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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 4th District

U.S. House incumbent McCollum reports fundraising numbers

Posted by: Corey Mitchell Updated: April 13, 2012 - 12:40 PM

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U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., raised more than $123,000 toward her re-election campaign in the first three months of 2012 and has more than $222,000 in the bank.


McCollum’s number for this election are cycle are an improvement over 2010 when she raised nearly $97,000 and had $135,600 in the bank.


Republican Dan Flood dropped out of the race for the Republican endorsement in Minnesota’s Fourth Congressional District last month, leaving Republican Anthony Hernandez as McCollum’s lone registered opponent. He has not yet filed his campaign fundraising records with the Federal Election Commission.


Hernandez had filed to seek the party’s endorsement in the U.S. Senate race against Democratic incumbent Amy Klobuchar but left that campaign last month to take on McCollum. Ford ended his campaign having raised less $5,000, campaign finance records show.
 

McCollum, fellow House Democrats push 'pink slime' labeling legislation

Posted by: Corey Mitchell Updated: April 2, 2012 - 1:31 PM

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U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., is among 10 House Democrat co-sponsors of a bill that would amend federal laws to require labeling for all beef that contains lean finely textured beef, also known as "pink slime."

The REAL Beef (Requiring Easy and Accurate Labeling of Beef) Act follows calls from Congress members who want the so-called "pink slime" banned from use in school cafeterias. The ammonia-treated beef scraps are often used as filler in school meals.

"This is about choice and transparency," Maine Rep. Chellie Pingree, the bill's lead sponsor, said in a statement last week. "Parents and consumers want to choose whether or not they serve pink slime, but they can't do that unless they know whether or not it's in the product they are buying."

Recent public outrage has sparked industry change. Minnetonka-based Cargill Inc., one of the nation's major producers of finely textured beef, said it has reduced production.

Health care law brings Obama cabinet member to Minnesota, fundraising plea from Bachmann

Posted by: Corey Mitchell Updated: March 21, 2012 - 4:48 PM

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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will travel to Minnesota on Friday, the two-year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, for a living room chat with women to “hear their stories about experiencing health care insecurity … and facing financial hardship and discrimination from insurance companies,” an announcement said.

U.S. Sen. Al Franken, U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum and Gov. Mark Dayton will join Sebelius in Linda Hamilton’s home in Spring Lake Park to discuss the health reform law, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010.
 
Opponents, including U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, have labeled the health care reform law “Obamacare.”
 
While Democratic supporters are celebrating the law’s two-year anniversary, Bachmann is marking the occasion with a fundraising appeal that calls on supporters to join her in sending a strong message to Washington.
 
“Obamacare must be and will be repealed,” she wrote. “However, I cannot repeal Obamacare alone. In order to do so, I need your support to ensure I am re-elected to Congress in order to stand up for every American and fight for our shared conservative values.”
 
In her letter, Bachmann also claims to have led the efforts in Congress to fight the Affordable Care Act. The battle has been costly, she said.
 
“Fighting to repeal Obamacare and defending myself against the relentless attacks from the left is very, very expensive. If I’m going to continue to speak out across the country I need your immediate help. Your support, no matter the size, helps me continue to fight. That’s why any amount you can donate to my campaign today – up to the $2,500 legal limit – is appreciated,” the letter concluded.

 

Congress approves St. Croix bridge

Posted by: Kevin Diaz Updated: March 1, 2012 - 11:26 AM

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Decades of debate over the proposed St. Croix River crossing ended Thursday with a five-minute vote in the U.S. House, which approved the plan overwhelmingly and sent it to President Obama for his signature.
 
The 339-80 House vote easily surpassed the two-thirds needed to clear the project on an expedited basis, which became necessary after Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton set a March 15 deadline for final action by Congress.
 
The Senate approved an identical measure last month by a unanimous vote, a move that belied some of the discord underlying the $690 million project. The long-delayed bridge plan was before Congress because it needed a federal exemption from the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, a landmark piece of 1960s legislation sponsored by former U.S. Senator and Vice President Walter Mondale.
 
Mondale lobbied against the bridge, calling it “a brutal assault on one of the most magnificent rivers in America.”
 
The bridge standoff divided environmentalists, who remain opposed, and labor-backed Democrats who joined with Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann, the main House backer of the project, which stands in her current district.
 
For Bachmann, the final passage represented a singular legislative achievement after three terms in Congress and a run for the GOP presidential nomination.
 
“This is it!” she enthused in a statement after the vote. “After decades of bureaucratic holdups and frivolous lawsuits from radical environmentalists, the people of the St. Croix River Valley will finally have their bridge. I represent the most patient people in the nation and I could not be more thrilled about the outcome.”
 
Opposition to the project bill was led by Minnesota Democrat Betty McCollum, whose new district under the 2010 census will include the bridge site along Hwy. 36 in Oak Park Heights, where the mayor and city council have expressed opposition to the millions of dollars in related utility upgrades they say city residents will have to pay.
 
Said McCollum: “Every policy debate has two sides and I worked hard to reflect the voices of Minnesotans in the 4th District, as well as those Stillwater and Oak Park Heights residents who are deeply concerned about this mega-bridge project.”
 
McCollum, however, found herself at odds with U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who championed the bill in the Senate with the backing of Dayton and Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who formed a broad bipartisan coalition on both sides of the river.

St. Croix bridge bill: Uniting Packers and Vikings?

Posted by: Kevin Diaz Updated: February 29, 2012 - 7:13 PM

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In the end, the St. Croix bridge debate in the U.S. House Wednesday night played out to a largely empty chamber – an indication of the lateness of the hour, or that minds are already made up.
 
On the eve of Thursday’s full House vote, about 10 representatives, mostly from Wisconsin and Minnesota, traded views about whether the long-delayed $690 million project represents a wasteful “earmark” or a needed upgrade to an outdated river crossing in Stillwater.
 
Most intriguingly, the 40-minute encounter featured a head-to-head encounter between bridge backer Rep. Michele Bachmann, one of the most conservative Republicans in the House, and her Minnesota nemesis, Rep. Betty McCollum, one of the chamber’s most liberal Democrats.
 
It got a little personal.
 
“What would the Tea Party call an effective and efficient use of taxpayer dollars?” McCollum said by way of reminding listeners of Bachmann’s core political base. “Would they call this that?”
 
Bachmann, for her part, all but accused McCollum of trying to sabotage the project by insisting on a scaled-back version, something state officials say would take the decades-long process back to square one.
 
“I’d like to have the record to reflect very clearly that if Representative McCollum gets her way she will kill building the bridge over the St. Croix River,” Bachmann said.
 
The line of the night, though, went to Wisconsin Republican Sean Duffy, extolling the bipartisan support the bridge has received on both sides of the river: “You have Vikings and Packers supporting this bill!”
 

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