Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Minnesota Democrats’ Bait-And-Switch Strategy

The Geography of Politics, Part 3

In this series, I have been developing a hypothesis (and exploring the implications) that states, “the safer a seat is for a political party, the more radical its holder becomes.”  [See Part 1 and Part 2.]
My case study today is the Minnesota House of Representatives.  At present, Democrats hold 73 of the 134 seats in the body, with Republicans holding the remaining 61.  A 12-seat majority means that a switch in party of just 7 seats would flip majority control to the Republicans, from 73-61 to 66-68.

Blogger Tony Petrangelo of the website LeftMN has calculated a partisan index for every of those 134 seats in the Minnesota House.  According to his calculations, 12 of the 73 seats held by Democrats are in districts rated as leaning-Republican.  Democrats hold a further 4 seats rated as “Even” (tossup) districts.
In the 2012 election, Minnesota’s Democrats retook control of the state House, in no small part on the appeal of "moderate pro-business" Democrats.  These centrist, pragmatic problem-solvers were supposed to occupy an imagined sweet spot of social liberalism combined with friendliness toward the private-sector economy, a combination thought to be appealing to the suburban, swing-district voter.

If swing district voters thought they were electing a moderate, pro-business legislature, what they got was something decidedly different:  record tax hikes, record spending increases, a non-functioning takeover of the health insurance industry (MNsure), and a failed gun grab…the list goes on.  So what happened?
Moderate, suburban voters may have given Democrats a majority of seats, but that is not where the new House majority found its leadership.

2013 saw a new House Speaker, a new House Majority Leader, and 28 new committee chairs.  Elected as House Speaker was six-term Minneapolis Democrat Paul Thissen, representing a district rated D+29.  Elected as the Majority Leader was four-term St. Paul Democrat, Erin Murphy, representing a district also rated at D+29.
Of the 28 new committee chairs installed in 2013, 21 represent districts rated at D+10 or higher and 24 of 28 represent Districts rated at D+5 or higher.  Put another way, only 4 committee chairs represent districts considered competitive between Democrats and Republicans.

One of the four committee chairs, Melissa Hortman, is in her fifth term representing a suburban Brooklyn Park district rated D+1.  No pro-business moderate, she holds a lifetime rating, as calculated by the Taxpayers League of Minnesota, of 8 on a scale of 100.
Likewise, committee chair Joe Atkins has represented an even-rated Inver Grove Heights district for over a decade.  His Taxpayers League lifetime rating is 7.

Ron Erhardt, representing an even-rated suburban Edina district, offers an interesting example.  The seniority that qualified Erhardt for his committee chairmanship was earned serving nine terms as a Republican, at a time when his district was considered as safely Republican.  Now a Democrat, Erhardt’s 2013 Taxpayers League rating was 8 on a scale of 100.
Finally, Paul Marquart is now in his seventh term representing a rural Dilworth district rated a Republican-leaning R+2.  Marquardt’s lifetime Taxpayers League rating is a relatively moderate 23.

So, suburban voters selected pro-business moderate Democrats and got a leadership anything but suburban and moderate.  Of the 28 committee chairs, seven are from St. Paul, six are from Minneapolis, and one each are from Duluth and Rochester.  Thus, more than half of the House committee leaders come from the state’s largest urban areas.
This result should not be surprising.  Leadership appointments and committee gavels generally go to the most senior members.  Generally, only representatives from safe districts get re-elected enough times to gain seniority.  But moderation is not a quality needed (or even helpful) in winning safe seats.

So, will Democrats try the same approach in 2014?  Will Democrat House members run on a platform of pro-business moderation and hope that voters will be fooled again?

Monday, December 30, 2013

Explaining the Democrats’ Leftward Drift

The Geography of Politics, Part 2

In this post, I continue doing the job Minnesota’s political scientists can’t be bothered to do themselves.  In the first part of this series, I introduce this hypothesis: the safer a seat is for a given political party, the more extreme its holder will become, over time.
When a candidate can win a district without appealing to independents or to moderates of the other party, he or she has no incentive to moderate their views on the issues.  On the contrary, a moderate politician holding a safe seat is vulnerable to a challenge from the more extreme wing of his or her party.

Appeal to Evidence
Blogger Tony Petrangelo of the website LeftMN has calculated a partisan index for all 134 seats in the Minnesota House of Representatives.   

To oversimplify, an index of “even” (as is the case for my Edina district) indicates that the district’s voters do not display a tendency to vote for either Republicans or Democrats.  An index of R+1 or higher indicates that the district leans to the right.  An index of D+1 or higher indicates that the district leans to the left.
The higher the index number, the less likely it is that the district will be represented by someone from the opposite party.  According to Petrangelo, at present, no Republicans represent areas rated D+1 or above in the state House.  Several Democrats represent R-rated districts, including one district rated as high as R+6.

