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.

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

Worse Than Cleveland?

We keep hearing how Minneapolis is leading the nation in economic growth, thanks to the far-sighted policies of the state’s Democrat party.

Well, Joel Kotkin has looked at the actual numbers and the MSP region is mired deep in the pack.

For per capita increase in GDP, Minneapolis-St. Paul ranks 19^th among large urban areas.  The time period (2010-2013) exactly corresponds to the years Democrat Gov. Mark Dayton has been in office.

MSP ranks behind such garden spots as Columbus OH, Grand Rapids MI, Detroit(!), and Cleveland for recent increases in the economic growth rate.

Booming Houston leads the pack.  It’s worth reading Joel’s entire piece to get a flavor for where regional growth is happening.

The Banana Republic of Minnesota: Solar Power, Part 2

Consider the career of Minneapolis Democrat politician Mark Andrew.  He served on the Hennepin County Commission from 1983 to 1999.  According to his LinkedIn profile, Andrew then joined the public relations firm Tunheim, and served as a Senior Vice President until 2006.

Tunheim claims credit for leading the effort to create a new baseball park for the Minnesota Twins during this period, one of Andrew's clients at the firm.  The ballpark, Target Field, is coincidentally owned and financed by the good taxpayers of Hennepin County.

After leaving Tunheim in 2006 to develop his GreenMark firm, Andrew’s business took off in 2010 with the completion of the new Twins field (named for Target, a Tunheim client).  The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on June, 22, 2010,

Three years into an entrepreneurial foray into the greening of America's professional sports, former politician and communications consultant Mark Andrew is starting to make some green.

Andrew, [then] 58, is a former Hennepin County commissioner who championed the Hennepin County waste-to-energy plant and the county's recycling program.  He quit a $150,000-plus consulting job at Tunheim Partners three years ago to test his vision that the Minnesota Twins, a Tunheim client, and other teams could turn their stadiums into environmental showcases.

Around the time that the Twins were taking the field in the inaugural season at the new County-owned stadium, Andrew’s firm was really taking off, as the Star Tribune reported in 2010,

"Everything I made until this year, mostly some consulting, all went back into the company," Andrew said.  "We will have something close to $1 million in revenue this year, before we pay our [two] employees, contractors and consultants.  That will be three times bigger than last year."

He said the company makes money two ways.  One is consulting for the Twins and others, including the managers of Target Center, Xcel Energy and Northwest Airlines (now Delta).  The other is to build repeatable commissions from corporate sponsorships.

While Mark Andrew was starting to make it big with GreenMark, another Mark, former U.S. Senator Dayton, was locked in a fierce election battle for Governor of Minnesota.

Mark Andrew, a former Chair of the state Democrat party, contributed $200 to Dayton’s campaign that year and another $150 in 2011 to Dayton’s re-election effort.  In 2013 and 2014, Andrew donated an additional $1,250 to Dayton’s campaign for a second term.

When Dayton took office as Governor in 2011, one of his early appointments was to name Tunheim head partner Kathy Tunheim as his Senior Advisor for Job Creation at the Minneapolis Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).

The Tunheim firm boasts an impressive client list.  The list goes well beyond the Twins to include everything from major corporations to the controversial construction company URS, to state government agencies, like the Met Council, to local governments, like Hennepin County, to renewable energy companies to major nonprofits.

Among the many other appointments that a new governor makes are the members of the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC), the governing authority of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

According to a spokesperson for MAC, the state government agency hired Andrew and GreenMark in 2011 to develop a solar power project (see Part 1) at the facility.  According to MAC, it paid GreenMark a total of $65,021 in fees from 2011 to 2012.

In 2013, Andrew ran for Mayor of Minneapolis, finishing 2^nd in the multi-candidate race.

In 2014, the solar project was officially announced by Governor Dayton and Mark Andrew last week, along with a new study of green energy issued by DEED.

I’m told by the MAC spokesman that GreenMark has been hired for additional work involving partnership marketing at the airport facility.

As for the Xcel Energy-sponsored (Tunheim and GreenMark client) solar project at the airport, if I understand the economics correctly, it will produce $35 million in total revenue over the next 30 years.  Assuming the revenue is level over the life of the project, it will pay for itself after 21 years, if the equipment lasts that long.

A 21-year payback is no great shakes in corporate America, but it is good enough in the Banana Republic of Minnesota. 

The Banana Republic of Minnesota: Solar Power, Part 1

With great fanfare, our local airport announced that it will build—with your money—the state’s largest solar power project.  Yes, the same airport whose grasp of tarmac security is well, less than airtight, is diversifying its portfolio into electricity production.

