A report from Washington correspondent Conrad Wilson:

WASHINGTON - The English-only debate it back … well, kinda.

Minnesota Reps. Michele Bachmann and John Kline want to see English as the official language of the United States. And their efforts have not been made in vain.

Recently, Bachmann and Kline were recognized by the advocacy group U.S. English for their “efforts to promote English as the unifying language of the United States.”

The Minnesota Republicans were among the 130 House members from 37 states (in both parties) to receive an “A in English” award, based on their votes and work in Congress to help make English the official language of the U.S. .

The group, U.S. English Inc., actually “graded” Congress, including the entire Minnesota delegation.

While both Kline and Bachmann scored the “highest,” honorable mentions included Republican Rep. Jim Ramstad, who received a B+ and Democrat Rep. Collin Peterson, who received a B.

Democrat Reps. Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum, Jim Oberstar and Tim Walz all “failed” — a.k.a., voted against all the proposals.

The grades were based on a series of votes including a bill (H.R. 997 - the English Language Unity Act) as well as a series of measures to reduce multilingual ballots, reduce multilingualism at the IRS, and English in the work-place policies.

“If we were all to come here today and speak only our native tongues, we would be unable to share our thoughts and ideas, let alone make the laws for 300 million Americans,” said Mauro Mujica, the chairman of U.S. English, in a statement. “Through their support of official English legislation, these members are ensuring that government will be on the side of promoting English, not separating groups along language lines.”

But not everyone is giving out passing grades.

Katherine Fennelly, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Hubert Humphrey School of Public Affairs, called this type of legislation “unnecessary and divisive.”

“The vast majority of individuals in the U.S. speak English, and a number of studies have shown that by the second generation children of immigrants acquire English, but lose their ability to speak their parents’ languages,” Fennelly wrote in an email. “In this age of globalization, bilingualism should be viewed as an asset, not a deficit.”

Fennelly added: “Outlawing the use of other languages will do nothing to promote English learning; instead, it will put many individuals who have not been here long enough to have become fluent at risk. There are also potential threats to public safety of citizens and non-citizens alike if non-English speakers are unable to secure needed emergency services from medical, police and safety personnel.”

Bachmann disagreed, saying a common language provides unity.

“Sharing a common language helps to bring people together and to give new immigrants a faster ladder to success,” Bachmann said in a statement. “I am thrilled to be receiving this award and I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues to promote the English language in America.”

-Conrad Wilson

Gustavus Adolphus political science professor Chris Gilbert contributed to a weekend story in the Star Tribune on how the legislative session, now entering its final week, has been shaped.

As often happens, space contraints would not permit publication of all the interesting perspectives Gilbert has to offer on the relationship among Gov. Tim Pawlenty, DFL legislative leaders and the Republican minority caucuses.

Here are Gilbert’s thoughts, as delivered in an e-mail, on how well DFLers and Republicans appear to have worked together, how Pawlenty fits into the picture and whether Pawlenty’s chance for the spotlight on the national stage may have an impact on things.

“From what we have seen and heard to date, this session is likely to be marked as successful, and not just in comparison with recent years… This session highlights the fact that competition in state government is not just between two major parties; it is also between branches of government.

“Both parties in the Legislature recognize the ultimate power of the governor to shape final legislation. Clearly the GOP leadership responds differently to the separation of powers,
because their legislative leaders have more in common with Governor Pawlenty.

“But I think it’s significant that the legislative GOP leadership wants to come to resolution on these key issues rather than see the budget gap settled by unallotment. It would be easy for the GOP to walk away from the bargaining table at the legislative level, but their electoral chances are surely enhanced if the budget gap is closed by legislative action, not gubernatorial fiat.

“Moreover, I was really struck on Tuesday, listening to several
legislators on both sides of the aisle, that there is substantial
agreement that Minnesota faces significant challenges. Certainly, the outlines of the solution to those challenges differ greatly between the DFL and the Republicans, but I sensed we might be on the verge of a much healthier working relationship than what we’ve seen in the last 5-6 years.

“It’s very interesting to me that the healthy working relationship is within the Legislature, not yet necessarily between the Legislature and the governor. We’ve seen on more than one issue that the governor’s decisions have hung some prominent members of his own party out to dry - the Central Corridor project is one major example, and the entire handling of Carol Molnau’s leadership of MNDOT did not reflect well on the governor’s office, and legislative Republicans know it.

“It’s not surprising that the GOP leadership in the Legislature feels the need to establish its own agenda and feels pressure to get some credit for whatever outcomes the GOP will feel comfortable with.

“The notable lack of [Pawlenty] coattails in 2006 was a signal that House Republicans need to establish their own credentials for reelection, not rely on the governor for assistance.

