Professor

The Rochester Post Bulletin reports today on the hotly contested state House of Representatives seat in the Albert Lea area (district 27A).  Reports indicate that outside groups have already poured $377,000 into this contest, and Election Day isn’t until next week.

First-term Democrat Shannon Savick is running for re-election against former Albert Lea teacher-of-the-year Republican Peggy Bennett.  Reporters and readers alike are hungry this time of year for some independent, informed analysis to put all of this into its proper perspective.

In this instance, the Post Bulletin turned to University of Minnesota political scientist Kathryn Pearson.  The paper quotes Pearson,

University of Minnesota political science professor Kathryn Pearson said the sheer amount of money flowing into the House District 27A race makes it clear Republicans think they've got a good shot at picking up the seat.

"Savick is one of the most vulnerable DFL incumbents, so essentially for Republicans to gain majority party control, she and other story of similarly situated DFLers would have to lose," Pearson said.

At this point, Pearson said the battle for control of the Minnesota House is simply too close to call headed into Election Day.

If I were uncharitable, I would describe that last sentence as self-serving for Professor Pearson.  As I have documented before, Dr. Pearson serves on the board of the leftist political group womenwinning.org.  

Womenwinning, of course, has endorsed Rep. Savick in this race.  According to records on file at the state Campaign Finance Board, the group’s PAC has donated $1,000 to Savick’s campaign, the maximum allowed under state law.

Somehow, this conflict of Dr. Pearson’s did not make it into the story. 

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.

Panelist

According to the hosts of the local public television public-affairs program Almanac, the most popular group of guests that appear on the show[1] is the political scientist panel, a semi-regular feature of the program.

One of the area’s political scientists that appears on the program from time to time is Kathryn Pearson of the University of Minnesota.  Dr. Pearson appeared on Almanac as recently as August 22, 2014.

She is one of a handful of political scientists that are ubiquitous in local media, both print and broadcast.

Among the many accomplishments that Prof. Pearson lists on her official curriculum vitae is her position as an Executive Board Member of the political group womenwinning.  She has held membership on the board since 2009.

Her relationship with the group dates back even further.  According to records on file at the state’s Campaign Finance Board, she is listed as a financial contributor to the group every year from 2008 to 2011, donating a total of $1,425 to the group during this period.

Womenwinning was founded in 1982.  The 501(c)(4) political charity formed its state-level political action committee in 1990. 

Its stated mission is

to encourage, promote, support, and elect pro-choice women of all political parties to all levels of public office.

True, Republican and former U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe was a speaker at a recent womenwinning event.  However, when it comes to handing out cash to candidates, only Democrats receive the financial backing of womenwinning.  In 2014 (through Sept. 16^th), womenwinning donated to 23 candidates for the state House of Representatives, and all 23 were Democrats.  Womenwinning donated to candidates in four of the 20 most critical house races.

As I’ve written before, Pearson’s fellow Almanac panelist David Schultz is openly backing a Democrat candidate in another one of those 20 swing seats.  Both of these political scientists appear on Almanac and other venues providing commentary and analysis on political topics in which they have personal stakes.

They are certainly entitled to donate to and to support any political candidate they wish.  My problem is with the media venues that put them on as unbiased, neutral observers of the state’s political scene.

---

[1] TPT Almanac, August 22, 2014 episode, 40:28 mark.

The Banana Republic of Minnesota: One Year Later

Going back a year ago, I reported on the “outreach” grants distributed by state government’s MNsure to local community agencies to promote the Obamacare health insurance exchange around the state.

Many of the grants went to individuals and organizations with close ties to the state Democratic party. 

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on the results yesterday, and they are exactly as you would have expected,

As of June 30, with three months remaining in the contract year for outreach agencies, grantees had reached just 45 percent of their collective goal of 51,600 enrollments, according to a state review.

Some grantees could not reach even that low threshold.  The Star Tribune reports,

Through June 30, Health Access MN was credited by MNsure for reaching 28.6 percent of its 6,000-person enrollment goal.  The group received a second-year award of $209,500.

They achieved less than 30 percent of their goal, but getting a second grant?  Who is this group?  The Star Tribune adds,

For one, lawmakers questioned a $326,606 award to a start-up called Health Access MN, which was formed just days before the grant application deadline by Maureen O’Connell, a former top executive [and Mark Dayton appointee] for the Minnesota Department of Human Services.

Ah, so it’s not what you accomplish, it’s who you know.  Not making the second-year list was last year’s biggest grantee, a consortium headed by Community Action of Minneapolis, the Democrat-run nonprofit closed by regulators last month.