As project developer Mark Andrew himself reported on his Minneapolis Star Tribune-sponsored blog,

The solar project that is the subject of today’s post was initiated by my company, GreenMark, and presented to the Metropolitan Airports Commission.  GreenMark was subsequently hired by the MAC to help develop all aspects of the enterprise, which began construction Oct. 2nd.

Yes, that Mark Andrew.  The Democrat Mark Andrew, former county commissioner, former state DFL-party chair, and first-runner-up in last year's election for Mayor of Minneapolis, is heading up the project.

The aforementioned Metropolitan Airports Commission—a state government agency, whose leadership was appointed by Democrat Governor Mark Dayton—hired Andrew’s environmental sports marketing firm to develop the state’s largest solar power project on top of two parking structures at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

What an environmental sports marketing agency would know about utility-scale solar power is beyond my ability to comprehend.  However, Andrew does list Xcel Energy as one of his clients.  Xcel is contributing $2 million of its customers’ money to help fund the airport solar project.

The $25.4 million, 3 MW project was announced last week by Gov. Dayton himself, with Arctic explorer—and Mark Andrew client and state government grantee—Will Steger by his side.  Mark Andrew reportedly kicked off the news conference portion of the launch event.

Of course, the good Democrat he is, Mark Andrew has donated $1,250 to Mark Dayton's re-election effort so far in 2013 and 2014.

As the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported,

It’s a signature project that highlights Dayton’s clean energy initiatives, including a new solar energy standard enacted by the Legislature last year requiring investor-owned utilities to produce 1.5 percent of their electricity from solar by 2020.

To recap:  a Democrat politician uses your tax money to hire a Democrat politician and campaign donor to make the first politician look good.

Once again, in our Banana Republic, it always comes down to not what you know but who you know.

In Part 2 of this series, I dig deeper into the origins of this shady solar project.

Fake All The Way Down

Democrat Governor Mark Dayton has a new TV commercial out, his second of this election year.  In the breathless hype of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the ad

showcases a real Minnesota family, as the governor describes their worries and argues that policies he pursued have helped ease middle-class burdens. 

Yes, you read that correctly, the voice you hear on the soundtrack is alleged to be that of the Governor himself.  As for the featured family (Steve and Lindsey Port), they are “real” in the sense that they are corporeal beings.  As for being a “typical” Minnesota family, that turns out to be a different matter entirely.

The Star Tribune gives the game away by noting that,

The Dayton campaign said Lindsey Port is also on the campaign team of state Rep. Will Morgan of Burnsville.

I’d say their involvement amounts to more than just that.  Combined, Steve and Linsdey have given $1,000 to the re-election campaign of state Rep. Morgan in just the past two years.  Not many “middle-class” families have the resources to drop a grand on an obscure local politician.

The Port’s are in no sense “middle class.”  Steve Port owns his own business in Burnsville, employing several staff.  In true, “What’s the Matter with Kansas” fashion, I’m not sure the Port’s—by supporting Democrats—are operating in their own self-interest as small-business owners in Minnesota.

But they do support the Democrats.  Besides the sizable campaign donations, Lindsey Port recently wrote a letter to the editor supportive of the Democratic cause.

I’m continually amazed at the inability of state Democrats to find a single unaffiliated person to appear in their ads and promote the cause.

The Ever-Shrinking Size of the Playing Field

Elite opinion has decided that we can’t mention the subject staring back at us blankly from the podium—Mark Dayton’s deteriorating public performance abilities—because it’s a desperate and losing strategy.  Ok.  We shan’t mention it again.

Mock a candidate’s height or his mild manner and you are a sophisticate with Oscar Wilde-caliber wit.  Wonder aloud about another candidate’s lethargy, and you are a monster.  Fine, I get it.

Instead, they tell us we should go after Dayton’s target-rich record in office.  But don’t do it too aggressively, lest we get accused of “being mean to grandpa.”  If you are not aggressive enough, then you are not a “scrappy fighter.”

If we can modulate the tone just so (“more in sorrow than in anger” usually plays, Shakespeare, look it up), we may be allowed a crack at the issues of the day.

Minnesota has the “worst in the Midwest” record on state job growth?  No.  To mention the latest statistics is some sort of hypocritical flip-flop.  Besides, the economy is off limits because “the news is too good.”

The slow motion catastrophe that is MNsure?  No.  We’re told MNsure is a nation-leading success.

Minnesota’s nation-leading achievement gap?  Sorry.  It turns out that Republicans hate children.

They tell us Republicans need to drop the social issues.  When Republicans drop the social issues, we’re asked “Where are the social issues?”  

