senator was all about family values, as long as you don't define family values as "eschewing the DC Madam." "This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible," he said, with his wife standing nearby.

4. Sen. Larry Craig - The Idaho senator was arrested at the Minneapolis St. Paul airport Concourse C men's room after apparently soliciting an undercover cop for sex. His defense? "I am not gay," he insisted. His wife joined him at his side for his press conference.

3. John Edwards - The former presidential candidate proved there really are two Americas: the men who cheat on their wives and the men who don't. "I was and am ashamed of my conduct and choices," he said of his affair with the campaign's filmmaker. His wife, battling breast cancer, stood beside him. It was an uncomfortable moment, though, when she appeared on NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me last Saturday, only to be asked by Peter Sagal, "how big is the doghouse your husband lives in now?"

2. Eliot Spitzer - The New York governor with a squeaky clean reputation, tossed it away for a romp with high-priced hookers. "I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself," he said, with his wife standing at his side.

1. Bill Clinton - Still the mother of all political affairs. "I did not have sex with that woman" is as big a part of presidential history as "I am not a crook." Both were lies. (Zip ahead to 6:18 here). Well-delivered lies.

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News conference choreography

Posted at 3:06 PM on June 23, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Media, News, Politics

The very tail end of President Obama's news conference today provided the best glimpse into the workings of the White House press corps.

Listen to the comment shouted at the end of the president's remarks. (Listen)

After Obama had bid everyone "adieu," an unidentified reporter whined "No questions about Iraq?" It seemed an odd complaint to a president, coming from someone responsible for asking the questions, one of which, by the way, included "how many cigarettes do you smoke a day?"

I wondered about that on Twitter, when Kevin Watterson, the Minnesota House Republican Caucus' communications boss, suggested coordination between Obama and the press corps over what questions would be asked.

He wasn't the only one. Writing on the Politico blog, Michael Calderone noted that Obama invited a question on Iran from Huffington Post's Nico Pitney.

Reporters typically don't coordinate their questions for the president before press conferences, so it seemed odd that Obama might have an idea what the question would be. Also, it was a departure from White House protocol by calling on The Huffington Post second, in between the AP and Reuters.

CBS Radio's Mark Knoller, a veteran White House correspondent, said over Twitter it was "very unusual that Obama called on Huffington Post second, appearing to know the issue the reporter would ask about."

Knoller says a news conference shouldn't "be choreographed," although presidents historically have had a "go-to" reporter to call on when questioning gets tough -- the kind of reporter who might ask about, for example, a new dog or the number of cigarettes he smokes a day.

Most of the questions asked today seemed to follow the issues that currently have our attention -- Iran and health care. It's not clear what question about Iraq the lonely reporter with the complaint would have asked had he been given the chance.

On that subject -- the news agenda -- a survey of what we're interested in (by way of the news media) speaks to our short attention spans.

Here's the graph for the last week, compiled by Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism:

And the week before that:

And the one before that:

Iraq hasn't registered on the PEJ's news coverage index since the third week in February.

(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

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Politics South Carolina style

Posted at 4:28 PM on June 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

It was an odd few hours in South Carolina on Monday when nobody could figure out where the state's governor was. Gov. Mark Sanford disappeared last Thursday. But TheState.com reports his cellphone signal was picked up in Atlanta.

Adding weirdness to the situation was this reaction from the governor's wife, as reported by the newspaper.

First lady Jenny Sanford told The Associated Press earlier Monday her husband has been gone for several days and she did not know where.

Wait for it.

She said she was not concerned.

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Politicization of the language

Posted at 11:57 AM on June 19, 2009 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

"It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes."
-- George Orwell

Is it torture or harsh interrogation tactics? National Public Radio ombudsman Alicia Shepard told MPR Midmorning host Kerri Miller she'll have a piece on her online column later today because "NPR listeners are furious that we're not calling a spade a spade."

So the timing was perfect for today's Midmorning hour on how our language has been politicized, and how a point of view creeps into the journalism.

At MPR, for example, pro-choice and pro-life and no-no's. Instead, we use phrases such as legalized abortion. Of more recent vintage is the controversy over the use partial birth abortion. It is a virtually endless debate.

That said, here's a list of the words or phrases that came up in this morning's broadcast, either from the guests -- Shepard and Karlyn Kohrs Campbell from the University of Minnesota -- or callers. Add your own below.

Public plan vs. government plan
Death tax
Public option vs. government takeover
Waterboarding
Disabled person vs. Person with disabilities
Enhanced interrogation technique
Fee vs. tax
Break news
Abortion doctor
Latino
Collateral damage
Regime vs. government

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The Renter's Credit impact

Posted at 10:30 AM on June 19, 2009 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

MPR's Jessica Mador provides some insight into the impact of Gov. Tim Pawlenty's trimming of the Minnesota Renter's Credit as part of the effort to balance the state budget without raising taxes.

That's Robert Zozaski, who lives in subsidized rental housing in Breckenridge. He's 80 years old, a veteran of the Korean War and he's thinning his packaged soup to help make ends meet. The credit goes to about 270,000 low- and moderate-income Minnesotans.

Here's what Jess wrote:

The credit is essentially a tax refund intended to offset renters' share of property taxes. (Many) homeowners get one, too but the governor's proposed cuts would only affect renters.

The refund goes to people who earn about $50,000 or less, but more than half of the households make less than $20,000 a year. An estimated 28 percent are seniors and people with disabilities.

Eighty-year old Korean War veteran Robert Zozaski lives in subsidized rental housing in Breckenridge. Between his Social Security check and his pension from the VA, he gets by on about $930 a month. He says he saves money by eating lots of ramen noodles.

"The ramen noodles and chicken flavor, I like. One package of that, I double the water so I make two meals out of it. What I do is I buy them by the case when they are a dime a pack. That's $2.40 a case. That's quite a few meals," he says.

Zozaski has a heart condition. Luckily, his medications are paid for by the VA, but he worries about the sodium in the ramen and other cheap foods he relies on but says it's all he can really afford.

He'll have to figure out a way to save even more money if he loses his Renter's Credit, which usually puts a few hundred dollars extra in his pocket. He uses it to buy new clothes and pay a county home health aide, who comes twice a month to help with laundry and chores.

Zozaski says he doubts the governor and lawmakers know what it's like to live on ramen.

The governor's budget would cut the Renter's Credit by more than a quarter - about $51 million a year, a deeper cut than he has proposed in the past.

Stay tuned

Are you receiving the Renter's Credit? Tell us about your budget.

On his weekly radio show today, Gov. Tim Pawlenty said the cut that his fellow politicians have been most vocal about, is the end of the rebate for political contributions, according to the Pioneer Press' Rachel Stassen-Berger.

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How unallotment affects your city

Posted at 11:35 AM on June 17, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

On MPR's Midday this afternoon, Rep. Loren Solberg predicted massive property tax increases because of Gov. Pawlenty's "unallotment."

At the same time, the League of Minnesota Cities has just posted a Department of Revenue spreadsheet showing the impact on each city in the state. Find it here.

The League makes clear that pushing many of the cuts to the second year of the state's two-year budget gives officials some flexibility...

For cities, approximately one-third of the reduction will occur in 2009 and two-thirds will occur in 2010. This "backloading" of the cuts will allow cities the most flexibility and longest time frame to make budgetary adjustments.

How familiar are you with how your city spends tax money? What would you be willing to do without if you were given a choice? (Update: Mitch Berg has an impressive list here)

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If

Posted at 2:06 PM on June 16, 2009 by Bob Collins (76 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

A few ways the governor's unallotment may impact you.

If you're a politician:

You'll have to find another way to convince people to contribute to your campaign. The political contribution refund is eliminated through June 30, 2011. It reimburses Minnesotans for contributions to candidates.

If you're a renter:

Your renter's refund would be reduced from 19% of rent paid to 15%.

If you're a personal care attendant:

The most hours you can work in a month are being reduced by 45.

If you work for the Department of Public Safety, Military and Veterans Affairs, Corrections, or State Operated Services Division of the Department of Human Services:

Relax. The 2.25 percent reduction in the state agencies budget doesn't apply to you.

If you invested in capital equipment:

You won't be getting your sales tax refund payment for up to 3 months.

If you need help applying for public health care programs:

You're on your own. The money to fund it from the state is being suspended. Parts of the program paid for by the tax on health care providers will continue.

If you live in Albertville, Andover, Arden Hills, Baxter, Blaine, Bloomington, Brooklyn Park, Burnsville, Champlin, Chanhassen, Circle Pines, Corcoran, Cottage Grove, Dayton, Eagan, East Bethel, Edina, Farmington,Forest Lake, Golden Valley, Ham Lake, Hugo, Inver Grove Heights, Lake Elmo,Lakeville, Lino Lakes, Mahtomedi, Maple Grove Maplewood, Mendota Heights, Minnetonka, Minnestrista, Monticello, Mound, New Brighton, Oakdale, Orono, Otsego, Plymouth, Prior Lake, Ramsey, Rogers, Rosemount, Roseville, Sartell, Savage, Shakopee, Shoreview, Shorewood, Spring Lake Park, St. Anthony, St. Louis Park, St. Michael, Vadnais Heights, Victoria, or Woodbury:

You may not feel the impact as deeply. Your city doesn't get local government aid (LGA) from the state. Other cities will feel it, city officials say. "It could be in the form of no cop in their kid's school, higher property taxes, or a local library that is no longer open," according to St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman.

If you're Wisconsin:

Send that check! Minnesota will require payments under the reciprocity agreement that allows Wisconsin students who attend Minnesota public colleges to pay the same tuition they would at a comparable Wisconsin school, and vice versa. This is wrong. You still have to pay up, Wisconsin, but it's the income tax reciprocity agreement that allows residents of one state to file income taxes only in the state in which he/she lives when he/she works across the border.

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Throwing the book at politicians

Posted at 12:00 PM on June 16, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Within the last week, Minnesota legislators began receiving copies of the book, "48 Liberal Lies About American History," written by a University of Dayton professor, and sent to them by the chairman of the Montgomery County (Ohio) Republican Party. They weren't the only ones, however. Over 7,000 politicians across the country are getting the book.

"It's been very fun, the responses that I've gotten," according to Attorney Greg Gantt, the party chairman in the Ohio county. "The speaker of the Ohio House actually returned a bunch of the books and said that the suggested $25.95 cover price exceeded the amount the gift could be. But it only cost us $7. But they took the time and money to send them back," he said. "That sparked some lively debate around town." (Note: The gift ban in Minnesota is $50).

Twenty volunteers worked for two weeks in Gantt's law firm to get the books out. The effort was bankrolled by Harlan Crow, the Texas real estate mogul and Republican benefactor and frequent contributor to Minnesota Republican pols.

"I just loved it, just from someone taking an event in history," Gantt said. "Many times, as a party chairman, I'll be a part of something and the story comes out and everybody (who knows) realizes that's not exactly how it happened."

Gantt says he hasn't heard anything back from Minnesota politicians, yet. "I got a thank-you note from Sarah Palin yesterday," he said.

Palin and Dayton, Ohio are well linked. It was the city chosen by Sen. John McCain to announce her as his vice presidential running mate. Gantt says Montgomery County is representative of Ohio as a whole. "We've got all the different socio-economic subsets in our county here," Gantt said.

So I had to ask whether Gov. Tim Pawlenty's rumored entrance into the presidential race has got people stirred up in Montgomery County? "Not really, yet," he said. "I think everybody just needed a break from presidential politics."

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Googling Pawlenty

Posted at 11:01 AM on June 12, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

I stumbled across this while doing some Google searches this morning. The governor is buying ads on Google to tout his Web site, which asks for political contributions, even though he's already announced he's not running again.

Apparently they've been running for at least a week.

Based on our own knowledge of Googleads, playing around with various keywords (even if you just Google "governor," you get Pawlenty) and seeing various versions of the Pawlenty ad suggests it's a pretty extensive ad buy.

President Pawlenty, however are not one of the keywords for the ad. "Sarah Palin Tim Pawlenty" and "Mitt Romney Tim Pawlenty" are. "Barack Obama Tim Pawlenty" are not. "Minnesota budget" are.

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Fact checking: Income vs. property taxes

Posted at 1:17 PM on June 11, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Assistant Senate Majority Leader Taryl Clark, DFL-St. Cloud, today claimed that for the first time, collections from the property tax will be greater than collections from the income tax.

Is this true?

We turn to veteran political calculator Mike Mulcahy.

This does appear to be true if you're talking individual income taxes. House research made this handy chart.

But there are also some caveats. It looks like income tax collections took a big drop because of the recession. Handy chart here on page 3

Also worth noting that the property tax figures include the statewide property tax on businesses but the individual income tax totals do not include the corporate tax, which raises $792 million this year...a little more than the statewide business property tax.

Also not sure if it's fair to say this is the first time ever. The state had no individual income tax before 1933.

Update 5:33 p.m. (From Mulcahy)

According to information Tom Scheck just got from the Revenue Department, the state collected more in property taxes than income taxes from 1962 to 1978 (the year of the Minnesota Miracle) and fiscal years 91-96. (The records they gave us only go back to '62). It also looks like there were a few years in the early 1980s when property tax revenues where higher than income taxes (that may have been due to the recession then, but it's a little hard to read their chart).

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How blue is Minnesota?

Posted at 11:40 AM on June 11, 2009 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Chris Cillizza, who writes The Fix political blog for the Washington Post today handicapped the characteristics of those who would be king, injecting an assertion about Minnesota voters designed to impress those outside of flyover country.

Pawlenty, as we have written before, is the leading populist in the party at the moment. (Apologies to Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels but his pledge not to run in 2012 limits his reach within the GOP.) Pawlenty's personal story -- first in his family to go to college, a truck driver father etc. -- is at the heart of his appeal in Minnesota, a state not particularly inclined to support Republicans in statewide elections.

How to measure that? Let's look at the statewide races.

Governor - Minnesota hasn't been particularly inclined to support Democrats in the race for governor. It's elected one -- Rudy Perpich -- in the last 28 years. There have only been 9 Democrat governors in the state's history, and that's counting Perpich twice. There have been 26 Republican governors. So getting elected governor of Minnesota as a Republican isn't such a big deal.

Senator - Norm Coleman was the sitting Republican in the Senate before he lost last year's election to Al Franken. Out of three million votes cast, only a handful separates the two. Suggesting the state isn't inclined to support Republicans for the seat is a tough sell, especially when the seat has been held by two Republicans since the 1978, and only one Democrat. Similarly, the seat held by Amy Klobuchar has been split by Republicans and Democrats since 1977 (two apiece).

Secretary of State - Since 1858, there have been only five Democrat secretaries of state, although DFLer Joan Growe sailed through every election to serve from 1975 to 1999.

Attorney General - A Republican hasn't been elected attorney general in Minnesota since 1966. Even when Republicans were sweeping to victory in most statewide offices in 2002, DFLer Mike Hatch was the only one to buck the trend.

Cillizza may be hanging his hat on presidential contests in the state, but that's a thin peg in evaluating Pawlenty's history as a state candidate.

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The domain game

Posted at 4:36 PM on June 2, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The Web intentions of politicians can tell us whether someone is thinking about running for another office. Or it can tell us whether someone is thinking about making money by registering a domain and then hoping to sell it to a candidate thinking about running for another office. Or it can tell us a political party is reserving the domains. In other words: It's not a reliable political yardstick.

On the other hand, it can be fun to poke around.

Seifertforgovernor.com (Rep. Marty Seifert), brodforgovernor.com (Rep. Laura Brod), and sullivanforgovernor.com (former gubernatorial candidate Brian Sullivan) are taken. They were registered on the same day in April 2008.

Kohlsforgovernor.com (Rep. Paul Kohls), Hannforgovernor.com (Sen. David Hann), Michelforgovernor.com (Sen. Geoff Michel), Weaverforgovernor.com (Former Pawlenty chief of staff Charlie Weaver), Gramsforgovernor.com (former Sen. Rod Grams) and Ramstadforgovernor.com (Former congressman Jim Ramstad) are available.

Pawlentyforpresident.com was registered by Rep. Pat Garofolo, R-Farmington.

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On Pawlenty's future

Posted at 10:48 AM on June 2, 2009 by Bob Collins (17 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Tim Pawlenty is holding a 2 p.m. news conference "regarding his future plans," which gives us a little more time to engage in the national pastime for political types who have nothing else to write about: Tim Pawlenty's future plans. MPR's Tom Scheck is citing a source saying the governor won't run. (Update: He won't run.)

Even before that, however, the betting line -- mine -- said he'll announce he's not running for a third term. Reasons: Why should he? He's wanted to be more than a governor since before he was a governor. The governor's office was the consolation prize for getting out of Norm Coleman's way -- at the behest of Dick Cheney -- in 2001.

Second, it's never too early to start raising money for a national campaign, but it can be too late. The 2012 presidential campaign -- at least from the Republican point of view -- started the minute John McCain declared he had enough delegates for the Republican nomination. Mitt Romney has been raising money. Newt Gingrich has been raising money, and Mike Huckabee has a daily radio show. And while Tim Pawlenty has a few bucks in the campaign accounts, it's hard to raise money when there's still a chance you'll run for governor again.

Which brings up the new big question. What's he raising money for? The odds say Tim Pawlenty is not going to be the next Republican nominee for president. But if he can make a healthy showing in the primaries, he can be a #2 spot. He'll be only 52 in 2012 -- pretty wet behind the ears in the presidential game (note: Obama was 51 47 when elected.) But the game of a presidential ticket -- like TV anchor teams -- has changed. His chances at a spot on the ticket would depend on whomever gets the top spot not being a white guy and especially not being a white guy former governor.

Pawlenty's announcement also puts pressure on Sarah Palin, still the darling of many Republican mainstreeters, to make a move of some sort.

Those aren't the only two jobs available, however. There's still the U.S. Senate. Sen. Amy Klobuchar's seat is up in 2012 and while her job approval ratings are pretty high, the Senate makes a nice place to plot a political future and make a ton of cash.

An even more compelling "what if" scenario is what happens to Al Franken's election certificate if the Minnesota Supreme Court turns aside Norm Coleman's appeal of Franken's apparent election victory? Pawlenty has yet to say if he'd sign the certificate. Would not having a statewide election to worry about influence his decision? Few Republicans are going to hold not sending Al Franken to Washington against a future candidate for, well, whatever.

NPR's "Political Junkie" Ken Rudin analyzes it:

Assuming a White House bid is in his plans, Pawlenty's decision probably makes sense. It frees him to plot a more conservative course than he would have had he intended to run again back home.

What was your favorite Tim Pawlenty moment? Here's mine.

The next political game will be who do the Republicans turn to in the 2010 race for governor? A possible bet is Brian Sullivan, the man who turned Gov. Pawlenty into a more conservative conservative at the Republican State Convention in 2002.

Here's the full press release from the governor's office:

"I am incredibly grateful for the support and trust the people of Minnesota have given me during my two terms as Governor," Governor Pawlenty said. "From providing the best support programs in the country for veterans and their families, to moving Minnesota out of the top ten highest taxed states, to sparking economic development in Greater Minnesota, to strengthening our K-12 education standards and implementing performance pay for teachers, much has been accomplished for our state."

Governor Pawlenty said being governor should not be a permanent position for anyone.

"When it comes to how long someone should stay in an elected position, a little less is better than too much," Governor Pawlenty said. "It's a lesson I learned spending time in places like the Croatian Hall in South Saint Paul, where there is inevitably less joy and more trouble in too much pizza or too much beer. We don't have term limits in Minnesota, but we do have good judgment and common sense. We are a government of laws and ideas, not personalities."

Governor Pawlenty noted that during the past six and a half years, his administration has continued to improve Minnesota's quality of life. The state ranks:

1st in the region in annual per capita income (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis)
1st in the county in Fortune 500 companies per capita (2009 Fortune 500 list, U.S. Census)
1st in the nation in average ACT test scores (2008 ACT, Inc.)

"Healthiest state in the nation" according to the CQ Press study Health Care State Rankings 2008: Health Care Across America

Accomplishments during the past six and a half years include:

Proposing and creating the nation's most comprehensive programs for veterans, military members and their families, including enhancing state G.I. Bill benefits, funding a memorial to Minnesota's World War II veterans, beginning the Military and Veterans

Support Cabinet, and starting the LinkVet program to connect veterans with assistance.

Keeping Minnesota competitive by requiring state government to live within its means and not raise taxes, especially during this period of economic uncertainty.
Balancing the state budget four times without raising taxes, including eliminating a $4.5 billion deficit in 2003 and a $4.8 billion deficit in 2009.
Moving Minnesota out of the top ten highest taxed states, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, a goal of every Governor from all three political parties dating back to Governor Rudy Perpich.
Signing into law nearly $800 million in total tax reductions and a three-year local property tax cap, projected to save taxpayers $78.5 million in 2009 and $460.5 million over the next three years.
Reducing state government growth to average two-year budget increases of less than six percent during the past six years, the lowest budget increases under any Minnesota Governor in at least the past 40 years.
Developing the nation-leading teacher performance pay reform, Q Comp, which links teacher compensation to classroom and student achievement, rather than just seniority.
Creating the Minnesota Academic Standards - new, more rigorous high school graduation requirements.
Establishing Minnesota as the Renewable Fuels Capital of the United States by doubling the amount of renewable fuel used in gasoline, implementing the use of biodiesel and enhancing Minnesota's role as a top wind energy producing state.
Proposing and signing into law Minnesota's nation-leading 25 x 25 renewable energy standard, establishing a benchmark of 25 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2025.
Creating the Job Opportunity Building Zone (JOBZ) program to stimulate economic activity in Greater Minnesota. JOBZ has been involved in 323 deals, resulting in commitments of 5,169 jobs, helping to retain 9,743 jobs and producing more than $580 million in new capital investments.
Proposing and establishing a new higher education institution in Rochester, the University of Minnesota-Rochester, with an emphasis on medicine, business and technology.
Reorganizing and consolidating state government agencies including eliminating Minnesota Planning by combining it with the Department of Administration, merging the Departments of Economic Security and Trade and Economic Development, and merging the Department of Employee Relations into the Departments of Finance and Administration, reducing overhead and saving taxpayer resources.
Proposing and signing into law longer sentences for all categories of sex offenders, including life in prison without release.
Implementing health care payment reform based on incentives to improve quality, reduce costs, engage consumers in decision making and encourage more competition - expected to have the potential for approximately $6.9 billion in cost savings by 2015.

Governor Pawlenty also told Minnesotans that he continues to be honored and humbled by the opportunity to serve and will work energetically during his remaining 19 months in office.

"I've run a few marathons and I believe in finishing strong," Governor Pawlenty said. "Minnesotans will get my very best until I'm done."

Governor Pawenty is serving his second term as the 39th governor of Minnesota. During his time in office, he has served as Chair of the National Governors Association, Chair of the Midwestern Governors Association, and on the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, the Achieve Inc. Board of Directors and the James B. Hunt Jr. Institute Board of Directors. He is currently Chair of the Education Commission of the States.

And the DFL's response:

The Minnesota DFL Party released this statement from Chair Brian Melendez regarding Governor Tim Pawlenty's announcement that he will not seek another term:

"While we thank Governor Pawlenty for his service to our state, his retirement as governor is an opportunity to move Minnesota forward.

"Governor Pawlenty's 'no new taxes' ideology plays well to Republican special interests and the dinner circuits from Iowa to New Hampshire, but it has hurt Minnesota and Minnesotans. The divisive politics of ideology and calculation have done enough damage.

"Minnesota faces incredible challenges: a historic multi-billion-dollar deficit, disappearing jobs, skyrocketing health-care costs and rising property taxes. We need a leader who will face these problems with courage and honesty, and won't hide behind clever word games, accounting shifts and budget tricks. We need a leader who understands Minnesota values: accountability, opportunity, prosperity and fair play.

"Today is a day to thank Governor Pawlenty for his service. Starting tomorrow, it will be time to bring Minnesota values back to the Governor's Mansion. We look forward with hope. We look forward to electing a DFL governor."

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Coleman-Franken: Last stop?

Posted at 10:22 AM on June 1, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The Minnesota Supreme Court holds its hearing into Norm Coleman's appeal of Al Franken's apparent victory in the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota, starting at 9 a.m. on Monday. I hope you'll join me here for the hearing, and then we'll live-blog the follow-up analysis with Kerri Miller and guests.

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Sotomayor's Minnesota connection

Posted at 5:41 PM on May 26, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Politics

The conservatives' rallying cry against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor uses a 2001 speech with this quote as its underpinning:

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

The meaning seems clear: It is easier to relate to something you know, than something you don't. What involvement that fact plays with the matter of jurisprudence is for the politicians to debate and decide.

But Sotomayor used the women of the Minnesota Supreme Court to make her point in the same speech:

...three women on the Minnesota (Supreme) Court with two men dissenting agreed to grant a protective order against a father's visitation rights when the father abused his child. The Judicature Journal has at least two excellent studies on how women on the courts of appeal and state supreme courts have tended to vote more often than their male counterpart to uphold women's claims in sex discrimination cases and criminal defendants' claims in search and seizure cases. As recognized by legal scholars, whatever the reason, not one woman or person of color in any one position but as a group we will have an effect on the development of the law and on judging.

Sotomayor's observations aren't that different from those expressed many times in Minnesota, where women have been appointed to the state Supreme Court with fair regularity since Rosalie Wahl was first appointed by Gov. Rudy Perpich..

Squint your eyes a little bit and the reaction to Sotomayer's eight-year-old speech could be Minnesota in the '70s reacting to Wahl.

In a 1991 New York Times article, justices Wahl and Esther Tomljanovich acknowledge the value of a different prospective on the bench.

"I don't think men are going to have to run for the hills, but there is definitely a woman's perspective," said Justice Tomljanovich, recalling past humiliations she had experienced as a woman in her personal life.

Is that sexist? Or reality?

The view that a woman's perspective has a place on the bench is no longer seriously debated.

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The Sotomayor saga

Posted at 11:10 AM on May 26, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

MPR's Midmorning has done a great job lining up a program reacting to the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor as a Supreme Court justice. I won't wade into the politics of her nomination nor the analysis of her judicial record because they're available there.

I am interested in her journey from the south Bronx to an appointment with the president in the East Room. How is it that one person can make such a journey, and not most others? Nature or nurture?

Regardless of how you feel about the politics, there's no denying she's a story of success from hard times. Her father, who had only a third-grade education, died when she was 9. Her mother, a nurse, took a second job to support her family. True, this sort of thing happens to people all of the time, but most don't go on to be Supreme Court justices.

Here are a few links with background:

The Chicago Tribune calls her "plucky." "Sotomayor immersed herself in Nancy Drew books and spent hours watching Perry Mason on television, and knew she wanted to be a judge by the age of 10 after being inspired by a Perry Mason episode that ended with the camera settling on the robed sage," it says.

The New York Daily News adds that she made a heck of a jump from a housing project to Princeton, but doesn't answer the question: "how is that possible? What -- other than Perry Mason -- allowed her to escape the Bronx (Six Degrees of Aerosmith: Steven Tyler of Aerosmith went to the same high school)? Is she a fluke or is she an example of what hard work and some breaks can do? "Born in the Bronx in 1954 to parents from Puerto Rico, she was diagnosed with diabetes at 8. Her father, a factory worker, died when she was 9. Her mother supported Sotomayor and her brother, now a doctor, by working at methadone clinics," it says.