“Whether Pawlenty has been too peoccupied with his own political future is hard to say from the outside. What is clear is that while the governor is an effective idea generator, he exhibits a lack of consistency in the legislative bargaining process that is counterproductive to getting things done. When he has won showdowns with the legislature in the past, those victories have been on his terms, but that doesn’t negate the fact that the governor’s office projects an image of feeling entitled to get its way.

“The notable lack of class evidenced when he did not get his way on transportation highlighted how tense his relationship remains with the legislature.

“Finally, the overwhelming sense I get this year, compared to
previous years, is an atmosphere of action. Things are being
accomplished. Major issues are starting to be addressed. No single legislative session will ’solve’ all of the state’s concerns with health care, transportation, environmental concerns, or education. In that respect we tend to hold up singular events like the “Minnesota Miracle” and expect such comprehensive solutions to emerge.

“But state government is far more complex today than it was 35-40 years ago, and the two traditional major parties have far more divergent views of the role of government today. What we can expect is exactly what the Legislature is delivering - progress in addressing old and emerging
problems.

“And the major lingering question is whether the governor will choose to go along with some or all of these solutions. It seems to me it’s in everybody’s interests to make a deal.

“On the governor’s national hopes, it seems more remote every day that he will be McCain’s vice president. He has some surface
qualities that would balance the GOP ticket, but Pawlenty has never received 50 percent of the statewide vote (so the idea that the Republicans carry Minnesota is a stretch). He is not so compelling a figure that our neighboring states will fall in line (Iowa and Wisconsin just don’t look at Minnesota as a bellwether, nor are they likely to start just because a Midwesterner is on the ticket), and a host of other contenders offer a higher national profile and/or more experience to begin with.

“In the governor’s defense, it’s clear after 6 years that (rightly or wrongly) he does not believe in tax increases - his cigarette fee increase being a fiasco probably helped cement that - and he’s not holding the line on this simply to remain a viable VP contender (although holding the line on no tax increases is necessary to remain viable).”

A report from Washington correspondent Conrad Wilson:

NEW YORK - U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken has attributed various business and tax irregularities to errors by his longtime New York accountant.

A report from Minnesota Public Radio says that a dozen local accountants agree the latest errors are somewhat surprising coming from a firm that specializes in work for entertainers.

On Tuesday Franken reported that because of an accounting error, he owes $70,000 in back taxes and penalties in 17 states where he gave speeches or performed. He said his accountant mistakenly paid all his taxes in his state of residence at the time — New York from 2003 to 2005, Minnesota in 2006.

But if the firm has any history of making serious mistakes, they apparently have not resulted in litigation. A Star Tribune review this week of New York court records and federal court records nationwide showed no lawsuits filed against the New York-based entertainment accounting firm of Wlodinguer, Erk & Chanzis.

When word broke of the back taxes, the Star Tribune sent a reporter — me — up to New York to find Chanzis and seek comment on the Franken situation.

As reported in Thursday’s paper, I found Chanzis at his Long Island apartment Wednesday evening. But he declined to say anything. To be honest, the modest apartment was not what one might expect for a bookkeeper to the stars.

“I’ve been told to say, ‘No comment,’” Chanzis said, without saying who had instructed him to do so.

Refusing to discuss any mistakes, he added: “I’ve been told you have the information you need.”

I made another attempt to get comment on Thursday morning, this time at Chanzis’ office in New York, where platinum records covered the walls.

An office assistant confirmed Chanzis’s employment there but refused to comment.

“There’s no one here to talk to you,” she said.

“We do his accounting,” she said of the firm’s relationship with Franken.

Another person in the office noted that the only reason she knew about Franken’s tax issue was that she saw the story on StarTribune.com.

-Conrad Wilson

A report from Washington correspondent Conrad Wilson:

WASHINGTON - Sen. Amy Klobuchar got busy writing letters last week calling for not one, but two investigations.

In a letter sent Thursday to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the Democratic senator called for the creation of an oil and gas market task force to investigate the increasing price of fuel.

Klobuchar noted that state attorney generals and energy market experts have told Congress that the high fuel prices can’t be explained my market forces.

“In my state of Minnesota, farmers are paying record-high prices for fertilizer and fuel,” Klobuchar wrote in her letter. “The timber and chemical industries are suffering from the rising cost of natural gas. And families are being forced to make increasingly difficult budget choices — for example, between filling prescriptions and heating their homes.

“These are choices no family should have to make.”

On Friday, Klobuchar wrote the Federal Trade Commission urging officials there to look into possible price gouging by OVATION Pharmaceuticals.

