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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, Patricia Lopez, Jim Ragsdale, Rachel E. Stassen-Berger and Glen Stubbe. Contributors in D.C.: Kevin Diaz and Corey Mitchell.

Posts about 2012 Presidential election

Bachmann goes up early on the airwaves this week

Posted by: Kevin Diaz Updated: May 15, 2013 - 7:37 PM

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Embattled U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann is starting an unusual off-election-year ad campaign in the Twin Cities, according to filings with the Federal Communication Commission.
 
The ad campaign, first reported in the National Journal, begins Thursday, a full 18 months before voters go to the polls.  
 
Records show that Bachmann’s campaign will run more than two dozen spots on KMSP, the local Fox affiliate, over the next two weeks. The $14,565 ad buy is part of a larger campaign that weighs in at closer to $85,000, according to Democratic sources.
 
A spokesman for Bachmann said he could not discuss the content of the ads.
 
The ads come as the Minnesota Republican is reportedly in settlement talks in connection with a politically-damaging lawsuit stemming from the alleged theft of a staffer’s email list by the Iowa chairman of Bachmann’s 2012 presidential campaign.
 
Bachmann also is scheduled to take part in a Capitol Hill press conference Thursday on IRS “intimidation” of Tea Party groups, an issue that could highlight her credentials as a Tea Party leader and former IRS attorney.
 
She also is sponsoring a new bill to repeal Obamacare, an issue that helped thrust her into a national spotlight three years ago. The repeal bill, which is scheduled for a House vote Thursday, represents the 37th time the GOP-led House has voted to defund all or part of the law.
 
Bachmann has been raising money at a furious pace in recent months, playing against her status as a top target for the House Majority PAC, the leading House Democratic super PAC. She faces a rematch next year with DFL businessman Jim Graves, who lost to her by little more than one percentage point in November.
 
Graves said he hadn't seen the ads, adding "candidly, I'm not very interested." His focus, he said, is employment and the business climate in the district.

Affidavit says Bachmann approved hidden payments to Iowa senator

Posted by: Kevin Diaz Updated: April 22, 2013 - 11:35 AM

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WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s former chief of staff, GOP operative Andy Parrish, stated in a signed affidavit Monday that the Minnesota Republican approved payments made to a top aide who was barred by Iowa Senate ethics rules from accepting money for his work on her presidential campaign.
 
The suspected payments to Iowa Sen. Kent Sorenson, first alleged in a Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint filed by campaign whistleblower Peter Waldron, are now the subject of an inquiry by the Iowa Senate Ethics Committee.
 
Sorenson or his company, Grassroots Strategy, allegedly were paid $7,500 a month through C&M Strategies, a Colorado-based company run by Bachmann fundraiser Guy Short, who was serving as the campaign’s national political director.
 
“Congresswoman Bachmann knew of and approved this arrangement,” Parrish said in his affidavit. “She, like the rest of us, understood from Senator Sorenson that it did not run afoul of any Iowa Senate ethics rules. We relied on his representations in this regard.”
 
Sorensen, who switched allegiances from Bachmann to Ron Paul days before the 2012 Iowa caucuses, has called the payment allegations “totally baseless.”
 
Parrish, a close Bachmann aide who worked in her congressional office and on her presidential bid, said he was instrumental in recruiting Sorenson, a Tea Party figure who served as the chairman of Bachmann’s Iowa campaign.
 
Bachmann’s campaign acknowledged the restrictions Sorenson faced in an October 27, 2011, press release, two months before the Iowa Caucuses, where she finished sixth and dropped out: “Sorenson is serving in a full-time role but state Senate rules preclude lawmakers from being paid by the campaign.”
 
But according to Parrish, Sorenson was instead paid indirectly through C&M Strategies. Such an arrangement could potentially skirt Iowa ethics rules designed to avoid conflicts of interest between state officials and candidates in the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses.
 
Short is also the subject of an FEC inquiry because he was being paid by Bachmann’s independent political organization, MichelePAC, at the same time that he was working on her presidential campaign, a potential violation of federal election rules.
 
Attorneys for Short and the Bachmann campaign say his work for Michele PAC, which paid him $40,000 in the months preceding and after the caucuses, was separate from his campaign work.
 
