Charter Cities: Sardinia Edition

The Charter Cities idea is not dead yet, it keeps assuming new forms.  A small group of people living on the Italian island of Sardinia have floated the idea of being annexed by the non-EU nation of Switzerland.

Donor No. 1

Wow.  Talk about you heavyweight campaign contributor.  A single individual--Rockefeller-heiress and ex-wife of Governor Mark Dayton, Alida Messinger--has contributed more than $2 million this election cycle to the Minnesota Democrat cause.

I’m not claiming that this represents all of her donations the last two years, but here is what I have documented to date:

Alida Messinger Dontions, 2014 Cycle
Date	To	Amount
3/4/2013	Mark Dayton	500
9/30/2013	Mark Dayton	3,500
7/12/2014	Rebecca Otto	2,000
8/29/2014	Steve Simon	2,000
5/13/2014	2014 Fund	50,000
9/30/2014	WIN Minnesota	5,000
10/7/2014	WIN Minnesota	620,000
10/20/2014	WIN Minnesota	175,000
6/27/2013	DFL House Caucus	100,000
3/24/2014	DFL House Caucus	150,000
10/20/2014	DFL House Caucus	80,000
12/11/2012	MN DFL State Party	50,000
2/28/2013	MN DFL State Party	125,000
4/19/2013	MN DFL State Party	40,000
5/14/2013	MN DFL State Party	125,000
7/10/2013	MN DFL State Party	125,000
11/4/2013	MN DFL State Party	125,000
3/10/2014	MN DFL State Party	150,000
6/30/2014	MN DFL State Party	100,000
1/23/2014	MN DFL Federal	10,000
Total		$2,038,000

To put her contributions in perspective, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported today that Gov. Mark Dayton and Jeff Johnson have each raised about $2 million this year for their respective campaigns.  Messinger is one person. 

The Wrong Kind

Education Minnesota, the state teachers’ union, is the largest campaign donor in the state.  They give almost exclusively to Democrats, and have reportedly given twice the amount of the largest Republican donor in recent years.

So far in 2014, their political action committee has spent $2.5 million on the state election, according to records on file at the Campaign Finance Board.  Their spending was made possible, in part, by their borrowing $785,000 $885,000 from a local bank.  And the election year is not over yet.

For comparison, Education Minnesota spent less than $2 million in 2012, and borrowed only $500,000.  In 2010, the group spent $2.2 million and borrowed $576,000.

It’s clear that in 2014, the union is going “all in” as never before to preserve the Democrats’ monopoly on power in St. Paul.

Speaking of monopolies, public school teachers in Minnesota must pay dues to the local union, regardless of whether they agree with the union’s politics.

The union’s bosses are highly compensated for their work.  According to the most recent Federal tax return filed by Education Minnesota (a tax-exempt charity), the union has at least a dozen employees making more than $100,000 per year.  All 12 make more than Minnesota’s governor.  Five make more than $200,000 per year.

Education Minnesota stands on the throat of the state’s politics.  So you would think this charity could afford to be a little more charitable to members of their own profession.  Think again.

The Network sent me this item:  a letter to the editor of the Albert Lea Tribune.  The letter is signed by Al Helgerson, president of the Albert Lea Education Association, the local teachers’ union.  The letter opens as follows,

I have been asked by many why we, the Albert Lea Education Association, did not support state Rep. Shannon Savick’s opponent, Peggy Bennett, who is an educator herself.  I reply that there are many reasons. Just being a teacher doesn’t automatically mean your politics will support public education.

It’s a remarkable admission.  The Republican challenger for the area’s state house seat, Peggy Bennett, has spent 33 years as an elementary school teacher and won the 2011 Albert Lea-area Teacher of the Year award.  The incumbent, Democrat Shannon Savick, is a retired businesswoman.

Checking Education Minnesota’s website, we find that the union has indeed endorsed Democrat Shannon Savick.  There are 134 state house seats up for election this year.  Adding in an additional 13 offices, statewide, the union has an opportunity to endorse in 147 races in 2014.

