Hired Guns, Part 1

From the “Now It Can Be Told” file, the campaign finance reports recently filed in Minnesota include a treasure trove of interesting information.  There is so much data involved, if you dig deep enough, you can uncover all kinds of amazing coincidences.

Take, for example, a handful of transactions reported by the Democrats in the state senate, officially the Minnesota DFL Senate Caucus.

From Minnesota, With Love

Perusing the 2013 report recently filed by the Minnesota Democrat Party (officially, the Minnesota DFL State Central Committee) makes for surprisingly interesting reading.

For a non-election year, the state’s Democrats did well, taking in over $2 million in 2013, up considerably from the $1.45 million the party received in 2011.

As expected, Alida Rockefeller Messinger was the biggest donor, giving $540,000 (see report, p. 9). 

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.

Your Papers, Please

Democrats no longer believe in "count every vote"

I guess if you live long enough you eventually see everything.  It’s just that there are some things you don’t expect to see so soon.

Less than two years removed from waging a multi-million-dollar campaign to defeat the voter identification amendment on the 2012 ballot, Minnesota’s Democrats have decided to impose voter identification requirements…on their own party members.

Minnesota's Radio Forum, Now on Podcast

 

The podcast of our debut show is now available for download.  The show is a one-hour, monthly public affairs program airing on AM 1570.

In episode 1, we take on health care with the Citizen League's Sean Kershaw, Peter Nelson of the Center of the American Experiment, and the Mayo Clinic's Kathleen Harrington.
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Electing a New People in Minneapolis

The Geography of Politics, Part 4

The population of the City of Minneapolis peaked above 521,000 back in 1950 and has not recovered since.  In 1950, 17.5 percent of the state’s population lived within the city limits of the City of Lakes.  Today, only 7.3 percent of the state’s population lives there.

Desperate to regain population and influence, the city is working hard to attract new high-rise apartment and condo projects and mixed-use commercial/residential developments.  But not all current Minneapolis residents are buying into the city’s new skyscraper vision.

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?

Minnesota's Radio Forum

My newest venture is starting up this Saturday: a monthly, one-hour radio program airing on AM 1570.  The show will be broadcast starting at 1 p.m.

It's a public affairs roundtable show, taking up a different topic every month.  This month the topic is health care.  Joining me are Sean Kershaw of the Citizens League, Peter Nelson of the Center of the American Experiment, and Kathleen Harrington of the Mayo Clinic.

Tune in on Saturday, I think it will be worth your while.

The Shape of the Playing Field, Part 4

During the recent Super Bowl blowout, the real winner was not on the field but found in the commercial breaks.  Topping many lists was the Seinfeld reunion ad.  That 1990’s TV sitcom was famously “a show about nothing” (motto:  no hugging, no learning).

We are now only nine months from the 2014 election.  The media and political classes are obsessed with the latest fundraising figures and poll numbers.  Tactics and strategies will be hotly debated and the issues and candidates defined.

This time, I hope we can do things differently.  Minnesota (and America) desperately needs to have an election about something.  Rarely have the two major political parties offered such clearly opposing worldviews: those who say there is no difference between them have simply not been paying attention.  But not everyone agrees what those differences are.

All in the Family

Minnesota Democrat Governor Mark Dayton has named a new Lt. Governor running mate for his 2014 re-election run.  As expected, he named his current chief of staff and power behind the throne, Tina Smith.

Chief Smith’s demotion has triggered a reshuffle within the Dayton administration, one that highlights the incestuous ties between the state’s highest ranking elected official and the big money groups that support his campaigns.

The announcement itself occurred at a most unusual location, state headquarters of the AFL-CIO labor union.   The state AFL-CIO donated more than $500,000 to Democrats during the period 2007-2012.  Ms. Smith herself has long been associated with Planned Parenthood, a six-figure Democrat donor organization in 2012.

Planned Parenthood has a seat on the board of Alliance for a Better Minnesota.  ABM sits at the heart of the Democrat money machine.  ABM’s executive director, Carrie Lucking, is the better half of Dayton Deputy Chief of Staff Bob Hume.

WIN Minnesota is the primary fundraising arm of ABM.   WIN’s 2007-2012 donations of $1.9 million rank the group as the state’s 4^th largest.  ABM’s Executive Director, Adam Duininick, is married to incoming chief of staff Jaime Tincher.  Adam, of course, is also Chair of the big dollar Democrat PAC 2014 Fund and a member of the Met Council.

WIN’s former head, Ken Martin, is now the head of the state’s Democrat party.  His wife, Jennifer O’Rourke, now serves as yet another Deputy Chief of Staff to Gov. Dayton.

Bringing it all back home, WIN board member and the state’s No. 1 political donor, Alida Rockefeller Messinger, is Gov. Dayton’s ex-wife.  And it turns out that Mrs. Messinger recommended Tina Smith for the job in the first place.

If you feel like you need a program to tell the players, it’s because you do.  If this web of influence existed in a Republican administration, local media would report the story as a scandal, with each detail as evidence of the most vile corruption at work.  In the case of Democrats—if the media report the story at all—it’s played as a cute public interest angle.

Here is the challenge for local media and good government types:  if you are serious about the influence of money in politics, you have be serious all the time, regardless of who is in power.

The state’s largest Democrat donors have access to the inner sanctum of the Governor’s office: either directly or indirectly through marriage.  And because they are there, the rest of us will never get at fair shake.