The alleged financial improprieties are the subject of a separate inquiry by the independent Office of Congressional Ethics, which is also looking into whether the campaign improperly helped promote Bachmann’s political memoir, Core of Conviction.
 
The investigations are part of a growing web of legal problems facing Bachmann, including a lawsuit by former staffer Barbara Heki alleging that Sorenson stole a proprietary e-mail list of Iowa home-school families from her personal computer. Those allegations also are the subject of an ongoing police investigation in Urbandale, Iowa.
 
Here is the affidavit:
 
 

Parrish Affidavit

Iowa ethics panel wants to hear from ex-Bachmann staffer

Posted by: Kevin Diaz Updated: April 17, 2013 - 5:01 PM

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Iowa State Sen. Kent Sorenson

Iowa State Sen. Kent Sorenson

The Iowa Senate Ethics Committee handling an ethics complaint against the state chairman of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign agreed Wednesday to give a confidential Minnesota informant in the case 10 days to step forward with information in the case.
 
The six-member panel – made up of three Republicans and three Democrats – wants to hear from a former Bachmann campaign staffer identified only as “Witness A,” who can reportedly corroborate allegations that the campaign hid payments to Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson.
 
Sorenson has denied the allegations, which also are being investigated by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and, indirectly, the Office of Congressional Ethics. Sorenson rocked the Bachmann campaign in the waning days of the Iowa caucuses when he left to join the campaign of rival Ron Paul.
 
Iowa Senate rules prohibit members from working on a presidential campaign for pay. The allegations have been brought forward by former Bachmann aide Peter Waldron, a Florida pastor who claims Sorenson was paid through a company controlled by campaign fundraiser Guy Short.
 
Waldron has told the ethics committee that the informant is prepared to come forward publicly.
 
St. Paul attorney John Gilmore told TheIowaRepublican Tuesday that he represents the informant, who he termed “extremely well-known to the Bachmann world.”
 
Iowa Sen. Wally Horn, a Democrat who chairs the ethics committee, told the Star Tribune Wednesday that the committee needs a publicly sworn affidavit from “Witness A” or it will dismiss the complaint.

WIN Minnesota has set up a federal Super PAC

Posted by: Rachel E. Stassen-Berger Updated: January 9, 2013 - 8:28 PM

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Updated

WIN Minnesota, the fundraising powerhouse behind the pro-Democrat Alliance for a Better Minnesota, has set up a federal Super PAC, according to documents filed with the Federal Elections Commission.

The new flavor of political organization will add to its arsenal of ways to help get Democrats elected and spend on federal campaigns.

Asked if the new committee should be taken as a sign that the groups would concentrate on defending U.S. Sen. Al Franken or other Minnesota Democratic federal candidates in 2014, WIN Minnesota executive director Adam Duininck said: "I think right now we just want to keep our options open."

Super PACs can make raise unlimited funds, including from corporations or unions, and were a powerful force in the 2012 presidential election.

WIN Minnesota already had a state fundraising committee and a non-profit arm to help direct wealthy donors, unions' and others contributions.  The Alliance for a Better Minnesota also had a separate 527 political committee.

Expect at least one more filing sometime soon from the Alliance folks. The other fundraising arm of the effort is now called 2012 Fund. Just as they groups closed down the 2010 Fund and started the 2012 Fund in after the 2010 election season ended, so too will they close down the 2012 Fund and create a 2014 Fund.

13031001192 by Rachel E. Stassen-Berger

Fergus Falls band to march in Obama's inaugural parade

Posted by: Rachel E. Stassen-Berger Updated: December 19, 2012 - 3:21 PM

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Toot the horns and bang the drums, the Fergus Falls High School Marching band will be joining the inaugural parade.

The January 21 parade will be President Barack Obama's second inauguration and the band's second inaugural parade performance. The students, from a city of just 13,000, marched four years ago wearing crisp white uniforms and tufted headpieces.

Four years ago, the band director said the Fergus Falls group was picked from among 1,300 applicants. This year the competition was even stiffer. The inaugural committee said that more than 2,800 groups applied to march in the parade.

See photos of the band's 2009 preparations and trip to DC.

Here's a video of the group's Yankee Doodle Dandy performance:

 

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