In those 147 races, the union endorsed a total of four Republicans, less than 3 percent of the total.  So the union could certainly take a flyer on the Teacher of the Year, without compromising their commitment to the Democrat cause.

Or, if not, there are any number of innocuous phrases the union could have used to explain away their non-teacher endorsement.  The union could have pointed to a specific vote taken by Rep. Savick, a desire to honor past endorsements, or claimed that “it was a close call” and faintly praised the Republican candidate.

Instead, Mr. Helgerson doubled down with a bizarre guilt by disassociation argument against the Teacher of the Year,

We also see that Shannon’s opponents are supporting Jeff Johnson over Mark Dayton, the same Jeff Johnson who has publicly and proudly announced at a Tea Party gathering that if he wins, he will “Go all Scott Walker” on Minnesota, which includes limiting collective bargaining, shutting down unions and shifting money away from our public schools.

Forget, for a moment, that Republican Jeff Johnson has said nothing of the sort.  (Indeed, teachers unions still exist in Scott Walker’s Wisconsin.)  Helgerson is suggesting that it won’t support a local teacher because unnamed others support a candidate for a different office.  Weird.

It keeps getting better.  Helgerson writes,

To set the record straight, I have never said anything negative about Peggy.  I have never said she is negative to public education.

Whew!  (Not sure about the grammar there, though.)  He continues,

What I have said is if the Republican Party takes the house we have seen in the past that they attack public education.  They refuse to fund it properly, and they even make cuts.  They push for vouchers, stall payments, try to remove seniority and continually have us (public educators) on the defense.  This is a sustained fact.

A sustained fact.  Again, ignoring that there have never been “cuts” to public education, what Mr. Helgerson is saying is that he will not support any teacher who runs under the Republican banner.

I think that the teachers union has made a strategic blunder.  Much of what happens at the state capitol is non-partisan.  Lobbyists are usually careful to cultivate significant support in both parties, so that their agenda can move along, unopposed, regardless of which party happens to hold power that year.

In agriculture, energy, and transportation—just to name three industries—their annual wish list of legislation usually sails through with little controversy.

But in education, the teachers union has decided to fight a pitched battle against the Republican Party.  The union has allowed ideology to trump pure business interests and will only succeed in creating the very thing they say they fear.

Heads Up

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's anti-gun group Everytown for Gun Safety has formed a Minnesota political action committee.  Its first act was to give $25,000 to the anti-Republican group Public Safety Matters, according to records on file at the Campaign Finance Board.

Public Safety Matters will use the $25,000 to convince voters that Republicans are pro-criminal.  You read it here, first.

Anatomy of a Poll

In the final week of the 2014 campaign, for Jeff Johnson partisans there is much hope to be found in the final Star Tribune poll.

In the previous poll, conducted by the Star Tribune in mid-September, incumbent Democrat Gov. Mark Dayton led Republican Jeff Johnson 45 to 33 percent.

The latest poll from the Star Tribune has Dayton leading 45 to 38 percent.

You read that correctly, in the past five weeks, Mark Dayton has enjoyed nothing by favorable press from local media, a massive advantage in paid advertising, and an endless parade of national Democrat heavyweights stopping in Minnesota to plead his case.  The result?  Not one additional voter has moved in his direction.

In the meantime, Jeff Johnson, whose campaign is written off anew on a daily basis by all of the professional pundits and political scientists, has done nothing but gain on his opponent.

From September to October, Dayton’s three-point lead among independents (25 to 22) has fallen to a 14-point deficit (27 to 41).

The latest poll indicates that 10 percent of voters are still undecided, and the vast majority of these are Republicans and independents.  Fifteen percent of independents are undecided against 12 percent of Republicans and just five percent of Democrats.  Johnson is overwhelmingly favored by voters in the first two groups that have decided on a candidate.

