What the MN GOP can Learn From the February Special Election and Choosing a Candidate

Democrat Karla Bigham has beat Republican establishment pick Denny McNamara in the February 12th, Senate District 54 special election. It's an embarrassing loss for the GOP who saw Trump win by 6 points and two republican house members Jurgens and Franke also win in this district just over a year ago. It should have been easy to beat one of the most extreme left wing, tax and spend, democrats to have formerly been in office. Bigham, in her final year in the legislature, was one of only six democrats out of 87 in the legislature at the time to get a 0% lifetime rating by the non-partisan Tax Payers League.  Republicans could have offered a clear choice for voters by endorsing a fiscal conservative. But dropped the ball and instead picked the less liberal than Bigham moderate Denny McNamara. Moderate is putting it lightly, see: Fourteen Years of Broken Promises. No Problem. Denny McNamara Wins Republican Endorsement 

When will the Minnesota GOP realize that running candidates who are "democrat lite" is a sure way to lose to a democrat? They tried in district 23B to put an establishment moderate republican on the ticket for their 2/12 special election after delegates chose the more fiscal conservative Jeremy Munson at their endorsing convention: Speaker Kurt Daudt's MN Republican House Mafia Plans to Primary Against the GOP Endorsed Candidate. The delegate choice prevailed because he beat the democrat by 20 points! Munson campaigned on being against "wasteful government spending, high taxes, and over reaching government". For reference, District 23B is hardly a republican stronghold. In 2010 the democrat beat the republican by 13 points.

What the Minnesota GOP can learn from the February 12th special elections is to put up candidates like Jeremy Munson who support the party's core values and can communicate how that will improve the lives of voters over the opposing party's strategy of growing government and taxes. Whereas, candidates like McNamara who may say the same things; but have a record of growing government and taxes, but just not as much as a democrat, inspire no one (democrat lite). When these candidates are chosen they're easy to defeat when challenged by even the worst democrat. We all saw the massive amounts of ads against Bigham and her record of voting to raise almost every tax there is to raise. But it's all a waste when the opposing republican can't claim they'd do the opposite and propose legislation to lower taxes and spending. 

Speaker Daudt Blindsides Transportation Omnibus and Takes Out Met Council Oversight

Yesterday on 5/9/2017, in the dark of night at 10pm, the ten legislative members of the House and Senate Transportation Conference committee came together and made more adjustments to the Transportation omnibus bill. The meeting was scheduled for the morning and than moved later and later into the night. This $5.8 Billion dollar bill has a lot of needed funding for roads; but it's growing worse and worse with each meeting. Our last post covered this: GOP Caves on Mass Transit, Offers Dayton Dream Budget for the Met Council to Continue Transit Lines

As the title states, the GOP is not only funding the Met Council a raise to a total two year budget of $210.8 million, they are no longer taking away their power to keep bypassing the legislature regarding mass transit corridors. Before this action the meeting was going as planned. The committee members were rubber stamping small changes to the Bill passing "A17-0443.pdf" unanimously. They also approved unanimously the "DE amendment as amended". These amendments included things like the requirement for the Met Council to do a vibration study for the South West Light Rail (section 151). They also added that the Governor can appoint 1 member to the Met Council. There appears to be more items to work through before the house and senate versions fully match according to this DE document.

The meeting took a turn for the worse when Senator Newman introduced a request to approve an oral amendment to remove sections 125, 128, and 138 from the omnibus bill, starting on p.111. These measures were Representative Runbeck's and Senator Osmek's bill HF418/SF150 that was later included into the omnibus bill under these sections. The proposal was a requirement that no light rail corridor can be "studied, planned, designed, or constructed unless the legislature has explicitly authorized the particular project." This common sense measure would have returned the power to build these multi billion dollar white elephant transit corridors back to the State tax payers who fund them (with their elected legislators). 