"Like Sonia's mother, he had a willingness to work hard, a strong sense of family, and a belief in the American Dream," President Obama said this morning. How much of achieving success consists of those traits?

In an interview with the Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education, she outlined the criteria that makes poor Latinos successful. "This is the pathology of successful Latinos and other successful individuals who come from economically deprived populations. It is hard to enjoy your success and wear it comfortably when the world we have grown up in is filled with friends and sometimes relatives who don't make it in our society at all."

In this 2004 video from the Law School Admission Council in 2004., posted today, Sotomayor describes more about her upbringing:

Her comments refute some of the descriptions of her housing project-apartment. One account today called it "drab." She called it "pristine" and "wonderful."

"My mom believed that education was the key to everything in the world. If you became educated, you could do whatever you wanted, and accomplish whatever dreams you had," she said, adding she didn't think of herself as a "minority" in the environment she was in.

From the looks of things today, the kids at Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx might have seen the message firsthand that anything is still possible.

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Listening to the whole story

Posted at 3:44 PM on May 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

"These are extraordinary times for our country," President Barack Obama repeated yesterday in his Washington speech outlining his national security philosophy and vision. A few minutes after that, former Vice President Dick Cheney delivered an equally strong and eloquent response. Extraordinary, indeed. We rarely have had the opportunity to hear such gripping and passionate speeches on a major issue in such a closely-timed way.

What's been fascinating in the 24 hours since both speeches, is how little of the analysis has been about the substance contained in each. Bob Schieffer on CBS this morning declared that -- politically -- Dick Cheney was the winner. "Cheney's Compelling, Human Speech Was Better Than Obama's Boring Legal Seminar," Mary Kate Cary wrote this afternoon. A local TV political reporter declared Cheney "the winner" during a radio appearance on Thursday afternoon in which the politics, not the merits, of the arguments, was the focus. The Associated Press, in its analysis this afternoon, headlined "Analysis: Obama debating Cheney is a plus for GOP."

So that's it, then? One of the most compelling days for substantive debate on one of the ost important issues facing the country is settled on the basis of style and political gamesmanship and not on the substance of the argument?

This is why Jon Stewart, who at least listened to what was in the speeches, is doing some of the best journalism in the country. The bar is low.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
American Idealogues
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

So here are the entire speeches from both. Watch Obama's, then Cheney's.

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Six degrees of medical marijuana

Posted at 11:40 AM on May 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

A few political analysts have pointed to a conflict former state Rep. Chris DeLaForest has with his new boss, Gov. Tim Pawlenty. They needn't bother. DeLaForest, a former state rep who gave up his House seat last year, is Pawlenty's new director of legislative affairs. He's also a lobbyist who pushed legislators to pass a medical marijuana bill that Pawlenty is going to veto.

But a glance at the MPR Votetracker (a neat app that I wish we'd kept in service) shows a clearer picture. DeLaForest and Pawlenty are politically joined at the hip.

A look at his votes on major issues during his legislative career reveals that.

FOR

Charging 13 year olds as adults
Preventing local government grants from going to organizations that provide abortions
Requiring voters to show ID
Banning public funding of abortions
Welfare limits for newcomers
Defining marriage as between one man and one woman
A metro-area casino

AGAINST
Embryonic stem cell research
Gas tax
Dedicated outdoors and arts funding
Studying cancer among Iron Range miners
Expanding health care coverage

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Editorial assessments on the budget: Lose-lose

Posted at 3:37 PM on May 20, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Lawmakers and the governor spent much of Tuesday trying to spin the just-concluded legislative session. For the most part, newspaper editorial boards weren't buying it. The DFL legislators, the Republican minority and Gov. Tim Pawlenty all received failing grades.

A look at some of today's judgments:

The St. Cloud Times:

Of course, he's successful with it thanks largely to just enough Republican legislators who either are so enamored with "no new taxes" they don't read their own local property tax bills, or they are politically fearful of what Pawlenty will do to them should they vote against his fiscal wishes.

Either way, they failed to do their jobs.

And then there is the DFL and its leadership.

From the day he delivered his State of the State speech, they were incessantly critical of the governor's budgeting plans, but noticeably short on their own detailed solutions. Beyond across-the-board cuts, they seemed to offer few ideas that truly reformed how the state does business.

Marshall Independent:

Minnesotans deserve better than a DFL-controlled House and Senate jamming a tax bill through the Legislature late Monday and Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who threatens to make cuts on his own, on budget and the DFL tax bill.

In a time when the state needed leaders with vision and the ability to have spirited, healthy debate on issues which will shape our state for years to come, we got partisan bickering, stubbornness and, it seems, no one with an ability or voice strong enough to ask the Legislature to think beyond the next year or two.

Fargo Forum:

The governor might think he's won because he will exercise his constitutional authority to cut and modify the budget to his liking, and will do so without going along with Democratic tax increases. But Democrats also are smiling because they believe they can blame the governor, not their own legislative failure, for the deep cuts in vital funding that will be felt in every city, school district and college campus in the state.

If the governor and his Democratic antagonists see the legislative stalemate as a win-win situation in political terms, they should understand that the people of Minnesota are the losers. The governor and Democratic leaders should be embarrassed not only by wasting 19 weeks in St. Paul, but also by engaging in a dizzying, post-session spin cycle regarding their culpability.

Albert Lea Tribune:

How state funding is distributed is now in the hands of one person, rather than determined through a series of compromises by many leaders.

Good? Bad? That's up to you, but most people vote for legislators because they want representation. For a Republican Party worrying a lot lately about disenfranchised voters, it sure seems to be a move that will disenfranchise voters.

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Jesse being Jesse

Posted at 5:02 PM on May 19, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Former Gov. Jesse Ventura is continuing his book-selling tour (but not in Minnesota) and on Monday he appeared on the Sean Hannity program on Fox. Ventura was typical outspoken but also fell into the mistake of discussing the John McCain - Osama bin Laden race for president. Whoops.

Ventura patted himself on the back for talking about the U.S. budget deficit "before the election," and says the topic never came up in the campaign. He's wrong, of course, and it came up in the presidential debates.

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Honor amid the gathering gloom

Posted at 2:10 PM on May 19, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Politics

A ceremony to honor emergency medical services personnel couldn't escape the long shadows cast by the nearby Capitol and the looming gubernatorial race today.

On the former helipad of Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Mayor Chris Coleman, a possible gubernatorial candidate, said, "We all need to stand up... to protect people who don't have the ability to provide for themselves," referring to Gov. Pawlenty's promise to cut medical care for the poor and mentally ill. "Let's not lose what we have here," he said outside a new wing of the trauma hospital.

Hospitals have started -- or are expected to start -- laying off people in anticipation of the cuts. "I'm humbled in light of what all of you are facing in the next few months," Rep. Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, (on the right in the photo below) told the crowd of mostly hospital employees. He has announced plans to run for governor.

Sen. Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, (on the left in the photo above) who is also a candidate for governor, claimed some victory in the tax bill sent to Gov. Pawlenty; a provision that extends the ability of communities to increase the property tax for emergency medical services. "It was one line in a 300 page tax bill," he said.

By the time the ceremony got around to the people who provide those services, however, most of the politicians had disappeared.

While the Capitol's eight-month summer vacation is underway, the EMS people have gone back to work, stopping long enough for a rare moment in the spotlight.

Moses Alejado, Scott Swenson, Tony Vanneli, and Michael McGaene - St. Paul's Medic 23 C Shift unit -- responded when Mike Popovich felt his chest tighten during a post-bike-ride shower. They treated him, and took him to Regions, where the cardiac team performed an angioplasty. It took all of 31 minutes.

"There was a time, there, that I thought I might, perhaps, die," Popovich told them today, shortly before asking them to sign a picture he took of them.

A helicopter medical team was also honored for rescuing a young girl in Baldwin, Wisconsin.

And representatives of Hennepin County Medical Center EMS, Allina Transportration, North Memorial Hospital, Lakes Region EMS and Kannebec County EMS were acknowledged for their works at the I-35W bridge collapse.

"In one hour and 35 minutes, they had cleared all four sections of the bridge and treated and transferred over 50 patients," Minneapolis Fire Chief Alex Jackson said. "By the time the national media flew in to see the rescue, it was over."

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Live-blogging Midmorning: Taxes

Posted at 9:00 AM on May 19, 2009 by Bob Collins (12 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Now that we've heard from lawmakers for the past five months, it's your turn. On Midmorning , Kerri Miller is discussing taxes with Sen. Julianne Ortman, R-Chanhasen, and Rep. Diane Loeffler.

News Cut is live blogging and awaiting your comments.

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Live-blogging: Midday at the Capitol

Posted at 10:44 AM on May 18, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

So here we are, hours away from the end of a legislative session that appears to be ending in chaos. Let's talk about it as we listen to Gary Eichten on Midday talking to most of the principals involved.

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Obama at Notre Dame

Posted at 7:39 PM on May 17, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics, Religion

He came. He spoke. He got heckled. Months of controversy over Notre Dame's decision to invite Barack Obama as its commencement speaker ended today with a small group of hecklers interrupting the president.

He then asked a good question.

Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?

For the most, we don't. But that's beside the point of the protest, according to John Kass of the Chicago Tribune, for the problem wasn't that Obama was asked to speak, it was that he was given an honorary degree, he says.

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Warfare at the Capitol

Posted at 10:05 PM on May 14, 2009 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The governor and the DFL-controlled Legislature are now at full-scale war. Judging by some of the comments at the Capitol, the situation is being met with shock and surprise. Outside the Capitol, it's something we could see coming a mile away.

They didn't talk much -- at least face-to-face -- and it always seemed as though each was trying to navigate the other into a political corner. Watching some of the Capitol press corps' Twitter feeds on Thursday night, it appears the discussion is more about who this "plays" better for politically, rather than what's in the best interest of Minnesotans who don't make their living by getting elected or appointred to state government gigs.

Politics in Minnesota's Steve Perry provided a transcript of an exchange between the combatants that does not inspire confidence on Main St., Minnesota.

Hanson: "Rep. Sertich, if you have another idea, we're listening."

Sertich: "Commissioner Hanson, you use words like 'agreement' and 'mutual' as if you mean them, and I don't believe you, quite honestly. What I hear you say on agreement is, we want you to agree with what the governor says, and if you don't do that, we'll go it alone. I don't share the optimism from around this table. I don't think this is funny.... If the governor goes it alone and has it his way, 113,000 Minnesotans will lose health insurance. Sixteen thousand Minnesotans will lose their jobs, and there will be cuts in education and higher tuition. That's not funny. That's not an agreement. I'm not optimistic."

Hanson: "Well, Rep. Sertich, your version of agreement is us doing exactly what you want."

Sertich: "That's not true. We're looking for compromise. We have compromised in many of these bills to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. We've cut more than you've cut. We've lowered our revenue [proposal] down to the revenue that the governor has stated is needed to balance this budget."

And now the fallout comes, and it's hit the poor first. MPR's Tom Scheck reports the governor has removed $381,081,000 in general assistance, essentially rolling up the safety net for about 33,000 (number according to Rep. Paul Thissen via Twitter).

Let's talk about this but let's do it a little differently. Let's put aside the political sniping for a second and let's come up with a way to solve this problem.

Any ideas?

(Bob is not writing on Friday)

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A failure to communicate

Posted at 3:26 PM on May 11, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

At the Capitol today, Governor Tim Pawlenty offered some changes to his position on the state budget.

According to the Associated Press, "the governor offered to cut his borrowing plan in half and to agree to a larger amount of deferred education spending that wouldn't appear on the books during this budget period. He also said he would divert $250 million he wanted in a reserve account to the general budget." (More via Polinaut)

The governor offered the suggestion "in the spirit of compromise" by sending a letter to legislative leaders.

Let's look at the Capitol floor plan, again.

House leaders rejected the idea by posting it on Twitter.

From House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher:

Governor's letter a compromise? Compromise in word only, doesn't balance the budget. Not a responsible plan.

House Majority Leader Tony Sertich also used Twitter, but "retweeted" a reporter's "tweet" to reject the idea:

Agreed. RT @sturdevant: Gov's first end-of-session proposal is more of the same: loads of one-time money.

I don't think the governor is going to see it on Twitter. He only posts about once a day. His latest one is pretty old:

Fishing opener banquet last night; Then to Rochester for daughter's Vball tournament; mom's day lunch; mowed grass and now cooking dinner.

Meanwhile, aides are standing by in the event further negotiations are needed.

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Gas prices jumping

Posted at 1:24 PM on May 11, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Energy, Politics

Despite what the weather might suggest, there must be a summer coming. Gas prices are heading up in a hurry.

In the Twin Cities today, the price of a gallon jumped about 20-cents-a-gallon, to about $2.39 in some locations, still lower than the $3.61 of a year ago, but we might get back there soon enough.

It was July 2005, when we visited these levels for the first time. The state had shut down over a budget dispute between Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Legislature.

Coincidence?

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The most boring moment

Posted at 10:32 AM on May 10, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics, Sports

What's the most boring moment in baseball? Tom Scocca of the Boston Globe has spent considerable seconds thinking about this and has determined that's it ball two.

Ball two stands alone, above any of the other dull business on the diamond. The intentional walk at least adds a base runner to the game. The halfhearted throw to first to check the runner is a sign that the pitcher is feeling tension. But ball two signifies almost nothing.

I am now considering other most boring moments in other spectator sports -- the Minnesota Legislature, for example.

But I can't tell whether the most boring moment is on the first day of the session when everybody says they think there'll be cooperation and great progress or near the end of the session when they complain there wasn't.

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Pawlenty vetoes tax bill

Posted at 7:48 AM on May 9, 2009 by Bob Collins (18 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The governor vetoed the big tax bill early Saturday morning, shortly before the governor went fishing.

Under the Legislature's plan, taxes would rise on alcohol, credit card companies that charge high interest rates and couples earning more than $250,000.

The House can -- and will, probably -- try to override the veto and most of the media experts focus on the need to get three Republicans to defect to their side, presuming that all the DFLers vote for the override. But will they?

Here's the roll call (courtesy of the Associated Press)

SENATE

DEMOCRATS VOTING YES
Anderson (St. Paul); Bakk (Cook); Berglin (Minneapolis); Betzold
(Fridley); Bonoff (Minnetonka); Carlson (Eagan); Chaudhary
(Fridley); Clark (St. Cloud); Cohen (St. Paul); Dahle (Northfield);
Dibble (Minneapolis); Doll (Burnsville); Erickson Ropes (Winona);
Fobbe (Zimmerman); Foley (Coon Rapids); Higgins (Minneapolis);
Kelash (Minneapolis); Kubly (Granite Falls); Langseth (Glyndon);
Latz (St. Louis Park); Lourey (Kerrick); Lynch (Rochester); Marty
(Roseville); Metzen (South St. Paul); Moua (St. Paul); Murphy (Red
Wing); Olseen (Harris); Olson, M. (Bemidji); Pappas (St. Paul);
Pogemiller (Minneapolis); Prettner Solon (Duluth); Rest (New Hope);
Rummel (White Bear Lake); Saltzman (Woodbury); Saxhaug (Grand
Rapids); Scheid (Brooklyn Park); Sheran (Mankato); Sieben
(Newport); Skoe (Clearbrook); Skogen (Hewitt); Stumpf (Plummer);
Torres Ray (Minneapolis); Vickerman (Tracy); Wiger (Maplewood)

DEMOCRATS VOTING NO
Sparks (Austin); Tomassoni (Chisholm)

REPUBLICANS VOTING NO
Day (Owatonna); Fischbach (Paynesville); Frederickson (New Ulm);
Gerlach (Apple Valley); Gimse (Willmar); Hann (Eden Prairie);
Ingebrigtsen (Alexandria); Johnson (Ham Lake); Jungbauer (East
Bethel); Koch (Buffalo); Koering (Fort Ripley); Limmer (Maple
Grove); Michel (Edina); Olson, G. (Minnetrista); Ortman
(Chanhassen); Pariseau (Farmington); Senjem (Rochester); Vandeveer
(Forest Lake)

REPUBLICANS NOT VOTING
Dille (Dassel); Robling (Jordan); Rosen (Fairmont)

HOUSE

DEMOCRATS VOTING YES
Anzelc (Balsam Twp); Atkins (Inver Grove Heights); Benson
(Minnetonka); Bigham (Cottage Grove); Bly (Northfield); Brown
(Moscow Twp); Brynaert (Mankato); Bunn (Lake Elmo); Carlson
(Crystal); Champion (Minneapolis); Clark (Minneapolis); Davnie
(Minneapolis); Dill (Crane Lake); Dittrich (Champlin); Doty
(Royalton); Eken (Twin Valley); Falk (Murdock); Faust (Hinckley);
Fritz (Faribault); Gardner (Shoreview); Greiling (Roseville);
Hansen (South St. Paul); Hausman (St. Paul); Haws (St. Cloud);
Hayden (Minneapolis); Hilstrom (Brooklyn Center); Hilty
(Finlayson); Hornstein (Minneapolis); Hortman (Brooklyn Park);
Hosch (St. Joseph); Huntley (Duluth); Jackson (Milaca); Johnson
(St. Paul); Juhnke (Willmar); Kahn (Minneapolis); Kalin (North
Branch); Kath (Owatonna); Kelliher (Minneapolis); Knuth (New
Brighton); Koenen (Clara City); Laine (Columbia Heights);
Lenczewski (Bloomington); Lesch (St. Paul); Liebling (Rochester);
Lieder (Crookston); Lillie (North St. Paul); Loeffler
(Minneapolis); Mahoney (St. Paul); Mariani (St. Paul); Marquart
(Dilworth); Masin (Eagan); Morgan (Burnsville); Morrow (St. Peter);
Mullery (Minneapolis); Murphy, E. (St. Paul); Murphy, M.
(Hermantown); Nelson (Brooklyn Park); Newton (Coon Rapids); Norton
(Rochester); Obermueller (Eagan); Olin (Thief River Falls); Otremba
(Long Prairie); Paymar (St. Paul); Persell (Bemidji); Peterson (New
Hope); Poppe (Austin); Reinert (Duluth); Rosenthal (Edina);
Rukavina (Virginia); Ruud (Minnetonka); Sailer (Park Rapids);
Scalze (Little Canada); Sertich (Chisholm); Simon (St. Louis Park);
Slawik (Maplewood); Slocum (Richfield); Solberg (Grand Rapids);
Sterner (Rosemount); Swails (Woodbury); Thao (St. Paul); Thissen
(Minneapolis); Tillberry (Fridley); Wagenius (Minneapolis); Ward
(Brainerd); Welti (Plainview); Winkler (Golden Valley)

DEMOCRATS VOTING NO
Pelowski (Winona)

REPUBLICANS VOTING NO
Abeler (Anoka); Anderson, B. (Buffalo Twp); Anderson, P.
(Starbuck); Anderson, S. (Plymouth); Beard (Shakopee); Brod (New
Prague); Buesgens (Jordan); Cornish (Good Thunder); Davids
(Preston); Dean (Dellwood); Demmer (Hayfield); Dettmer (Forest
Lake); Doepke (Orono); Downey (Edina); Drazkowski (Wabasha);
Eastlund (Isanti); Emmer (Delano); Garofalo (Farmington); Gottwalt
(St. Cloud); Gunther (Fairmont); Hackbarth (Cedar); Hamilton
(Mountain Lake); Holberg (Lakeville); Hoppe (Chaska); Howes
(Walker); Kelly (Red Wing); Kiffmeyer (Big Lake); Kohls (Victoria);
Lanning (Moorhead); Loon (Eden Prairie); Mack (Apple Valley);
McNamara (Hastings); Murdock (Ottertail); Nornes (Fergus Falls);
Peppin (Rogers); Sanders (Blaine); Scott (Andover); Seifert
(Marshall); Severson (Sauk Rapids); Smith (Mound); Torkelson
(Nelson Twp); Urdahl (Grove City); Westrom (Elbow Lake); Zellers
(Maple Grove);

REPUBLICANS NOT VOTING
Magnus (Slayton); McFarlane (White Bear Lake); Shimanski (Silver
Lake);


Assuming the House doesn't override the veto, how far should the DFL go to stand on principle? Most of the Capitol press corps I've talked with say not far, since it could lead to a government shutdown, which would put state workers out of work and nobody in the DFL wants to anger the state workers.

But if we're talking about throwing 100,000 people off health care and closing hospitals, is that worth angering state workers? Or not?

What say you?

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Live-blogging: The Legislature's final days

Posted at 10:44 AM on May 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Senator Larry Pogemillers Senate Majority Leader, and Rep. Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Speaker of the Minnesota House are on Midday with Gary Eichten. The Legislature is down to its last few days and the annual stand-off with the governor is brewing.

Why not join in and discuss what you hear? Listen here.

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Is it a time to forgive?

Posted at 8:27 PM on May 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Politics

Should taxpayers pay for a hockey arena in St. Paul?

That's the question facing Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a professed hockey nut, now that the Legislature has sent him a political grenade -- a bill that forgives $33 million of a no-interest loan the city got from the state to lure professional hockey back to Minnesota by building the Xcel arena.

The city really doesn't need the money, except that it wants to build another hockey arena across the street for the benefit -- primarily -- of the Minnesota Wild, who need a hockey facility.

A hotel planned for the site has been dropped, according to St. Paul councilman Dave Thune on the the St. Paul Issues Forum. "The ice sheet would provide a base...(surrounded) by a really exciting retail component befitting historic seven corners. The pond would host world class figure skating, public skating, wild hockey practice, curling and youth hockey," he said.

Perhaps. But wasn't one benefit of the Xcel Center to be a boost to business in St. Paul? A few restaurants have benefited, there's more business for parking ramps, but other than that, not much. And while it attracted the Republican National Convention, that week was a disaster, even for businesses a teargas cannister's throw from the arena.

Back when then-mayor Norm Coleman was trying to cut the arena deal, some people in St. Paul objected to the city getting stuck with pricetag for an arena that would attract hockey-loving suburbanites. Perhaps this is one way they can pony up their share.

But what about people in Marshall, for example. Its representative, Marty Seifert, the House Minority Leader is, predictably, no fan of the bill. "Go back to your coffee shop. Go back to your hardware store ... and ask people if you think this is an opportune time for us to be forgiving over $30 million that's owed to the state of Minnesota, from a deal that was struck in the 1990s, when we are $6 billion in the hole," said he said.

What say you?

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The myth of the health care access fund

Posted at 5:14 PM on May 4, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Politics

At the Capitol today, some health care advocates pushed for a higher "provider tax" to avoid health care cuts proposed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

The 2 percent tax -- known as a "sick tax" in health care provider circles -- is part of the funding mechanism for the Health Care Access Fund, which also uses premiums paid by enrollees of MinnesotaCare, the state-subsidized health care plan for low-income Minnesotans. The tax is levied on doctors, dentists, and other health care providers.

"MinnesotaCare is an excellent program providing coverage for the working poor in Minnesota and if it requires some additional tax on health care providers to keep those services in place, our members as a whole are willing to step forward and do that," said Lawrence Massa with the Minnesota Hospitals Association.

If you didn't know any better, you'd think the HCAF had run out of money, so the governor is imposing the cuts. You'd be wrong.

The Health Care Access Fund is one of the few dedicated taxes in Minnesota that actually works for the limited goal that spawned it. It works so well, in fact, that it often runs a surplus, which is why the governor and Legislature have regularly used it as a "slush fund" to balance shortfalls in the state budget, over the objection of the health care providers.

Last year, for example, the governor proposed pulling $149 million from the fund. Over his term, he's diverted more than $400 million from the fund.

Writing in the Spokesman Recorder last month, Rep. Bobby Joe Champion criticized the governor for proposing the HCAF money go directly into the General Fund.

The governor wants to keep collecting the Provider Tax while diverting it away from the people it was created to help. That's on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars that his administration has already shifted out of the fund to balance previous deficits. Those shifts have resulted in fewer people able to access MinnesotaCare and other programs.

Such a move would have allowed Pawlenty to spend the health care tax on anything but health care, and avoid the annual attention of raiding the fund. Tax bills emerging in the House and Senate, however, did not include Pawlenty's plan.

The people Massa represents -- hospitals -- have a serious problem, to be sure. The Bemidji Pioneer's Brad Swenson admirably describes the health care mess (registration required), partially created by years of shifting money from areas for which it was intended.

The situation is the underpinning of the coming showdown between the governor and Legislature. But its core is simple.

1. Health care providers pay a tax to provide health insurance for low-income Minnesotans.
2. The fund that provides the insurance often runs a surplus.
3. The governor diverts the surplus -- and more -- to other uses and notes the spiraling cost of health care, while cutting reimbursements to hospitals who end up providing care to those who can't afford to pay for it.
4. Pressure builds to remove more people from health insurance coverage.
5. Proposals surface to increase the tax to provide health insurance for low-income Minnesotans, even though it ends up being used for something else.

The problem, of course, is exacerbated by the reality of the economy and the state budget which -- even if the health care fund were used for other things -- is still going to lead to major cuts in Minnesota health care.

Does anybody see a solution here?

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Medical marijuana bill passes Minnesota Senate

Posted at 11:30 AM on May 4, 2009 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Politics

The Minnesota Senate today has passed the bill legalizing the medical use of marijuana, but not without a brief rehash of arguments that haven't changed on either side over the last 10 years.

Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen, R-Alexandria, says the bill is the first step in legalizing drugs, and says it'll be "a law enforcement nightmare."

The bill passed 35-to-29, picking up two more votes in the Senate than in 2007, the first time a medical marijuana bill survived a full vote in either the Senate or House, and one vote fewer than a preliminary vote last week.

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The flu formerly known as swine

Posted at 3:02 PM on April 30, 2009 by Than Tibbetts (6 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Media, Politics

What's in a name?

We've moved beyond the "panic" stories to the politically tinged debates over what to call that nasty virus traversing the globe.

World Health Organization officials today begin referring to the virus formerly known as swine flu as "influenza A (H1N1)." (Though the WHO has shown it isn't above industry meddling.)

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has this note posted on one of its flu pages:

This is a rapidly evolving situation and current guidance and other web content may contain variations in how this new H1N1 virus of swine origin is referred to.

Over the coming days and weeks, these inconsistencies will be addressed, but in the interests of meeting the agency's response goals, all guidance will remain posted and new guidance will continue to be issued.

But they might have trouble switching things up as they've been giving out cdc.gov/swineflu as the site for information.

The City of St. Paul just sent out a press release titled "Information available on H1N1 (swine) flu threat."

Then there's the World Organization for Animal Health which, so far, has the most novel approach:

No current information in influenza like animal disease in Mexico or the USA could support a link between human cases and possible animal cases including swine. The virus has not been isolated in animals to date. Therefore, it is not justified to name this disease swine influenza. In the past, many human influenza epidemics with animal origin have been named using geographic name, eg Spanish influenza or Asiatic influenza, thus it would be logical to call this disease "North-American influenza".

MPR received a letter from a pork producer representative that laid bare the industry's objections to calling it swine flu:

[Please] reference the present flu virus by its appropriate name, the 2009 N1H1 flu.

Referring to the present flu virus as "swine flu" is not only damaging to MN pork producers, but demonstrates an uneducated, reckless approach, which is undoubtedly uncharacteristic of MN Public Radio.

