Global Search

politics

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 2nd District

U.S. House Democrats walk out on Kline job training agenda

Posted by: Kevin Diaz Updated: March 6, 2013 - 11:41 AM

  • share

    email

Democrats walked out on U.S. Rep. John Kline’s Education and the Workforce Committee Wednesday morning to protest a GOP bill that would consolidate federal job-training programs.
 
The Minnesota Republican, who chairs the committee, accused the Democrats of putting politics ahead of business:  “Democrats abdicated their responsibility and demonstrated their unwillingness to engage in the legislative process,” he said. “Rather than present their ideas, Democrats offered a rote defense of the status quo and political theatrics.”
 
Ranking Democrat George Miller of California argued that the GOP jobs and training bill would indiscriminately cut program funding. Democrats also raised procedural objections.
 
The bill would consolidate 35 programs into a Workforce Investment Fund, with money distributed to states through block grants.

School leaders, safety experts reject talk of arming teachers

Posted by: Corey Mitchell Updated: February 27, 2013 - 3:41 PM

  • share

    email

Panelists called to testify before a U.S. House Education Committee hearing on school safety Wednesday agreed that arming teachers, or anyone else besides trained law enforcement officers, is a "risky proposition."

In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., state lawmakers from California to Virginia have proposed arming teachers as a way to protect schools and students, but the witnesses testifying before Congress said the outcome could be "detrimental."

"It's a very dangerous, risky proposition," said David Osher, vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based American Institutes for Research.

The chairman of the House Education Committee, U.S. Rep. John Kline of Minnesota's Second District, led the hearing, which focused on ways school leaders can help keep students and schools safe.

Osher and four others school officials and safety experts testified before Congress that school resources officers can be helpful but may not deter students or intruders intent on causing harm. Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers, said that roughly 10 percent of the nation's schools have trained resource officers.

"Your best protection is a trusting relationship between adults and students that encourages kids to share responsibility for their safety and share information," said Bill Bond, a school safety specialist with the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

Bond served as principal at Heath High School in Paducah, Ky., in the late 1990s when a 14-year-old opened fire in the school, killing three students and injuring five more. Bond and Frederick Ellis, director of Fairfax County, Va., schools Office of Safety and Security, stressed the importance of relationships.

"Yes, a [school resource officer] is armed, but the benefit of the SRO has little to do with the gun on his hip," Bond said. "... the most important SRO function is to build trusting relationships with the students."

The House hearing came as the Democrat-led Senate is weighing a ban on certain types of high-powered weapons, including assault rifles such as the one using in the Sandy Hook shooting. On Wednesday, the members of Congress and witnesses spent more time discussing student-counselor ratios and emergency planning than weapons and metal detectors.

"This [hearing] is about ways we can work together to help students feel safe," said Kline, who spent several days meeting with school officials in Minnesota during last week's congressional recess.

"Today's hearing stems from a heartbreaking event. But in order to have a productive conversation, we must try to focus on matters under this committee's jurisdiction."

Kline is among the targets of an online ad campaign pressuring Republican lawmakers to support expanded background checks for all gun buyers. The ads focus on Republicans that Organizing for Action think can be convinced to support the proposal.

Kline's hour-long brush with the presidency as a 'designated survivor'

Posted by: Kevin Diaz Updated: February 12, 2013 - 9:16 PM

  • share

    email

 

U.S. Rep. John Kline was not on hand for Tuesday night’s State of the Union address.

 

The Minnesota Republican was not boycotting President Obama. He was his potential successor.
 
According to Kline spokesman Troy Young, the 65-year-old congressman “was asked by security officials to view the proceedings from an alternate site close to the Capitol.”
 
That’s all Young said he was authorized to say.
 
But the clear implication, which congressional aides are barred from confirming, is that Kline was a designated survivor in the event of a catastrophic event that decapitated the government.
 
It’s a Cold War practice that has been extended in recent years from a single cabinet member to members of Congress.
 
Under the U.S. Constitution, House Speaker John Boehner would be second in line to the presidency, after Vice President Joe Biden. Next come the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Secretary of State.
 