Also not appearing on the second year list is Small Business Minnesota, a nonprofit run by a Democrat candidate for state representative.  Big-time Democrat donor Planned Parenthood is back for 2015, rewarded for its continued loyal service to the party.

Despite all available evidence, I keep hearing how Minnesota is a clean government state.  It’s as if self-regard and stated intentions can overcome actual performance.

The Daily Double

In something akin to a political charity event horizon, political charity Alliance for a Better Minnesota has a new TV ad starring a political charity TakeAction Minnesota community organizer.

And not just any left-wing community organizer, but go-to-gal Jessica English, who has taken her tale of homeless-single mom-minimum wage worker on a multi-year magical misery tour.

Here she is in 2011.  Here she is in 2013.

She finds a home here.  Evil bankers threaten to evict her here.  It’s enough to make you wonder why the string of left-wing nonprofits who’ve employed her can’t pay enough to keep her in stable housing.

In 2014, she’s starring in a Democrat TV ad ("Impossible") attacking the Republican candidate for governor on the minimum wage issue.  At one point in the ad, the following words appear on the screen,

"Jeff Johnson Hurt 350,000 Minnesota Workers.  Source:  Star Tribune 4/10/14"

The ad appears to refer to this article, which reports on efforts to raise the minimum wage in Minnesota.  The article itself does not mention Jeff Johnson.

[Gary Gross has debunked the ad's central claims.]

As for Jessica English, we are to understand that in the entire state of Minnesota, population 5,000,000+, Democrats cannot locate a second hard-luck story to put on television.  Instead, the state Democrats recycle the same sad sack saga over and over again.

The magical misery tour is waiting to take you away.

Alliance for a Better Minnesota is “Worried”

Our friends over at the Democrat-front-group Alliance for a Better Minnesota (ABM) have a new TV ad out attacking GOP candidate for governor Jeff Johnson.

Entitled "Worried", the 15- and 30-second spots feature Laura Livermore, Classroom Teacher, Forest Lake.  The video was posted on You Tube by ABM on under the tag,

Tea Party Republican Jeff Johnson has a record on education that should make Minnesotans worried.

Apparently the pejorative “Tea Party Republican” must test particularly well with low information voters.  Or, perhaps its use in the ad is a sign the Democrats are concerned about turning out their base in an off-year election.

 

Alliance for a Better Minnesota Misfires

It’s been a tough election season for the Alliance for a Better Minnesota (ABM).  The ultra-wealthy Democrat-front group has uncharacteristically stumbled out of the gate in this 2014 election season.

After helping to elect Democrat Mark Dayton as Governor in 2010 and electing a Democrat-majority state legislature in 2012, the group was put in the unfamiliar position of playing defense in 2014.  With millions of dollars in the bank, the group may yet bring its signature style of political slander to bear on this year’s contest.  However, early results have not been promising for partisans on the left.

The Bad, Bad “Bad Boss Tax” Idea

Jonathan Blake tweeted about the latest bad idea to come from Minnesota’s political charity machine:  "The Bad Boss Tax".

In this instance a “bad” boss is one that hires lots of low-wage workers: workers who also receive government benefits like food stamps or subsidies for healthcare, housing, or energy costs.  Hiring workers who also receive government benefits in some form is said to be taking advantage of the taxpayer.

Wal-Mart appears to be the specific target of this campaign.  But what about the chicken/egg argument?  By hiring those on public benefit, isn't Wal-Mart supplementing their household income and subsidizing the taxpayer?

According to the supporters of the Bad Boss Tax, the employer is supposed to pay such a high wage that the employee would not qualify for any government benefit.  If not, the employer will have to pay hefty fines for hiring the dependent.

That’s a tall order, given that most Americans now receive some form of government benefit.

TakeAction Minnesota is pushing the idea, which, apparently will be introduced as a bill in the state legislature next year.  As Blake pointed out, TakeAction doesn’t seem to have thought this idea through.

Beyond the obvious—employers will avoid hiring those on public benefit—the hardest hit employers by such a law are those businesses and charities that specialize in hiring the disabled, the homeless, and those giving the poor and unskilled a leg up.  Do we really want to discourage hiring those at the bottom of the ladder with fines and penalties?

The TakeAction/ABM Merger

The political charity TakeAction Minnesota bills itself as an organization created to "work for social, racial, and economic justice."  As we always expected, it turns out to be just another Democrat party front group.