The negative connotations to swine, unfairly made and scientifically unsupported, affect consumer confidence and therefore have a significant negative impact on pork production.

There is scientific evidence that the virus is genetically connected to pigs, but you cannot get the flu by eating pork products. It's not like we're not calling it bacon flu, though. To be fair, when your industry is under sudden and near total onslaught, you have a right to be defensive.

When it comes down to it, the media, at least for now, will likely stick with swine flu.

Today on Talk of the Nation, host Neal Conan was asked by a caller why he was not using the term "correct" term of H1N1. Said Conan, "We call it swine flu because that's what people call it."

So... what do you call it?

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The Switch

Posted at 1:01 PM on April 28, 2009 by Than Tibbetts (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

If you were listening to the radio yesterday afternoon, you might recall Neal Conan's interview with Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) (D-PA).

While the talk of the Specter's switch will certainly revolve around the national political ramifications — you know, what with Al Franken being the potential 60th vote for the Democrats if Norm Coleman loses his appeal at the Minnesota Supreme Court — NPR's reflection on the interview offers a different take.

All politics is local, and Sen. Specter was concerned about his ability to win a Republican primary in 2010, or so the subtext goes:

Specter: Well, it is true that the polls are bleak. When I voted for the stimulus package, one of just three, and was in position, along with Senator Snowe and Senator Collins, to provide the decisive votes, there was a very strong adverse reaction. There was a resolution filed in state committee to censure me. The state chairman and the national chairman said they didn't know if they could support me. My office was picketed. And it's a tough proposition. I've overcome some challenges before, and I'm working on a game plan.

The Atlantic's Mark Ambinder offers a Cliffs Notes analysis of the switch.

Time flies. Two weeks ago, Specter said he'd be a Republican forever.

Tom Scheck is running down the implications of Specter's change on Minnesota's Senate race. He's got the reactions from the Franken and Norm Coleman campaigns on Polinaut.

Now, imagine the onus on Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Democrats want Franken to have the election certificate, oh, yesterday, while there will no doubt be pressure from Republicans to a) find a way for Coleman to win or b) keep Franken out of the Senate for as long as possible. It's been clear for a while that the race would have to pivot around Pawlenty before it comes to a conclusion.

Update: Pawlenty says the switch won't affect the Minnesota Senate race. He wouldn't say when he'd issue the certificate, except to say he'll follow the court's direction.

"We're going to follow the law with respect to the Franken/Coleman litigation and when and how a certificate gets issued," Pawlenty said. "So again, the situation with Pennsylvania has no connection or impact on what's going to happen in Minnesota."

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History is history

Posted at 3:26 PM on April 16, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Politics

The Minnesota Historical Society is announcing huge proposed budget cuts. According to a news release, more than 90 people would lose their jobs, fewer books would be published and three sites would close.

You know my penchant for aviation, so I'll weep silently for the the Charles A. Lindbergh Historic Site in Little Falls. It, along with Historic Forestville in Preston, and North West Company Fur Post in Pine City would be closed to the public.

Lindbergh, for the record, was good enough for Gov. Pawlenty to invoke in his 2008 State of the State address. "When Charles Lindbergh emerged from the plane, he said just what you might expect a Minnesotan to say, 'Well ... I made it,'" It's easier to fly solo to Paris than it is to keep history alive in Minnesota, however.

Historic Fort Snelling would close for two days each week.

The Oliver H. Kelley Farm in Elk River, Mille Lacs Indian Museum and Trading Post in Onamia, Forest History Center in Grand Rapids, and Jeffers Petroglyphs in Comfrey would only be open weekends.

Maybe nobody cares about these particular cuts, the governor's spokesman suggests.

"If you weren't able to go to the Historical Society Library when you thought you' might be able to, some people might notice that. It doesn't seem like the Historical Society is trying to go overboard. I think their attempt here is one that presents a realistic approach as they seems like they look at the budget situation," said Brian McClung.

But wasn't the "Legacy Amendment" -- that's when you voted for a sales tax increase last fall -- supposed to be a boon to cultural programs in the state?

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How others see us

Posted at 12:40 PM on April 16, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The Norm Coleman - Al Franken recount story is a hit -- sort of -- in Europe.

On Wednesday, MPR's Mark Zdechlik was on the BBC's Up All Night. Once you get past the mangling of Mark's name, it's even more interesting to hear the questions. The host apparently thought the race between the two was over. But when you hear Mark explain the process, one wonders how anyone overseas can wonder what's wrong with Minnesota.

"Why didn't anyone weigh into this long before?" the commentator asked, referring to the Supreme Court ruling in the Gore-Bush clash in 2000 49 days after the election. "There is no sense of a clock running here at all," he said incredulously.

"We urge more patience on you," he said. Listen

Meanwhile, All Things Considered host Tom Crann was on the radio in Dublin. The host on RTE Radio 1wondered why a Democrat in "one of the bluest states in the union" couldn't easily win an election in which Barack Obama swept to victory.

Told by Crann that Coleman was appealing this week's decision, the host intoned, "Oh, good lord." Listen

Why does Europe care? Is it a fascination with the democratic process in the colonies? Or the fact it involves a former comedian?

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The Internet tax debate

Posted at 10:19 AM on April 8, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

(From this morning's Future Tense)

Cash-strapped states are targeting Internet merchants. Several are considering bills that would require merchants to collect sales taxes on digital downloads. Under a Supreme Court ruling, states can only require the merchants to collect the taxes online if they have a bricks-and-mortar presence in the state. In Minnesota, for example, a bill being considered by the Legislature would add a sales tax to downloads from iTunes and WalMart.

I talked first with Minneapolis representative Jim Davnie, the bill's author, and then to Steve DelBianco, the executive director of NetChoice, a coalition of some of the biggest online corporations.

MP3 - iTunes

TAKE THE SURVEY!

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Gay marriage - Vermont style

Posted at 4:42 PM on April 7, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The gay marriage issue is starting to feel like the collapse of the Eastern bloc. It's happening quickly and relatively quietly, without much of a fight. Today, Vermont became the latest state to legalize gay marriage when its legislature voted to override the governor's veto of a bill. It's the first time gay marriage was enacted via the legislature and not from the courts. The "activist judges" cries, which started when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court struck down laws to prevent gay marriage, don't work here.

Four states now allow gay marriage, and two of them have joined the ranks in the last week. On Friday, Iowa's Supreme Court cleared the way for same-sex marriage.

Iowa. The nation's heartland. You could almost hear conservative groups sigh, "If we've lost Iowa, we've lost America." But after last November's bruising, the reaction has been somewhat muted. Then again, it's not an election year.

"You cannot take marriage, a social institution that developed over a very, very long period of time, and redefine it out of existence, without taking an enormous risk," writes BeliefNet columnist Rod Dreher. "The agenda of some of these leaders is precisely to do that -- to rid marriage of anything normative, to make it a free-floating legal condition that has no meaning beyond whatever it is they want it to mean today."

But like the fall of the Eastern bloc, the effort to legalize same-sex marriage is picking up steam on a regional basis, and it's happening quickly. The chances are improving, the New York Times reported, that New England is the core of the movement, whose slogan is "Six by '12."

This map from the Human Rights Campaign reinforces the notion of a regional strategy:

What does this mean in Minnesota? Not much; at least not yet. Same-sex marriages from other states are not recognized in Minnesota. A bill to change that is -- so far -- going nowhere at the Capitol. Legislation to make Minnesota's marriage laws gender neutral is similarly stalled.

(Photo: Jordan Silverman/Getty Images)

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Taxes: It don't come easy

Posted at 12:18 PM on April 7, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The Minnesota Department of Revenue has sent out a news release today touting changes the Legislature has made in tax code to make it easier and less confusing for people to file their taxes.

Presumably, this will be the case once people who have already filed their taxes refile their taxes because of the new rules.

Confused? Well, yes.

Here's the release.

Some of the changes contained in the law resulted in the elimination of Department of Revenue Schedule M1NC, Federal Adjustments. As a result, some taxpayers who used this schedule in calculating their Minnesota taxable income will have to file an amended individual income tax return for 2008.

No further action is required for taxpayers who claimed federal deductions for higher education tuition and fees or for teacher classroom expenses, but who had no other adjustments on Schedule M1NC.

However, taxpayers with other adjustments on Schedule M1NC should re-file their Minnesota tax return as outlined below. This includes taxpayers aged 70 ½ or older who reported non-taxable direct transfers from IRA accounts to charitable organizations.

Taxpayers who have not yet filed their 2008 Form M1:
· Do not complete Schedule M1NC, since the schedule is now obsolete.
· Taxpayers claiming the college tuition and fees and/or educator expenses deduction on their federal returns must add back these deductions on line 12 of the newly revised Schedule M1M, Income Additions and Subtractions.
· Taxpayers who use tax software should be sure to download the latest program updates.

Taxpayers who have already filed their Minnesota return and included Schedule M1NC:
· File an amended return if you added back tax-free charitable transfers from IRA accounts or reported any federal adjustments other than tuition and fees and educator expenses. You must use Form M1X, Amended Minnesota Income Tax.
· Taxpayers who used tax preparers should contact those professionals for updated forms and information.

The legislation (HF 392) conforms Minnesota's income tax to most federal changes enacted through Dec. 31, 2008. It does not include any provisions of the recently passed federal stimulus law, which generally take effect with tax year 2009.

Conforming to federal tax law helps provide clear and consistent rules that help reduce taxpayer confusion and make it easier to calculate and file state taxes.

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Earmarks deadline

Posted at 3:49 PM on April 3, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Today is the deadline for members of Congress to post their 2010 "earmark" requests online. Under new House rules, members have to post their requests on their individual Web sites.

The Web sites, of course, are not standardized so it's not always easy to find a particular posting. But given a reasonable review of the Web sites, here's the ones that have been posted for the Minnesota delegation:

Rep. Tim Walz - Not found.
Rep. John Kline - Not found.
Rep. Erik Paulsen - Not found.
Rep. Betty McCollum - Not found
Rep. Keith Ellison - Not found
Rep. Michele Bachmann - Not found.
Colin Peterson - Includes flood protection for the Red River valley, barley research, ultra-light vehicles for the military.
Rep. James Oberstar - Not found

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There's something about Pawlenty

Posted at 12:15 PM on April 2, 2009 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Pawlenty, Politics

It's budget season and that's open season on politicians, but after six years on the job, most of which have been taken up by budget cutting, it may be time for DFLers to acknowledge that Tim Pawlenty's nickname should be be "Teflon Tim."

Eric Ostermeier, who writes the Smart Politics blog over at the Humphrey Institute has analyzed Pawlenty's latest approval ratings and pulls out this nugget:

In fact, Pawlenty is one of only three Governors in the 14 states polled by SurveyUSA who currently has an approval rating in excess of the vote received during the state's last gubernatorial election. And only Virginia's Democratic Governor Tim Kaine (+5) has a higher net favorability rating vis-à-vis vote percentage than Pawlenty (+4). The average gubernatorial job performance rating across the more than one dozen states polled is 11+ points south of the average election vote tally.

What Ostermeier doesn't mention in his list, however, is that only Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick had the third party competition (Christy Mihos - 6% of the vote) in the election in 2006 that Pawlenty had from Peter Hutchinson in the same election (6.4%).

In that context, it was actually easier for Pawlenty to have a higher approval rating than on election night than most any other governor.

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Legislature may close loophole on misusing funds

Posted at 2:53 PM on March 18, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

While Congress was busy sending journalists scurrying to the thesaurus to find words to replace "outrage," a Minnesota House committee was tightening a rather glaring loophole: it's not illegal to misuse taxpayer money (insert the predictable joke here).

According to the Legislature's Session Daily:

Following a rash of recent scandals involving fraud and financial mismanagement at state agencies, Winkler wondered why the state employees involved were being fired but not prosecuted. It turns out that knowingly misappropriating state money is not actually a crime.

Under Rep. Ryan Winkler's bill, anyone who intentionally misuses state funds could be charged with a gross misdemeanor.

The bill was inspired by the case of Sonia Pitt, the former director of homeland security planning for the Minnesota Department of Transportation, who was AWOL when the I-35W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, who charged over $14,000 in personal travel expenses to the state, and caused the state to pay over $11,000 for her use of cellphones, hotels, airfare, and unnecessary business travel, according to an investigation by the Office of the Legislative Auditor.

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AIG's campaign contributions

Posted at 11:31 AM on March 18, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Earlier, I provided a link to a few news stories about AIG's campaign contributions, which is getting grilled today by many of the recipients over the millions paid out in bonuses.

According to the watchdog site, OpenSecrets.org, these Minnesota candidates have received campaign contributions by the AIG Group.

2008
Michele Bachmann $250
Norm Coleman $1,000
Elwyn Tinklenberg $750
Al Franken $400

2006
Amy Klobuchar $3,000
Mark Kennedy $1,250

2004
Jim Oberstar $3,000

2002
Norm Coleman $7,333
Paul Wellstone $1,100
Jim Oberstar $1,000

Update 3:23 p.m. From Dave Dziok, communications director for Rep. Michele Bachmann:

If you follow the link below you will see that an analyst for AIG in Houston, Texas, donated to Congresswoman Bachmann's campaign but not to the AIG PAC.

Here's the link for donors to AIG's PAC. Trevor Cox of Houston, TX doesn't appear on there at all.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgave.php?sort=A&cmte=C00097725&cycle=2008&Page=1

Here's the link to Trevor Cox's donations which are completely separate and independent from AIG. Simply because he is employed there does not mean he is associated with the PAC that is responsible for political contributions in any way. The names he contributed to, on his own, seem to be all pro-life heavy hitters.

http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/donor_lookup.php?name=Cox,%20Trevor

Congresswoman Bachmann has not ever received donations from AIG. As we told the CRP, the way they report is misleading so I understand how the confusion was made, but the story as reported is misleading so I wanted to draw it your attention.

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Live-blogging Midday: The governor's budget

Posted at 10:58 AM on March 18, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

MPR's Midday is discussing Gov. Tim Pawlenty's reworked budget plan. I've live-blogging it in search of the salient nuggets.

Guests are Sen. Dick Cohen, DFL-St. Paul, chair of the Senate Finance Committee and Sen. Geoff Michel,, R-Edina, assistant minority leader.

I would anticipate some discussion of Tom Scheck's story that the governor's proposal assumes property tax increases.

11:07 a.m. - "The governor set an appropriate direction," Michel said. "We're starting to see specific proposals and we're starting to digest what the federal money means."

Cohen says Pawlenty uses one-time money and says in the next biennium, "the budget falls off the cliff."

11:10 a.m. - Sen. Michel, asked if one-time money is preferable to a state-wide tax increase, he said a recession is not the right time to raise $2 billion in taxes. "At a minimum we should expect state government should live within its means and set some priorities." That may be a shot against the Pogemiller budget proposal that called for an across-the-board cut.

Cohen says using one-time money for a secure budget "makes no sense." Michel says the DFL is saying "the governor should cut more, but he's cut too much."

11:16 a.m. - Cohen says he's prefer tax increases to the use of one-time money. He says to raises taxes on the wealthiest is preferable "to kicking people who are least able to take care of themselves off the programs they need."

11:19 a.m. - The tax incidence study is being kicked around.

Listener questions

Q: Why are human services the first to be cut?

A: "That's the portion of the budget which is racing away at an unsustainable rate -- 22% was the projected increase over the next two years," Michel said. "This is the PacMan of the state budget."

"If we cut everything in state budget by 5% that's $1.5 billion... you're still short of solving the problem," Cohen said. Pressed on the lack of priorities in the Senate budget, Cohen said "it's a work in progress."

11:25 a.m. - Could K-12 be cut to restore some human service cuts? "There's been a lot of trimming going on in K-12," Sen. Michel said. Cohen says "at the end of the day when we pass K-12 out of the Senate, we'll have a smaller cut than what we show now."

11:39 a.m. - Do business owners have to have $250,000 in profit in order not to be included in an income tax increase for people making more than $250,000

According to MIchel, "92% of small businesses report business income on personal income tax. To lay out this tax increase as just a tax increase on the rich is wrong." Cohen notes businesses can deduct expenses so the number reaching adjusted gross income of $250,000 is much smaller.

11:42 a.m. South Dakota caller cites the number of businesses moving to South Dakota and says "Sen. Cohen is the best politician South Dakota can hope for.

"South Dakota is a state losing population," Cohen said.

11:46 a.m. - Caller says the state's economy has been doing down since the state cut taxes. Proper application of cause-and-effect?

11:49 a.m. - For every wealthy taxpayer the state loses, according to Cohen, "we have to fill that hole with 86 middle-income taxpayer.

11:51 a.m. - "Republican governors throughout the country have attempted to have a mixture of budget cuts and tax increases to deal with budget problems. That's why Minnesota has fallen behind; Governor Pawlenty has refused to look at anything," Cohen said.

11:56 a.m. - Michel asks, "what is reasonable" in the size of the budget?

11:57 a.m. - "Why not just paper over the budget, avoid taxes, under the assumption the economy will get better?" Eichten asks.

"It's a false premise," Cohen says. "You can't have a budget of that sort and not continue to run a significant deficit over the next two years. There is no economic projection to say the economic problems won't continue."

Says Michel" "We've got to deal with the jobs deficit. It's the only thing we should be working on for the next two months.

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Shining a light on Capitol access

Posted at 1:02 PM on March 16, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Media, Politics

This is Freedom of Information Day and it's also Sunshine Week, the week where journalists advocate -- more forcefully than usual -- greater access to government data and the secrets that government tries to keep.

And yet, journalists still argue that some of them should have more access than others.

The question of who should be allowed on the floor of the Minnesota House of Representatives came up today during a discussion on MPR's Midday broadcast, featuring Rich Neumeister, a citizen lobbyist and winner of the 2009 John Finnegan Award (MPR story about him here), and Mark Anfinson, the longtime attorney for the Minnesota Newspaper Association.

The controversy, simmering for years, has percolated at the Capitol this session as online-only media (which on a national scale was joined today by the Seattle Post Intelligencer) has asked for, and been denied, the same access to the House floor as mainstream media.

Neumeister advocated for the online journalists today. "There was a bill introduced dealing with criminal intelligence gathering. Law enforcement could gather intelligence on people who may or may not be a terrorist," he said. "I called a number of these bloggers, one of them decided to print the the story. Then Politics in Minnesota picked it up.I approached other people (mainstream media) and it was, 'Well, we're doing this,' and they don't have as many reporters anymore."

"The bigger change and the thing that's driven the Capitol and hearings is not fewer reporters, it's many, many more journalists driven by the online community," Anfinson said. "This same issue popped up during the Republican National Convention when the local law enforcement had a tough time distinguishing between mainline and people who called themselves journalists."

Anfinson says the controversy at the Capitol arose because "practical applications went smack against the doorway and the echo is still reverberating. You can't have everybody who claims to be a journalist going on the House floor. You just can't. We need to come up with solutions, but we can't rush them."

"In the good old days," he said, "the number of credentialed reporters were fairly limited. That allowed some familiarity to develop. They were allowed. What if 500 people want access? I'm not saying they should be excluded, but you can't approach this in a simplistic way."

Neumeister's solution, however, was to start by granting access to the online organizations that everyone agrees should get access, citing Politics in Minnesota (which rarely has had a problem with access because it was started by prominent lobbyists) and Minnpost.

He also said bloggers and online journalists should get the same access at committee hearings that members of the public do, let alone other journalists.

"I think bloggers should be able to go to committee hearings without credentials and do what they need to do to get the message out," he said. "Citizens do this all the time."

"Whether you call them citizens, journalists or citizen-journalists, they're coming to the courtrooms, the committee rooms and the statehouse to report on the government," Jane Kirtley, the University of Minnesota professor of media ethics, wrote in the Pioneer Press on Sunday. They have every right to be there, because you have every right to be there. It's your government at work. It's your business."

And because it is, Neumeister, as MPR's Tim Nelson pointed out, is "one of the state's foremost authorities on what Minnesotans know about the government and what the government knows about them."

What's bad about that?

Listen

Recommended reading: The State of the News Media 2009 (just out today.)

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An outdoors fight brews

Posted at 12:06 PM on March 16, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Granted it's not a very good map I've posted, but if you can see the red dots, you get the picture. The Lessard Outdoors Heritage Council, the group of citizens that recommends to the Legislature how outdoors money from the increased sales tax should be spent, has spread the projects around, mostly outstate.

Let the debate begin! Should the money be spent in proportion to where people live? Or where the habitat is? The two are often not quite the same.

Oh, wait, it already has.

Rep. Rick Hansen, DFL-South St. Paul, sees this partially as an economic stimulus plan, and says restoration of land (and there's plenty of land to be restored in the metro) creates jobs. "If you're doing wetland restoration, you're hiring a local contractor, you're buying local seed. If you're planting trees, you're buying trees from a local nursery," said Hanson. "So there's work involved with that, rather than just the acquisition."

But Dennis Anderson, the outdoors columnist at the Star Tribune, warns the Legislature against messing with the Council's recommendations.

ither way, none of this is happening in a vacuum. The constitutional amendment raising the sales tax was approved by nearly 60 percent of voters, and many voters said "yes'' because the Lessard council had been established to sift through and recommend fish and wildlife habitat proposals. Succinctly put: No one trusted the Legislature to do this correctly, absent a citizen-dominated advisory group.

Now, should the Legislature mess significantly with the Lessard proposals -- and the House apparently will try -- a rally is being considered on the Capitol mall by supporters, a rally that will make the similar gatherings there in 2005 and 2006 that attracted some 10,000 conservationists (combined) look like practice.

Over the next few weeks, plenty of sound bites will describe what the 60-percent of those who voted for the sales tax increase intended. If you voted for the increase, what was your intention?

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Pawlenty on CNBC

Posted at 9:29 AM on March 16, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Keeping track of the locals on the national stage today. Gov. Tim Pawlenty went on CNBC today.

Highlights:

"(The Republican Party ) needs to be about adding some more people to the coalition because we can't win like we did in '06 and '08; in other words, we lost in those election cycles."

Asked about a specific pro-growth policy for the U.S., Pawlenty said Minnesota is proposing "cutting its business tax rates in half." Also highlighted "clean and green" tax breaks.

Asked about his two brothers who are union members (or were) and whether the Republican Party could ever be "pro-union," Pawlenty responded "it could be pro-jobs." Is that a "no"?

The CNBC anchor -- the same one who suggested waterboarding Bernie Madoff -- prefaced the interview by saying they were talking to Pawlenty "about whether bipartisanship is even a word anymore." She didn't ask any questions about bipartisanship.

Elsewhere, Politico guesses that Norm Coleman will be the next chairman of the Republican Party.

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The 'earmarks factory'

Posted at 10:44 AM on March 15, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

A rising controversy in Washington over a lobbying firm which specializes in securing earmarks for its clients is ensnaring every member of the Minnesota congressional delegation, including two representatives who have declared they are against inserting earmarks in legislation.

Rep. John Kline has accepted $129,174 from PMA group, second only in the state to Rep. Jim Oberstar ($153,600) in a list of campaign contributions to members of Congress released last week by the government watchdog group Center for Responsive Politics. The figures are accumulated as far back as the 1998 election cycle in the U.S.

The PMA Group was founded by an aide to powerful Democrat John Murtha. Its offices were raided by the FBI last month. The feds are reportedly investigating allegations that the firm funneled money to Congress by attributing contributions to individuals who were unaware that they were listed as making the contributions.

Last week, the political site Politico, reported Murtha used the operations of a Penn State University center as a "front for PMA and other lobbyists and contractors with ties to the Pennsylvania Democrat."

Minnesota received almost $200 million in earmarks in the latest spending bill, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense (see spreadsheet), although we can't find any corporations with significant Minnesota ties in the list of PMA Group clients. An Arizona congressman, one of the chief critics of earmarks, said he found 12 projects in the spending bill related to the earmark group, but none is attributed to Minnesota.

One hundred and four lawmakers added earmarks on behalf of the PMA Group. No Minnesotan is on the list, according to CQ Politics. (Hat tip: Bluestem Prairie)

The list of members of the Minnesota congressional delegation and the amount of PMA-connected campaign contributions, according to CRP.

James Oberstar	$153,600
John Kline	$129,174
Betty McCollum	$20,650
Collin Peterson	$15,500
Tim Walz	$9,000
Amy Klobuchar	$6,350
Michele Bachmann	$4,100
Keith Ellison	$2,350
Erik Paulsen	$1,250

Earlier this month, the House voted on a call for an ethics investigation into the relationship between PMA and the most powerful members of Congress. It was defeated along a mostly party-line vote. Rep. Tim Walz was the only DFLer in the Minnesota delegation to support the probe, by objecting to a motion to table it.

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Datagate redux

Posted at 9:14 PM on March 14, 2009 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

If you've been following old posts/comments (here and here), you know that I've been debating the release of the actual database that Norm Coleman's Web team apparently left exposed last January. Some people think exposing the private data of others is worth it in order to press the point that Coleman should've (a) locked down the data when local Web sleuths found it where it shouldn't have been and (b) should've followed state law by notifying people that their data had been exposed.

But did whoever leaked the database when it was discovered also contribute to the dangers that exposed data presents? InfoWorld's Robert X. Cringley gives the Coleman campaign the "what for," but reserves a small shot at the decision by wikileaks to post the data, even if part of it was removed.

Meanwhile, Wikileaks continues to walk a fine line between serving the public good and abetting private disasters. If my information were on either of those databases, I'd be unhappy with both Coleman and the whistle-blowers. They could have easily made their point and still redacted enough information to make it hard for thieves to get anything useful out of it.

Instead, it's party time for Net scammers, and Hell on earth for 50,000-plus Minnesotans who were just trying to support the candidate of their choice.

Not all are Minnesotans. Political blogger Eric Ostermeier has download the data and is using part of it to analyze Coleman's donors by occupation and geographic location and found most of them are out of state.

I asked Ostermeier on Friday whether he considered there to be an ethical considerations in using the leaked data, He responded that there are parts of the data that would be unethical to use, and parts that wouldn't.

Regarding the aggregated state-level data I analyzed on Thursday's blog, as well as the aggregated occupation-level data on today's blog, all of this information is publicly available through FEC Disclosure Reports (as well the amount contributed by each individual, and the city, zip code, and date of contribution).

What my blog did was simply report, at the aggregate level, on those 4,700+ compromised donors to Coleman's '08 campaign.

There is some data, obviously, that I consider "off-limits" and that is the data that is not publicly available - such as e-mail addresses, credit card information etc.

Your question gets to the 'fruits of the poison tree' dilemma, but, in my view, the ethical considerations are fairly black and white as to what can or should be analyzed.

(Update Sunday 10:41 p.m. - Eric provides a full post on the subject.)

Meanwhile, some criticism of Wikileaks may be coming after MinnPost reported that the site sent emails to everyone on the list looking for comment about the situation, and apparently claimed it was doing so on behalf of a pool of news organizations. Some news organizations have responded that they joined no such pool.

Update 9:27 a.m. Sun - Adria Richards, who found the database, was on MSNBC.

In other media interviews, and in her own video explaining how she found the data, she points out she did not download the database. "I won't download and acquire someone else's information without their permission even if it is legal to do so," she told me via Twitter.

