Tolkkinen: I met my rural GOP legislator. I didn’t realize he was recording me.

BATTLE LAKE, Minn. - In recent years, Republican lawmakers have often steered clear of talking to the mainstream media.

That means that when I reach out to state legislators in greater Minnesota, who are almost all Republicans, they generally don’t respond.

So, to my delight, I heard back from Rep. Tom Murphy’s assistant, telling me that the two-term Otter Tail County Republican would have a half-hour last Monday morning, Feb. 2, to meet in Battle Lake.

Murphy represents my district in the state Legislature. He ran for office after selling his agricultural products business. He’s a father of five. He caused a stir last year when he and several other Republicans from greater Minnesota proposed declaring mRNA vaccines weapons of mass destruction, their manufacture or possession punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a $100,000 fine.

We met at the Shoreline restaurant, where we shook hands amid the clatter of dishes and smell of coffee. We got off to a friendly patter and quickly discovered that we know some of the same people.

I was so happy to have coffee with a GOP lawmaker. The shortage of Republicans willing to talk to the mainstream news media is emblematic of the many divides our country. Last fall, Gallup reported that only 8% of Republicans trust newspapers, TV and radio to report the news fully, accurately and fairly, compared with 51% of Democrats.

Given that context, as well as the ability to communicate directly with constituents through social media, it may seem unsurprising that Republican lawmakers don’t call me back. But they are elected to do the public’s business, and they neglect their duty when they refuse to discuss issues of public importance with mainstream news outlets.

Murphy is the genial sort you’d expect of someone who spent his career in sales. Having grown up on a dairy farm and, as an adult, witnessing the closing of so many Minnesota dairies, including many of his customers, he worries about the steady loss of farms in the state.

“When agriculture gets to be in the hands of a few, we’re in trouble,” he said.

Murphy is wary of land-gobbling solar farms, most of which are sited on agricultural land. While it represents a tiny fraction of available farmland, according to the Minnesota Department of Commerce, solar requires seven to 10 times the amount of land as wind to produce the same amount of energy.

Murphy is concerned that social media algorithms expose us to content that moves our views further right or further left.

As someone who sits on the House Transportation Committee, he’s intrigued by cost-saving methods to make roads last longer.

Our talk was going so well that it went way past the half hour his assistant had promised.

Then he gestured to his phone and said he’d been recording the whole thing.

I have to admit, I was taken aback. I often record my conversations, too, but I always ask permission of the other party first. In Minnesota, it’s perfectly legal not to. But I’d rather build trust by letting people know. I also tell them what I plan to do with the recording, that probably nobody else would ever listen to it and it’s only for my own notes. In that moment, I panicked. Was he planning to post the recording online? Would it be edited in bad faith? Had I said something dumb?

Then I thought about it from Murphy’s perspective. He didn’t know me. I trust journalists, but polls show that many Americans don’t. The U.S. president himself calls the press the “enemy of the people,” saying it publishes “fake news.”

Murphy told me he wanted to record the conversation so that if I mischaracterized his views, he could prove it. That makes sense if you have an inherent mistrust of the mainstream media. And I want to give him credit; he came to our meeting cautiously, but he came. If he needed to record me to feel more comfortable, that is OK with me. Just let me know up-front. People expect journalists to be straightforward. We should expect our politicians to act the same way.

The important thing is to build relationships, to trust but verify, respecting the inherent dignity of another human while also recognizing that humans are prone to failure.

The tricky part is how to navigate those failures. If I publicly criticize a GOP legislator like Murphy, will he continue to talk to me? For instance, I find the proposal to designate the mRNA vaccine a weapon of mass destruction about as wrongheaded as you can get. But his concerns about farming and roads have merit.

He might conclude he never should have agreed to the interview. But if the GOP wants to start winning statewide seats, it can’t afford to only speak to conservative media outlets.

Everyone else deserves to hear their ideas, too.