A drug called intravenous indomethacin, a.k.a. Indocin I.V., is important for premature babies and has increased in price 18 fold since OVATION got the rights in 2005, according to Klobuchar’s office.

The drug helps infants with a heart condition called patent ductus areriosis (PDA). A release from Klobuchar’s office notes that OVATION owns the rights to intravenous ibuprofen, the only other drug that the Food and Drug Administration has approved to treat the condition.

This raises “questions whether the company’s purchase of Indocin I.V. and pricing structure is a move to corner the market for available drugs to treat PDA and will eventually lead to a monopolization of nonsurgical treatments for PDA,” the release argues.

OVATION said that Klobuchar’s critiques betray a lack of understanding.

Before OVATION purchased Indocin I.V. in 2005 the product was often unavailable, leaving a costly surgery as the only alternative, said Sally Benjamin Young, vice president of communications for OVATION.

The market for PDA is small, with about 30,000 babies affected.

Young also noted that the patent for Indocin I.V. expired in 1981. “Any generic could come in at any time,” Young said. “There’s been no patent protection for this product.”

As for the price increases - which occurred two years ago - Young said that many of the upgrades were necessary and mandated by the FDA.

“This company is exploiting a life-saving drug to engage in price-gouging at the expense of vulnerable, premature babies,” Klobuchar said in a statement. “Even though it’s an American company, the price they charge in the U.S. is actually 44 times higher than what they sell it for in Canada. Nothing can justify that kind of huge price disparity.”

Young responded: “No baby that we know of have gone without this drug. No child has been denied treatment because of these price increases. … Nobody else is paying attention to PDA; it’s a very small market.”
-Conrad Wilson

Veteran environmental reporter Greg Breining offers this charming and valuable essay about the local food movement in the new issue of Minnesota Monthly. (And here’s a podcast where he expands on his theme.)

Breining and his wife, Susan, spent a couple of weeks eating mainly local foods, including some they’d procured as hunters. Meantime, Greg researched and scrutinized many of the broader claims of “eat local” advocates — claims, for example, that by restricting ourselves to local diets we would benefit the local economy and the environment while enjoying fresher, more nutritious food.

Breining liked much of the local food he ate, but found the bigger virtues attributed to local eating harder to swallow. To wit:

Read the rest of this entry »

Superdelegate Nancy Larson’s 15 minutes of fame just won’t quit, much to her amazement.

After agonizing over whether to support Hilary Clinton or Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, Larson finally came down on the Obama side, making her final decision last Saturday.

End of agony, right? Wrong.

After calling Team Clinton on Saturday to tell them of her decision, Larson said she got a return phone call from Clinton’s national campaign manager, who pushed hard to get her to switch back. Larson politely declined.

But it didn’t stop there. About 10 p.m., she said, “my phone rings.” On the other end was Chelsea Clinton, wanting to know what could she do to bring Larson over to her mom’s side.

“I was a little flabbergasted,” Larson said on Monday. “It was awkward, really. It really puts you on the spot to tell a daughter why you don’t support her mom.”

Larson’s no newbie. A one-time lieutenant governor candidate, lobbyist and longtime DFL activist and lobbyist, Larson has been through the delegate dance before, when John Kerry’s adult children called with similar pleas.

“They all think their moms and dads are the greatest,” Larson said.

Sunday night it was Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack on the line, asking her to reconsider.

“It’s really kind of relentless,” Larson said.

Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., introduced an amendment to the U.S. Constitution Wednesday to end the use of the death penalty.

Her proposal comes on the same day that a U.S. Supreme Court decision will likely restart executions in the United States after a six month hiatus, and as Pope Benedict XVI, who she called “the most high-profile death penalty opponent in the world,” pays his first visit to America.

“Criminals who are found guilty of committing heinous acts should be sentenced to life in prison as a punishment and for the well-being of society,” McCollum said. “The death penalty, by contrast, does not serve society’s interests - it is damaging and harmful. Fighting crime, achieving justice, and elevating human dignity are all damaged by state-sponsored executions.

“We know the death penalty is more expensive to implement than regular sentences, it does not reduce crime, and it imposes a shared societal responsibly for killing another human being on behalf of a justice system that is clearly not perfect.”

Other than the press release, there was no formal announcement of this initiative. It remains to be seen whether any of the House’s Democratic leaders, now facing an election year, will want to take up McCollum’s death penalty challenge.

The Congressional Budget Office offers this new, enlightening discussion of the mortgage-finance mess and the formidable difficulty of doing much about it.

The study is timely, with politicians nationally and locally scrambling to do — or to appear to do — something or anything to stop the soaring of foreclosure rates and the plummeting of house prices.