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The new DFL

Posted at 10:51 AM on March 13, 2009 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Plenty of people, including some DFLers, are still shaking their head at the across-the-board cuts proposed by the Senate DFL caucus yesterday.

"The cuts fail to prioritize," Gov. Tim Pawlenty said on his radio show today. "Some things are more important than others."

Earlier this year, the architect of the DFL plan -- Sen. Larry Pogemiller -- agreed.

"If Minnesota wants to be on the cutting edge of educational achievement, investment in early childhood is essential. That's a fact; the research is overwhelming," Pogemiller told a summit on early childhood education "If we had $1 of new money, the best investment is education." Isn't that a priority? (Find the video on the Blandin Foundation Web site)

But just a few days later, Pogemiller said cuts to education would be required. "We are in a deteriorating situation," Pogemiller said. It is not in the long term interest of the state to try to do this with bubble gum and act like we're doing something," Polinaut's Tim Pugmire reported.

He didn't change his story earlier this month when he told TPT's Mary Lahammer that if education wasn't cut, "we'd have to cut everything else by 22 percent."

So Pogemiller's hatchet on the budget shouldn't have come as much of a surprise as it did. But it did.

DFLers proposing cuts to education -- especially early childhood education -- and Republicans proposing spending more on it is a paradigm shift that's going to take Minnesotans more than one legislative session to grasp.

The budget sets up a potential showdown between House and Senate DFLers. House members spent several days last month holding town meetings across the state to hear citizens' ideas on the state budget and the deficit and few recommended an across-the-board cut.

What do you think?

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The Obama Industrial Average?

Posted at 4:48 PM on March 12, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Politics

Last week, some of the partisan commentators were suggesting that the administration of Barack Obama was a failure in its first days, using the Dow closing average as one yardstick. When the Dow closed at its lowest level in 12 years, it had dropped 18% since the day of Obama's inauguration.

Today, the Dow closed at 7170, or 9.7 percent below Inauguration Day. Did Obama become an 8.3 percent better president in one week?

Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele picked a bad time to send out a fundraising letter:

President Obama and Liberal Democrats in Congress don't seem to grasp the fact that since the Democrats took total control in Washington, the stock market has lost over 20% of its value. And over 50 million middle class Americans have lost a huge amount of their life savings.

By the time it arrived, Steele's numbers were already wrong. Can you measure the performance of a president based on the stock market? The Associated Press tried on Monday.

Some investors blame the slow-motion crash on Wall Street's disappointment with the government's $787 billion stimulus plan, its seemingly endless bailouts and the lack of specifics on how to rid banks of toxic assets.

Others say Obama inherited a recession destined to become the worst since World War II. And they note that the market was already in awful shape at the tail end of the Bush administration, down 44 percent from the market's 2007 peak to Inauguration Day.

Here's recent Wall Street performance over the same period for other recent presidents:

George W. Bush - 2nd term	+2.8%
George W. Bush - 1st term	-3.5%
Bill Clinton - 2nd term	+2.8%
Bill Clinton - 1st term	+5.7%
George H.W. Bush	+2.1%
Ronald Reagan - 2nd term	+3.6%
Ronald Reagan - 1st term	+4.3%
Jimmy Carter	-1.2%
Richard Nixon (2nd term)	-5.5%
Richard Nixon (1st term)	-1.5%

Incidentally, with very little fanfare, MPR added some financial tools to its Web site not long ago. You can find some calculators and other things to play with here.

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Datagate

Posted at 1:51 PM on March 12, 2009 by Bob Collins (28 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Day 2 of the Coleman unsecured data controversy.

This afternoon, wikileaks, the whistleblower site that posted portions of the private data it downloaded from Norm Coleman's campaign Web site responded to some of the fallout from the release.

The highlights (I can't link to the page on which it's contained because the link is also on that page for the leaked data and I don't believe people's private information should be accessed.):

>> We don't just talk about neutrality--we practice it. Many of you have asked whether we would publish similar material from the Democrats. The answer is yes. All documents that fit our simple, transparent guidelines are released to the public. We are non-partisan and have published many documents considered to be supportive of Republican interests that have become major news items.

>> Coleman released full credit details, but Wikileaks did not.
Although the Coleman database contains full credit card numbers, security numbers and all personal necessary details needed to make a transaction. Wikileaks did not release these. Wikileaks released the last 4 digits and the security numbers only, and then only after notifying those concerned:

>> A number of people tried to raise the issue back in January, without releasing any information at all. There was no response from the Coleman Campaign and the material had been "floating around" the Internet for at least six weeks.

>>We would have liked donors to have had several days to digest the findings in private, but Senator Coleman decided to publicly "spin" the issue, forcing us to respond.

>>The database was made public by the Coleman Campaign.

>> There was no "hack".

Meanwhile, the Coleman campaign is waging its own campaign, setting up a page of allegations about the release of the data.

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Seeing the future

Posted at 1:07 PM on March 12, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

I don't pretend to understand all of the complexities of creating a budget for the state of Minnesota, but I can see the future.

Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller today unveiled his idea for balancing the state budget that includes spending cuts and unspecified "new revenue" (See Polinaut for more).

The future? In the next election, your mailbox will be flooded by the Republican Party with screenshots like this:

(MPR)

Which will be mixed in with a little story like this.

Minutes after the opening gavel, Senate Republicans proposed trimming travel and cutting their postage budgets by $56,000. In the House, Republicans tried to roll back per-diem payments to legislators and cut committees. The moves were symbolic, since DFL majorities in the House and Senate voted them down.

And then capped with a quote like this:

"What I sense is that there isn't a good understanding amongst the public that the negative fallout of trying to balance this budget is going to have an impact on every citizen in the state," said (Sen. Leroy) Stumpf. "And that's why E-12 and our education system will participate in that to some extent."

No matter how it's done, however lawmakers plug the budget deficit is going to come back to haunt them at election time.

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What state mandates should be eliminated?

Posted at 6:40 PM on March 11, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Question: Have you ever attended a Truth in Taxation hearing in Minnesota? Has it done any good?

Rep. Morrie Lanning of Moorhead thinks the state should get rid of the hearings, which are supposed to give the public a chance to comment on proposed budgets that are funded through the property tax.

They don't do any good, Lanning suggests in Tom Scheck's story about efforts to cut the number of state mandates on cities and counties:

Lanning is one of several lawmakers pushing mandate reform in the House. He said the hearings, which are required before a local government passes its budget, aren't useful because they come right before a budget is finalized.

"If you go back and look, I bet it would be rare to find any change in any budget anywhere that resulted from a truth in taxation hearing, simply because it came too late in the process," said Lanning.

Lanning said local governments would still have to notify people about the proposed budget, and the time and place when a budget hearing will take place.

Let's hear from you on this. Have you ever attended one of the hearings? Would you favor reducing state mandates on communities and, if so, which ones?

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Vets: Who pays for their treatment?

Posted at 3:21 PM on March 11, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Politics

Veterans who are injured in battle would be required to pay for treatment of their injuries with private insurance under a plan being considered by the Obama administration, CNN reports. It says the idea has been confirmed by Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki. Currently, vets' insurance companies are billed when they're treated for non-service-related injuries and illnesses.

It's also a plan that's dead on arrival if the president decides to propose it, according to some influential lawmakers and , as you might expect, veterans groups are vehemently opposed to the plan (See a letter sent to the president).

Even the usually Obama-friendly Talking Points Memo criticizes the plan, saying it would put Obama further to the right of John McCain.

The idea, not surprisingly, never came up during the campaign, particularly at a stop in Fargo last year when Obama outlined his veterans' policy. "Caring for our veterans," he said, "is one thing that we can still get right," and promised to "fully fund VA health care."

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In the public interest?

Posted at 10:52 AM on March 11, 2009 by Bob Collins (28 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Politics

Contributors to Norm Coleman's election recount effort might want to cancel their credit cards, according to the campaign.

An e-mail circulated on Wednesday said the Web site, WikiLeaks, which specializes in providing an outlet for people who want to post secret information, has obtained private information from the campaign such as the credit card numbers of donors.

"Let me be very clear: At this point, we don't know if last evening's email is a political dirty trick or what the objective is of the person who sent the email," Campaign official Cullen Sheehan wrote in an e-mail to donors. "What we do know, however, is that there is a strong likelihood that these individuals have found a way to breach private and confidential information."

While the Coleman campaign e-mail notification might alert some of the donors, 1,500 of the nearly 5,000 people on the spreadsheet did not list an e-mail address.

Who's behind WikiLeaks? Julian Assange, an Australian living in Africa who was interviewed last summer (by email) by the Sydney Morning Herald. "In every negotiation, in every planning meeting and in every workplace dispute a perception is slowly building that the public interest may have a number of silent advocates in the room," Mr Assange said in an email interview. Wired.com published an extensive profile of him around the same time.

The question to ask, however, is whether there's a compelling "public interest" in releasing the (partial) credit card information of donors to a political campaign and, if so, what is it? The Coleman campaign may have violated several state privacy laws, but the punishment will be delivered to the innocent.

One of the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics is to "minimize harm," although it adds, "Only an overriding public need can justify intrusion into anyone's privacy." By providing links to the spreadsheet in question, have journalists overstepped their own code? Absolutely. Consider this item that's in the code: "Abide by the same high standards to which they hold others." One cannot criticize the Coleman campaign for not securing its data, while at the same time publishing -- or at least providing a direct link to -- that data.

Efforts to close the site down have failed, because of the nature of the Internet in the first place. The organization behind it registered its domain name in Nairobi, Kenya. Last month, a federal judge in San Francisco, citing 1st Amendment considerations, rescinded an order that disabled the Web site when it was registered through a California server. The original order stemmed from a Swiss bank's lawsuit against Wikileaks, which had posted 14 leaked documents about transactions at the bank.

It's also the site where a person who broke into then-VP candidate Sarah Palin's e-mail account posted the messages he retrieved.

Ironically, it also posted a leaked document containing the e-mail addresses of its own contributors.

There'll be plenty of questions for the Coleman's campaign alleged mishandling of data, but the story may also present a troubling picture of the collateral damage journalists' can inflict, too.

Update: MPR's Mark Zdechlik will update the story during this evening's All Things Considered.

Update 8:24 p.m. Twin Cities based computer consultant Adria Richards describes how she found the security breach.

This was really interesting. One key fact she dropped was "I didn't download anything; I just noticed that something wasn't right." I have found this to be a trait of I.T. professionals; they're not interested in spreading the information that they know should be locked down, they want the information locked down.

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Rediscovering Franken-Coleman

Posted at 4:13 PM on March 10, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The nation's heavyweight political bloggers have rediscovered the Minnesota Senate race for some reason this week. It comes on the day Al Franken took a semi-victory lap around the Capitol, and the day before Franken's team ends its case in the election trial.

The Hill reported that Sen. Harry Reid discussed committee assignments with Franken.

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, who writes The Fix says the average Minnesotans "wants to move on from this story, the better for Franken -- thanks to the fact that he currently leads the race. Voters pay only marginal attention to elections in the immediate run-up to an election, and generally see politics as tangential (at best) to their daily lives."

Maybe, but that's what people were saying a week after the election, too. But ask almost any Web editor how their Web traffic is for a Franken-Coleman story, compared to almost any other story, and it's almost certain that the Franken-Coleman race remains a high priority for news consumers, even though they are, indeed, sick of it.

The L.A. Times also weighed in on the race in its Top of the Ticket blog, taking a whack at Franken for sounding like a politician, and using this clip as evidence:

Franken, for the average Minnesotans back here, stopped being a comedian almost two years ago, and has been a politician ever since because, well, that's what people who run for political office are.

The Left Coast also makes a funny over an old-timer's observation that they should just flip a coin, oblivious to the fact that Minnesota law requires exactly that in the case of a tie.

And finally, Michael Barone has just posted a column on his US News & World Report page saying it's time to revote the race, apparently oblivious to the fact there's no provision in Minnesota law for such a thing, according to Secretary of State Mark Ritchie.

(MPR file photo/Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images)

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The big chill at the Capitol

Posted at 7:19 AM on March 10, 2009 by Bob Collins (23 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

DFLers at the Capitol are tackling a major problem that's developed during this session -- too many people want to tell Minnesotans what they're doing.

It started innocently enough. A few bloggers and online news organizations asked for the same access on the House and Senate floor as mainstream journalists.

That not only didn't happen, but yesterday, WCCO reported that the DFL cracked down on the filming of committee hearings. According to reporter Esme Murphy, the sergeant at arms has proposed a new sweeping set of restrictions that will prevent almost any TV coverage of hearings at the Capitol that the leadership doesn't want covered.

The apparent crackdown on coverage isn't just limited to TV reporters.

Don Davis, the Capitol reporter for Forum Communications' newspapers, says he was hassled while trying to cover a hearing.

Two hours after Wittenborg's meeting, I was trying to take a photo of Rep. Paul Marquart of Dilworth presenting a bill to a House committee. A page approached and asked to see my credentials before she would allow me to take photos. Recalling Wittenborg's assurances that no credentials were needed, I told her that I had just been told I did not need to present credentials (which, by the way, hung in plain sight from a lanyard around my neck) and I continued to photograph Marquart.

Soon after I returned to my seat in the back of the room, two state troopers approached me after the page had called them, apparently to kick out this photographer. Both had seen me plenty of times and knew I was legitimate, so gave me little hassle.

Not long after I returned to the office to write my story, House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher called to apologize for the incident and promised it would be investigated. And Marquart called to apologize, even though he did not even know the troopers were talking to me at the time and had no knowledge of the proposed rule changes until I told him.

Earlier in the day, according to Marty Owings at the blog Radio Free Nation, reporters and bloggers gave House officials the "what for" over the issue:

Mary Lahammer of TPT's Almanac suggested that any lawyer who proposed these rules should be "disbarred". Tom Hauser from KSTP agreed and added that it was "absurd" that any Law Maker would even propose these rules. Jason Barnett of the Uptake.org asked what the real issue was. Mr. Whittenborg said it ran the gamut from "space concerns" to "security issues." He said some concerns were raised about who was filming Law Makers and that some of them were "weirded out" while others welcomed the cameras.

Mr. Whittenborg pointed out that Leadership was aware that there were cameras every where now and that they were looking at these issues. Everyone in the room, including Mr. Whittenborg agreed that restricting cameras was not a solution. What about space issues? Mr. Whittenborg mentioned that this could be a concern. Noah Kunin from the UpTake.org suggested that space be allocated on a first come, first serve basis.

Minnesota's Society of Professional Journalists isn't happy either, according to a statement.

"If there is an issue of decorum, safety or logistical space, elected leaders have appropriate methods in place. Rather than create additional rules that imply a person's credentials will be issued based on where a person works or how long a person will be reporting at the Capitol, SPJ would encourage legislative leaders to lessen the rules to allow more people to report in new and innovative ways to reach more of the public. The Legislature should establish equitable rules for all media, with no bias awarded anyone based on medium, method or viewpoint. If this proposal reflects the Legislature's attempt to do that, they have missed the mark."

The action comes at a time when legislative coverage is at an ebb. News organizations have cut reporters and time for legislative coverage, and Channel 17's all-day live coverage of the Legislature has disappeared for many viewers in the metro area because of the switch to digital programming.

There's virtually no reasonable case to be made that inviting a few bloggers in to inspect the workings of elected officials would cause an undue burden on the lawmakers who, for the record, asked for the job. The third month of the legislative session has started and the Legislature still hasn't produced a major piece of legislation or even an alternative to the budget proposed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty. And most of the critical decisions of the session will continue to be made behind solidly closed -- and occasionally guarded -- doors by a small handful of people.

Of all the problems currently facing the people of the state of Minnesota, being too informed about what the pols are doing at the Capitol isn't one of them.

Update 3:28 p.m. - It's worth reading Mary Lahammer's blog today. It sounded like things were cordial, but tense at the House Taxes Committee hearing today.

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The Labor Day standard

Posted at 11:34 AM on March 9, 2009 by Bob Collins (15 Comments)
Filed under: Politics, Schools

Go ahead and schedule your Labor Day vacation. A Minnesota House committee killed a bill late this morning that would've allowed schools to start classes before Labor Day.

It's not often that a one-sentence bill at the Legislature can get Minnesota worked up, but HF195, which went before the House Finance Committee today, is one such occasion.

Notwithstanding Minnesota Statutes, section 120A.40, a school district may begin the school year on any day before Labor Day only for the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 school years.

Labor Day comes late this year (September 7), and some educators say that's too late. Graduations would be held in mid-June, proponents say. Besides, the kids in the band and football teams are already practicing by mid-August, according to Rep. Kim Norton, DFL-Rochester, who is sponsoring the bill and is also a substitute teacher.

But the underlying issue is the economy, specifically the resort industry. If kids are back in school before Labor Day, they and their parents can't be spending the week at a campground or resort. And young summer employees can't be working if they're in school.

"They'll have about a 45 percent decline in booking," Rep. Larry Howes, R-Walker, said today. He said in 2004, the State Fair lost thousands of visitors because of an early school start date. He predicts the fair could lose up to $2.5 million in revenue if the bill becomes law.

"Labor Day is the largest vacation week in the state of Minnesota," he said. "It's not just the resorts, the airline industry loses bookings when school starts before Labor Day."

But Rep. Mark Buesgens, R-Jordan, says the economic argument is a shallow one. "It's a question of whether they're going to spend it at the end of the sumer, or at the beginning of the summer," he said.

"Rep. Norton picked the worst two years to try this," said Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Virginia. "It's the worst years since the Depression. If you stop them from spending on Labor Day weekend, it's going to hurt those resorters. We don't need to put another nail in the coffin for rural Minnesota."

The not-until-Labor-Day policy of Minnesota schools -- Michigan and Virginia are the only two other states with the policy, according to Rep. Norton -- extends back to the state's agrarian history. The kids needed to help out on the farm.

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Transparency

Posted at 9:35 AM on March 9, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Politics

A year or so ago, I tried to find the number of people employed by the state of Minnesota. It took more than a dozen phone calls to find an agency of state government that knew, and even then the data was more than a year old.

So it's no surprise that Minnesota is one of the 19 states that hasn't set up a Web site to track how federal stimulus money is going to be spent, according to the Web site, ProPublica, which tracks these things.

At the same time, it's also not surprising to read in today's Star Tribune that one of the governor's policy advisors (why can't people who run the state agency's on behalf of the governor be his policy advisors?) is actually paid through the budget of seven state agencies.

What is surprising is that anyone could figure it out. Minnesota is not a candidate for "transparent state of the year."

The Minnesota Office and Management and Budget, formerly the Minnesota Department of Finance, posts -- for example -- salary information on its Web site, with information for eight different unions. As long as you're on the union's bargaining team and understand 11 different "step ranges" (or even know what a step range is) and 16 different "comp codes" (and what they are) you can figure out how much an information technology specialist makes. But you can't find out how many there, what they do, or whether we need so many of them.

A total compensation report is somewhat more illustrative of our budget dollars in the executive branch, but not for mere humans who want to figure out whether (a) money is being well spent and (b) how.

"Transparency" is the new buzz word in government. it's meant to provide all the details of where the money goes. It's mostly a dodge. Transparency isn't just throwing a blizzard of numbers at you for you to sort out, transparency is making it easy to sort out.

President Barack Obama's recovery.gov Web site is a good example. It intends to follow how the economic stimulus money is being spent, but there's no indication that it will. It's "news" section is simply puffed-up press releases to tout components of the plan. A section on "justice grants," for example, tells us about money being thrown at anti-crime programs, but it doesn't tell us that while the president promoted a graduating class of police recruits as evidence the stimulus plan is working, it doesn't mention that subsequent classes for potential recruits have been canceled.

A link on the page sends us to the Justice Department to find out how much each state will get. There, we download a spreadsheet for Minnesota and learn, for example, that $19,000 of the $2 billion is trickling down to South St. Paul. How is it going to be used? Call South St. Paul (Note: I did. I had to leave a message.). Now repeat that for every line item in the stimulus package and you've got your transparency. More likely? People trying to figure out will give up.

Is there a better way to do this? ProPublica thinks so; it points to Missouri's Web site to track how stimulus money will be spent. It lists only $223 million received for Medicare reimbursement, so far. But it provides e-mail alerts and RSS feeds as the money is spent.

It also has an area for people to make suggestions on how the money can be spent but, unfortunately, like the Minnesota Legislature's "submit your idea about the budget," it keeps the suggestions to themselves. Why?

How will we know whether the money is being spent correctly? The Boston Herald reports today that the feds are planning to go undercover to "monitor whether unqualified applicants try to obtain stimulus funds." That must be under the "spies" line-item.

Don't look for it on a Web site, though.

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Are voters smart enough to figure out election law on their own?

Posted at 9:21 AM on March 8, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Should election law be based on the presumption that voters are engaged and diligent?

University of Michigan Law School professor Ellen Katz has submitted a paper to the Minnesota Law Review contending that the Supreme Court under chief justice John Roberts is avoiding federal engagement in state voting rules, based on the presumption that voters are "both legally literate and diligent." You can download the paper from the Stanford Law School site.

But insofar as a new, unified approach to election law is emerging, last Term's decision suggest it has at least two prominent features. First, the approach makes meaningful political participation contingent on knowledge and skills that many voters simply lack. Legal literacy and diligence have become functional prerequisites to voting. The new approach, moreover, promises little and perhaps no federal assistance when voters fall short in what is required.

The Justices, of course, know that voters will fall short. The decisions allude to this circumstance and anticipate various actors will emerge to fill the void. The Court suggests that political parties have appropriate incentives to assist voters as they navigate the system--hence the standing granted to the Democratic Party in Crawford125--and to ensure that voters properly understand the legal regimes within which they act--by, for instance, making clear the significance of a candidate's party preference in Washington's top-two primary.

If I've read it correctly -- and there's no guarantee I have, being a non-lawyer -- Katz suggests that private individuals or organizations will spring forward to help the voter navigate the voting process that increasingly requires them to understand a byzantine process. What if they don't?

We are, of course, seeing the results of this process here in Minnesota. We're about to enter the seventh week of the election challenge trial of the U.S. Senate election, a process which itself is so complicated that more and more voters have disengaged from it, and just want to be told when Minnesota has a new senator.

When will that be? If you listen to the experts, it could be months as either side could appeal this "all the way to the Supreme Court." But if Katz is correct, the Senate is mess will be for Minnesota's Supreme Court to decide.

Most experts also predict changes in Minnesota's election law, especially in the area of absentee voting. If the Legislature tackles the issue, should it assume the voter is diligent and engaged? Or not?

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Bachmann: 'Democrats... will be coming after you, too.'

Posted at 10:36 PM on February 23, 2009 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

There's a seemingly endless political loop playing. Rep. Michele Bachmann says something controversial on one of her national media appearances. The Democrats send out a news release pointing out her statements and asking for cash. Rep. Bachmann counters with a fundraising e-mail letter.

Here's the version that just arrived:

The Democrats claim they just want the "rich" to pay their fair share. But, we all know their definition of rich includes more and more middle class Americans each year. Just ask any struggling family farmer who worries about the cost of the death tax. Or ask any middle class family that suddenly realizes it has to pay the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

The Democrats' wealth redistribution scheme can't continue on this runaway path. Sooner or later, they'll be coming after you too.

And, because I dare to say so, they're targeting all their resources to defeat me. They'll stop at nothing to take your voice away in Congress.

On the AMT issue, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported last week that 18 percent more filers will escape the tax this year.

If some of the stopgaps from recent years hadn't been passed, according to Brookings, about 37 percent of households with adjusted gross incomes of $50,000 to $75,000 would have had to pay AMT in tax year 2010, as would 73 percent of those with incomes of $75,000 to $100,000.

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Body language

Posted at 6:17 PM on February 23, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Politics

It was another horrible day in the equity markets. The last time the market was this low -- 1997 -- Brad Radke was winning 20 games as a 24-year old for the Minnesota Twins. Yeah, that long ago.

Usually, stories about rough days on Wall Street are accompanied by the cliche picture of a stock exchange trader.

Today, however, let's look at the body language of the nation's governors and the president and vice president as they met in Washington.

Where have I seen this expression before?

(Photos via Getty Images)

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Find the Republican governors

Posted at 3:00 PM on February 23, 2009 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

From what we can tell, Gov. Tim Pawlenty didn't get a prime seat at the White House today when the nation's governors met with President Barack Obama. You'll have to click these to see the larger images.

We can't find him to Obama's right.

We don't see him to the left:

And he didn't make the photo op in front of the White House, which he's considering running for in 2012.

Truth be told, though, we don't see good seats being given to many of the Republican governors who aren't making their presidential aspirations a secret. But, Bobby Jindal got a corner seat (in the first image).

(Photos by Dennis Brack-Pool/Getty Images)

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Required reading: The Kennedy series

Posted at 1:35 PM on February 23, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The Boston Globe is running a series on the life of Ted Kennedy. Its online component should be a warning shot across the bow of the newfangled media that predicts the demise of the newspaper newsroom. People in the business are still kicking.

In the second chapter, there is a compelling segment when Minnesota's Walter Mondale recalls the funeral of Bobby Kennedy at about the 6 minute part of the Chapter 2 video.

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Waiting for instructions

Posted at 8:47 AM on February 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Politics

"I don't want to pretend that today marks the end of our economic problems. But today does mark the beginning of the end," President Barack Obama said on Tuesday when he signed the economic stimulus bill. It was a rare message of hope from a president who campaigned his way to the White House on the theme.

Has the president, who has got a big speech to give on Tuesday, become too much of a downer? Are we in such denial that we need to be told how bad things are... again?

Writing in the New York Times this weekend, Frank Rich chronicles Americans' ability to deny bad news and accept the enormity of the economic crisis. What is a president to do?

Pity our new president. As he rolls out one recovery package after another, he can't know for sure what will work. If he tells the whole story of what might be around the corner, he risks instilling fear itself among Americans who are already panicked. (Half the country, according to a new Associated Press poll, now fears unemployment.) But if the president airbrushes the picture too much, the country could be as angry about ensuing calamities as it was when the Bush administration's repeated assertion of "success" in Iraq proved a sham. Managing America's future shock is a task that will call for every last ounce of Obama's brains, temperament and oratorical gifts.

More than half of America now fears unemployment, one in 10 homes are in foreclosure, retirements are now unattainable. Minnesota courts are about to let scofflaws run amok, and the nation is running out of rich people. The economic recession was felt out here in the working world long before it reached the cubicles of the New York Times or, most certainly, the Oval office.

We get it. The economy is bad. Really bad.

While Rich wonders whether Americans will "get it," his op-ed page colleague, Maureen Dowd, wonders whether it's Washington that fails to grasp the reality of the situation.

President Obama disdains sound bites, and he does not have Bill Clinton's talent for reducing the abstruse to aperçus. We wanted someone smart to gather a bunch of smart people around him to get us out of this fix. But Mr. Obama's egghead manner has failed to soothe a nation with the jits. Maybe he has been so intent on avoiding the stereotype of the Angry Black Man, as he wrote in his memoir, that it's hard for him to connect with and articulate public anger about our diminishment.

Though he demonstrated in the campaign that he has a rare gift for inspiring the country with new belief in itself, Mr. Obama has not yet captured either the grit the moment requires or the fury it provokes. He has not explained in a compelling way why Americans who followed the rules need to sacrifice more to help those who flouted the rules.