The vote appeared to only take representative Runbeck and Senator Osmek by surprise. They were the only two no votes. Runbeck said in the meeting she spoke to the Transportation Commission Chair Representative Torkelson on the House floor earlier in the day and he stated to her the plan was to keep the measures in place. She asked for clarification and the room was silent as she and Osmek appeared to realize they were intentionally left out of the discussion. When it came time for representative Koznick to vote he "passed" and after the rest of the yes votes were counted he too sold out his principles to Speaker Kurt Daudt's selfish political ambitions and voted yes with the others. The reason the vote was put on the agenda was because House Speaker Kurt Daudt had it arranged according to one of the legislators on the committee. It is also the only explanation as most of the legislators on this 10 member conference committee were co-authors on the now removed bill to reign in the Met Council power.

Last month Speaker Daudt emailed me "Matt, Your posts are full of shit and you know it.  Is that clear enough for you?" in response to my article documenting the lack of leadership from Daudt to take a stand against mass transit: Four GOP Legislators are Silent After Attempt to Sneak Funding for Mass Transit in Omnibus Bill I had reminded him the party would be doomed in the 2018 election if the party can't get something as simple as to stop expanding failed mass transit.

No one is sure yet if Speaker Daudt will put his name in the running for Governor; if he is, I wonder what party he will run under. With his 9% budget increase offer to Dayton's 11% budget increase proposal and the pork filled Bonding bill, there's not a fiscal conservative I know of who's impressed with Daudt's leadership. 

 -$1.6 BILLION 2017 Bonding Bill. Legislators Say They Refuse to Cut Any Pork.

-Four GOP Legislators are Silent After Attempt to Sneak Funding for Mass Transit in Omnibus Bill  

-GOP Caves on Mass Transit, Offers Dayton Dream Budget for the Met Council to Continue Transit Lines

List of the Tens of Millions in Pork in the Dec. 20th 2016 Special Session Bill

Most of this Pork is in the 2017 bonding bill!
Check out the story and why it's important to get the ridiculous spending out:List of Tens of Millions in Pork in 2017 Bonding Bill

Response from Legislators was not good:
$1.6 BILLION 2017 Bonding Bill. Legislators Say They Refuse to Cut Any Pork. Call to Action.

Also:

GOP Senate Passes $5.8 Billion Transportation Bill with $180 Million to Met Council & Mass Transit a Huge Raise

Vice Chair Rep. Petersburg Promises No Transit Bills in 2017 House Transportation Omnibus Bill

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The Bill is the BILLION dollar HF622. It is now the infamous bill that failed to pass in the final moments of the 2016 session. The list below includes just some of the items we feel are ridiculous pork items in the bonding bill that have no business being in any State funding bill. Let alone a bill that would come from republicans.  

(correction: HF622 was not the bill the Governor recently almost signed. That bill was HF848)

we understand we need government spending. Roads, bridges, public safety, and all the functions of government included in our constitution... sure, you need to fund it. But parking ramps, dentist facilities, garden boards, sea lion exhibits, and little parks in cities we don't live in to name a few is insane... even for democrats who never say no.

Please review the list of things I am shocked came in this bill from our republican majority House... Given the fact they now took the Senate too perhaps they can take to their claim of being "fiscally responsible" and take a ton of this stuff out.

Please take this information and contact your state reps to say you want this pork out before the final language is set on December 16th. The special session meeting is on "about" December 20th according to: http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/sessiondaily/SDView.aspx?StoryID=12333

see who represents you: http://www.gis.leg.mn/iMaps/districts/

The 12 republicans who voted no on the final reading of the bill should be recognized for honoring their party's fiscal conservative campaign promise :

rep.sarah.anderson@house.mn
rep.mark.anderson@house.mn
rep.bob.barrett@house.mn
rep.matt.dean@house.mn (Washington County)
rep.steve.drazkowski@house.mn
rep.steve.green@house.mn
rep.dave.hancock@house.mn
rep.tim.kelly@house.mn
rep.kathy.lohmer@house.mn (Washington County)
rep.jenifer.loon@house.mn
rep.marion.oneill@house.mn
rep.nick.zerwas@house.mn

(there were 27 democrats who also voted no, perhaps for not enough spending)

