Karen Klinzing: A working parent, and a quick study

Nibbling on a scone and sipping a juice at the Caribou Coffee behind the Timber Lodge Steakhouse just around the corner from the Kinko's, State Rep.-elect Karen Klinzing talks with authority about the issues that affect average citizens in her district, which includes all but the northeast corner of Woodbury plus tiny Landfall in fast-growing Washington County.

In many ways, she could be the Rockwellian portrait of the new Minnesota suburban voter -- and of many of her freshman colleagues in the state House.

She is a young (32), suburban-bred (Bloomington) mother (two daughters). She is part of a two-income family of moderate means (she's a teacher, her husband an engineer at 3M). A Republican living in a fast-growing suburb (Woodbury) and working in another (Bloomington), she begins her daily commute early (5:45 in the morning). She recently anguished over the idea of taking a job in a school district closer to home but rejected it because it would have meant $7,000 a year less in income (it would cut into child care).

A surprise decision by former Republican state Rep. Jim Seifert to pull out of the District 56B race for personal reasons left the party scrambling to find a replacement. Several GOP operatives who had heard Klinzing speak at functions as a delegate to the Republican district and state conventions encouraged her to run, giving her 48 hours to decide. She defeated DFLer Matt Tourville by 3,500 votes in the general election in the heavily Republican district.

Perhaps as a testament to her skills at teaching civics to high schoolers but also possibly because of the strength in numbers of the freshman legislative class, Klinzing has been named an assistant majority leader, which gives her an immediate position on her caucus' executive committee.

She said she will approach the job of elected office with a somewhat jaundiced eye, after a brush with one powerful lobby group. Though she pays her obligatory fees to Education Minnesota, the teachers' union and lobby group, Klinzing quit any union activities after failing to win the group's endorsement.

That was after she refused to say, on a candidate questionnaire, that she would agree to raise taxes.

Her constituents are having to tighten their purse-strings; why shouldn't state government do the same? she reasons.

"It's not wrong to think that the people who are paying most of the bills should have a say in how things operate and where the money goes," she said. "They want good government, good services, but they want to pay the right price for it."

-- Mark Brunswick is at mbrunswick@startribune.com.