Part of the problem, perhaps, is that politicians use speeches to us, not to talk to us, but to send messages to each other. When the president tells us how bad things are, he's talking to Republicans who don't support his proposed his solution. Here in Minnesota, the DFL, for example, is engaged in "listening sessions" around the state to come up with ideas for closing the state's budget gap. When they heard the first one the other night in St. Cloud, that was one more than the DFL has presented, since it's yet to propose an alternative to the governor's budget. Lawmakers, no doubt, have their own ideas how to do it, but the "inner cynic" can be forgiven for thinking they want the political cover of full meeting rooms in small towns across Minnesota first.

Meanwhile, Minnesotans -- and most Americans -- wait for instructions on what we are supposed to do now about the situation, the extent of which we know only too well.

What is the one message you want to hear from the politicians and pundits now?

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Goodbye, Legislature

Posted at 7:19 AM on February 20, 2009 by Bob Collins (16 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

This probably wasn't the best time to make the Minnesota Legislature invisible, but that's just what TPT-17 has done by eliminating daily coverage of the Minnesota Legislature on its main channel. Legislative coverage on free TV is one of the little facts of Minnesota life that made our political process so transparent.

TPT has substituted "lifestyle programming" instead. As I write this, we're all watching how to make equidistant, light hem stitching on Sewing with Nancy. It's fascinating, sure, but you can't close the big budget gap with pinking shears, except in a metaphor.

Granted, it's highly unlikely the calls are pouring into the TPT headquarters with people demanding access to the K-12 Mandate Reduction Work Group session, but it's rarely a good thing when fewer eyes have access to what politicians are doing.

TPT has moved the Legislature to its "digital tier," which you can get if you have the correct cable TV tier or have over-the-air access and you can perform the pat-your-head-rub-your-belly method of finding new channels. If you have Dish Network or DirectTV, you're out of luck.

You can still see the Legislature on its Web site.

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The veteran football

Posted at 12:58 PM on February 19, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Was a flap on the House floor about veterans, "gotcha" politics - Minnesota style?

Things got a little hot on the floor this afternoon when a lawmaker recommended pensions for retired military veterans be deductible from taxable income in the state. The amendment to a tax bill came from Rep. Dan Severson, a Sauk Rapids Republican and veteran. He said it would create jobs by attracting veterans to the state.

"There are a lot of veterans who will get this who were never in a combat zone," said Rep. Al Juhnke, a DFLer from Wilmar, whose son is in Iraq.

Rep. Bev Scalze noted there are other people from Minnesota in harm's way -- she cited police officers -- who aren't getting a tax break.

"Let's not just talk about them (veterans) being a priority, let's show them," countered Republican Tom Emmer.

House Minority Leader Marty Seifert said there are only six states that don't offer a tax break for military pension earnings. "We have ways to pay for this, we're just not voting for any of them," he said.

Rep. Ann Lenczewski, who chairs the Taxes Committee, said the Legislature has already doubled combat pay for active military, provided property tax relief for veterans, and "did things for the VFWs and American Legions." She said it was unfair to give breaks to career military members, and not to active members.

"The poor grunt who's coming back from Iraq is going to have his earnings taxed to pay for this," Rep. Tom Rukavinia, DFL-Virginia, said. "It doesn't seem fair that someone making $100,000 a year is going to get a $2,000 tax break while we raise taxes to help other veterans who don't get a tax break."

Some lawmakers contend the amendment was an attempt to get legislators on record "opposing veterans."

The amendment failed, mostly along party lines, 70-57.

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Interior design showdown

Posted at 1:51 PM on February 17, 2009 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

It's days like this when I wish the Minnesota Fantasy Legislature was still around. A bill that got a hearing in a Senate committee today is the type we used to sink our teeth into -- the kind that would get almost no coverage.

SF376 requires the licensing of interior designers:

Any person shall be deemed to be practicing licensed interior design within the meaning of sections 326.02 to 326.15 who holds out as being able to perform or does perform any professional service in connection with the planning, design, or administration of construction for the purpose of ensuring compliance with specifications and design of any private or public interior spaces, including preparation of documents relative to non-load-bearing interior construction, programming, space planning, finishes, materials, and furnishings where the safeguarding of the occupants' life, health, safety, welfare is concerned or involved, when the professional service requires the application of design theories related to human behavior and aesthetics, acquired by education and experience. Licensed interior designers are design professionals who are qualified by means of education, experience, and examination.

This is a legislative initiative of the International Interior Design Association Northland. It says licensing will make sure that poisonous toxins are kept out of your workplace, fire retardant substances are used, and more effort will be made toward using renewable materials. The group's top 10 list of reasons to support the bill includes, "to keep your wrists and backs in good health through the personal application of ergonomic standards."

Apparently, this is causing quite a stir nationwide between designers and remodelers. Other states have also moved to license interior designers, according to a blog called Interior Design Freedom Coalition.

"This bill will add nothing to the health, safety and welfare of the public. Rather, it will enable a handful of interior designers to corner the design market at the expense of our members and others in the design community who will essentially be barred from working. Study after study has shown no evidence to suggest that harm is occurring to the public as a result of the unregulated practice of interior designers," it said last year when a similar bill was filed.

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Next?

Posted at 3:22 PM on February 12, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The "bipartisan thing" didn't work for Judd Gregg, and it's not going so well for Barack Obama either..

Doomed from the start, the New Hampshire senator withdrew his nomination as Commerce Secretary over differences with the White House about who should oversee the Census.

Gregg's statement confirms this:

"However, it has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census there are irresolvable conflicts for me. Prior to accepting this post, we had discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we did not adequately focus on these concerns. We are functioning from a different set of views on many critical items of policy."

Then, in the best traditions of politics, he then unsheathes the sword.

"Obviously the President requires a team that is fully supportive of all his initiative."

Ouch.

This makes two nominees for commerce secretary who have withdrawn their nominations.

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Who needs bipartisanship?

Posted at 11:23 AM on February 7, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Nate Silver, the statistics guru who migrated from baseball to politics and runs the site FiveThirtyEight.com, notes that Barack Obama's approval ratings have dropped and comes up with three things the president appears to have learned.

It's #3 that may be the most signfiicant, because it's less about him and more about us:

3. The benefits of "bipartisanship" are dubious. The public says they want bipartisanship, and a large majority of the public believes that Obama acted in a bipartisan fashion during the stimulus debate. And yet, his approval ratings fell significantly during this period.

There are, obviously, a lot of factors to keep in balance here, but more than anything else the public seems to be seeking strong leadership from Obama; they don't want him to be deferential to either Congressional Democrats or Congressional Republicans.

So, are we done with the whole "working together" thing?

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Issues creep back into Senate race dialogue

Posted at 1:36 PM on February 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Here's something we haven't heard the two "finalists" for the U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota talking about in months: Issues. Norm Coleman and Al Franken have come out of -- more or less -- hiding today. They're holding individual sessions with reporters.

Most of the talk, naturally, is about their continuing recount/court challenge to last November's vote, but MPR's Tom Crann pushed some issues during his interviews. Coleman said he does not support the Obama economic stimulus package.

"I'm trying to be ready; that's one of the challenges," Coleman said. "I've talked to Sen. Susan Collins. We need to move this economy forward, but on the other hand we can't be spending tens or hundreds of billions of dollars on things which have no impact on economic reform."

Coleman returned to the spotlight by attending several of the hearings in his lawsuit filed after the official recount showed him losing to Al Franken by a few hundred votes.

"I don't know if there is a next step," Coleman told Crann (Listen) when asked what the next step is if a count of additional absentee ballots shows him losing to Franken. Coleman said he's learned a lot about elections in Minnesota by sitting in the court and listening to election experts (one of whom was on MPR's Midday today).

Franken says he'd be a vote for Obama's stimulus package if he were in the Senate.

"I don't think there's too much in the bill," he said. " We need this and I believe most Americans want this but most Americans are skeptical about whether this is going to do the job and they deserve to know that this money is going to be spent wisely." (Listen)

"One of the things I've done to be ready is talk to Collin Peterson's staff about layoffs at the Polaris plant up in Roseau. There is a flood mitigation project there -- shovel ready -- in the stimulus package... and I think it would be good for us to have two votes. Same token: This buy-America provision that's in the package, that's a very good thing for the Iron Range ... that the stimulus projects have American steel in them, that's a huge boon for the Iron Range," he said. (Listen)

Franken acknowledged that waste and abuse of stimulus money is a possibility. He said he favored creation of a Truman Commission to find instances of fraud and abuse. As a senator, Harry Truman uncovered millions of dollars in waste in the prosecution of World War II.

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Pawlenty to Munich

Posted at 11:33 AM on February 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

When Gov. Tim Pawlenty flew to Germany last year to attend a conference on terrorism and security, there were a few suggestions that the governor was burnishing his credentials in the interest of ending up on the presidential ticket. At the time, the governor dismissed the suggestion, saying he was invited because he chaired the National Governors Association. But we were all in "he wants to be vice president" mode, despite his denials (at the time), and all of his moves were run through the VP aspirations filter.

As I pointed out last year, only one other governor with NGA connections had been invited in the previous nine years.

The governor is no longer head of the National Governors Association, and he's back in Munich as the conference opens its 2009 session.

This year's rationale: Minnesota is sending National Guard soldiers to Iraq, so "it's helpful to have a deep understanding of security issues," his spokesman said.

The federal government is paying the bill.

Aside: The U of M's Smart Politics blog does a nice analysis of Gov. Pawlenty's approval ratings and says anyone who thinks the governor will lose popularity in a budget showdown with the DFL should think again.

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Barack Obama's bad week

Posted at 10:13 AM on February 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Just a couple of days after Barack Obama nominated New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg to be the Secretary of Commerce, there's an indication the new president doesn't trust his new nominee, at least when it comes to the delicate matter of the U.S. Census.

According to Congressional Quarterly:

After black and Hispanic leaders raised concerns over Commerce Secretary-nominee Judd Gregg 's commitment to core functions of the Census Bureau, a senior White House official told CQ on Wednesday that the director would report directly to the White House.

That brought fire Thursday from Republicans, who accused the White House of attempting to gain advantage in the politically delicate process of counting Americans and of violating the law by circumventing the Commerce secretary. The decennial census is used to determine the apportionment of congressional districts among the states and federal funding for numerous programs.

Yesterday the New York Times criticized Obama's pick:

Mr. Gregg was never a friend of the census. As chairman of the Senate committee that oversees the Commerce Department's budget, he frequently tried to cut the bureau's financing. In 1999, he opposed emergency funds for the 2000 census requested by President Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled House.

The census is used to allocate federal aid to states and draw electoral districts. Given all that, one would think that the White House would be paying more attention. It isn't. A director of the census, who must be confirmed by the Senate, has yet to be named.

And this all follows the fallout of two nominees who ended up having tax problems. And some Obama supporters are frustrated by the the attitude of the White House press corps.

President Obama is having a really terrible week.

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Lawmakers target ethanol subsidies

Posted at 5:10 PM on February 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Politics

As I mentioned at the time, one of the things that jumped out from Gov. Pawlenty's proposed budget is that he didn't touch the state subsidy to ethanol producers. In 2007, the state paid $15 million to ethanol producers, and in the last big budget deficit, the state delayed the payments. Pawlenty, who has become an evangelist for ethanol, tried to eliminate the then-$27 million subsidy in his first year in office.

Today, seven House DFLers -- mostly city slickers -- introduced a bill that would repeal the state subsidy. The state sends checks to farmers who own ethanol plants four times a year.

In a recent interview, legislative leaders didn't appear warm to repealing the subsidy:

As the session continues, the possibility increases of the city vs. rural legislative feuds reigniting. Within the last week some rural lawmakers filed legislative to divert transit funds to school transportation budgets.

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The most fascinating interview of the year

Posted at 10:22 AM on February 4, 2009 by Than Tibbetts (8 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

For my money, this was the most fascinating five minutes of video I've seen this year. Watch the body language as David Letterman turns the screws on Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

What's being said unsaid?

I am by no means a paralinguist, but surely you come away with some kind of conclusion watching Blago talk about his impeachment.

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The question

Posted at 5:57 AM on February 4, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

With several members of the Obama administration (or almost members of the Obama administration) caught up in ethics woes, we wondered aloud on The Current yesterday whether the exhaustive questionnaire that the Obama transition team used to check out potential candidates had any question on there like, "is there anything you don't want us to know about?"

It turns out, there was.

(h/t/ @vtuss via Twitter)

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Five bills worth visiting before they die

Posted at 3:20 PM on February 2, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The most interesting bills at the Capitol are the ones that have little chance of passage this year. Here's the Fab Five from today's filings:

Lower drinking age
Rep. Phyllis Kahn, who in the past has proposed lowering the voting age to 16, has filed legislation lowering the drinking age to 18 at bars and restaurants. She would allow 16 years olds to drink in the company of their parents. (See bill)

Property tax discount
Would you pay your entire year's property tax if you got a 2 percent discount? Rep. Paul Kohls' bill would provides such a discount. (See bill)

Majority vote
This could also be called the "Keep the Independence Party from ever Winning an Election Act of 2009." Rep. Kent Eken's bill would require candidates in elections for governor, executive branch, judge, senator or representative get the majority of votes in the election. The stronger a third party becomes in Minnesota, the more a provision like this would be employed. (Read bill)

Is the legislative employee carbon footprint that big?
Rep. Denny McNamara's bill allows legislative employees to work from home for up to 20 percent of the days when the Legislature is not in session or allow them to work four 10-hour days instead. (See bill)

What part of the 2nd Amendment don't you get?
Rep. Larry Howes is proposing an amendment to the Minnesota Constitution:

The right of a citizen to keep and bear arms for the defense and security of the person, family, or home or for lawful hunting, recreation, or marksmanship training is fundamental and shall not be abridged.

Didn't the U.S. Supreme Court just clarify that the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution pretty well covers this? (See bill)

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Turning to the tools

Posted at 12:42 PM on February 2, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Politics

The Obama administration has turned to its giant database of supporters (and others), which it assembled during the campaign, to garner support for the economic stimulus plan.

In an e-mail this afternoon, the administration is organizing meetings this weekend for people to watch a video from Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, answering questions about what the stimulus plans means for you. You can submit questions here.

Obama assembled an impressive technological array of tools to get elected, and this is the first time it's been deployed in support of legislation which has very little Republican support.

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The new boss

Posted at 3:36 PM on January 30, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The Republican Party has a new boss. Michael Steele won the battle of more than a half dozen candidates. That sent me to the MPR archives to find the speech he gave at the Republican National Convention in New York in 2004.

At the time, he got a pretty good shot in at an upcoming politician. "I was going to give a strong defense of conservative values tonight," he said. "But Barack Obama gave it last month."

Here's the speech. Unfortunately, it's in RealAudio format.

What else did I find in the archives? This picture of he and Gov. Tim Pawlenty. One might think that their futures are now intertwined.

That picture is from a FoxNews Sunday appearance where Pawlenty and Steele took their party to task.

Here's his speech in St. Paul last summer.

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On Campus: Facing roadblocks

Posted at 11:01 AM on January 29, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Health, News Cut on Campus, Politics

MPR's Midday program continues the examination of Gov. Pawlenty's proposed budget cuts during its first hour today. University of Minnesota president Robert Bruininks and James McCormick, chancellor of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System are the guests.

Their view is how it looks from their offices. But the human face of the budget proposals can best be found at the micro-level.

Take Joe Neumayer, who I met yesterday during my visit to Minneapolis Community and Technical College. He says he "feels God's calling" to be a certified nursing assistant. He's also on General Assistance, and stands a chance of being caught up in the proposed cuts. The eligibility for General Assistance may be pared to the federal poverty level.

"You almost can't be working (to get help)," he said, which is a problem for him since the entire point of his going back to school and getting help is that he can work.

"I'm trying to get off it, but I have a problem where I start jobs and have to quit due to my depression, but I'm trying to overcome that," he said. "I'm trying to see doctors and psychiatrists. But I'm trying real hard out there; I'm pressing forward."

He's also concerned about whether higher education cuts will make it too difficult to get the training he needs to become a nurse assistant.

"You've got people who have mental illnesses that need this type of program. They have no choice," he said. "They can't go to work. They're also seeing psychiatrists and doctors. Then you have people taking advantage of the system. Those people need to be addressed. We can't have that go on. If they're going to do any cuts, they need to cut the people just coming into the program and look at what their mental illness is."

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A return to the right

Posted at 9:51 AM on January 29, 2009 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Media, Politics

CNBC's resident curmudgeon Mark Haines let talk show host Rush Limbaugh have it today. The media has suddenly rediscovered Limbaugh, and has taken him to task for saying he hopes Barack Obama fails. Limbaugh, has a commentary in today's Wall St. Journal called "My bipartisan stimulus."

"I'm just trying to build roads and bridges to the administration for bipartisanship and fairness," he said in his introduction.

Nobody will ever confuse Haines with the liberal media, so this exchange was significant.

Haines: I'm sorry, but a week after the inauguration, you said you "hope he fails." Are you now admitting that that was a stupid and mean-spirited thing to say?

Limbaagh: No, it was an accurate thing to say. It was an honest thing to say. It came after...

Haines: How is that bipartisan?

Limbaugh: Well,let me explain...

Haines: Well, so far you haven't.

Limbaugh: You're being contentious with no reason. It came after a thorough explanation on my part that liberalism, which is what Obama represents...

Haines: (Somewhat off microphone) Ah, geez....

Limbaugh: ... destroys the free market, destroys capitalism. This stimulus plan is all about re-FDRing America... the new New Deal and as a conservative, I want liberalism to fail. i want the country to succeed and that's what I meant and that's what I said over and over again. You've got to stop reading these left-wing liberal media...

Haines: I just listen to you, Rush, I don't listen to anybody. I listen to you, and what I hear is hypocrisy. You are saying in this piece, you say :

The American people are made up of Republicans, Democrats, independents and moderates, but our economy doesn't know the difference. This is about jobs now. The economic crisis is an opportunity to unify people, if we set aside the politics.

Haines: ... and yet the first thing out of your mouth is politics, about liberal and conservative and Republican and Democrat.

Limbaugh: (Stumbling) You know, this vote that happened in the house yesterday is actually a failure. The bipartisan vote was the defeat; 11 Democrats, 20 Republians. The partisan vote was all Democrats. He wants Republicans on the bill, Mark, because he knows this isn't going to work. He wants Republicans so he has cover, so they can't run for re-election, saying this wasn't his debacle. I'm trying to propose something here that will work, for the best of the country. How can that be hypocritical.

Eventually, Haines' co-host, took over the interview from Haines, reassuring America that what Limbaugh really meant was that he hopes liberalism fails.

But before ending, Haines got one more shot in.

Haines: Here's something I find interesting. You talk about the vote being roughly 54 to 46 in favor of Obama... but when the vote was 51-49, I don't remember you being this concerned about Republicans.

Limbaugh: I think bipartisanship is a joke.

The resurrection of Democrats in Washington is the best thing that could have happened to right-wing talk radio -- and Limbaugh's career in particular. It's led some to suggest that Limbaugh, rather than party leaders, is now the new face of the Republican Party.

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To the victors go the...

Posted at 7:46 AM on January 28, 2009 by Bob Collins (19 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Sen. President Barack Obama knows how to send a pointed message. On Monday, he granted his first interview to a news organization in the Middle East. On Tuesday, he made his first visit to the Capitol to reach out to congressional Republicans in an effort to get some traction for his stimulus package.

Republicans aren't ready to jump on the bandwagon, yet. But a 'tweet" (a message on Twitter) posted by one of the Republicans who attended -- Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan -- would at least appear to usher in a general spirit of working together.

"Very impressive session with Republican House members.If President carries this on it does open door for a new tone!Let's hope! Nice job!"

President Obama, himself, said all the right things:

"I hope I communicated a sincere desire to get good ideas from everybody," he added. "My attitude is this the first major piece of legislation we've worked on, and that, over time, some of these habits of consultation and mutual respect will take over, but old habits die hard."

That phrase -- old habits -- could've been referring to any number of things, but one wonders if it refers -- at least somewhat -- to Democrats, especially given the comment of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when she was asked why there are virtually no suggestions from Republicans being included in the House version of the stimulus package.

"We had an election which was about our differing views. The American people agreed with us."

So much for the "we represent all Americans" cliche. Never mind that 22 of 50 states voted for Republicans, or that the difference between winning and losing for Democrats in 3 of 4 battleground states was 2 percent of the vote.

That, of course, led to a question for the speaker about what her comments say about bipartisanship.

"It says that some of us have heard the voices of the American people and their desire for change..."

And some have not?

To turn this around a bit, Gov. Pawlenty won an election, too. And yesterday he announced several initiatives including eliminating help for people with traumatic brain injuries and disabilities, as well as older people at risk of nursing home placement, according to a Star Tribune assessment.

Maybe you agree with that. Maybe you don't.

Does an election make the question moot?

Program alert: At 11 a.m. on MPR's Midday today, House Republican Minority Leader Marty Seifert and Senate Assistant DFL Majority Leader Tarryl Clark will join Gary Eichten to respond to the governor's budget proposal.

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Wash. Rinse. Repeat

Posted at 4:41 PM on January 26, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Politics

Does it ever seem to you like you've heard all the news before about the state budget quagmire? Much of the talk surrounding the present situation focuses on "the future." So it seems like a good time to go into the News Cut Wayback Machine. Setting: Fourth Monday in January 2003.

Here's the MPR newscast scripts from that date:

* * * *

House DFLers are calling a Republican budget balancing plan too harsh to the state's most vulnerable. The House is scheduled to begin debate today on a budget balancing bill. House Republicans are proposing a 468 million dollar budget balancing plan that includes spending cuts and one-time money. DFLers are urging House members to adopt a budget balancing plan that passed the Senate last week. The smaller Senate package uses spending shifts, cuts and one time money. DFL Representative Carlos Mariani says the House plan unfairly targets the poor.

* * * *

Governor Pawlenty continued his tour of greater Minnesota today to promote tax-free zones. Pawlenty and members of the Minnesota House have offered the plan as a way to stimulate business and job creation. Pawlenty told an audience in Luverne that tax-free zones are the "mother of all economic development incentives." He says a particular area or collaboration of counties would be encouraged to come together and develop regional or theme-based tax-free zones.

* * * *

Senate Republicans are proposing a two-year pay freeze for all public sector employees in Minnesota to help reduce the state deficit. They say keeping salaries constant could produce one billion dollars or more in savings. The plan would affect state workers as well as employees in cities, counties, school districts and universities. State allowances to all government entities would be reduced to account for the lack of pay raises. By the Senate GOP's estimate, Minnesota has 350-thousand public sector employees. Senate Minority Leader Dick Day of Owatonna says a freeze is a more compassionate way to cut costs than layoffs. But he won't guarantee that everyone would keep their job.

* * * *

Governor Pawlenty says he'd prefer to continue full subsidies for Minnesota's ethanol industry -- but the state's budget crisis will force tough choices. The governor spoke in Luverne yesterday. His short-term deficit reduction plan includes a proposal to eliminate almost 27 (m) million dollars in subsidies to ethanol plants. But Pawlenty says most ethanol facilities will continue to be profitable even without the subsidies. On a tour to support his plan for out-state tax-free zones, Pawlenty said he's open to the legislature reinstating some of the ethanol subsidy reductions in his budget proposal -- as long as lawmakers find the money to solve the budget deficit somewhere else.

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Live-blogging: Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Midday

Posted at 10:56 AM on January 26, 2009 by Bob Collins (23 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The governor is making one of his rare visits to Minnesota Public Radio today (in the old days, Midday was able to get a sitting governor to come in once a month).

This is the pre-game show for the big bomb that he'll deliver on Tuesday when he announces cuts in the state budget. He had an article in yesterday's Star Tribune op-ed section. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to read it. Besides, everything I've heard coming out of the Capitol up to now, I've heard a thousand times before. The DFLers are saying the usual things the DFL says, the GOP is saying the usual things the GOP says, and the governor has been saying the usual things the governor says.

Despite the initial talk of bipartisanship at the Capitol, both sides are girding, obviously, for a last-week-of-the-session "solution" to what ails us. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine who occupies a position of some power in a state agency told me they're already preparing for a special session.

So I'm live-blogging and let me know if you hear anything new. Anywhere.

11:07 a.m. Gary asks for a sneak preview. "There's nothing surprising in it," the governor said, noting it'll have to change in a few weeks since the February forecast will change things, and the state doesn't know how the bailout package is going to shake out. "It'll be a good start," he said.

11:09 a.m. - The governor says the two-year budget since Gov. Elmer Andersen has increased 19 percent on average. "That is not sustainable," he said. He says the world is not the same as 20 years ago and Minnesota needs to look at that landscape. It needs to find out where our competitive advantage is, he said.

11:11 a.m. - Why no tax increases? "Even Barack Obama isn't threatening to raise taxes now," the governor said.

11:12 a.m. - The governor didn't answer Gary's question about whether he'll veto any tax increase or whether there's room for negotiation, saying only that Minnesota has become less competitive for business.

11:13 a.m. - Does cutting corporate taxes send the wrong message to people who are going to be losing services? Gov. Pawlenty said it's a move for the future and business has said Minnesota is too expensive to do business in. He talks about publicly subsidized health care programs (note: He needs to begin making a distinction here on what he's talking about. MinnesotaCare, is a publicly subsidized health care program which is paid for by a tax on health care providers. The governor has regularly used a surplus in the fund to balance the budget)

LISTENER QUESTIONS

Q: What can local governments expect (local government aid?)
A: Less money. "That's just a function of the budget crisis."

Q: How can Minnesota keep good educators here?
A: Our school system is outdated. The governor will propose a 5-percent increase in the general education formula and a 2-percent increase in the per-pupil formula. But it will be tied to performance.

Q: Will most school districts end up with more money?
A: Yes. Schools will be required to use Q-comp

During a discussion about business, the governor said, "If we don't get serious about making this a better place for business.... we're going to be in deeper trouble."

This brings up a question we've kicked around before: Why would a business want to do business here? It's cold, for one thing. What is it about Minnesota, under any scenario, that makes it a place businesses -- big businesses with lots of jobs -- would want to reside?

Q: What's your timetable for tuition caps for higher education?
A: "We should force the systems to not force whatever challenge they face onto the students," the governor said. He said the schools will "squeal about it." He said there should be a pay freeze for higher education employees. Beyond that, he didn't answer the question from the caller.

This just in... related to the economy:

Hennepin County Medical Center will eliminate almost 100 jobs by the end of February. The medical center is also freezing capital spending that does not have a binding contract to purchase or construct in place. Approximately 80 percent of the jobs to be eliminated are currently vacant, but the remainder of the cuts will be a combination of layoffs and reduced hours.

The cuts are necessary to deal with the governor's unallotment reduction of $73 million in state Health and Human Services funding announced Dec. 19. Of that, more than 15 percent - $12 million - comes directly from funding to support care and teaching at Hennepin County Medical Center, including a $5 million cut to Medical Assistance supplemental payments for providing care to the poor, and a $7 million reduction in medical education payments to help offset the costs of training residents and medical students. When combined with the $7 million lost due to rate reductions and rebasing delays approved during the 2008 legislative session, the total loss in state funding is $19 million for 2008 and 2009.