Only 9 Republican senators voted no on the senate version of the bill:
sen.bruce.anderson@senate.mn
sen.david.brown@senate.mn
sen.roger.chamberlain@senate.mn (Washington County)
sen.karin.housley@senate.mn (washington County)
Dan D. Hall (56, R) 
sen.david.hann@senate.mn
sen.eric.pratt@senate.mn
sen.warren.limmer@senate.mn
sen.dave.thompson@senate.mn

The numbers to the left of the item are the page you will find the item. in red are my comments

https://legiscan.com/MN/text/HF622/id/1410557/Minnesota-2015-HF622-Engrossed.pdf

more details on the bill:
https://legiscan.com/MN/bill/HF622/2015

 We hand out hundreds of millions to our colleges. They build ridiculous buildings and facilities with the money and sponsor outrageously expensive sports programs... and at the same time charge ungodly rates on tuition... Coincidentally the Government offers the loans and makes even more money on the credit card level of interest they charge! My wife and I's student loan payment is more than our mortgage payment!!!

2.10 Sec. 2. UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA $81,567,000 

3.21 Sec. 3. MINNESOTA STATE COLLEGES $107,487,000

32.29 Subd. 8. St. Paul - Dorothy Day Opportunity Center for homeless people $12,000,000  

YET there's only $5 million in funding for VA facilities for our vets.

Why is the unelected Met Council getting tens of millions to build more failed transit lines in omnibus funding? How about we fund these ridiculous white elephants like many road projects in dedicated bills with a floor vote.

27.8 Sec. 17. METROPOLITAN COUNCIL 

27.12 Subd. 2. Metro Orange Line BRT $12,100,000

27.22 Subd. 3. Mall of America Station $8,750,000 For just ONE train stop!

37.32 Subd. 13. St. Paul - Science Museum of Minnesota Building Preservation $13,000,000 Why not raise the money from private donors like all the private owned museums do.

38.14 Subd. 14. St. Paul Port Authority - Minnesota Museum of American Art $6,000,000

28.24 Subd. 5. St. Paul - Como Zoo $12,000,000 for fancy new sea lion exhibit 

18.25 $4,000,000 To the Minnesota Zoological Garden Board

Why is government in the business of funding airports? If anything the local tax payers... not the entire State should be paying for their failed airports that can't apparently earn the money themselves.

52.29 (1) $4,985,000 for a grant to the city of Rochester for their Airport,

53.35 (2) $5,900,000 for the Duluth International and Sky Harbor Airports 

25.25 Koochiching County Airport Commission $3,000,000

35.7 Subd. 5. Bemidji - Regional Dental Facility $4,500,000 

35.20 Subd. 6. Hennepin County Center for the Arts $5,000,000

36.14 Subd. 9. Minneapolis - Norway House Event Center $5,000,000     These cities and counties should pay for their own unneeded crap

37.4 Subd. 11. Red Wing - River Town Renaissance Area $4,480,000

77.7 Subd. 6. Inver Grove Heights - Heritage Village Park $2,000,000

77.27 Subd. 12. West St. Paul - North Urban River Pedestrian Bridge $2,000,000

26.25 Subd. 9. Grand Rapids Pedestrian Bridge $750,000

20.16 Subd. 6. Granite Falls - Pioneer Public Television $1,950,000

19.33 Subd. 3. Centennial Parking Ramp at the capital $10,878,000

12.27 Subd. 6. Trail Development $11,490,000 Seriously look at the list of trails. they are trails from nowhere to nowhere mostly. Let the cities and counties build them if they want them so bad

15.12 Subd. 5. $9,250,000 for Polk County to complete a "regional integrated solid waste management system." 

A waste because it's a garbage burning system. These things are a HUGE waste of money and if we're bailing out all 87 counties that want to do this it's an unsustainable precedence. Washington County is going to hit the legislature up next... this just passed the county board last year:
The $170 Million Dollar Washington/Ramsey County Plan to Take Over Private Sector Garbage Processing

Not to mention the fact they are extremely harmful to the environment: