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With an insider’s eye, Hot Dish tracks the tastiest bits of Minnesota’s political scene and keep you up-to-date on those elected to serve you.

Contributors in Minnesota: Jennifer Brooks, Baird Helgeson, Mike Kaszuba, Patricia Lopez, Jim Ragsdale, Brad Schrade and Rachel E. Stassen-Berger. Contributors in D.C.: Kevin Diaz and Corey Mitchell.

Posts about 1st District

Two DFL takes on the 'Plan B' debacle

Posted by: Kevin Diaz Updated: December 21, 2012 - 2:28 PM

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Minnesota Democrat Tim Walz, leading an effort to force a U.S. House vote on extending the Bush-era tax cuts on the first $250,000 of income, called on House Speaker John Boehner Friday to keep negotiating with President Obama.
 
“We still have to find a solution,” Walz said. “I refuse to believe we cannot do it.”
 
Walz was one of only two Minnesotans in Congress to talk publicly Friday about Boehner’s failed attempt to vote on so-called “Plan B” legislation.
 
The other one was Democrat Keith Ellison, who issued a statement saying, “Instead of Plan A—a bipartisan agreement with the President—Speaker Boehner tried to bring a Tea Party wish list to the floor last night known as ‘Plan B.’”
 
Walz and Ellison, however, represent two different sides of the Democratic coin. Walz said Democrats will have to consider reforms to federal health and retirement plans as part of a larger deal on new taxes and spending cuts. Ellison, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has ruled out voting for any benefit cuts.
 
Walz, however, said Republicans have not shown much willingness to negotiate, no matter how much centrist Democrats are willing to bend. “It’s become obvious it doesn’t matter what we said,” Walz told Minnesota reporters Friday. “I could have proposed a trillion-to-one on revenue to cuts, and they still would have rejected it. This is ideological rigidness.”
 
Meanwhile, Minnesota Republicans in Congress stayed mum on the Plan B debacle, which has raised questions about Boehner’s speakership. But departing one-term Rep. Chip Cravaack said early Thursday he was prepared to vote against the Plan B proposal unless it was paired with significant cuts on the spending side.
 
Alas, the Plan B vote was cancelled for lack of support from Republicans.

Walz, Quist snag dueling gun group endorsements

Posted by: Corey Mitchell Updated: October 8, 2012 - 11:21 AM

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Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Walz and his Republican challenger, Allen Quist, have snagged dueling gun group endorsements.
 
The National Rifle Association endorsed Walz in the First Congressional District race while the Gun Owners of America, another pro-Second Amendment group, endorsed Quist. The candidates are vying to represent the state's First Congressional District, which stretches across southern Minneosta.
 
Leaders of the 4.3 million NRA said Walz earned an ‘A’ rating for his voting record, including his support of bills that would promote “America’s hunting heritage” and provide an “amnesty period during which veterans and their family members could register firearms acquired overseas between 1934 and 1968 without fear of prosecution.”
 
The choice for gun owners in this election is clear,” the NRA’s chief lobbyist Chris Cox said in a release. “Tim Walz will protect our Second Amendment freedoms and hunting heritage.”
 
The 300,000-member Gun Owners of America has often publicly criticized how the NRA endorses and rates candidates.
 
“Allen Quist is a rock-solid Second Amendment supporter who will always stand up for your gun rights,” GOA vice chairman Tim May said in a release. “His opponent in this race, Tim Walz, claims to support gun rights but his record tells a different story.”
 
The group criticized Walz for voting to maintain a gun ban “on millions of acres of National Park Service land” and for the supporting the Affordable Care Act “despite concerns of gun owners that government bureaucrats could use information gleaned from a medical records database to strip away people’s Second Amendment rights.”
 
In Minnesota, the NRA also endorsed Republican U.S. Reps. Michele Bachmann, Chip Cravaack and John Kline.

Low turnout in Minnesota primary

Posted by: Rachel E. Stassen-Berger Updated: August 15, 2012 - 11:37 AM

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 Fewer than one in every ten Minnesota voters went to the polls in Tuesday's primary, according to preliminary estimates from the Secretary of State's office.

About 9 percent of eligible voters showed up. That compares to the approximately 16 percent that turned out in the primary two years ago, the first year Minnesota held its primary in August rather than September.

Unlike the 2010 primary, which posted turnout numbers that were about average, this year's primary had no high-profile statewide contest. In 2010, Democrats  sorted out which candidate for governor to advance to November.

The 2012 turnout varied widely across the state.

