The Weekly Wrap 9-9
There was a big Democratic event in one of the Carolina’s this week with lots of speechifying that lead to a temporary exodus of Democratic Minnesota politicians. To no one’s surprise the big mystery speaker on Thursday night was none other than Carly Rae Jepsen, singing her summer anthem, “Chair me, maybe.”
A good time was had by all I’m sure.
♣ Fines were handed out this week to eleven Republican Senator’s and Steve Sviggum for failure to properly disclose their campaign activities, and no, this isn’t about the sack lunch’s being handed out a few weeks ago, this is related to things done prior to the precinct caucus’s in February.
The eleven Senators are: Majority Leader David Senjem, Al DeKruif, Chris Gerlach, Gretchen Hoffman, Benjamin Kruse, Ted Lillie, Clair Robling, Ray Vandeveer, Pam Wolf, Michelle Fischbach and John Pederson.
The amount of the Senators fines? $75.
Hefty fines like that should act as a significant deterrent to people doing this in the future.
♣ DFLers in house district 7B have endorsed assistant fire chief Erik Simonson to replace retiring, and if you want another descriptor, disgraced, Representative Kerry Gauthier.
Earlier in the week it was reported that Simonson’s daughter, Leah Simonson, claims that her father abandoned her when she was young. I’m not going to address the story itself, reading the article it seems to boil down to a case of “he said, she said,” that none of us will likely ever know the real story behind.
What I do want to address is Simonson’s weak sauce, blame the victim, response, found at the end of the article:
“I stepped up to the plate and I paid my child support on time through all these years,” he told the News Tribune. “I’m not understanding why this is an issue now that needs to go to the media, but apparently somebody wants some attention, I guess.”
Let this be Simonson’s first political lesson, when your daughter goes to the media claiming that you abandoned her when she was young, whether the charge is accurate or not, you do not blame her for making the charge. You also do not blame your ex-wife.
This race has now entered the “clusterfuck of epic proportions” category and there’s still time for more write-in candidates to get in!
Dan Severson, former member of the Minnesota House of Representatives, has joined the Kurt Bills for Senate team as Director of Minority Outreach.
Okay, I will comment, but just to say…
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Oh, and his name is Doc!
♣ Disclosure, pffft, screw that, from the AP lede:
A Minnesota law requiring disclosure of independent corporate political spending is “most likely unconstitutional,” a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
Most likely unconstitutional? How’s that for a ruling!
♣ Speaking of disclosure, Mike Dean has left Common Cause Minnesota for the probably much greener pastures of the private sector.
We certainly wish him well and thank him for all of his great work in Minnesota over the years. He will be missed by most, but not by the scoundrels.
♣ No one is giving any money to either side of the Voter ID battle. To which conservatives respond “that was the whole point respond of the marriage amendment!”
♣ Mark Ritchie talks about the realities of the Voter ID amendment. Lot’s of good points in here to make when trying to convert people on this issue.
♣ Over 9,000 people filled out the Minnesota House’s survey at the Minnesota State Fair.
And while this is an unscientific survey, it’s not without some value. With an n of over 9,000 and pretty much every type of Minnesotan at the fair, the results probably mean something.
And if there were demographics like gender, race, age and geography from which we could weight the respondents, I have a feeling we would get some pretty accurate results.
But we don’t have those things, so as it is, it’s just fun to look at. Here’s the most important one from my perspective:
MN House (9/4, no trend lines):
10. A simple majority of both bodies of the Legislature is required to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot. Should there be a higher threshold?
Yes 53
No 36
Undecided 10
(MoE: ±∞%)
Yes please!
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