None of these observations guarantee a Johnson victory next week.  But after a four-decade career in public office, Mark Dayton has yet to close the deal with Minnesota voters.

The Opinion Minute: October 26th Edition

In a semi-regular feature, we boil down the Sunday Minneapolis Star Tribune Opinion page to its basic message.

Lori Sturdevant :  In 2010, a long-serving Democrat congressman lost his bid for re-election.  That will not be allowed to happen again.

Editorial Board:  The Board endorses Democrat Al Franken for re-election to the U.S. Senate.  What?  You were expecting a different result?

For the benefit of my out-of-state readers, or those new to Minnesota, let me provide a little background.  The Minneapolis Star Tribune is the state’s largest newspaper, owned by a rabid, Tea Party extremist, conservative Republican billionaire, exactly like, in every respect, those evil Koch Brothers.  This arch-conservative partisan extremist’s hand-picked board, nevertheless, only endorses the best, most-highly qualified candidates.  Who always happen to be Democrats.

In instances where a long-time Republican incumbent is going to win anyway, by a big margin, the Board will endorse said Republican.  (See Erik Paulsen, John Kline, and Rich Stanek.)

Also, once per cycle, the Board will endorse a Republican you never heard of in a minor, local race you never heard of to demonstrate their “independence.”

D.J. Tice :  the Star Tribune’s house “conservative” pops up this week to deliver a public service announcement:  get out and vote, even you low information voters who don’t know anything.

Lead Story :  A week after the Board’s inevitable endorsement of Democrat Mark Dayton and the paper’s declaring the race for governor to be over, the Board posts their conversations with Dayton and Jeff Johnson.

Why bother?  Because this the Sunday in the election cycle that the Star Tribune publishes its this time we're not kidding poll showing that the race will be razor close next month.

MNsure Statistics

Better late than never, the Minneapolis Star Tribune limps in today with the acknowledgement that they were lied to by the Dayton administration about MNsure health insurance rates.  On the front page of today’s print edition (above the fold), the Star Tribune announces, cryptically, “MNsure prices a weighty issue.”  The subhead reads,

Republicans say premium increases are much higher than Gov. Dayton reported.

How odd.  “Republicans,” and many others, have been saying that since the new rates were first announced on October 1^st, more than three weeks ago.  The Star Tribune itself reported all of these facts, back on October 1st.

So what has changed that this nearly-month-old observation is suddenly front-page news?  The Star Tribune has finally decided that skyrocketing MNsure rates is a political story rather than a business story.  Ten days before the mid-term elections, the Star Tribune has handed off coverage of the MNsure rate cover up to a political reporter (Ricardo Lopez) from its healthcare business reporter (Christopher Snowbeck).

Earlier this week, Snowbeck reported (on the Business page) that the Dayton Administration pressured insurer Preferred One into offering below-cost rates on the MNsure exchange.  This reporting directly contradicts sweeping denials issued by Democrat Governor Mark Dayton and members of his Administration.

So all the facts that Snowbeck reported as business news at the start of the month, now have to be re-reported as political news, on the front page.

Interestingly, the re-reporting by political reporter Lopez appears online under the headline,

 

Experts question MNsure average rate increase of 4.5 percent:

Republicans say premium increases are much higher than Gov. Dayton reported.

 

The original Snowbeck headline had read,

MNsure premiums to increase in 2015:

Average increase is 4.5%, but some could see much higher premium jumps.

The facts haven’t changed, but their presentation has undergone a subtle shift, one that speaks volumes.  In the Lopez re-reporting, a photo of Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman is featured.  Is he being set up as the fall guy?

Mark Dayton and his fellow Democrats have bet their re-elections on the public seeing MNsure as a success story.  Now that MNsure looks like something less than a triumph, Dayton is literally running away from the press to avoid answering awkward questions.