Instead of issues, we’re told to focus on making that case that Republicans can do a better job of governing.  The allowable arguments have been reduced down to a meek suggestion that, “What we need is a brief Republican interregnum to fix a few minor problems with the progressive state so we can quickly return power to the Democrats.”

Republicans are being boxed into the role of liberal sherpa.  Perhaps once a generation the need may arise to have a Republican in executive office to clean up a minor mess.

In the interim, we’re invited to bring our business acumen and managerial experience to bear in offering the occasional suggestion on how to make liberal government work better at the margins.

As for 2014, Republicans have been told to abandon the playing field altogether.  I understand they’ll let us know when we are needed again.  Perhaps in 2018 or 2022. 

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.

Out of Bounds

Last night, the major party candidates for governor appeared in Rochester for the first debate of the election season.  To my inexpert eye, I thought that Democrat Gov. Mark Dayton did not look well.  To my ear, his speech sounded slurred and his words jumbled.

C-Span has posted a video of the event on its website.  You can watch and judge for yourself.

If I understand correctly my Twitter correspondents from last night, to mention the quality of the Governor’s performance on stage was somehow unsporting, or impolite.

As I’ve pointed out before, until quite recently, Mark Dayton was an articulate, forceful, and clear-speaking orator.  He is no longer.  Something has changed.

I was told on Twitter to engage on the issues, but ignore the performance.  Here is my transcription of Dayton’s closing statement from the C-Span tape (it begins at the 55:00 mark).  The ALL CAPS transcription is from the C-Span closed captioning system.  The other, lowercase words are those that I filled in based on what I believe that Dayton actually said.

I WOULD SAY, parenthetically, MS. NICOLLET, I think you [unintelligible]—I don’t decide who is in the debates—I think you should be in of the other debates.  I think it is well-established that the INDEPENDENCE PARTY IS ONE OF THE MAJOR PARTIES IN THE STATE.

Mr. Horner participated on all of our debates four years ago and I THINK YOU SHOULD BE AFFORDED THE SAME OPPORTUNITY.

GOING BACK TO THE QUESTION AT HAND -- [APPLAUSE] I WAS BORN AND RAISED IN MINNESOTA.  OBVIOUSLY, THE STATE’s HAS BEEN very, very GOOD TO MY FAMILY AND to MYSELF.

I STARTED RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR IN 2009 BECAUSE I was convinced THE STATE WAS HEADED IN THE WRONG DIRECTION.  And we had EVEN in the midst of ADMITTED THE NATIONAL RECESSION, THE economic SLUMP IN MINNESOTA WAS GREATER THAN most OTHER STATES’.

THE TAX SYSTEM WAS REGRESSIVE. And, uh, IT WAS NOT GENERATING ENOUGH REVENUEs TO MEET THE NEEDS OF OUR PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEM FROM EARLY CHILDHOOD all the way THROUGH HIGHER EDUCATION.

I CAME IN IN JANUARY 2011.  WE WERE IN A FISCAL MESS. [unintelligible] We had A $6 BILLION budget DEFICIT FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS.  We owed our schools $2.8 billion.

ALONG WITH the A REPUBLICAN MAJORITY IN THE Minnesota LEGISLATURE, AND MYSELF, WE CUT $2 BILLION OF SPENDING, PERMANENT [pause] CUTS IN THE STATE EXPENDITUREs. AND WE PAID OFF THE SCHOOL DEBTS OVER TIME.

WE RAISED TAXES only ON THE WEALTHIEST 2% income taxes.  In fact 2 million Minnesota MIDDLE-INCOME TAXPAYERS RECEIVED An income tax CUT IN THE LAST legislative SESSION when we [unintelligible] moved to Federal conformity.

WE INVESTED THAT MONEY IN EDUCATION.  Which, in MINNESOTA, HAS BEEN SLACKING RELATIVE TO OTHER STATES AND RELATIVE TO THEIR NEEDS.

WE INSTITUTED EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION.  ALL-DAY KINDERGARTEN. in the TWO of the most critical WAYS TO we can ADDRESS THE disparity gap and the ACHIEVEMENT GAP AND THE ABILITY OF THE SCHOOLS AND of THE SOCIETY TO HELP YOUNG PEOPLE FROM THEIR EARLY area of BIRTH ALL THE WAY UNTIL THEY CAN ENTER SOCIETY AS PRODUCTIVE ADULTS AND CITIZENS.

THAT IS THE vision I have of the FUTURE I HAVE AN of the STATE. And THAT IS the one WHY I WOULD LIKE wish TO CONTINUE AS GOVERNOR.

If I have misheard, or mis-transcribed something Dayton said, I would be happy to correct the above transcript [Ed: two updates have been made].  The highly trained professionals [or well-programmed computer] at C-Span did a heroic job of catching the gist of what Dayton said in the first pass.  In assembling the transcript I pieced together, I spend an hour and a half trying to decipher a two-minute statement.