But should they and all others in the line of succession be killed or incapacitated, modern practice has been to designate a surviving senator and House member to provide for the continuity of government. They would also ascend to the positions of Speaker and President pro Tempore, putting them in the line of succession.
 
So had the worst happened Tuesday night, Kline, a close ally of Boehner, could conceivably have had a path to acting president by standing in as House Speaker, the second in line to the Oval Office.
 
While the scenario is hard to imagine, Kline would be no stranger to executive power. As a decorated Vietnam-era Marine colonel, Kline served as a senior military aide flying Marine One for President Jimmy Carter and carrying President Ronald Reagan’s “football” containing the nation’s nuclear attack codes.

Paulsen criticized for Hurricane Sandy aid vote

Posted by: Corey Mitchell Updated: January 16, 2013 - 3:22 PM

  • share

    email

A Democratic activist is targeting U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen for his vote against a bill that would provide $50.5 billion in emergency relief for the victims of Hurricane Sandy, which decimated parts of the northeastern United States.

Carrie Lucking, executive director of the Alliance for a Better Minnesota, painted Paulsen’s vote as a move to better position himself to earn the Republican Party endorsement for the 2014 Senate race against Democrat Al Franken.
 
The bill passed the Republican-controlled U.S. House 241-180 on Tuesday night, with Minnesota Republican U.S. Reps. Michele Bachmann and John Kline also voting against the aid package.
 
“Congressman Paulsen joined the extremists in the Republican Party and played politics with Americans’ lives,” Lucking said. “We expect our public leaders to step up and do the right thing in times of crisis. Unfortunately, Rep. Paulsen was more concerned with his own political ambitions.”
 
Paulsen’s spokesman dismissed the claim.
 
"Rep. Paulsen believes that we must help those affected by Hurricane Sandy as quickly as possible, and voted for a $9.7 billion increase to pay federal flood insurance claims and $19 billion in emergency disaster assistance for those who are suffering from the storm’s destruction," said Paulsen spokesman Philip Minardi.
 
"Unfortunately, the final House-passed package included tens of billions of dollars in additional spending unrelated to Hurricane Sandy, including money for the Secret Service and a $1.5 billion slush fund to the Federal Highway Administration that could fund Guam, Samoa and Marianas Islands which are located nowhere near Sandy’s path. In this time of crisis for so many Americans, we must ensure that hardworking taxpayers know that every federal dollar spent is for those who truly need it."
 
The third-term Republican representative has not formally announced his candidacy for U.S. Senate, but party insiders consider him leading candidate. In interviews, he has not ruled out challenging Franken.
 
Minnesota’s Democratic U.S. Reps. Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum, Rick Nolan, Collin Peterson and Tim Walz supported the measure. The Democratic-controlled Senate is expected to pass the aid bill early next week and send it to President Barack Obama for approval.

Bachmann, other House members, ready committees for 2014 re-election

Posted by: Rachel E. Stassen-Berger Updated: January 15, 2013 - 5:05 PM

  • share

    email

Late last year, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann filed a 2014 campaign committee.

The existence of the committee doesn't necessarily lock the Republican into vying again for the Sixth Congressional District. It will allow her to raise campaign cash and do other campaign activities.

Bachmann won her last election by about 4,000 votes, just over 1 percentage point. Just a few weeks later, she filed the 2014 committee.

She is one of five sitting U.S. House members from Minnesota who has filed a statement of candidacy for 2014.

Democratic U.S. Reps. Tim Walz, Keith Ellison, Rick Nolan and Collin Peterson have also filed committees for the next election cycle, and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, has filed a committee for 2018, the next year she would be up for re-election. U.S. Sen. Al Franken, also a Democrat, has had a 2014 campaign committee on record since early last year.

U.S. Reps. John Kline and Erik Paulsen, both Republicans, and U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, a Democrat, have not yet filed re-election committees, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

The non-filing does not mean they will not run again, just as the filings do not guarantee a run.

 

Here's Bachmann's filing: 

inside the StarTribune