The conservative Taxpayers League of Minnesota has calculated a lifetime rating for all 134 members of the Minnesota State Legislature, based on each Representative’s voting record.  The League’s rating ranges from 0 to 100.  A rating of 100 would rank a legislator as one of the most conservative, a rating of zero would place a legislator among the most liberal.
In the chart below, I show each Republican House member’s League lifetime rating graphed against the partisan index of each member’s district, as depicted by the red dots.

The horizontal axis shows the partisan index. At present, no Republican holds a district seat rated as Democrat-leaning.  A score of “zero” on this axis means the district is rated as “even” between Democrats and Republicans.  Republican seats are rated up to R+17.
The vertical axis shows the League’s lifetime rating.

 


The dark dashed line shows the trend as we move up the vertical axis.  Consistent with my hypothesis, for Republicans, the safer the seat (the higher the partisan index) the more conservative the holder.

The one outlier shown in the graph is Jim Abeler, the Anoka Republican who represents a district rated R+6 and is rated by the League with a moderate lifetime score of 53 on the 0 to 100 scale.
As shown on the chart below, the situation with Democrats is similar.  However, the corresponding pattern for Minnesota’s Democrats resembles more an “L” lying on its side than the linear pattern of Republicans. 




In Search of:  Moderate Democrats

As before, the horizontal axis represents the district’s partisan index.  Democrats represent a number of Republican-leaning districts.  These districts are represented by positive numbers.  Districts with a D rating are represented as a negative number and range up to D+40 (graphed as -40) for the seat held by Minneapolis Democrat Karen Clark.

Supporting my hypothesis, the only Democrat-held districts with “moderate Democrat” representatives (League rating above 20) are rated as either Republican, Even, or no more than D+5.  These swing districts could elect a candidate from either party, so it’s understandable that Democrats who hold such seats would be more moderate than holders of safer D seats.
Applying the Hypothesis
If you buy the hypothesis, than a number of logical conclusions suggest themselves:
·       To get more moderate politics, you need more competitive seats.  This conclusion is certainly not original, with opposition to gerrymandering dating back centuries.  With so many seats in safe hands and so few competitive plays, the resulting gridlock and sharp partisanship should surprise no one.

·       Democrats have safer seats than Republicans.  This is not a conclusion, but an observation of the data itself.  A D+40 seat is safer than an R+17.  Democrats hold 19 seats rated safer than the safest Republican seats.

·       Democrats are further from the political mainstream than Republicans.  Applying my hypothesis leads to this conclusion.  A party lead by holders of seats rated +20 or above will be more radical than a party whose safest seat is only +17.  Democrats may have made inroads into Republican territory to gain a majority, but once in majority, Democrat leaders (Committee Chairs, Leadership) are from safe Democrat seats.

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Democrats Are Winning the Money Race in Minnesota

In a front-page story in the Sunday edition of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, reporters Rachel Stassen-Berger and Glenn Howatt do a public service by following the money in Minnesota state elections from 2007 to 2012.  The reporters track money from individuals, labor unions, party units, corporate donors and others.

The Star Tribune makes the point of how concentrated political donations are in the state.  A mere 26 donors account for more than half of the $53 million spent on state political campaigns during the period examined.
To their credit, the reporters don’t bury the real lede too far down, as they write in the second paragraph of their story,

The analysis shows those donations heavily favored Democrats.  Unless that trend is reversed, Republicans could find themselves at a disadvantage heading into the 2014 elections, when they will attempt to retake the governor’s office and the Minnesota House.
They are correct.  But just how heavily the donations favor Democrats, the reporters do not say.  So I have taken a shot at answering the question by identifying the top 26 donors identified by the Star Tribune as either Democrat-leaning or Republican –leaning.

I use the word “leaning” as even Donor No.1, Education Minnesota, gives trace amounts to Republicans.  Likewise, the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce donates money to both the Republican party and the Democrat party, but I classify them in the Republican camp for the purposes of estimating the total Republican disadvantage.




Of the top 26 donors, all but 7 lean toward the Democrats in their donations.  Adding up the dollars given by each donor during the 2007-2012 period, Democrat-leaning donors gave $20.5 million and Republican-leaning donors gave $6.2 million.  That works out to more than a 3 to 1 advantage for the Democrats.

Also notice who is not on the list.  There is not a Koch brother, Citizens United, or Karl Rove to be found.  The bĂȘtes noires of the left are noticeably missing from Minnesota politics, despite their ubiquity in local progressive propaganda.
If Republicans were enjoying a 3 to 1 fundraising advantage, just imagine the cries for campaign finance reform and getting money out of state politics.  Instead, the silence is deafening.

Friday, December 20, 2013

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.

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Endorsement

In a little-noticed and quickly-buried development this week, the Minnesota’s Campaign Financed Board levied a $100,000 fine against the state’s Democrats for illegally coordinating campaign efforts.  The fine, one of the largest levied in state history, was for conduct involving an organized series of photo sessions with state senate candidates. 