-- News release from Hennepin County Medical Center

Q: How has accounting "gimmicks" you used in 2003 affect us today?
A: As a percent, the deficit was comparable to what we're facing now. A big chunk of '03 was spending "cuts." Many people refer to cuts as a lack of a spending increase. "If you listen to my critics, you'd think we took a blow-torch to the budget." He says the reality is we only slowed increases.

Let's hit the Wayback Machine on that one:

"Tim Pawlenty has taken a chainsaw to that budget, and trimmed off all of the waste in the Minnesota budget. He is truly one of the rising stars in our party," he said.

That was the head of the king-making "Club for Growth" during the Republican National Convention in 2004. The governor did nothing to indicate that he really didn't cut the budget but only cut the rate of spending increases.

Q: What happens to the people who'll be cut off from programs.
A: In some cases they'll be shifted to other programs, but not always. The governor says they'll be dropped but that's the way it is.

Q: Any hope the federal government will be able to control health care costs?
A: We've made some progress in Minnesota. The essence of it is you can't have people going to consume health care without knowing the cost, and then submitting the bill.

From the comments section, a small business owner writes:

Being able to write off a 6001 lb pickup or SUV in 1 year instead of 3-5 years is absolutely no help to a business owner who is laying off employees and has seen traffic and business drop 50% in the last 3 months. Tax cuts have been a proven failure since Reagan came up with this nonsense 30 years ago. The Republicans need to come up with a new mantra, this one is worn out and no one is buying it any more. this state has coasted on investments made in the 60's, 70's and 80's and now we are paying the price.

11:46 p.m. - The governor says the transportation taxes increase and the increase in the sales tax for outdoors program didn't involve him. He says critics shouldn't be clamoring for tax increases because the taxes have increased.

Q: Even food shelves are having difficulty taking care of people coming through the door, and people need social service programs more than ever. People can't get jobs or if they can get them, they don't pay enough. What about child care assistance programs?

A: There's a whole array of "really good programs," the governor said, "and the need always exceeds the resources." He says the obligation is first to balance the budget and then provide for people in need, and then provide for the future. "Our listeners have to come to understand the magnitude of the challenge we face. It would be nice to keep things the way it is, but we can't."

Aside: I was just looking to see if the governor's bodyguard is around. Didn't see him, but someone must be driving the big, black Suburban that's parked out back. In the Ventura days, the guy used to sit right outside the studio, as if a would-be assassin would bust in at any moment.

Q: It's disturbing to see non-profits laying off workers on top of cuts in health and human services. Where are the funds going to come from and how are people to be served?

A: To some degree, they won't and some people won't be served. "We have to prioritize. The world and the economy has changed and it's changed dramatically. You cannot expect the government to carry on as it was."

Aside: Politicians, and not just Pawlenty, are telling us, basically, that some people are going to have to suffer and suffer a lot. That said, how will we be expected to change? The kids stay in the home longer? Parents moving in with kids more often? We're really talking about a cultural change in America now and nobody wants to acknowledge it. There really is no hope on the way and that's the reality of the lack of confidence by Americans. The feeling is that America's best days are behind it, and you will have a lower standard of living. Isn't that today's message?

Q: When will you announce whether you'll see re-election?
A: In the coming months. (Well, yeah, that's rather obvious since the election is in "the coming months.")

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Green Acres

Posted at 12:13 PM on January 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Perhaps many Twin Cities-area residents shrug their shoulders when the topic of a tax policy for farmers comes up. For city slickers, farms are for the middle-of-nowhere and of little concern.

Wednesday's hearing at the Capitol on the Green Acres Law, should prove the exception. The law allows a lower property tax rate for farm property that is in production. It becomes an issue the closer you get to a city, however, because farmland is valuable property if it could sprout houses. Under current policy, if a farmer sells the land, he/she has to pay seven years of additional back taxes. But he/she also pays more money if the land is "unproductive."

When tax policy is used to force behavioral changes, it causes all sorts of unintended consequences. The Green Acres law was meant to "convince" farmers to keep the land in production, by making it financially impossible to sell it to developers.

The problem comes by the definition of what is "productive."

Take the case of Lake Elmo farmer Peter Kastler, as told by the Bemidji Pioneer:

Lake Elmo farmer Peter Kastler said his grandmother lives on the home place and wants it to remain farmland.

"It is a place I cherish deeply," he said.

The family even opted to keep open some land next to a housing development, so homeowners would not need to deal with cows, tractors and other farm operations. But forcing the family to pay the equivalent of seven years of higher home property taxes just for keeping land open is not fair, he added.

It's even worse in the Winona area, where hilly unusable farmland costs more money in taxes because it's "unproductive."

And the cost of adding environmental buffers to prevent contamination of streams through farmlands could eliminate such protections.

Earlier this month, MPR's Sea Stachura profiled a Belle Plaine woman who's trying to decide whether to tear out hardwood trees that act as a buffer between a stream and a hazelnut field.

This issue is one of the big non-deficit issues facing the Legislature this session. And while the argument is obviously being made that the removal of the tax breaks has unintended consequences, the debate also is set against the backdrop of the report from the legislative auditor last winter that led to last year's decision to limit the tax breaks. In it, the auditor said the Green Acres program, designed to keep farmland out of the hands of developers, didn't work.

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Inaugural Diary: Quote contest

Posted at 1:42 PM on January 20, 2009 by Bob Collins (23 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

You've been president of the United States for 8 years, you can't do a thing without a million photographers following you, everything you say is scrutinized for deeper meaning, and there are plenty of people who'd like to kill you.

And then you're not president anymore.

The door of the helicopter closes and it's just you and your spouse.

You turn to her and say........ " xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ."

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Inauguration: Poetry

Posted at 12:38 PM on January 20, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Stan Kusunoki of Shakopee was moved to poetry today.

Ripples

The sun rises
This is nothing new
The top spinning marbled blue
Brings the light into view
As is has for eons and eons
The day begins

But today a new sensation
As the sun crosses the dateline
A ripple not quite a melody
Rings in the air
Curious, the sun seeks the source
Faint but growing as it crosses
The Mariana Trench
Carried by the winds off Mt. Fuji
The Himalayas
Stirring the dust on the silk road
Yet it is not here

Further the sun searches
Picking up rhythms joyous in Africa
Ripples swelling
Swelling more with the
From tears and laughter
Mogidishu, Odessa, Barcelona, Paris, London
Yet still, it is not here

If you're of a mind, here's Salon.com's take on the challenges of writing poetry for an inaugural.

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Inbloguration

Posted at 10:43 AM on January 20, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

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Looking back

Posted at 5:30 PM on January 19, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Julia Schrenkler and I will be blogging inaugural activities on Tuesday.

Before then, let's his the News Cut Wayback Machine.

First stop: 2001...

Then, 1993...

And.... 1989

All speeches noted some sort of renewal.

What do you want to hear in the speech on Tuesday? Better still, write the one you'd give.

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Inauguration diaries: James Meincke

Posted at 3:39 PM on January 16, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

James Meincke, 18, of Hudson, Wisconsin was all set to go to college at the University of Wisconsin last September until he met the Barack Obama campaign. This week, however, he moved into the dorms in Madison where the new semester starts next week, but he'll have to skip class. He's going to the inauguration.

Meincke, a 2008 graduate of Hudson High, started working as a volunteer in the Obama campaign in Eau Claire last summer, but just before he was to head back home when things were wrapping up, the campaign offered him a job as a field organizer in a Republican-leaning area of Wisconsin.

It's a grueling job of long hours and low pay. But it's nowhere near as hard as telling your mom and dad you're not going to college, at least not right away.

"My mom kind of thought, 'Oh this sounds like a great experience,' and my dad, he started naming off all the negative consequences: 'You're going to have to buy a car now,' 'You're not going to get the classes you want when you go back to school,' 'You're going to be behind everybody.' I made a list of all the pros and cons and I figured (missing) one semester isn't going to be too bad," he says.

The Obama campaign sent him to two counties north of Green Bay. "It's all about voter contact. We're the people talking to volunteers and training volunteers. Anyone who would volunteer would come through us," he says. "It's a lot less glamorous than the name field organizer suggests. We'd work about 100 hours a week and there were times I thought, 'Oh man, what did I get myself into?'"

He says he didn't know until he worked in the field how important volunteers can be. His two counties voted Obama by 8 points each.

Now comes Meincke's reward. A ticket to the inauguration next week.

"I was a little hesitant about going because I started college late and everyone had been there for awhile, and then we got information that we received tickets to the inauguration and the inaugural ball and now I think it'll be a fun time. But I was worried about missing two days of school," he said.

This time the roles have been reversed. James was hesitant to go; his parents not only wanted him to go, they wished they could go, too.

He's staying with a friend at Georgetown University who he met in Green Bay. He's going to the Youth Inaugural Ball on Tuesday after inauguration. Then there's a "staff ball" for all the Obama workers, where he hopes to meet the new president.

He'll send us pictures.

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The State of the State

Posted at 12:18 PM on January 15, 2009 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Pawlenty, Politics

Here's the Wordle depiction of Gov. Pawlenty's State of the State speech today. Note the absence of the word: "strong." Note the absence of almost any adjectives to describe Minnesota's condition. And one of the very smallest words is: "hope."

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Franken v. Timothy Pawlenty and Mark Ritchie

Posted at 3:03 PM on January 13, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

3:04 p.m. I'm listening to a conference call with attorneys for Al Franken. They're filing a lawsuit against Gov. Pawlenty and Mark Ritchie, the secretary of state, seeking an election certificate.

3:06 p.m. Attorney Marc Elias is citing the law I highlighted yesterday. "All we are seeking is something all Minnesotans should insist on: full representation in the United States Senate."

3:07 p.m. Elias says the general provision of the law not specific to Senate elections says that a certificate of election should not be issued until the contest has been determined by a court. He says there's a "tension" there between the two paragraphs I cited yesterday... one speaks in mandatory terms, and one speaks in a more general way. He says the provision they (Franken) relies on is more specific.

He says the state of Minnesota, in the second provision, did something important, making clear it doesn't apply to state senator or state representative because the Minnesota constitution gives the final decision on who to seat to the legislative bodies.

Elias says that's also true at the federal levels. "We believe to harmonize the tension (between the two subdivisions of the law)... is to recognize that just as the state House and state Senate have final determination there and an election certificate cannot be held up pending a judicial contest, likewise the same is true for the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.

He cites the Supreme Court case I referenced in yesterday's post.

Q&A

Q: Why aren't you filing this in federal court?
A: We're not alleging a conflict between state and federal law. We think state law needs to be read against the backdrop of the U.S. Constitution and the Supreme Court of Minnesota has been sensitive to that. We're bringing a question of state law interpretation.

Q: Doesn't Franken look greedy here in the court of public opinion?
A: No. We asked the governor and secretary of state to do what the law compelled them to do.

Q: What are the odds this will succeed given the fact the Republicans threaten to filibuster this issue?
A: The chances of a filibuster disappear once an election certificate is issued.

==> Franken camp tries to end questions but the guy's volume is too low <==

Q: Why pursue this when you're ahead?
A: We're confident that we'll prevail in the process. We gained votes in the recount, during the recount reconciliation, and during the improper absentee ballot process. We feel very good. The question is ... your readers and your listeners face an uncertain economic world and should the people be deprived full representation in the Senate because Sen. Coleman wants his day in court.

(Bob notes: They're suggesting -- appropriately -- a responsibility to deal with economic issues in the Senate. Would this be a bad time to renew my request to the senator-elect to answer some questions about economic issues and a few foreign policy issues facing the Senate?

Franken camp shouts "last question." (There are, of course, many questions left to answer, but perhaps the Franken camp recognizes the more difficult questions still to be asked).

Q: All top lawyers seem to see the plain reading that you shouldn't get your certificate.
A: We'll let the Supreme Court make that decision.

Update 4:44 p.m. - Tom Scheck has audio up of the follow-up Coleman conference call.

Update 4:44 p.m. It's Lawsuitpalooza. Tom Scheck reports a group of Franken voters is suing Ritchie and several counties, because their absentee ballots weren't counted.

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The seat belt issue

Posted at 7:30 AM on January 13, 2009 by Bob Collins (52 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Allen Kelling won't be around to hear this year's legislative debate over whether you should be required to wear seat belts. The 19-year-old Braham, Minn., man was killed Friday night when his car was broadsided at the intersection of Hwys. 107 and 70, the Star Tribune reported in the section of the paper that contains several similar incidents day after day after day. All are sad stories of, in many cases, senseless deaths. Allen was not wearing a seat belt, according to the newspaper. A passenger in Kelling's car and the person driving the other car were not seriously hurt. They were wearing seat belts.

An annual bill that would give police the power to stop you for not wearing a seat belt is one of the first initiatives of some lawmakers. It would cost the driver $100 for not wearing a seat belt and the driver would get fined $75 more for each passenger not buckled in.

The debate will offer nothing new. Proponents will point to a declining death toll on the state's highways as evidence why it's needed. Opponents, backed by talk show hosts who have wrung out every last shred of material from the Franken-Coleman recount, will claim this is the line in the sand Minnesotans must draw between freedom and fascism. It's bad enough we're already required to use our turn signals.

Three years ago, Republicans killed the bill by sending it to a committee and not giving it a hearing. Two years ago, DFLers in the Senate ganged up on it. Last year it was the House's turn and even some of the more -- and now retired -- liberal lawmakers said no. Turning the issue on its head as only the Minnesota legislator can, some of the most conservative Republicans voted for it.

I won't bother wading into that end of the debate. I am interested in this aspect of the issue: Forgetting the issue of whether it is isn't or isn't the law to wear your seat belt, why don't you? Is it too hard? Uncomfortable?

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Has recount eroded Coleman's poll numbers?

Posted at 10:50 PM on January 12, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Eric Ostermeier at the U of M's Smart Politics says "not really."

However, Coleman's unfavorability numbers in the new SurveyUSA poll (44 percent) were also at their lowest point going back to April 2008 (42 percent, Rasmussen). In fact, Coleman's favorability numbers are actually up 2 points from the last time SurveyUSA asked the three-response option question, back in October 2007 (from 36 percent; though his unfavorability numbers rose by 7 points during that span).

Ostermeier says Al Franken's net favorability rating has suffered since Election Day.

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Guns sales jump with Obama presidency

Posted at 4:05 PM on January 12, 2009 by Bob Collins (12 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Politics

Because of Barack Obama's election, the sale of guns has shot upwards (pun not intended but since I've already made it....).

It's a narrative that's popped up many times since last November. In Albert Lea, the Twin Cities, and many major cities.

It was repeated this afternoon in a story in the Daily Republic of Mitchell, South Dakota:

The number of concealed pistol permits in the state has jumped almost 17 percent since 2006, and one gun shop owner said the election of President-elect Barack Obama has a lot to do with it.

"The day that Obama was elected, gun sales from distributors to gun shops shot up," said Robert Brown, owner of 2nd Amendment Guns in Mitchell. "The gun world is really scared."

Not that whipping people into a frenzy is necessarily bad for business, mind you.

"It scares me that I might be seeing a time when guns might be taken out of the people's hands," Brown said. "It's sad."

It also ignores the "win" the Supreme Court delivered last summer when it overturned a handgun law in the District of Columia. Still, it was a case in which Obama submitted a brief in support of the ban.

However, a 2nd Amendment expert says it's not an issue Obama is likely to touch. "My sense is that Obama does not want to interfere with an issue that will, for the time being, be left up to the states," says David T. Konig, Ph.D., professor of history and director of the Legal Studies Program, both in Arts & Sciences, and professor of law in St. Louis. "The issue will turn to controls, such as sales at gun shows or other limited restrictions on purchases."

There is the question, however, of whether the matter will be left up to the states. If so, there's nothing to indicate gun owners in Minnesota (and certainly South Dakota) have much to worry about. There hasn't been a significant legislative attempt yet to overturn the nearly-six-year-old concealed carry law in Minnesota, and there's little to indicate any lawmaker has the stomach for such a fight this session, either .

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Franken's gambit

Posted at 12:15 PM on January 12, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Stories come and stories go but no story comes and goes quicker than Al Franken's attempt to get a hall pass for the U.S. Senate. Unless, of course, this issue, too, ends up in court.

Franken this morning asked for a certificate of election, allowing him to take his place in the U.S. Senate.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, who is one of two people who would sign the certificate (the governor is the other) said "no" in short order.

"Minnesota law is very clear on when a certificate of election can be issued. Neither the governor nor I may sign a certificate of election in the U.S. Senate race until all election contests have reached a final determination. Even if the governor issues a certificate of election prior to the conclusion of the contest phase, I will not sign it."

A few minutes later, Gov. Pawlenty also put the kibosh on the idea:

"I have a duty to follow state law and our statutes are clear on this issue. I am prohibited from issuing a certificate of election until the election contest in the courts has been resolved."

Let's take a look at that law 204C.40 subdivision 1:

If a recount is undertaken by a canvassing board pursuant to section 204C.35, no certificate of election shall be prepared or delivered until after the recount is completed. In case of a contest, the court may invalidate and revoke the certificate as provided in chapter 209.

Recount completed? Check. Franken gets his certificate of election.

But check subdivision 2:

No certificate of election shall be issued until seven days after the canvassing board has declared the result of the election. In case of a contest, an election certificate shall not be issued until a court of proper jurisdiction has finally determined the contest. This subdivision shall not apply to candidates elected to the office of state senator or representative

Has the "court of proper jurisdiction" finally determined the contest? Nope.

Marc Elias disputes the notion that the election certificate can not yet be issued, according to MPR's Mark Zdechlik. "For today I think we're going to do what we've done in the past which is to trust that the governor will want do the right thing. To trust that he and the Secretary of State will sign the certificate and Al Franken will then be able to take that certificate to the United States Senate," Franken's attorney, Marc Elias, said.

How could he come to the conclusion that issuing a certificate is a right thing to do given the clear wording of the state statute? According to an analysis on MyDD.com last week, a Supreme Court ruling in the 1962 Minnesota Congressional recount focused on the second part of the state law cited above. The Court said:

After carefully examining these statutory provisions, we must come to the conclusion that § 204.32, subd. 2, has no application to a contest in the United States Senate or House of Representatives.... Since the House of Representatives is the final and exclusive judge of the legality of election or qualification of its members, this court should not gratuitously issue a prerogative writ which might be considered a tactical advantage for one or the other candidate.

See the avenue for yet another court case here?

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The tone

Posted at 9:52 AM on January 12, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

It was time for the last question at President Bush's last news conference this morning, the relative first in a series of "lasts" over the next week. I turned up the radio, anxious to hear what question would be the one to put the historical imprint on President Bush's term.

It was a question about Barack Obama.

You arrived here wanting to be a uniter, not a divider. Do you think Barack Obama can be a uniter, not a divider, or is -- with the challenges for any president and the unpopular decisions, is it impossible for any president to be a uniter, not a divider?

The president -- avert your eyes, hard-core Democrats -- hit it out of the park.

I hope the tone is different for him than it has been for me. I am disappointed by the tone in Washington, D.C. I've -- I try to do my part by not engaging in the name-calling and -- and by the way, needless name-calling. I have worked to be respectful of my opponents on different issues.

During his answer, I could only think about Garrison Keillor's political column this weekend when "The Old Scout" dropped a nuke on the incoming president, with whom he's had a man crush for more than a year.

So you shouldn't fret, dear hearts, if what you do doesn't draw a big crowd or get written up in the papers. Be proud. If you've dedicated yourself to the tango, or playing drop-thumb banjo, or digging up ancient cities, or writing sonnets, you are beautiful, and please do not yearn for the bright lights. Those wombats reading the news off teleprompters are talking to the bedridden, the delusional and the criminal. The happy StairMaster president is on his way to a mansionette in Dallas, to be the decider of where to put the sofa. His successor, Mister Mambo, has cast his lot with Harvard and Yale and old Clinton hands, and soon enough, Lord knows, they will get the first of many comeuppances, and their shining faces will be chopfallen.

Mr. Mambo?

Some of the letter writers to Salon.com were not amused

Right now, Barack Obama should be called Mr. TCB. Does Keillor know what TCB means? Maybe he should check out that old Motown classic "Taking Care of Business." (Bob notes: Wasn't that Bachman -- not that Bachmann -- Turning Overdrive? Wasn't T.C.B. the name of a show from Motown?) Keillor should also be informed that in Swahili, mambo means an item of business, a responsibility, a care, a concern, a worry, a problem. The plural form of mambo is jambo, and Jambo or Hujambo is a common greeting in Swahili. (P.S. I hope Keillor can recognize the linguistic efficiency of Swahili where one word does the work of a dozen English equivalents.) So perhaps Mr. Mambo isn't really a bad name for Obama, albeit it should be Mr. Jambo, or better Bwana Jambo, since even before his inauguration, Obama is faced with a whole series "jambo."

Yeah, well, whatever. The point is: If the administration isn't even in office yet, and a Garrison Keillor Democrat is already taking shots at him, then let the dividing begin!

Photos via Getty Images

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Are the mayors dreaming of being governor?

Posted at 5:53 PM on January 8, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Is something Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak said today a hint, a Freudian slip, or an innocent comment?

Here's what he told All Things Considered host Tom Crann on Thursday after he met with the Barack Obama transition team in Washington. "I see myself representing Minnesota...." he said in beginning an answer to the question of what he considers job #1 for the Obama team. Listen

Rybak's name usually comes up when experts handicap the 2010 race for governor. So, of course, Crann had to ask.

"I'm here because I'm supposed to be representing my whole part of the country... I'll figure out what I'm doing next.... soon.... but that's not for today," he said. Listen

"Relatively soon I'll figure out whether I'll run for mayor again," he said.

Yesterday St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman announced his intention to run for re-election this year. He, too, refused to dampen speculation that he'd run for governor.

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Fixing the election system in Minnesota

Posted at 7:46 AM on January 8, 2009 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

In the wake of the Franken-Coleman mess, what changes would you recommend to Minnesota's election law?

Here's one:

"My feeling personally, and I think a lot of people share this opinion, that if it would greatly improve the quality of our election judges if the persons who are so interested in making sure things are going correctly in the precinct actually serve as an election judge, rather than challengers."

That's Minneapolis Elections Director Cindy Reichert, who told legislators yesterday that additional restrictions, on behavior of challengers, might be needed.

MPR's Tim Nelson reports that early voting and automatic registration might lighten the workload for election judges, and put more attention on the more time-consuming parts of the process, like absentee voting.

But in the spotlight of the recount, a significant problem -- at least anecdotally -- has gone unnoticed and unaddressed: people were improperly denied the opportunity to vote. On Election Day, we had quite a few stories from people who had voted before in a precinct, and went to vote on Election Day, only to find out they weren't registered. What happened to them? Why did they disappear?

MPR's Mike Mulcahy hosts Midday today and will tackle the topic at 11 a.m.

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Live-blogging Obama's news conference

Posted at 9:14 AM on January 7, 2009 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Barack Obama is holding another news conference . He's yet to hold one that involves more than a half-dozen questions. Maybe this will be the one. The main subject appears to be the admission that -- perhaps for an entire generation -- we're giving up on the idea of eliminating deficits.

Where is the "new economics" coming from? Check out the TVs under the word "Washington" in the background during a presentation by a CNBC economics expert this morning.

That's Elmo from Sesame Street, I believe.

9:41 a.m. Clinton time has returned to Washington. The president-elect is late again. The set is American-flag bedecked stage. It seems the worse the economy gets, the more flags get added to the stage.

9:43 a.m. - We're underway. In his opening statement, Obama says he's committed to change and an end to wasteful spending. He's been warning Congress not to load up a stimulus bill with pet projects. He says the deficit isn't just dollars, but of trust and accountability.

He introduces a chief performance officer. It's Nancy Killefer, a director at McKinsey & Company. She's another Clintonian. She was a former assistant secretary of the treasury in the Bill Clinton administration.

She promises to "create a government that works for its citizens." As with yesterday's Midday session with Minnesota lawmakers, she invokes the need for government to "work more efficiently and effectively." Also like yesterday, she has no specifics.

Q&A

Q: What will you do about Medicare and Social Security?
A: He repeats that "if we do nothing, we'll continue to see red ink as far as the eye can see." He says creating jobs will cost more money. "We are working on our budget plans and beginning consultations with members of Congress." You're not dreaming; he didn't come close to answering the question.

Q: Are you involved in cease fire talks in Gaza?
A: We can't have two administrations running foreign policy at the same time. I'm being briefed.

Q: How should we interpret your silence on the issue?
A: I can't control how people interpret my silence.

Q: Congress is talking a larger stimulus bill than you are? How do you reconcile that?
A: We're still in consultation with members of Congress about the final size of the package. We expect it will be on the high end of our estimates but won't be as high as some economists are recommending. It's important it not contain earmarks (pork).

Aside: KC Star editorial -- Stimulus bill will be loaded with earmarks.

Q: What's your view of Roland Burris not being seated?
A: That's a Senate matter.

That's it. A new record for least number of questions he's taken at a news conference.

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Putting a stamp on the first day

Posted at 6:49 PM on January 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

On the first day of the legislative session, state senators were given their postage budget. Each senator will now be given 5,500 postage stamps.

Assuming there's no special session -- quite an assumption, indeed -- each senator would have to send 57 letters a day between now and the time the session is constitutionally required to end.

A few years ago, the Legislature provided laptops to lawmakers to allow them to better keep in touch with constituents via e-mail.

One senator -- Steve Murphy -- said he needs snailmail to keep in touch with constituents.

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Klobuchar not publicly wading into Franken-Coleman fight

Posted at 5:59 PM on January 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Many DFLers have suggested former Sen. Norm Coleman should've conceded the Senate race, rather than pursue an election challenge in court in his fight against Al Franken.
The state's only sitting senator in Washington isn't one of them, however.

"My focus is not on the legalities. I've put forward a few ideas on how we could do this with someone being seated provisionally but that did not go over so well with the other side," Sen. Amy Klobuchar told All Things Considered host Tom Crann on Tuesday.

Not that she's above taking a little swipe at the former senator. "I would note that he has pursued these claims before and some of them have been rejected, and also the bipartisan canvassing board, which with excruciating detail went through all these ballots, the entire world could see the ballots on TV, and they basically found that Al Franken had more votes," she said.

She says "in the immediate week or two," not having a second Minnesota senator won't make a big difference. Beyond that, however, she said it will hurt the state, "as much as I love being called the junior and senior senator at the same time," Klobuchar said.

(h/t: Jeff Jones)

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Political dominos

Posted at 4:03 PM on January 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The podium at today's pep rally news conference for former Sen. Norm Coleman provided a diversion for people who like to play political dominos.

For example in this picture from MPR's Elizabeth Stawicki, you've got state Rep. Marty Seifert, who could run for governor if Tim Pawlenty doesn't run in 2010. Just behind Coleman, there's Brian Sullivan, who came within a whisker of beating Pawlenty in 2002, and could be a Senate candidate in 2012 against Sen. Amy Klobuchar, or a candidate for governor in 2010.

All of their political futures -- in terms of advancement -- depend somewhat on vacancies created by the guy standing at the podium and the guy who wasn't there -- Pawlenty.

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Franken's 2014 chances

Posted at 2:42 PM on January 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Now that we're about done with Al Franken's bid for the U.S. Senate in 2008, an area political blog is turning its attention to his 2014 re-election bid. Admit it now: You've thought about whether the recount would politically damage the winner, right?