About 70,000 voters in the northern Eighth Congressional District showed up on Tuesday, most on the Democratic side of the ledger. They were charged with picking which DFLer should face Republican U.S. Rep. Chip Cravaack. They picked former U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan.

Meanwhile, down in the southern First Congressional District just under 40,000 voters cast ballots, about 23,000 of them voting in the GOP primary. Republicans picked former state lawmaker Allen Quist to face U.S. Rep. Tim Walz Tuesday.

You can see all the results here.

Update:

The turnout results are also below 2008 figures, when there was a U.S. Senate race on the ballot. In that year about 11 percent of eligible voters turned out.

But they are above 2004, when there was no statewide race on the ballot. That year, fewer than eight percent of voters went to the polls.

See historic primary turnout figures below:

Minnesota

Embattled congressional candidate Mike Parry ducks the press.

Posted by: Jennifer Brooks Updated: August 9, 2012 - 3:23 PM

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The press wanted a word with Mike Parry.

The word they got was "unavailable."

The First District congressional candidate was back at the Capitol Thursday to helm aSenate hearing into a new tentative contract deal between the state and its largest employee unions. Instead, he faced questions -- first from Senate Democrats, then from reporters -- about how he's conducting his campaign.

Just days before, the second-term Republican from Waseca claimed he'd witnessed Gov. Mark Dayton popping "15 or 16" pills during a meeting. The claim sparked a spirited denial from Dayton and harsh criticism of Parry from other quarters.

During the hearing, DFL committee members questioned whether he'd called the hearing as a pre-election stunt to grab headlines. He faces former lawmaker Allen Quist in a contested GOP primary next Tuesday. The winner will challenge incumbent Democratic Rep. Tim Walz in November.

Asked about the charges after the hearing, Parry said: "Excuse me, if you want to talk about the [congressional] race, then we'll go outside and talk about it."

When? Reporters wanted to know. Fifteen minutes.  Where? The lawn outside the Capitol.

Fifteen minutes came and went. Then another 15 minutes. Finally, a sheepish GOP staffer emerged to announce that Parry would be "unavailable." 

Attempts to reach Parry for comment thus far have been unsuccessful.

This isn't the first time Parry has evaded the Capitol press corps.Last March, he pulled Senate President MIchelle Fischbach away from reporters and closed an office door in their faces.  It isn't even the first time today that he walked away from a stressful situation. During the hearing, Parry called an abrupt recess when the large crowd of union supporters in the room snickered when DFL senators questioned his motives.

"I let the sparring go maybe a little bit too long between the representatives," Parry told reporters afterward, when asked about the recess. "I just felt it was time just to slow it down and the best way to do that is to call a recess, let everyone just cool down."

 

 

Candidate sticks by claim that governor pops pills

Posted by: Jennifer Brooks Updated: August 7, 2012 - 1:13 PM

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Congressional candidate Mike Parry is sticking by his claim that he witnessed the governor of Minnesota popping handfuls of pills during a breakfast meeting.

Mike Parry, one of two Republicans vying in the First District congressional primary, was caught on video Monday evening claiming that he'd seen Gov. Mark Dayton swallow "15 or 16 pills," and said it would be "scary" if the governor oversaw a DFL-majority legislature after November.

Parry offered no evidence to support his claim.

The governor pushed back hard Tuesday, calling Parry's remarks "a lie" and the "worst form of gutter politics" by a politician who's about to lose an election.

The two converged at Farmfest Tuesday, where Parry, a state senator from Waseca, was participating in a morning candidate forum and Dayton was the afternoon's keynote speaker.

Despite calls for an apology, Parry stuck by his remarks.

Maybe it wasn't 15 or 16 pills, he conceded, but "it was more than just a few" and "they weren't M&M peanuts, which he seems like." He could not recall the date of the alleged incident. He said the pills were sitting on the table while the two of them were having breakfast.

"I was there. I saw it," Parry told reporters after the candidate forum. "I saw it. I said it. I was there."

He stopped short of saying outright that he thought the governor of Minnesota was a drug addict.

"I have all the sympathy in the world for people that have issues like that," he said. "What I was speaking about was that it would be very scary, very scary if our governor ended up with a House and a Senate that was controlled by one party. I truly believe that this state, in my mind, would turn into one of the most socialistic states in the nation."

Dayton, who says he takes medication for depression, said he doesn't expect an apology for the pill remark, but he'd like one for another claim Parry made at the Monday fundraiser -- that he'd cut services to veterans. Parry also declined to make that apology.

Asked whether he thought the governor is fit to lead, Parry -- who once suggested the governor should resign over last year's government shutdown -- said: "I never said he was, I never said he wasn't."

inside the StarTribune