In the end, what we have from Dayton is literal nonsense.  As for taking on the issues, I can only address what Dayton actually said.  I am unable to address what he should have said, or what he meant to say, or what the post-debate press release claims he said.

In a little more than a month, we will be electing a governor, presumably one to serve in office for the next four years.  I happen to believe that the ability to speak in public, the ability to engage in public debate on issues, is a critical skill that any chief executive should possess.

The next governor will represent all 5+ million Minnesotans to the nation and the world.  Each candidate’s ability to do so effectively is fair game for discussion, in my opinion.

[Update:  Perhaps related, Twyla Brase posted a link on Twitter to a controversy over the medical records of a Republican candidate for Lt. Governor in Texas.]

…And MNsure Statistics

Here’s how I calculated the average MNsure rate increases.

There are four remaining plans in the MNsure system.  Here is their average increase and customer count, by plan.

	% Rate		%	Weighted
Plan	Increase	Members	Members	Increase
Blue Cross	17.15	9,900	57%	9.70
Medica	1.8	2,000	11%	0.21
Ucare	-9.07	600	3%	-0.31
Health Part.	8.12	5,000	29%	2.32
Simple Avg.	4.5
Total		17,500		11.92

The much touted 4.5 percent increase figure is the simple average of the reported average rate increases for the four remaining plans.  Weighting the increase by each plan’s market share produces an average increase of 11.92 percent.

The simple average gives too much weight to the decrease at UCare, which has only 600 customers (3 percent of remaining plans).

As for Preferred One, the market leader who pulled out last month, here’s what has been reported (Snowbeck's StarTribune story):  under Preferred One, for a 25-year-old buyer, Twin Cities’ location, the lowest level (bronze plan) went for $91 a month.  For 2015, the cheapest comparable plan (see Dept. of Commerce pdf) is $109.93.  That works out to a 20.8 percent increase.  Other customers in other locations will have different results.

Also, we keep hearing that Minnesota has the lowest rates in the country.  Actually, the study cited only compares Minneapolis/St. Paul to a select group of other urban markets.  I am not aware of a comprehensive state-to-state comparison, or a study comparing all urban areas.

A Shrinking Pie to Hit Education Minnesota

As they say, demography is destiny, and right about now the nation’s (and Minnesota’s) destiny is not looking so good.  I’ve written about this topic before, and now I have more recent data to work with and can draw more definitive conclusions.

Here are the raw numbers for the past decade.

U.S. Births By Year
Year	U.S.	Minnesota
2013	3,957,577	69,160
2012	3,952,841	68,772
2011	3,953,593	68,411
2010	3,999,386	68,605
2009	4,130,665	70,648
2008	4,247,694	72,421
2007	4,316,233	73,745
2006	4,265,555	73,675
2005	4,138,349	70,920
2004	4,112,042	70,614
2003	4,089,950	70,053
Source:  CDC

As I wrote back in March,

A decade ago, we were seeing slow, if unspectacular, growth.  When the last economic boom was at its peak (2006-2008), we saw something of a mini baby boom.  When the recession hit in 2008, the number of births fell, and has not recovered.  

Keep in mind, these effects are cumulative.  So, in Minnesota, since the 2007 peak, we are now “missing” 24,453 children in the last six years. 

Think of a K-5 elementary school.  To make the math easy, assume 25 students per teacher, we now need 978 fewer elementary school teachers than we would have planned for, using the higher birth rates of a few years ago.

Those changes, of course, won’t be spread evenly across the state.  Some districts will allow class sizes to shrink.  Some districts will continue to grow, while others may face the need to close entire schools.

Even as middle schools will be coping with the recent mini baby boom, suddenly in 2015, schools across the state will find they are “missing” 2,000 kindergarteners from the year before.

Judging by the national numbers, which mirror Minnesota’s, we are unlikely to avoid shrinking schools with domestic migrants.  (Foreign immigration would be a different matter)

The ripple effects continue.  State education funding depends on per pupil formulas.  Fewer pupils means less money.  Fewer pupils translates, eventually, into fewer dues paying union member teachers.

As it stands, the state teachers’ union—Education Minnesota--ranks as the state’s largest campaign donor, giving almost exclusively to Democrats.  As school enrollments begin to shrink across the state, look for the politics of education to get even more bitter.

The economics of teachers’ pensions relies on a growing number of dues-paying-members to support the growing number of retirees.  If the ranks of active teachers actually shrink, the finances turn upside down. 

Look for Education Minnesota to push ever-shrinking class sizes and ever-growing pay to make up the difference.