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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 Minnesota U.S. senators

Klobuchar pushes anti-DOMA petition

Posted by: Kevin Diaz Updated: December 10, 2012 - 3:25 PM

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As the U.S. Supreme Court takes up the constitutionality of two same-sex marriage cases, including the federal “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA), U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar is circulating an online petition to repeal the law.
 
The Minnesota Democrat is being joined in the Senate by New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen. Both have signed on to DOMA repeal legislation.   
 
“This country was founded on equality for all people, and it is time to repeal this legislation both in Congress and in the courts,” Klobuchar wrote in a email to supporters Monday.
 
The effort comes a month after Minnesota voters defeated a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage, and as polls across the country show major shifts in opinion on same-sex marriage.
 
The email serves as a reminder to gay rights activists, among them some who thought she was late to the cause of ending the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t tell” policy. It also thrusts Klobuchar into a broader ideological debate, political turf on which she was less visible in her first term.

Franken battles smartphone 'stalker apps'

Posted by: Kevin Diaz Updated: December 6, 2012 - 4:55 PM

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It’s not every day that a U.S. Senate hearing is interrupted by a commercial message, but U.S. Sen. Al Franken decided that Thursday’s Judiciary Committee hearing on his Internet privacy bill would benefit from an example.
 
Taking aim at federal loopholes that allow smartphone, app and wireless companies to share consumer location data culled from the Internet services they provide, the Minnesota Democrat has been calling attention to a fast-growing “stalking app” industry.
 
Thus he read into the record from the homepage of an app called ePhoneTracker: “Worried that your spouse might be cheating?” “Track every text, every call and every move they make using our easy cell phone spy software…”
 
According to government reports, stalking apps are not just used to keep tabs on errant spouses, teenagers or employees. They’re also used to stalk thousands of unsuspecting women by men using GPS technology.
 
Franken, who has been working on Internet privacy legislation for a year, hopes to get the bill through the Judiciary committee next week.

Senators ask Obama to spare energy assistance

Posted by: Kevin Diaz Updated: December 3, 2012 - 4:10 PM

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Amid the big fiscal cliff stare-down, U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken are asking the Obama administration to increase funding to help low income folks in places like Minnesota make their homes more energy efficient.
 
In a letter to President Obama, the two Minnesota Democrats pressed for the Weatherization Assistance and State Energy Programs, arguing that they help low-income families save money by improving the energy efficiency of their homes.
 
The letter was also signed by 35 Senate colleagues.
 
The total amount involved, some $260 million for both programs in the 2014 budget, amounts to nibbling at the edges in terms of big Washington budget battles. But advocating for energy assistance is a mainstay of constituent service in Minnesota, especially in December.

Ellison stands out on 'fiscal cliff,' opposes benefit cuts

Posted by: Kevin Diaz Updated: November 30, 2012 - 5:53 PM

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Amid intensifying rhetoric about the looming “fiscal cliff,” little was heard Friday from members of the Minnesota congressional delegation about President Obama’s opening position on ending the impasse.
 
Republicans have been wrestling among themselves about abandoning the Grover Norquist anti-tax pledge, with Minnesotans John Kline, Erik Paulsen and Chip Cravaack suggesting they’re willing to look at ways of raising new tax dollars by cutting deductions and credits.
 
But as talks progress, Democrats too could eventually face divisions over Republican demands to make significant cuts in entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
 
Obama’s proposal on Thursday calling for more taxes and spending offered few if any concessions to Republicans, who dismissed it out of hand.
 
While the show goes on, Minnesotans in Congress have tended to remain bystanders. Some, including Sen. Al Franken, have contributed to the chatter about how a year-end fiscal cliff deal needs to include a comprehensive farm bill.
 
The most outspoken member of the Minnesota delegation – on either side – has been Minneapolis DFLer Keith Ellison, who has taken to the airwaves and cable channels as a newly re-elected co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
 
Ellison is scheduled to appear on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday with Rep. Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican who has made waves in the GOP caucus by suggesting that Republicans bow to political reality and take Obama’s offer to extend the Bush tax cuts for all but the top 2 percent of income earners, and then conclude a more sweeping deal later.
 
But while most Republicans are holding out for Democratic concessions on entitlement cuts, Ellison argues that no deal can get done without a “large portion” of the House Democratic Caucus. And the liberals in that caucus, he said, “will not support any deal that cuts benefits for families and seniors who rely on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.”
 
Ellison seems to have support among many of his fellow Minnesota Democrats. While some have suggested reforms to Social Security, such as raising the income gap on payroll taxes, most seem to think that a high-pressure, weeks-long budget crisis is not the best time to deal with long-term entitlement reform.
 
One exception is rural Democrat Tim Walz. "I'm willing to look at anything, and that has gotten me into trouble with some on the left," he said in an interview Friday. "I think it's disingenuous of folks to complain about the tax pledge, and then say other things are off the table."
 
The problem, Walz said, is that Republicans have not yet put any specific cuts on the table. But Walz believes that eventually they will, and then Democrats will have to listen. "At the end of the day, Republicans are going to vote for a [tax] rate increase," he said. "With that realization sinking into people, they're probably going to want some serious changes. And my thing is if it makes econonomic sense to do so, and it helps balance the budget without crushing those who are most vulnerable, I'm certainly willing to look at it."
 
Another Minnesotan both sides are watching warily is centrist Democrat Collin Peterson, a fiscal hawk who has been known to side with Republicans on some budget issues. But as House members headed home for the weekend, Peterson wasn’t saying much in public.
 
Let the show go on.

Bills will not say whether he believes allegations he made; charges widely discredited

Posted by: Rachel E. Stassen-Berger Updated: October 26, 2012 - 10:32 PM

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Updated

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kurt Bills on Friday refused to say whether he believes the allegations he levied against Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar in an ad are true.

Rather than answer the question from a Star Tribune reporter, he walked quickly to his car and drove away.

"Do you believe they are true?" he was repeatedly.

"I believe there's a lot to look into," Bills said. He denied a reporter's request to stop and answer a few questions as he left TPT's television studio.

On Thursday Bills ran his first ad, which claimed as Hennepin County Attorney Klobuchar covered up for Tom Petters in exchange for campaign donations. Petters was indicted in 2008 for his role in a Ponzi scheme that went back a decade. Bills' charge has been denied by Klobuchar as well as those involved in the Petters case, including by the court-appointed trustee in the case, who called the charge preposterous.

Mike Osskopp, Bills campaign manager, has said he does not know if the allegations Bills made in his ad are true.

Asked about the veracity of his charges, Bills on Friday only said that Klobuchar "took money from Tom Petters." Asked if he believes she covered up for him, which his ad alleged, he said "I believe Tom Petters was intimately involved in the Hennepin County office."

Klobuchar, like politicians of both parties including Republicans former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann,  all received campaign donations from Petters and his associates well before he in trouble with the law. She, like others, shed the money once he got in trouble.

Asked on TPT's Almanac whether he would run other ads, Bills said "we sure do hope so. I'd love to do a positive Kurt ad."

The ad has run once, during Thursday night's Vikings game. According to public records, the Bills campaign paid $15,000 to run it and canceled all his other ad time at the station.

inside the StarTribune