Eric Ostermeier at Smart Politics concludes that it likely won't be an issue. He says only 2 of 10 senators who won close elections in Minnesota, went on to lose the next election. He calc ulates Franken's re-election chances at 67%, again based on history.

On the other hand, Ostermeier doesn't calculate the odds of Franken getting some significant opposition from his own party. And it's worth noting that three of the last four Minnesota senators coming off close races did not serve a second term. The list includes Mark Dayton, who was considered very vulnerable before he decided not to run for re-election.

Meanwhile, FiveThirtyEight.com's Nate Silver doesn't figure Franken's 2014 GOP competition to be Norm Coleman:

Let's be frank: Norm Coleman doesn't have much of a future in electoral politics. Defeated Presidential candidates sometimes have nine lives, but defeated Senatorial candidates rarely do, and in his career running for statewide office, Coleman has lost to a professional wrestler, beaten a dead guy, and then tied a comedian. He doesn't have much to lose by fighting this to its bitter conclusion. But it's hard to envision how he'll come up with enough ballots to overtake Franken.

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Coleman sighting

Posted at 10:38 AM on January 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

There's about to be a Norm Coleman sighting. He's scheduled a 3 p.m. "media availability" at the Capitol today. It's unclear whether he'll answer any questions. Yesterday, his opponent -- Al Franken -- refused to answer any questions when he made his first public appearance since the recount started.

MPR will carry the event live on its news and information service stations.

FYI, the Franken campaign has ignored the questions I've sent over numerous times.

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Opening Day

Posted at 11:00 AM on January 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (26 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The Legislature opens its session today. MPR's Midday will broadcast live from the Capitol. Several dozen "players" will be stopping by to talk to Gary Eichten. I'll be live-blogging and counting the number of times promises of "bipartisanship" are uttered. As you probably know, the promises are almost always broken.

Update 10:42 a.m. - Just as an aside, I had a conversation with a friend today who is relatively high ranking in one state agency who said, "we're already planning for a special session."

Live-blogging

MPR political editor and long-time Capitol reporter Mike Mulcahy is joining Eichten at the broadcast table. I'll be highlighting the major points of each guest. Feel free to comment.
Pam Wheelock, former finance commissioner for Jesse Ventura is also on the panel.

11:08 a.m. - Wheelock expects the budget deficit to be worse than November's forecast. How much worse?

11:10 a.m. House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelleher. Listen
Gary asked her if a lot of people are going to be hurt by what happens at the Legislature this year, but Kelleher didn't bite. She talked about a "balanced" approach to the session. "We open to working with the governor but the governor who seems to be the one person who says not everything is on the table." We're off and running with the first shot of the day.

What can be done on health care besides "lopping them off the programs?" Gary asked.
"These costs are going up... because people are outliving their resources."

11:16 a.m. - Finance committee chairmen Rep. Lyndon Carlson and Sen. Dick Cohen. Listen

Gary asked if there's anything that is off the table in the budget cutting. Cohen said "no," without actually saying "no." Carlson said he wouldn't say there's "fat" in government but said the Legislature will set priorities. Specifics anyone? Not so far.

11:22 a.m. Rep. Mindy Greiling/Sen. David Hann Listen
Greiling says K-12 advocates shouldn't worry about cuts but says "treading water isn't good enough." Hann says "it's a challenge" to not cut K-12. "We're looking for ways to do things more efficiently." . Eichten asks for one example of doing something differently in K-12. Hann says restoring a larger measure of the ability to manage what we do to the local level. "We put a lot of mandates, we should give the local school boards more latitude."

Greiling says paying teachers less and giving school boards the power to do that isn't the answer. She suggests parks and rec departments "work closely" with the schools, which is a way of asking whether schools should be doing athletics to the current degree.

Are graduation standards going to be relaxed because seniors may not graduate? "It's not acceptable to have two-thirds of the seniors not graduate," says Greiling. Hann agrees.

11:34 - Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller Listen
He doesn't think there'll be a lot of new ideas during the session, just action on things that have been talked about before. He says there's no area of the budget where there's "a big chunk" of frivolous spending in areas that aren't crucial to the state. He says the working relationship with Gov. Pawlenty is good and he doesn't see a big battle over taxes.

He says the task should be broken up into smaller pieces so there isn't a big showdown at the end of the session.

11:41 a.m. Sen. Ellen Anderson and Rep. Jean Wagenius
(Environment)Listen
Wagenius says the most important thing is to make sure citizens know how the new sales tax money is spent on environmental issues. Anderson says the money will not be "stolen" to balance the budget.

"Tough to do that if Grandma is getting kicked out of the nursing home, isn't it?" Gary asked. Any cuts to the environment need to be equal to other cuts in other areas, Anderson said, which didn't really answer the question, did it?

Anderson says there should be a cabinet position for energy and environment rather than Pollution Control Agency.

11:47 a.m. Rep. Jennifer Loon and Sen. Ken Keelsh (rookies)
Loon has a perfect name for campaign signs in Minnesota. They both said they're happy to be there.Listen

11:48 a.m. Rep. Marty Seifert (House Minority Leader)Listen
The budget will dominate the session. It's an opportunity to "rightsize" government. What area can save a lot of money? "For us it's a challenge that most of the budget is healtha and human services, K-12, local government aid and which of those do you want to touch?" Well, yes, that was the question. What's the answer? "We're going to have to look at what other states are doing." In the past, Gov. Pawlenty has pointed to Iowa or Wisconsin in cutting health care. So I'll take that as Seifert's answer: health care.

Will there be cooperation or deeper divisions? "It depends on the approach we take," said Seifert. He hated the 2007 session but liked the approach in 2008 when Republicans were brought into the discussions.

11:53 a.m. Rep. Alice Hausman and Rep. Morrie Lanning (Bonding)Listen
There may be a bonding bill this year for capital projects. Hausman says a bonding bill depends on what sort of federal "stimulus" programs are released and whether they involve matching money from states. Lanning says Republicans will take a "cautious approach" to a bonding bill. Translation: Not bloody likely.

Vikings stadium:

"Off the table," says Hausman. "Out of the question," says Lanning.

Schedule the funeral. The stadium is dead.

12:07 p.m. Usually around this time we get a demonstration by the Welfare Rights Coalition, but so far it's pretty quiet at the Capitol.

12:09 p.m. Tom Hanson, the governor's budget boss

He says the new budget will address "needs in K-12" but involve cuts. He says taxes won't be raised and when pressed whether local governments would have to raise taxes, he repeated Gov. Pawlenty's mantra that that's their decision.

Asked about the sales tax and restructuring it, he said "we'll have to see." He denied that was a "yes" but it clearly wasn't a "no."

12:14 p.m. Dan McElroy, commissioner of the Department of Employment and Economic Development Listen

We've lost 36,000 jobs related to single-family home construction. Without that, employment would be up. Pogemiller recommended a "reappraisal" of the department, McElroy thinks it's a bad idea.

12:18 p.m. Sen. Tarryl Clark, Asst. Sen. Majority Leader Listen
Says the people of the state have to "come together." Aside: There's a woeful lack of specifics coming from these people today.

How does the state lay the groundwork for education without dramatically increasing the budget? Clark says early childhood education is the answer. She says raising test scores doesn't need new money, "it requires us to work closer with our teachers," she said. "It's a real challenge," to see how the governor will balance the budget without new taxes.

Good point by Mulcahy, the 2010 election for governor is going to affect the session. Remember the 2006 election. Candidates for governor who were in the House of Representatives and Senate were gumming up debate.

12:29 p.m. Sen. Linda Berglin and Rep. Jim Abeler (Health care)Listen
Berglin says it's not a good time to be cutting health care. "It's a time for the government to be there for them."

Abeler says there's going to "be changes." He says it's a time of opportunity to "clean house on some programs." He says it's going to be a very painful session for everybody.
Home-visiting programs were identified as a place to cut. "For some people it's a nuisance," he says.

Berglin says a program for developmentally disabled needs to be restructured.

Is there any reason for people to be optimistic that we'll be "ahead of the health care issue in this country?" Neither answered the question directly.

I think that's it for the guests.

Did anybody notice who was missing from the discussion?

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What now?

Posted at 3:51 PM on January 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

It appears the U.S. Senate will try to seat Al Franken as a member this week even though he likely won't have an election certificate from Minnesota, Congressional Quarterly is reporting.

Jim Manley, the spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., said Monday that there "likely will be an attempt to seat [Franken] this week."

A senior Democratic aide confirmed that Senate Democrats hoped to swear Franken in Tuesday, along with the rest of the freshman senators.

Franken may provide more illumination at his 4 p.m. "statement."

Meanwhile, the Norm Coleman camp is giving every indication it intends to take the Minnesota Supreme Court up on its suggestion that he pursue an election challenge to get 650 absentee ballots included in the count.

Does this hurt Coleman's political future? On Midmorning today, Guy Charles, the professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School, seemed to suggest it does.
In the newsroom today we kicked around the possibility of Coleman running for Tim Pawlenty's job in 2010. What other statewide Republican has his kind of name recognition?

Update 4:49 p.m. - Outside his Minneapolis home this afternoon, Franken took no questions, but read this statement:

"It has been a remarkable couple of months. Our recount brought national attention to Minnesota, and what Americans saw is that we take our democracy seriously. Our recount process was long, it was fair, and it was thorough. We should all be proud of our state, and we should all be grateful for the incredible hard work and dedication of all of our elections officials, from the state canvassing board and the Secretary of State's office to the officials in the cities and counties and precincts of Minnesota."

"After 62 days, after the careful and painstaking hand inspection of nearly 3 million ballots, after hours and hours of hard work by elections officials and volunteers across the state, I am proud and humbled to stand before you as the next Senator from Minnesota.

"This victory is incredibly humbling - not just because it was so narrow, but because of the tremendous responsibility it gives me on behalf of the people of Minnesota.

"While the recount process played out, the challenges facing our state and our nation have only grown. With tensions in the Middle East reaching the boiling point, our economy facing its worst crisis since the 1930s, and Minnesota's middle class families being squeezed harder than ever, it's clear that we have a lot of important work to do.

"I want you all to know that I'm ready to go to Washington and get to work just as soon as possible. And I look forward to joining President-Elect Obama and Senator Klobuchar in getting our country moving in the right direction again.

"I know this is not an easy day for Norm Coleman and his family, and I know that because Franni and I and the kids have had plenty of time over the past two months to contemplate the possibility that this election would turn out differently. Norm has worked hard for this state and this country, and I hope to ask for his help to ensure that Minnesotans can continue to count on receiving excellent constituent services from their two Senators without interruption.

"I also know that this was a hard-fought victory, and that I didn't win the support of every Minnesotan. I'm going to have to earn it by being a Senator who fights for every Minnesotan, whether you voted for me or not. And I want every Minnesotan to hear me say: I work for you now. And I will work hard to earn your confidence.

"There may still be additional legal proceedings related to our recount. But I'm now in the business of serving the people of Minnesota. And the best way I can serve the people of Minnesota right now is to focus all my attention and all my energies on getting to work for them on the issues we'll be facing together.

"I would like to close by doing something I wish I'd gotten a chance to do properly on Election Night, and that is to thank some people. My amazing staff and supporters across the state who made this victory possible and stuck with us this whole way. All the volunteers who woke up the morning after Election Day and got right back to work to help our recount effort. Our state's dedicated elections officials, our tremendous congressional delegation, and our fantastic Senator, Amy Klobuchar, who continues to be a mentor and an inspiration. And, of course, my beautiful wife Franni and our amazing family.

"For our state, today marked the end of a long process that will forever be a part of Minnesota history. But today is also a beginning. The history of our country will be forever altered by what we do together to address the challenges we face together. So, with tremendous gratitude for the victory we have won, I'm ready to get to work.

"Thank you."

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Where's Al?

Posted at 11:51 AM on January 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (15 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The Franken campaign has been working hard, sending out press releases every time a commenter says he's the apparent winner in the Senate race.

A few minutes ago, his campaign reacted to today's Supreme Court ruling that said, basically, if Norm Coleman wants 650 more absentee ballots counted in the race, he should file a challenge to the election in court.

"Today, the Supreme Court once again affirmed the validity of the rules under which this recount was conducted. Minnesotans have waited a long time for a winner to be declared in this race, and today, with the last attempt to halt the counting process now having failed, Al Franken will be declared the winner."

But the statement didn't come from Al Franken. It came from attorney Marc Elias, his lead attorney in the recount. (Here's a copy of the court order.)

Now that Franken is the presumptive winner of the recount, it's time to ask some important questions. Here's one: Where is Al Franken?

I've sent a couple of messages to the campaign officials today, but the only thing coming back are more press releases with more press clippings about the recount.

Here's what I'd like to know:

What has Franken has been doing for the last few weeks? Is he he in Minneapolis or somewhere else? How has he been spending the time.

Obviously he's been laying low but with all the claims of victory that the campaign has been sending out, will he be making some public appearances soon?

Is he making any plans to move his family to Washington?

Will he be attending the inauguration of the president?

Does he have any positions or comments on the last two months of political news and events that have gone on? What is his stance on Israel's incursion into Gaza?

Answers later (hopefully). Meanwhile, if you've seen Al Franken, let me know.

Update 3:10 pm - Franken is to make a statement outside of his Minneapolis home at 4 pm

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What's in a symbol?

Posted at 7:08 PM on January 4, 2009 by Bob Collins (24 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Congress is going to hit the ground running when the new term begins.They've given themselves another pay increase.

As Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Gobe points out:

Beginning this week, US representatives and senators will be paid $174,000 a year. That represents an increase of $4,700 and the 10th time since 1998 that congressional pay has been given a boost.

As has become routine, this salary hike is taking place automatically - there were no hearings, no vote, no debate.

And no mention of it during the congressional campaigns just a few months ago.

It's only symbolism, of course, but maybe that counts for something right around now. It might be fair to say when you're living the good life in Washington, you lose touch with the real world to the point where you don't understand what taking more taxpayer cash looks like.

It's not just Washington, it's even Washington County, where commissioner's thought it's a good time to raise their pay. Shortly before Christmas, the board added a 3.5-percent increase to the commissioners' salary. They'll draw on their $52,713 salary starting last week.

Technically, it's a part-time position, though commissioners say it's really full-time. Still, the issue of unpaid elected officials doesn't usually come up during campaigns.

But maybe the symbolism of a tighter salary belt isn't that important to people. You tell me.

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Recount Q&A

Posted at 10:18 AM on January 3, 2009 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Q: Who's winning?
A: Al Franken. He wiped out the Coleman lead on election night during the recount and sits with a 49-vote lead. About 1,000 rejected absentee ballots are to be counted today by the Canvassing Board (they're just opening ballots as I write this, however, while waiting for a court ruling). The state Supreme Court ordered some of the absentee ballots to be included in the recount. You can watch it on The Uptake Web site.

Q: Most of the absentee ballots are from DFL-leaning areas, so Franken has this election in the bag, right?
A: Not necessarily, but the process is expected to only add to Franken's slim lead. Nate Silver of the Web site FiveThirtyEight.com says the prevailing wisdom is that the absentee votes will favor Franken:

If it proceeds unimpeded, the counting of absentee ballots is likely to bolster Franken's lead, as proportionately more rejected absentees were identified in counties won by Franken. If we simply allocate out the absentees in each county based on the proportion of the November 4th vote (.pdf) received by each candidate, that would imply 414 ballots for Franken, 383 for Coleman, and 156 for "other", adding 31 votes to Franken's lead.

(Update 6:19 p.m. Saturday: The lead actually expanded to 225 votes, according to The Uptake.)

Q: Can I play along?
A: Sure, here's the spreadsheet of absentee ballots.

Q: What will happen after these absentee votes are counted?
A: At some point, On Monday, the state Canvassing Board will declare a winner certify the results. A winner won't be declared for a week, giving the loser time to challenge the results. The results certainly will be challenged.

Q: And whoever wins will be our new senator who'll take his seat on Tuesday?
A: No, the Coleman campaign filed a motion with the State Supreme Court to try to get 650 more absentee ballots included in the recount. Those are from primarily Coleman-leading territory.

The court may decide today (and, in fact, it might well have already decided. You can check the court's Web site for documents here) .

Q: What's the problem behind the problem?
A: The State Supreme Court. It now has to try to solve the problem that it helped create by an order a few weeks ago that many considered flawed. The court was asked to rule on whether absentee ballots that had been rejected (allegedly) improperly by the counties, should be included in the recount that the State Canvassing Board was conducting. The Supreme Court -- without two of its members voting because they are on the Canvassing Board -- punted. It ordered some of the absentee ballots to be counted, but left it up to the Coleman and Franken campaigns, and county officials, to figure out which ones. It was a nightmare scenario that's turned into a nightmare.

Q:Who wins in this scenario?
Justice Alan Page, who gets to say "I told you so." In his dissent, Page wrote:

The court's order may seek the peaceful way out by asking the campaigns to agree on improperly rejected ballots, but the order does not guarantee that the candidates and their political parties will agree on any rejected ballots

Page saw the mess coming. So did everyone else.

Q: Who else wins?
A: The Uptake, which has emerged as Minnesota's Town Square on this issue, and has made watching paint dry interesting.

Q: What's the end game?
A: Coleman is now the underdog in this process and he's on his way to losing the election. There are enough twists and turns in the two months since Election Day that a lawsuit questioning the legitimacy of a Franken victory is a given. His team is assembling grievances that would be part of a lawsuit. There's also the claim that some ballots in this process have been counted twice.

Q: But Franken will be the senator until a court case works its way through the system?
A: Probably not. On Friday, a Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said he will mount a filibuster if Senate leaders try to seat Franken. It would take 60 votes to end a filibuster and the Democrats likely wouldn't have 60 votes. There's also a likely fight over Senate leaders' refusal to seat Roland Burris from Illinois. It's not the type of battle Democrats will want to have at the start of a new term, so they may not even try.

Q: Who is Minnesota's other senator besides Amy Klobuchar then?
A: There isn't one. The Constitution says the term of a senator ends at noon on the third day of January. That's today. Norm Coleman is no longer a U.S. senator.

Q: Isn't whoever is ultimately named senator mortally wounded politically?
A: Some people are already pointing out that the new senator will not have the support of the majority of voters, but with a strong third party in most races these days, most victors don't have the support of the majority of voters. Additionally, the Senate is a six-year term and voters have short memories, especially when there'll be plenty of votes taken over six years to define whoever gets the seat. Politically, in the Senate a vote is a vote and it doesn't matter how a senator got there.

Far more important in terms of Senate power is the issue of seniority. If it's Franken, he won't have any. If it's Coleman, he only has one term behind him.

Q: If this ends up in court, why doesn't one candidate just drop out?
A: Because there's more here than just the six year term of a senator. Whoever loses this race, has no future electability, especially if he's the one perceived to have dragged this process through the courts.

Q: Why doesn't Minnesota just have another election?
A: There are no provisions in state law for another election. It's possible the Legislature will use this mess to clean up some of its election laws.

Q: Who's in charge here?
A: That's one of the things that's been illuminated by this process. For years we've been told that the Secretary of State is the state's top election official, creating the impression that there is a single person at the top. That's not the case. Elections in Minnesota are controlled at the county level, so there are 87 different "people in charge" and 87 different ways of doing things.

Q: We're the new Florida now, aren't we?
A: Yes. What made Florida Florida in 2000 was that it became the butt of jokes. Minnesota has become the butt of jokes, the facts be damned. We can try to tell ourselves that we've had an open recount process and that nobody has uncovered evidence of wrongdoing, but people outside of Minnesota don't care. Perception is reality.

One unrelated piece of trivia: During the recount 1,672 votes were added to either Franken's or Coleman's original election night totals.

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Taxed by the mile

Posted at 3:37 PM on January 2, 2009 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

File this with my previous "Can a tax do two jobs at once" posts. The increases in state gasoline taxes around the country were partly driven -- many claimed -- to get people to move toward more fuel efficient vehicles. And, in many cases, the increases were meant to raise some revenue for states.

So what happened? In Oregon, people did move toward more fuel-efficient vehicles and revenue from the gas tax dropped.

What to do? Oregon is now considering changing the state's gas tax to a tax on miles driven, rather than on gasoline consumed.

The Associated Press reports that Congress, too, is thinking about adopting the plan Oregon is considering, which includes a GPS monitor in some cars.

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Suggestions for cutting unfunded mandates

Posted at 1:39 PM on December 29, 2008 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Gov. Tim Pawlenty is considering relaxing some state mandates to help cities and counties weather the economic downturn, according to a story today by MPR's Tim Pugmire. In many cases, the state requires school districts, cities and counties to meet certain standards, but doesn't provide any money to make it so.

In the story, Pawlenty said he's waiting for some suggestions:

"We have repeatedly asked the counties and others if there are certain mandates that you think are cumbersome or inefficient or unfair or burdensome or dramatically underfunded, and you want to be relieved of those. Give us a list. We haven't received it yet, this year or last year or anytime we've asked for it. So, it's pretty clear to us they don't want to say which ones they want to eliminate. So we will give them the option," Pawlenty said.

An MPR reader/listener found that to be disingenuous of the governor and he pointed out that such a list has been available for several years. The Legislature encouraged school districts, cities, and counties to provide suggestions for cutting unfunded mandates, and they've been sitting on the state auditor's Web site.

Hundreds of proposals range from the state-mandate for detox services (which I wrote about earlier today) to a relaxation of indoor air quality rules.

The schools, county, and city officials can provide additional suggestions by e-mailing mandates@auditor.state.mn.us, though there is obviously no guarantee anyone is going to look at them.

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No time for reflection

Posted at 12:13 PM on December 26, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

It was quite a shock to someone who hadn't had his morning coffee today when I opened the New York Times and saw this staring back at me from the front page.

Expansion Of Clinics Shapes Bush Legacy

The story details an expansion of community health clinics...

With federal encouragement, the centers have made a major push this decade to expand dental and mental health services, open on-site pharmacies, extend hours to nights and weekends and accommodate recent immigrants -- legal and otherwise -- by employing bilingual staff. More than a third of patients are now Hispanic, according to the National Association of Community Health Centers.

... while being sure to note that the number of uninsured Americans has increased dramatically during the Bush administration. Still, it was an unusual admission for the Times to acknowledge an apparently successful initiative under his watch.

The Times front-page article ushers in the period of reflection -- the one-month before the end of a presidency when columnists try to put a bow on the last 8 years.

A Canadian Press article today notes that Bush is considered "a hero" by many in Africa...

In Africa, Bush is a full-fledged hero after quietly tripling aid to the continent during his presidency, spending billions on AIDS treatment and prevention programs and a major malaria abatement initiative.

His policies are estimated to have saved 10 million lives, and stand in stark contrast to those of his predecessor, Bill Clinton, who paid little attention to Africa during two terms in office.

But a poll this afternoon suggests Americans aren't quite ready to do much more than say "good riddance." Seventy-five percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey today said they're the end of the Bush presidency is at hand.

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Budget deficit online

Posted at 1:53 PM on December 23, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The Minnesota House of Representatives has set up a Web page to accept ideas for how to close the $426 million shortfall in the current budget, and the nearly $5 billion hole in the pocket of the next one.

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Canvassing Board goes back to work

Posted at 9:00 AM on December 23, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The State Canvassing Board is scheduled to continue its review of ballots in the disputed U.S. Senate race in Minnesota on Tuesday morning. I have some morning appointments so Than Tibbetts of MPR is covering for me until I return.

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Marty is in

Posted at 1:52 PM on December 22, 2008 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

John Marty may make another run for governor if he can convince John Marty to run. A new Web site, johnmarty.org, says:

Our state and nation face challenges that will not be solved by business as usual - the worst economic times since the great depression, the foreclosure crisis, rising unemployment, and increasing economic and social disparities. These challenges require the kind of change that is only available from a leader of vision and courage.

That's why we are encouraging John Marty to run for Governor and are forming an exploratory campaign. Please join us!

We are encouraging Senator Marty to run for Governor because of his vision, his strength, his integrity and his courage.

The Web site coincides with a mass e-mailing of the announcement. The return address says it's from John Marty. The Web site is paid for by Minnesotans for Marty. The address of Minnesotans for Marty is Marty's Roseville home.

Marty ran for governor in 1994, garnering 33% of the vote, against incumbent Arne Carlson.

Other candidates in the race for the DFL nomination are Sen. Tom Bakk, Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner, and Rep. Paul Thissen.

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Minnesota State Canvassing Board - Day 4

Posted at 8:57 AM on December 19, 2008 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Here's the link to the live video feed from the House.

Update 2:41 p.m. - I had connectivity issues with the Cover It Live interface. So I've had two set up a second session. We'll consider this following one "Part II" and the lower one Part I. Sorry for the inconvenience.

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What Nate thinks

Posted at 6:21 PM on December 18, 2008 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

There are two important steps to following the state canvassing board proceedings this week: (1) Click on the video link at the Secretary of State site, watch the results (maybe read the blog here) and then (2) See what Nate Silver thinks at fivethrirtyeight.com

So what does Nate think?

Note that the success rates cited below (he had calculated a 10-11% success rate for Coleman challenges) do not account for the dozens and dozens Coleman challenges that have gone into the "blue folder" -- these are challenges not to the marks on the ballot but "process" challenges related to its propriety (such as whether the ballot's duplicate is missing). If we count the blue folder ballots as unsuccessful challenges, then Coleman's success rate is more like 7% -- however, it would be premature to do that since we simply don't know enough about them.

In other words: It's anybody's guess who's ahead, who's behind, or who's still interested, especially with today's Supreme Court decision, a copy of which for your bedtime reading can be found here.

The board will continue in the morning and there was some talk about going into the late night. If you're finding the live-blogging helpful -- or at least marginally interesting -- I'll be happy to do it on Friday. If not, that's OK, too. There are other things happening in the world I can find.

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Live-blogging the Canvassing Board - Day 3

Posted at 2:07 PM on December 18, 2008 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Update 5:57 p.m. - A link to the Supreme Court decision on the absentee ballots as well as the salient points of the justices can be found at the end of the live blog. Just click the arrow below and scroll to the bottom. (end of update)

We're back on the case. A couple of things:

>> If you want to turn off the auto scrolling, you'll see a little icon to the right of the speaker icon (once the blog starts at 9 a.m.). Just click that.

>> Live video is available from House Radio/TV.

More pithiness to follow.

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Live-blogging the Canvassing Board, Day 2

Posted at 8:57 AM on December 17, 2008 by Than Tibbetts (0 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

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Live-blogging the Canvassing Board

Posted at 12:00 PM on December 16, 2008 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

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Cities wait for possible LGA cuts

Posted at 2:25 PM on December 15, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Politics

Not everyone is sweating the possible loss or reduction of local government aid in Minnesota. The League of Minnesota cities has released a city-by-city estimate of LGA payments due on December 26th. These cities don't accept the state aid:

Albertville
Andover
Arden Hills
Baxter
Blaine
Bloomington
Brooklyn Park
Burnsville
Champlin
Chanhassen
Circle Pines
Corcoran
Cottage Grove
Dayton
Eagan
East Bethel
Edina
Farmington
Forest Lake
Golden Valley
Ham Lake
Hugo
Inver Grove Heights
Lake Elmo
Lakeville
Lino Lakes
Mahtomedi
Maple Grove
Maplewood
Mendota Heights
Minnetonka
Minnestrista
Monticello
Mound
New Brighton
Oakdale
Orono
Otsego
Plymouth
Prior Lake
Ramsey
Rogers
Rosemount
Roseville
Sartell
Savage
Shakopee
Shoreview
Shorewood
Spring Lake Park
St. Anthony (JT)
St. Louis Park
St. Michael
Vadnais Heights
Victoria
Woodbury

Many cities, of course, depend on local government aid (St. Paul has $28 million riding on this issue. Ely has $777,000 to think about.), but others probably don't. Can Chickamaw Beach live without the $438 it's due to receive later this month? What about Funkley, Minnesota? It gets $73. The population of Funkley as of June 2007: 16.