The professional photographs were used in “independent” advertising on the behalf of 13 Democrat candidates for state senate.  Of the 13, 11 of the candidates won, flipping control of the state senate from Republicans to the Democrats.
Jim Carlson, Alan Oberloh, Vicki Jensen, Tom Saxhaug, Kevin Dahle, Kent Eken, Melisa Franzen, Laurie McKendry, Matt Schmit, Gregory Clausen, Alice Johnson, Susan Kent and Lyle Koenen were named in the Board’s investigation.

Of the 13 Democrat state senate candidates involved, several were running in Twin Cities suburban districts.  Three--Alice Johnson, Melisa Franzen and Gregory Clausen—were endorsed by the Star Tribune newspaper.  None of the three were senate incumbents in the last election: all three won.
My take after reading the Board's report on its investigation is that control of the state senate rests in the hands of a group that cheated to win.  The matter involves no small sum: the illegal coordination represented campaign contributions of more than $300,000 above the legal limit.

Voters are owed more than a “we’re putting this matter behind us” explanation from everyone involved.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

What I Saw at MNsure Today


For the first time since September, I made my way to St. Paul to attend a meeting at the headquarters of MNsure, the embattled state agency charged with implementing the local Obamacare health insurance exchange.
This afternoon, Scott Leitz—the newly appointed interim CEO of MNsure—along with MNsure’s board chair, Brian Beutner, held a press conference followed by a meeting of MNsure’s Board of Directors.
Here are a few observations from the back of the room:
Turnaround Ahead
The cascading failures at MNsure reveal an organization in need of a turnaround.  The two men standing at the podium this afternoon were “steady as she goes” helmsmen, not turnaround specialists.  MNsure is in dire need of a skill set not on display today.
The German Connection
During today’s press conference, interim CEO Leitz was asked about a recent junket to Germany.  The reporter was referring to this trip (1st bullet) in which Leitz traveled to Europe accompanied by the co-chairs (Rep. Joe Atkins and Sen. Tony Lourey) of MNsure’s legislative oversight committee.  The committee has not met since September.  Once it resumes meeting in January, it’s probably too much to ask the literal fellow travelers of CEO Leitz to provide the unsparing supervision which is so sorely lacking at MNsure.

Customer Stories
Each MNsure board meeting opens with testimony from a customer.  As I’ve documented before, these “typical customers” often turn out to be partisan plants.
Reporters at the press conference cited case after case of real customers unable to navigate the MNsure system.  Those are the customers that the board needs to hear directly from, rather than the sycophants whose songs of praise will make board members feel better about themselves.

The press conference featured ever-slipping deadlines, earnest promises of future transparency (in contrast to the opacity currently on offer), and a tech surge backed by unknown funding sources (somebody has to pay for those dozens of IBM’ers running around).  However, until the Governor and MNsure’s management realize that the agency’s problems are ones of substance, rather than appearance, expect little to change.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

A tip from The Network led me to this organization chart for the Minnesota Department of Human Services.

It turns out that the new interim “CEO” of the embattled state healthcare insurance exchange MNsure, Scott Leitz, was until today, the Assistant Commissioner for Health Care Administration.
His deputy, James Golden, is now better known as a tropical vacationer, accompanying the former Executive Director of MNsure to Costa Rica last month.

As Golden’s direct supervisor, Leitz would have likely had to approve Golden’s two-week vacation.
As Leitz’s deputy, Golden would be first in line to assume Leitz’s position at DHS, at least on an interim basis.

These are the sort of questions that I hope get answered at tomorrow’s press conference.

Monday, December 16, 2013

Priorities

As summer was drawing to a close, questions were being raised about funding for the controversial new Vikings stadium.  The oversight committee, the Legislative Commission on Minnesota Sports Facilities, hadn’t met in four months.

Back on September 10th, a “frustrated” State Representative, Joe Atkins (D-Inver Grove Heights), ran to the Channel 5 TV cameras and demanded that the Commission meet.
Last night on Channel 5, State Senator Sean Nienow (R-Cambridge) was wondering why another legislative oversight committee hasn’t met over the last four months.  The MNsure Oversight Committee, co-chaired by Rep. Atkins, hasn’t held a meeting since September 24th. 

MNsure, Minnesota’s local branch of Obamacare, has lurched from disaster to catastrophe since its shaky October 1st start—even while top state government healthcare officials vacation together in tropical Costa Rica.
By their actions you shall know them

The Vikings get the headlines, but MNsure’s troubles will have a larger impact on the economy and the public health of the state.  More Minnesotans have lost insurance coverage than gained it in the 3½ months since the health insurance exchange launched.  Oversight has been non-existent.  Indeed, Atkins’ committee is not scheduled to meet again until January.  Strange priorities.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

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.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

The Politics of Poverty, Part 1

Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten recently wrote about the Metropolitan Council regional government and its efforts to remake the region’s demography using data collected through a “Fair Housing and Equity Assessment.”  Kersten writes,

Using these data, the council will lay out what the region’s 187 municipalities must do to disperse poverty.