According to the latest filings at the Campaign Finance Board, on May 21st TakeAction's Political Fund transferred $50,000 from TakeAction's 501(c)(4) tax-exempt non-profit to the 2014 Fund, the fundraising arm for the Democrat political machine's Alliance for a Better Minnesota.

Make no mistake, TakeAction exists to elect Democrats.

1600 University Avenue

The Geography of Politics

If the 2014 election in Minnesota follows the form of the elections of 2012 and 2010, the contest will be decided in a non-descript suite of offices located at 1600 University Avenue in St. Paul.  There is no political party, candidate, or large donor headquartered there, but, rather an interlocking series of nonprofit organizations centered on the Democrat-front-group Alliance for a Better Minnesota.

On the 4^th floor of this office building, the state’s leading progressive political groups share an office suite and staff, coordinate polling and messaging, and raise millions of dollars to elect Democrat candidates.

The Indonesian Connection

I wrote last week about some interesting coincidences surrounding a young Democrat party donor, who is making a name for himself on the national political scene.

Railroaded

Two Democrat state legislators got their picture in the newspaper this week for proposing a new tax and additional regulations on railroads and pipelines that transport crude oil through Minnesota.

Put aside the fact that many other flammable and explosive commodities travel by rail and pipe.  A series of high profile accidents has drawn attention to safety issues surrounding the transportation of oil.

What I find interesting is less the “what” than the “who.”  Minneapolis state representative Frank Hornstein and state senator Scott Dibble are introducing the bill.  Both hold leadership posts on transportation issues in their respective houses.

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the two lawmakers are being assisted by a local non-profit, MN350.org.  The Star Tribune reports that,

The proposal also has the support of MN350, an environmental group that opposes crude oil pipelines and rail shipping.  The group’s attorney, Paul Blackburn, is helping legislators draft the language.

If you are genuinely interested in improving the safety of an activity, why would you have a group opposed to having the activity done at all write the rules for doing it?  It seems that this bill is less a safety measure than a stalking horse for a ban on transporting oil within Minnesota.  That, of course, would cause significant problems for the state’s two oil refineries.

When done by Republicans and conservatives, having an outside group draft legislation is considered a national scandal.  (Google the American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC).   In fact, Sen. Dibble is the chief author of an anti-ALEC senate bill, SF 26, that seeks to outlaw the practice.

I’m sure safety improvements can be made, but that doesn’t seem to be the point of this exercise.

What’s in a Name?

Back in March 2012, Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Jon Tevlin wrote a piece under the headline “Think politics can't sink lower? Well, www.thinkagain ...”

Tevlin opens his piece with this bit of hyperbole,

I think all of us, regardless of political orientation, can agree that it can't possibly get any worse in politics, that the level of crass, petty sniping has finally driven our opinion of the people who represent us to the ultimate bottom.

Pregnant pause for dramatic effect.

Well, get a load of this.

By this point I’m sure you are wondering what fresh outrage finally drove state politics to the ninth circle of hell.  It turns out that a few Republicans purchased web site names that sounded like they belonged to Democrats.

Yes, the most unforgiveable crime in politics, the one dirty trick that cannot be forgiven, the act that will have you tossed into the fiery furnace for eternity is…cyber squatting.

Today we engaged in a little kerfuffle on Twitter when it came out that Carrie Lucking—the Executive Director of the Democrat-front-group Alliance for a Better Minnesota (ABM)—was the proud owner of the domain name MaryFranson.com.  Ms. Franson, of course, is a Minnesota state representative from the Alexandria area.  A Republican, Rep. Franson won the closest election for state representative of the 134 contests in 2012.

My own detective work uncovered that among the 69 web addresses purchased by Ms. Lucking through ABM is the web name JeffJohnsonforgovernor.com (and .org for good measure).  Of course, Commissioner Johnson is currently running for Governor of Minnesota under the nom de internet of johnsonforgovernor.org (no “Jeff”).

What’s most remarkable about this affair is the timing.  Tevlin’s column is dated March 6, 2012, and ABM purchased the Franson web name on March 5^th of that year, the previous day.  Of course Tevlin cited only Republican wrongdoing in his column.

The double standard at work barely warrants a mention anymore.  Of course we know that all Republican wrongdoing is always of the worst possible kind and Democrat wrongdoing never occurs.

But, here we are in 2014 and the Executive Director of the Democrats’ most important organization owns more than five dozen web names.  What will she do with them?  And who among our state’s political reporting corps will dare to ask that question?