Now that the Democrat narrative of modest rate increases has collapsed, a few other items could stand for additional scrutiny.  Does Minnesota really have the nation’s lowest insurance rates?  That claim has been repeated ad nauseam by the Dayton Administration and reprinted in countless Democrat campaign ads.

What is the basis of that claim?  Has anyone ever looked behind the claim and examined it?  When comparing rates across states, are deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs incorporated?

Now that the façade has started to crumble, a Pulitzer (or Peabody) awaits the reporter who figures it out.

Bait and Switch

Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter (recently of the Pioneer Press) Christopher Snowbeck is performing a great public service in his reporting the on the ongoing MNsure debacle.

About this time last year, we were all suspicious of the apparent low rates being offered on Minnesota’s Obamacare exchange.  Sure, everyone loves a bargain, but the re-election campaign-ready “nation’s lowest rates” claim always looked too good to be true.

Sure enough, low-price supplier Preferred One grabbed a majority of the first-year MNsure market share.  It turns out that they were low-price, not low cost.  They have dropped out of the MNsure exchange and raised rates by 63 percent to any customers who are still interested in sticking around.

Snowbeck reports that Preferred One’s low rates were the result, in part, of pressure from state insurance regulators.  In my opinion, the situation reads less like a consumer advocate asking bidders to “sharpen their pencils” than a political deal getting done.

Was there some quid pro quo involved?  Democrat Governor Mark Dayton has previously denied putting any pressure on the insurance company.  Quoting last week’s Pioneer Press,

Dayton said he never talked to PreferredOne, and neither his commerce commissioner nor MNsure dictated rates.

As they say in the business, “that statement is longer operative.”  Dayton and his appointees need to come clean about who said what to whom and when.

In the end, consumers did not benefit from these artificially low prices.  Yes, premiums paid by some consumers looked to be a real bargain for a few months.  But now they are faced with ruinous rate hikes they did not plan for and may not be able to afford.

Bait and switch may work in politics, but in economics, not so well.

Public Safety Smears

If the pattern from the 2012 election holds again this year, Minnesota Republicans should brace themselves.  They are about to be smeared, again.

The shadowy left-wing group Public Safety Matters is gearing up to slander Republican candidates for state representative as "anti-police."

I profiled the group last year.  Today, according to records filed at the state Campaign Finance Board, the funding arm of the Alliance for a Better Minnesota (WIN Minnesota) transferred $75,000 to the Public Safety group.

WIN Minnesota is run by Adam Duininck, a board member of the Met Council regional government and married to one of the Deputy Chiefs of Staff of Democrat Governor Mark Dayton.

You have been warned.

Mass Transit for Thee, But Not for Me

Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Eric Roper and his employer have performed a great public service by simply tracking the public transit use of Met Council board members.

It turns out that fewer than half (7 out of 16 members) ever use their mass transit passes.  It’s liberal hypocrisy of the worst kind.  Roper documents that 10 of the passes have not been used in the past year.

As you know, the regional government agency Met Council—among its other functions—operates the area’s largest mass transit system.  The Met Council also serves as the region’s planning agency and has declared war on the single-family home and the automobile.

The Met Council doesn’t want you to drive, but can’t be bothered to use its own product.  Roper documents that senior staff at the agency use transit more often.

Roper’s article appears in today’s Star Tribune print edition—front page, above the fold—under the headline “Cars rule for Met Council members.”  The members themselves are all Democrats, appointed by Gov. Mark Dayton.  The current membership of the Council include an even greater than usual share of timeservers and seat warmers.

Prominent among its ranks are Adam Duininck, the chief fundraiser for the Alliance for a Better Minnesota, Gary Cunningham, husband of Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges, and three labor union employees.

This would all be less amusing if it weren’t for the Council’s efforts to radically remake the sprawling Twin Cities region into a smaller, densely-packed, transit-dependent metropolis.  A transition to a more European-style city requires that most citizens abandon cars for bus and rail transit.

That our political elites won’t walk the walk should not surprise anyone.