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The final frontier

Posted at 9:29 AM on December 12, 2008 by Than Tibbetts (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics, Science

Everything about being the incoming administration is tough, and President-elect Barack Obama will have no shortage of tough decisions about science policy.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that NASA is already digging a moat, lifting up the drawbridge and preparing for a siege.

NASA administrator Mike Griffin is not cooperating with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, is obstructing its efforts to get information and has told its leader that she is "not qualified" to judge his rocket program, the Orlando Sentinel has learned.

...

Griffin's resistance is part of a no-holds-barred effort to preserve the Constellation program, the delayed and over-budget moon rocket that is his signature project.

NASA's budget is small potatoes compared to some recent government programs — at around $17 billion is only about 40 times smaller than the $700 billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. But, it sets up an interesting question.

Are the programs worthy scientific endeavors, a critical pseudo-extension of our national security and national pride into the great beyond and a extension of the infrastructure the Obama administration says should be invested in?

Or are they an overindulging slate of geek hubris, a chronically over-budget and poor investment when money would be better spent on more terrestrial matters?

NASA has had its share of successes and failure, and a higher failure rate is probably more tolerable when working at the extreme limits of human exploration and knowledge. And while President Bush laid out his Vision for Space Exploration plan in 2004 with ambitious goals of returning humans to the moon by 2020 and putting people on Mars shortly (in NASA terms) after that, the burden will be on Obama to determine what is a worthy investment and what's a waste of money.

My guess is that greeting the transition team with a mix of confrontation and paranoia isn't going to help your chances in preserving your programs.

Soon after, [Obama space transition team head Lori] Garver and Griffin engaged in what witnesses said was an animated conversation. Some overheard parts of it.

"Mike, I don't understand what the problem is. We are just trying to look under the hood," Garver said.

"If you are looking under the hood, then you are calling me a liar," Griffin replied. "Because it means you don't trust what I say is under the hood."

Aside: If you've ever wondered about the breathtaking scope of the U.S. federal budget, spend your coffee break looking over this massive interactive graphic.

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Same-sex marriage proponents try another verse

Posted at 11:44 AM on December 11, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Yesterday was the day gays and lesbians -- some of them, anyway -- were to stay home from work as a display of both their economic clout and their place within the community. It was called "Call in Gay Day." How did it go?

It fizzled, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Several gay and lesbian people said they couldn't afford to take the day off, particularly in a tightening economy where many are concerned about their jobs. And in the Castro district, business owners were livid that people were encouraged to not shop during the holidays, a peak time for retailers.

The day was intended to be another demonstration against Proposition 8, the California referendum that changed the state Constitution to elimiante the right of same-sex couples to marry.

In Chicago, many of those who called in sick attended a protest outside the Cook County Courthouse. But there were only about 100 people there and Chicago is preoccupied with other things these days, apparently.

In the Twin Cities, there were a handful of activities, but none that appeared to generate a significant (that is "newsworthy," apparently) response.

Opponents of Proposition 8 are not without ideas. A "viral video" spreading quickly is "Proposition 8: The Musical," featuring John C. Reilly, Neil Patrick Harris, Maya Rudolph, and Jack Black as Jesus Christ. It was written by Marc Shaiman, the composer of Hairspray.

In a week since its release, it's had over 3 million views, although it's unclear, of course, whether it's reaching anybody who voted for the measure in California. There's always the possibility that the choir is preaching to the choir.

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Absentee ballots

Posted at 5:46 PM on December 10, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

There were two developments on the recount front today.

First, the Franken campaign has posted a lengthy video on YouTube featuring interviews with people whose absentee ballots didn't count.

Meanwhile, this afternoon the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, and Citizens for Election Integrity issued a joint press release calling on the State Canvassing Board to allow the absentee ballots.

The non-partisan Coalition believes Minnesota's election officials are best suited to determine the mechanics to resolve this issue. It is imperative to the citizens of Minnesota that every legitimate vote is counted. Where a voter properly completed an absentee ballot, that vote should not be invalidated by operation or error of election officials.

We encourage the canvass board to speak with one voice and send a clear message to Minnesota voters that the purpose of the board is to ensure the integrity of this election. Partisan politics must not take priority over counting each and every legitimate vote.

Late last month the State Canvassing Board said voters whose votes didn't count should take the issue to court. It may take up the issue again on Friday.

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Loose change

Posted at 5:10 PM on December 10, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

What's in a promise? When it comes to state government and desperate economic times, nothing.

Officials are searching under the state's couch cushions looking for loose change and quite often it means taking money that was to be used for something specific, and using it for something else instead.

The state's health care access fund, which comes from taxes paid by Minnesota health care organizations and professionals, is what funds MinnesotaCare, the state's health care program. It usually runs a surplus and when budgets are tight, the state officials have taken the money and used it for other things, which drives the health care groups crazy.

"I think somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 million over the last five years has been taken from that fund to plug holes in the general fund budget, and that's very problematic to health care providers," Lawrence Massa, president of the Minnesota Hospital Association, told MPR's Lorna Benson last week.

When St. Paul raised its sales tax by .5 percent in the '90s, it did so with the promise that part of it would go toward paying debt on RiverCentre, and some it would be used for the neighborhood STAR program.

But the city has been using more of the neighborhood money to pay debt and it's asking the Legislature for permission to keep doing it.

Today, the St. Paul Legal Ledger's Charley Shaw writes that some legislators -- at least one of whom is a pilot and airplane owner -- is concerned that a fund specifically to improve airports, will be further diverted to closing the budget gap.

Members of the Airport Funding Advisory Task Force on Monday said the "integrity" of the money generated from various aviation taxes and user fees is in question. That's because during the 2008 legislative session, $15 million from the Airports Fund was tapped to help solve a $935 million general fund budget deficit for the current two-year budget period.

Now that the state faces a $4.8 billion deficit in the 2010-2011 biennium, Rep. Michael Beard, R-Shakopee, is concerned that future revenue for the State Airports Fund will be used for purposes other than aviation.

At the Capitol today, leaders of cities which receive local government aid, are concerned they'll lose it. And they've got a good reason to be concerned: There's almost $500 million sitting in that pot.

The governor is scheduled to unveil his budget recommendations by January 27.

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Bailout recipients are big political donors

Posted at 12:44 PM on December 10, 2008 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The watchdog Web site OpenSecrets.org has released a study today showing many of the companies in financial trouble now (and asking politicians for help) were the same companies that bankrolled elements of the political party conventions in St. Paul and Denve last summer.

Embattled insurance giant American International Group (AIG), which received an $85 billion loan from the government just weeks after the GOP convention, gave $750,000 to each gathering. And AIG isn't the only high-profile company that sought a handout from taxpayers after writing a big check toward the summer's political gatherings. Others included Citigroup (which spent a total of $600,000 on the conventions), Goldman Sachs (which spent $505,000), Ford Motor Co. ($100,000 to each convention) and Bank of America (which spent $100,000, entirely on the Democratic convention). The federal government took over Freddie Mac just weeks after the mortgage buyer split half a million dollars between the two conventions.

The full report from the Center for Responsive Politics is here.

(h/t: Mike Mulcahy)

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Sources

Posted at 8:27 AM on December 10, 2008 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Politics

There was a tough call in the investigation of Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich. It was made by the Chicago Tribune, the now-bankrupt newspaper which has new friends today just because of the enemies it has (By the way, yesterday was a good reminder of why we still need newspaper reporters turning over rocks and making enemies on a daily basis).

The Tribune had the "goods" on Blagojevich's alleged corruption but didn't print the story because the feds said it would jeopardize their investigation into Blagojevich. The investigators hadn't yet placed the bugs in Blagojevich's home and office, according to reports.

"In the course of doing our work, we talked to the U.S. Attorney to get comment as we would with any story and at that point they indicated if we publish at that moment, it could jeopardize an unfolding investigation," editor Gerould Kern said. "It's always a difficult decision." (See video)

It's obvious that on this story, the Tribune didn't need much more than a comment from prosecutors for the story they had, but probably extracted a promise from prosecutors for either additional information, or an early tip-off when the governor was going to go down. There had to be a quid pro quo of some sort (Aside: Read the complaint against the Illinois governor).

Fast forward to a story this morning in the St. Paul Pioneer Press about allegations that a backer of Norm Coleman funneled cash to the senator through a business in Texas. The story was headlined:

FBI reviewing allegations involving Norm Coleman ally, source says

The headline makes clear that the story is based on a single source and while the assertion may be true, there's no indication there's any second confirmation, a pretty standard protocol in basing a story on an anonymous source.

It's not like the Pioneer Press didn't try as evidenced by two responses it got:

The Coleman campaign issued a statement last night:

"We are not aware of any investigation that is under way, nor have we been contacted by any agency with respect to this matter. As we have said repeatedly, we welcome any investigation of these lawsuits by the appropriate authorities to get to the bottom of these baseless, sleazy and politically inspired allegations."

And a spokeswoman for businessman Nasser Kazeminy had a similar response when asked if Kazeminy had been contacted by investigators." We have no information along those lines. What you're telling me is news to me," Amy Rotenberg told the Pioneer Press in a statement that invites hours of parsing.

As for the FBI, the Pioneer Press got the same answer you'd get if you called to ask if the FBI was investigating you. "We do not confirm or deny the existence of any investigations."

Conclusion: The Pioneer Press doesn't have enough yet to make the feds nervous about jeopardizing an investigation that may or may not be taking place.

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Governor Twitter, President Pawlenty?

Posted at 4:02 PM on December 4, 2008 by Than Tibbetts (6 Comments)
Filed under: Pawlenty, Politics

In the midst of all this budget deficit business, this message popped into the Twitter search for 'deficit':

"Interesting," I thought. I hadn't seen anything about the governor using the short-message service. You, the sharp News Cut reader, need no hint about the significance of 2012. I sort of dismissed the number; we all remember what it was like to have myname1998@hotmail.com accounts, right?

Then I read this Twitterer's bio:

It had to be a fake. Then things... disappeared.

Shortly after receiving an e-mail from Twitter telling me that TimPawlenty2012 was now following me, the account ceased to be. Grab your tinfoil hat.

If this was someone purporting to be Tim Pawlenty, it's highly unlikely that Twitter closed down the account. Support requests are notoriously slow, and fake Twitter personalities exist for many high-profile people. If you're creating a fake Tim Pawlenty, you're likely doing it for the exposure, not to cultivate two dozen followers and close up shop.

The messages are a typical slice of what you might expect out of a communications lackey — success stories, challenge-tackling and politically conscious messages of bipartisanship. If this someone really was Pawlenty, and Pawlenty really was a "potential presidential candidate," it would make sense to test drive a few Web 2.0 tools before ramping up a campaign, especially when the political posturing for potential President 45 has already begun.

Click on the image below to see the full feed, minus one status.

While we can probably assume the account wasn't actually being staffed by Tim Pawlenty himself, if it was someone within the governor's office or political circle, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that this person would have inside knowledge of Pawlenty's political aspirations.

Of course, none of this is really new, but it is news if it's straight from the horse's Twitter.

What do you think, Twitter users? Real or fake?

I'm waiting on a call back from Pawlenty's communications people.

5:07 p.m.: Pawlenty Communications Director Brian McClung responds via email.

Than -

No. Our office is not associated with any such Twitter account.

8:30 p.m.: Twitter Pawlenty wasn't disappeared after all. The account has been moved to twitter.com/TimPawlentyMN. The question remains. Who's office is associated with the Twitter account?

I'm waiting on a message back from TimPawlentyMN.

The person behind the account says he/she is "just someone from Minnesota giving updates on behalf of Tim Pawlenty." Mystery solved then, I guess. At least it was a fun distraction from the budget news.

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The really big number

Posted at 11:53 AM on December 4, 2008 by Than Tibbetts (12 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Pawlenty, Politics

So, elected officials of Minnesota, you've got come up with $5.2 billion in additional revenue and/or cuts to balance the state's budget. Where do you start?

Oh, and by the way, your 10 percent down payment on that deficit is due in June, by way of a $436 million shortfall in the current budget session.

If you're a budget nut, here's the PDF of the November financial report.

Inside the report, you'll find this nugget:

Spending projections for FY 2010-11 and FY 2012-13 do not include estimated inflation. Inflation, based on the CPI, is forecast to be 0.2 and 3.1 percent for FY 2010 and FY 2011 respectively. At these levels, the cost of inflation would be $650 million in the next biennium.

Inflation aside, the deficit works out to approximately $1,014 for every Minnesotan (based on 2007 population estimates) and $2,063 for every Minnesota taxpayer.

How do you plan to contribute? Higher health care costs? Higher local property taxes? Denser classrooms?

1:33 p.m.: It seems as though Californians and their $11.2 billion budget deficit have it easy. The Sacramento Bee says every adult in the Golden State needs to pony up $429 to cover the state's shortcomings.

Trivia: Total box office gross of movies in which California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appears: $1,621,940,362
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty: Negligible

1:55 p.m.: The newsroom passes along this press release from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

States, which already have closed $40 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2009 budget gaps, face at least an additional $97 billion they must close over the next 18 to 24 months, according to a national report issued today by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Fifteen states are forecasting double-digit gaps in FY 2010. The largest are in Arizona (24.2 percent), New York (20 percent), California (18 percent), Wisconsin (17.2 percent), Minnesota (14.7) and Kansas (14.5 percent).

2:10 p.m.: Pawlenty's plan is starting to take shape. Here's what won't be happening, according to the governor.

• - New taxes
• - A stadium for the Vikings
• - Raising revenue with gambling money
• - Using money from the voter-approved outdoors/arts sales tax amendment to help fill the gap

3:02 p.m.: Gov. Pawlenty is apparently Twittering the budget crisis.

4:02 p.m.: Gov. Pawlenty is apparently not Twittering the budget crisis anymore. More on this here...

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Just like us

Posted at 5:31 PM on December 2, 2008 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Politics, Surveys and trivia

The Pew Center is out with a survey this evening that says most people like the idea of living in a diverse neighborhood or area, even though most don't live in areas that are politically diverse.

Says the survey:

This preference for diverse communities is greater among Democrats, liberals, college graduates, blacks, and secular Americans than it is among the population as a whole. But virtually all major groups, at least to some degree, choose diversity over homogeneity when asked where they would like to live.

But almost half the votes cast in the presidential election last month were cast in counties that went for either Barack Obama or John McCain by huge margins.

Back in 1976, only 27% of all voters lived in such "landslide counties," according to figures compiled by Bill Bishop and Robert Cushing, authors of "The Big Sort," a book which argues that Americans are clustering into politically like-minded enc

What's unclear, they say, is whether that's happening by accident or whether people are intentionally living in or moving to areas where other people -- at least politically -- are just like them.

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Timewasters: The ballots

Posted at 8:42 AM on December 2, 2008 by Bob Collins (31 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Between the cyber sales and the Secretary of State putting pdf files of challenged ballots online in the the U.S. Senate race recount in Minnesota, how much work is actually getting done in Minnesota workplaces this week?

We can't resist, either. Our favorite challenged ballots:

Whoever challenged this couldn't do so on the basis of an unclear voter intent, so they went with the rule that said anything that identifies whose ballot it was is thrown out. But unless the person ended the note with "Love, Bridget," I'm not sure it'll hold up.

Here's some more.

So close.

More to come.

Courtesy of reader Matt Johnson (see link in comments), here's a few more:

Yes, a real head-scratcher.

It is no wonder at all that some of the most learned people in Minnesota will have to figure a ballot like this out.

I wish I'd gone to the training that the candidates had for people who would evaluate the ballots. Otherwise, I'm left with only sheer common sense to figure what the voter intended on this one.

Update 2:27 p.m. -

What makes this one creepy isn't so much he voted for two Senate candidates (although that's pretty creepy). It's that he/she/it voted for four presidential candidates. And in the race for school board, in which he/she/it could vote for four candidates, this person only voted for one. (H/T: Steve Mullis)

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Recount video

Posted at 2:33 PM on November 25, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

A release from the Secretary of State's office reveals that there will be live streaming video of Wednesday's Canvassing Board meeting in the U.S. Senate recount in Minnesota.

It'll be available on the House TV Web site starting at 9 a.m..

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Q&A with the Lizard People voter

Posted at 5:09 PM on November 24, 2008 by Bob Collins (14 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Downstream, some commenters have asked questions of Lucas Davenport, identified today as the person who wrote in Lizard People on his U.S. Senate ballot.

Q: In the Pres race, he selected the write-in candidate Lizard People (with the filled in oval). But he selected a real candidate in the Senate race while still writing in Lizard People. Was he trying to vote in the Senate race, or was the whole thing part of his 'joke'?

I had first written in lizard people on all of the write ins. I then went through and X'ed all the ovals for which I intended my vote, and then blackened them all in. So, yes, I intended to vote for Franken. I had no idea that a write in was an automatic vote. I assumed you still had to fill in the oval for the scanning machine to read the vote. I left "Lizard People" blank intentionally.

Q: You mentioned you discussed this with your friend. Did you friend vote Lizard People too?

As for my friend, yes, in the Presidential election he also voted Lizard People.

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All clear on the recount?

Posted at 3:58 PM on November 24, 2008 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

MPR's Steve Mullis has put this graphic together showing Web pages status updates of the U.S. Senate recount in Minnesota on the MPR, Star Tribune, and Pioneer Press Web sites.

MPR's numbers are based on the Secretary of State's recount site, which treats the results the same way they're treated on election night.

The Star Tribune and Pioneer Press are focusing on the gap between Coleman and Franken on election night, and then subtracting or adding to that as differences in each precinct are reported from election night to the recount.

Clear as mud?

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The state's budget deficit

Posted at 10:59 AM on November 24, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Politics

President-elect Obama reportedly is going to keep the tax cuts on the wealthy around until they're scheduled to expire in 2011 (We'll find out more at 11 when he holds a news conference on the economy, which I'll live blog here). But a Minnesota budget expert sees a tax increase on wealthy Minnesotans as a solution to an estimated $4 billion state budget deficit.

"The deficit we're hearing about would be about 11 percent of the general fund," says Nan Madden, director of the Minnesota Budget Project. That's slightly less than the size of the deficit that greeted Gov. Tim Pawlenty when he took office in 2003. (Listen)

Madden says lawmakers need to understand "that programs that help people get and keep jobs, and make ends meet, those things should not be cut. We shouldn't pile on folks who are already suffering from the economic downturn. Second thing to understand is cutting state spending is a drag on the state's economy. State spending largely goes to people's salaries, to buying goods and services in Minnesota. So when we cut spending, that's actually taking dollars out of the state economy."

Madden says a targeted tax increase to people with high incomes won't have a detrimental effect on the economy because "that's money that people would save rather than money that would be spent on consumption."

Are there enough wealthy people left in Minnesota? "The size of this problem means you can't take anything completely off the table but we would argue we need a balanced approach. We can't take revenue increases off the table. And when you have a budget deficit that's 11% of the general fund, you can't close it only through spending cuts."

Madden expects some delays in payments to Minnesota school districts "and some things that are on the gimmicky side." She says she hopes lawmakers take a long-term view of the state budget, using spending cuts and delayed payments as "a short term bridge."

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The economy is driving the train

Posted at 3:15 PM on November 23, 2008 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The stumbling economy is making moot a lot of campaign chatter over the last two years.

In Minnesota, analysts are predicting a $4 billion budget deficit. Gov. Pawlenty's aide says now is not the time to cut programs that create jobs which leaves, what exactly? Health care? Education? Few people running for the Legislature this year were outlining programs to cut but with a $4 billion deficit, something has to be cut. There aren't many card tricks left for the politicians to perform.

Meanwhile, remember that question Barack Obama refused to answer during the last few debates: What of your initiatives would you be willing to give up the economy gets worse? He has to answer it now and on Sunday, his aides started the process.

Eliminating tax cuts for the wealthy? A member of his economic team, William Daley, said the incoming president is leaning toward leaving it in place until its scheduled end in 2011 instead of repealing it sooner.

Is a promise delayed the same as a promise broken?

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The Bachmen vs. Lizard People

Posted at 10:06 AM on November 21, 2008 by Than Tibbetts (29 Comments)
Filed under: Media, News, Politics

Take a moment and look at these two ballots.

Let's compare. Does everyone have their copy of 204C.22 ready?

Our first stop will be Subdivision 1: Ballot valid if intent determinable.

In both cases, the only marks in the ovals are next to a bona fide candidate. I will vouch for the voter's intent with the "X" mark, he/she used it consistently across the full ballot (see Subdivision 10, Different marks).

(We're going to operate under the assumption that it doesn't matter what was in the write-in field, despite what David Icke might say.)

The problem facing the state's Canvassing Board might be reconciling Subdivision 4:

Name written in proper place.

If a voter has written the name of an individual in the proper place on a general or special election ballot a vote shall be counted for that individual whether or not the voter makes a mark (X) in the square opposite the blank.

I've polled a few people around the office and consensus seems to be that this is an overvote, meaning the ballot should be discarded.

Aside: I suppose the Franken camp could mount a challenge by saying that "Lizard People" is not the name of an individual, though I doubt "voter intends to be funny" is one of the criteria the Canvassing Board will assess. Comedy Central's Indecision 2008 crew, by the way, wonders alike.

Several questions arise: Should the county have accepted the Franken vote? Does the voter consider Al Franken equivalent to the Lizard People? Is Lizard People a collective, or just one person like Cat Power? (Hat tip to the Minnesota Independent, which points out who put Lizard People on the map.)

What this also means — assuming the above holds true &mdash is that a lot of the people who played election judge have an unfounded preference for the Franken ballot, legally speaking.

So, there you have it. A pretty straightforward look at some challenged ballots through the prism of the law. Not so hard, was it?

D'oh!

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Minnesota recount: What do the ballots tell us?

Posted at 4:00 PM on November 20, 2008 by Steve Mullis (169 Comments)
Filed under: News, Politics

We're all having a great time playing election judge with the challenged ballots coming out of the various counties. However, while it is amusing, the ballots raise a lot of interesting questions.

First, it should be noted that these are just a small fraction of the ballots being recounted and challenged. Looking at the data from yesterday, 452,249 were recounted. Of those, 221 were challenged, which equated to about 0.000489 0.0487 percent (thanks MNLatteLiberal for the correction). See where I'm going with this? These ballots are certainly not representative of everyone that voted. For the most part, people voted correctly. Whether it be from years of standardized testing or simply reading the instructions at the top of the ballot (click image to see instructions).

However, if you assume that there will be 200+ challenges a day similar to these, that starts to add up to a lot of incorrectly filled out ballots. So should there be more explicit instructions, not only on the ballot but at the polling places? Not everyone is familiar with scantron-style bubble tests.

What we've also been wondering is if these people knew that they could ask for another ballot if they feel they messed it up. The prevalence of arrows, eraser marks and lines show that people made mistakes. Is it embarassing to ask for another ballot? None of these questions can be answered without knowing exactly what the person was thinking about when they voted, whether it be lizard people or just sheer confusion.

What was the scene at your polling place? Was it far too busy, chaotic or confusing to ask for another ballot if you made a mistake or ask for instructions if you were confused at how to fill out the ballots? Were there not enough poll workers to help out?

The other topic these ballots obviously bring up is the ballot system in general. Does this make the case for an all-electronic voting system in Minnesota? I'll let you weigh in on that.

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Revis(it)ing history

Posted at 9:15 AM on November 20, 2008 by Than Tibbetts (12 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Rep. Michele Bachmann was back on TV this week, and she revisited the topic of her Oct. 17 comments on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews."

You may remember those comments, where she said Barack Obama "may have anti-American views."

On Tuesday on FOX News, Bachmann said:

"Actually, that's not what I said. It was an urban legend that was created."

For the record, here's the transcript of the relevant part of her MSNBC interview:

MR. MATTHEWS: So this is a character issue. You believe that Barack Obama may -- you're suspicious because of this relationship -- may have anti-American views. Otherwise it's probably irrelevant to this discussion.

REP. BACHMANN: Absolutely.

MR. MATTHEWS: So you believe it brings into --

REP. BACHMANN: I absolutely --

MR. MATTHEWS: So you believe that Barack Obama may have anti- American views.

REP. BACHMANN: Absolutely. I'm very concerned that he may have anti-American views. That's what the American people are concerned about. That's why they want to know what his answers are. That's why Joe the Plumber has figured so highly in the last few days

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What we're dealing with here

Posted at 5:17 PM on November 19, 2008 by Than Tibbetts (136 Comments)
Filed under: News, Politics

Update: More ballot pictures below.

Update #2: We put together a page where you can play election judge.

More We'll probably all tire of this soon, but here's what election officials will be contending with for the next couple of weeks. This picture of an improperly marked ballot comes from photographer Bill Alkofer who was in Shorewood this morning.

It's clearly closer to the Al Franken circle, where the mark would have been properly placed assuming the voter's intention was to vote for Franken. I suppose a case could be made that it's more likely the mark of a voter trying to restart a stalled pen than a sign of intent.

But, from the Minnesota statute on voter intent:

Subd. 6.Mark out of place.

If a mark (X) is made out of its proper place, but so near a name or space as to indicate clearly the voter's intent, the vote shall be counted.

On the whole, the statute gives elections officials pretty generous discretion in determining what counts or not.

More ballot photos...

From MPR's Curtis Gilbert: The Coleman campaign challenged this ballot in Anoka county, arguing the voter drew an arrow pointing at Coleman's name after filling in the bubble next to Franken's name.

Now we've got the spirit. Here's what the statutes say relevant to our next ballot.

Subd. 13.Identifying ballot.

If a ballot is marked by distinguishing characteristics in a manner making it evident that the voter intended to identify the ballot, the entire ballot is defective.

From Gilbert again: The Franken campaign challenged this Anoka County ballot, arguing that the thumb print on it constitutes a distinguishing mark. If a voter signs a ballot or writes his Social Security Number on it, that ballot is invalid under Minnesota state law. The State Canvassing Board will need to determine whether this thumb print has the same effect.

And then there's this one.

From MPR's Tom Robertson: Here is a pic of a ballot that was challenged in Beltrami County. The voter cast their ballot for Al Franken, but also put "Lizard People" as a write-in candidate, not only in the U.S. Senate race, but for several others. The county auditor/treasurer ruled that the vote should not be counted because it's considered an overvote. Representatives for Franken challenged that decision.

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Minnesota recount gets the 'Daily Show' bump

Posted at 8:35 PM on November 18, 2008 by Steve Mullis (5 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Yes folks, our U.S. Senate recount has reached such epic proportions that it has received the Daily Show bump.

According to Stewart our new motto is: "Minnesota, crazier than you think."

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