by Steve Timmer

Mar 25, 2026, 9:30 AM

Aaron Klemz for District 39A of the Minnesota House

Aaron Klemz is running for the DFL endorsement for District 39A. The district consists of part of Columbia Heights, and all of Hilltop, Fridley, and Spring Lake Park. The SD 39 convention, including the 39A subconvention, will be held on Saturday, April 4^th. The current incumbent, DFLer Erin Koegel, is not running for re-election. There is one other individual running for the endorsement.

I don’t live in District 39A, but I have known and worked with Aaron for over fifteen years; I urge convention goers to endorse him as the DFL candidate for the seat in the Minnesota House. He will represent you, the DFL, and the State of Minnesota very well.

I first encountered Aaron at the State Office Building where the Minnesota House conducts legislative hearings. We were there to attend hearings. That was, as I recall, in 2010. Aaron has been a Capitol denizen for as long as I have known him.

I got to know Aaron shortly thereafter when he started attending the social and political club I hosted (I still do), Drinking Liberally. Aaron always talked knowledgeably about events at the Capitol, especially related to mining, environment, and climate issues.

In 2012, Aaron, another DLer, Tony Petrangelo, and I started a website called LeftMN, focusing – perhaps obviously – on Minnesota political issues from a liberal or progressive perspective. The website, of course, still exists. The three of us also had a podcast that became a KTNF radio show, The LeftMN Radio Hour. In all our collaborations, Aaron was focused on the environment and climate issues, although he spoke fluently on other policy issues as well.

Aaron was hired away from us, so to speak (LeftMN has always been a volunteer affair), to become the Communication Director for the Friends of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. A few years later, he took the same job at the powerhouse environmental law non-profit, the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA). Presently, his title at the MCEA is Chief Strategy Officer, where he directs the organization’s communications and legislative endeavors.

People who know Aaron and his advocacy would agree with me that he is completely authentic, the real deal. Wy Spano, the well-known political strategist and Almanac pundit, and who was Aaron’s professor in the Master of Advocacy and Political Leadership program at the University of Minnesota at Duluth, told me that Aaron was one of the best students he ever had.

Aaron’s lengthy record of advocacy at the Legislature would mean that District 39A – and the whole state, really – would get an experienced and effective legislator on the day he’s sworn in. You can’t beat that.

Steve Timmer