The gist of the analysts’ thinking is stated pithily (well, by CBO standards) in the introduction, where the report suggests that government intervention may be able to achieve some objectives but probably can’t achieve others.

New government interventions to aid distressed homeowners and/or their lenders could succeed in rescuing some home buyers who were led astray by predatory lending practices, the report says. But in the bargain they would almost certainly bail out many others who simply over-reached, got caught up in the speculative fever, or had a notion of making a quick killing themselves.

Intervention could help prevent an excessive downward spiral in house prices, which — like a speculative bubble in reverse — threatens to take prices well below their rational level, the CBO believes.

But government action isn’t going to save us from a continuing and discomforting decline in home prices — from their bubble level to a more rational level. What’s more, the report notes, in the unlikely event that policy could slow this necessary adjustment, it would be harmful, delaying the inevitable and prolonging the pain.

Question: Given this witches brew of dangers, is the political response likely to be too little, too much — or just right?

Two scenes played out on Saturday, almost simultaneously, that vividly portray ideological divides in Minnesota.

Tax protesters at the State Capitol carried signs encouraging the defeat of the six Republican House members who voted to override Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s veto of a $6.6 billion transportation bill earlier this session. The targeted lawmakers included Edina Repbulican Rep. Ron Erhardt.

Across town, at the Wayata Middle School, the most partisan of DFL activists were endorsing a candidate for the Third Congressional District when who should walk through a side door but Erhardt. He was introduced to the audience and received a standing ovation for the same vote that provoked calls for his outster at the tax rally.

Erhardt, serving his ninth term in the House, was denied the Republican endorsement for his own House race and will run without it in the primary.

Erhardt stuck around for more than an hour at the DFL convention, saying he was there to support long-time friend Terri Bonoff in her congressional bid. (She lost to Ashwin Madia.)

But his presence stirred speculation about whether Erhardt was being recruited or was considering switching parties.

Asked if he was bolting to the DFL, Erhardt deadpanned: “Not yet.”

According to The Atlantic Monthly, reporters covering Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race this year shouldn’t count on getting a lift from Al Franken.

That’s one of the amusing bits arising out of a largely flattering piece in the May Atlantic on Franken, considered the favorite to secure the DFL Party endorsement to run against incumbent Norm Coleman this fall.

The theme of the story by Atlantic senior editor Joshua Green is that Franken, who has built a wildly successful career out of being both funny and confrontational, needs to convince Minnesotans that he’s as serious and somber — and presumably dull — a candidate as any of the rest of them.

One of the ways for the Franken campaign to do this, according to Green, is to limit face time for reporters with the candidate as much as possible, to avoid the chance that he will make an unguarded remark that will explode into the headlines the next day.

Green found this out when he wasn’t allowed to ride along with Franken and his staff on a campaign swing in February through St. Paul, the suburbs and Isanti County.

“To project a more senatorial air,” Green writes, “Franken is trying hard to watch what he says, and his staff has placed him in a kind of protective custody: journalists are not allowed to ride along, as is standard campaign practice, lest they overhear and report an undignified remark.”

So, Green adds, he spent most of the day in a rental car chasing the Franken hybrid SUV.

It didn’t take long for the Coleman campaign to state its claim that the senator is always available for questions and has, in fact, already conducted a ride-along interview “with one of the state’s larger newspapers” (it wasn’t us).

“Given a strategy of isolating Franken from the Minnesota press,” writes Coleman spokesman Tom Erickson in a statement, “the phrase ‘Where’s Franken’ may soon become one of the state’s most often asked questions in the campaign.”

Franken spokesperson Jess McIntosh said the campaign doesn’t have any kind of ironclad policy keeping reporters out of the candidate’s car.

“I wasn’t on that trip, so I don’t know why [Green] wasn’t allowed a ride-along,” McIntosh said. “We have granted ride-alongs in the past and I’m sure it will happen in the future. The last time I didn’t grant one was because Al was making fund-raising calls in the car and we didn’t think it was fair to the other person on the line.”

According to Andy Barr, Franken’s campaign manager, Green was kept out of the campaign vehicle that day because Franken was calling state legislators and wanted to keep the conversations private. McIntosh points out that Green was given ample opportunity to observe Al at his Minneapolis townhouse and talk with the candidate over raspberry pie after his campaign appearances.

Erickson fails to highlight other parts of the article, which note that Franken has built an enviable grassroots machine with one of the most impressive political fundraising operations in the country, and that Coleman “may be the Senate’s most vulnerable incumbent.”

Green writes that although Franken’s “short fuse will become a liability” should he get DFL backing to run against Coleman — St. Thomas professor Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer is running hard to head him off at the state convention in June — he is “a ferocious policy wonk” who has especially inspired “broad and enthusiastic support” among young voters.