False Flag Operations

Should Minnesota Republicans take advice from an advisor to the state’s top-ranked individual Democrat donor, Alida Messinger?  [In Minnesota, Democrats are known by the initials DFL, Democrat-Farmer-Labor.]

I pondered that question on Friday night, as I was watching Almanac, the local public television public affairs show. 

The TakeAction Takeover Extends to Duluth

I have previously written about the election triumphs in Minneapolis and St. Paul of political non-profit TakeAction Minnesota.  TakeAction has posted another win, this time in Duluth.  Last night TakeAction tweeted,
 

	TakeAction Minnesota @TakeActionMN     Congratulations to Patrick Boyle on winning today's special election to fill Steve O'Neil's St. Louis County Commissioner seat in #Duluth!         09:45 PM - 14 Jan 14

Left and Lefter, the Race for House District 64B

The Geography of Politics, Part 1

I’m always amazed at how the state’s most-quoted political scientists spend their days chasing the newest Tea Party phantom while earthshaking developments on the other side of the aisle go unnoticed.  You would think that—in a state with one-party-rule—the rivalries within the ruling party would hold their interest more than insider moves in a party long out of power.

Whatever.  In the interest of doing the job Minnesota’s political scientists can’t be bothered to do themselves, over the next few weeks I will be developing two series focusing on the intersection of geography, demography, and politics in Minnesota.

In my parallel series focusing on demography, I examine the bizarre plan of the Met Council regional government to relieve poverty by dispersing poor people throughout the metro region.

In this series, I will explore the role geography plays in state politics.

Minnesota Means Good Government

The State of Minnesota prides itself on two things: being the Land of 10,000 Lakes and the land of good government.

So the fact that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the U.S. Treasury Department are proposing new restrictions on the political activity of tax-exempt 501(c)(4) non-profits should be seen as good news for the state’s politics.

A User’s Guide to the TakeAction Series

It turns out that I’ve written quite a bit about the political charity TakeAction Minnesota this year.  My interest in the group—who they are and what they do—centers on several topic areas, listed here in no particular order:

Ideology—TakeAction follows a far-left political ideology under the “progressive” liberal banner.  The success TakeAction has enjoyed in elections, lobbying, and fundraising has pushed the state Democrat party even further to the left.  With Democrats having a near-monopoly on political power in Minnesota, TakeAction’s influence among the state’s Democrats means that the state’s public policy choices represent the preferences of a small fraction of the state’s electorate.

Follow the Money and TakeAction! Part 3A

Since I wrote the original Part 3 of my TakeAction series back in January, I’ve come across the names of a few additional financial backers of the Minnesota political charity.

SourceWatch lists then-U.S. Senator Mark Dayton as a past funding partner of the charity.  This is interesting because these days, now Governor Dayton is not known for being generous to charities, political or otherwise.

Nobody Doesn’t Like Sara Lee
Nathan Cummings was a Canadian-born American business executive who built up a fortune in the brand name food industry, most notably Sara Lee.  His New York-based legacy foundation has contributed to TakeAction in recent years

According to the Foundation’s IRS Form 990 Federal income tax returns, in 2011 it gave $60,000 to TakeAction Minnesota’s Education Fund for the “Medicaid Expansion Project.”  In 2010 the Foundation gave $60,000 for TakeAction’s “Make Health Happen Campaign.”  In 2009, it also gave TakeAction $60,000 for the same project.

All For One
The One World Fund of Andover, MA, has supported TakeAction in recent years.  According to One World’s IRS Form 990 Federal income tax returns, in 2012 the Fund gave $25,000 to TakeAction “to unite the power of diverse individuals.”  The Fund’s 2011 and 2010 returns also show $25,000 donations to TakeAction for the same purpose.

I Can’t Get No Satisfaction

Still Ain’t Satisfied, A Foundation With Attitude, is a Minneapolis-based non-profit operated by Shayna Berkowitz and Phyllis Wiener.  The Foundation is reported by SourceWatch to be among TakeAction’s past funding partners.

Who is TakeAction? Part 3, the Brand New Party

At the Minneapolis Hilton ballroom last Friday night, more than a thousand of the faithful gathered to pay tribute to the year’s progressive heroes.  It was the TakeAction Minnesota Annual Awards Dinner (and dancing!) 2013.

Branded the Progressive Prom™, the event drew A-list headliners Governor Mark Dayton, U.S. Senator Al Franken, and Minneapolis Mayor-Elect Betsy Hodges.  Hodges had just been declared the winner of last week’s election and both Dayton and Franken face 2014 re-election battles in what’s turning out to be an increasingly tough environment for incumbent Democrats.