Tim Mahoney, Minnesota District 67A

Mike Wrote this for Quiche Moraine

Caucusing in the DFL is a Good Thing

Minnesota doesn’t hold a spring presidential primary, as other states do. Minnesota’s primary election is in the fall, usually forty-five days before the election, and so it wouldn’t make sense to decide on the ballot for president that late. In place of the presidential primaries, Minnesota uses a “straw poll” from the votes of caucus attendees, and it is not as formal as an official election. The person who chooses to vote simply fills out a small ballot, and the results are counted and the ballots destroyed. The results are then called in to the party headquarters, and from that vote, the number of delegates assigned for each candidate to the national convention are determined. It’s that simple; now, go caucus! Right?

District 67 will caucus at Harding High School on Tuesday, February 2, 2010. Starts at 7:00 p.m. and runs until 9:00 p.m.

The Governor Kills The Program

Tim Pawlenty cut many necessary programs with his Unallotment Pen, and Minnesotans will have to struggle with reductions in public services.  It’s going to be a tough time for many vulnerable residents of Minnesota, including those who have already been carrying the weight of his political ambitions. The legislature will be looking at ways to fix these problems sensibly and with an eye to economic recovery.  There is a great deal of work to be done to ensure that the state will meet our residents’ needs and return to fiscal sanity.

As your Representative, I appreciate your contributions to the campaign. Your generosity has made possible my work for you in session and throughout the year.  I know that many of you have taken advantage of the Political Campaign Refund to help fund the campaign.  Unfortunately, the program is one of the items that the governor “unfunded” and it will no longer continue past June 30th of this year.

This is your opportunity to donate money to my campaign and still get your money back from the State of Minnesota.  Please hurry, as the deadline is fast approaching and I want you to be able to take advantage of the program.  You will still have until April 2010 to file your claim for a refund of up to $50.00 per person ($100 per married couple,) but we need to receive your donation by June 30th.

Please see our Contributions page for details on how to take care of this securely.

Click this button for an electronic donation. We will send your PCR form to you as soon as we receive your donation:

Thank you for all of your support!

Why We Must Step up our Efforts for 2010

[caption id="attachment_111" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Tim Pawlenty's Idea of "Leadership.""][/caption]

Governor Tim Pawlenty blames the Legislature and the Senate for not giving into his demands for the 2009 session to balance the budget in a way that benefits Minnesota. Instead, he refused to negotiate and held onto a foolhardy “No New Taxes Pledge,” saving his negotiation skills for a flurry of vetoes after the end of the session. By threatening to “Unallot” spending for needed medical and social services in Minnesota, he sent a signal to the citizens of our state that he is more interested in pleasing his potential campaign donors for his presumed presidential/vice presidential campaign in 2012.

While Pawlenty looks to the future, he uses the tools of the past: Cut, slash and burn and borrow. The 2009 portion of the Legislative Session has ended, with a budget we were forced to pass at the last minute before adjournment. Our leadership in the House and Senate had invited the governor many times to forge a compromise between our differences. It could have been something all Minnesotans could have lived with, even if not entirely happy with it.

The purpose of our bills, agreed on by both the Senate and the House, was to address taxation disparities which favor the rich over the working class and the poor, while continuing as many of the state’s needs for health care, local government assistance and education. Yes, even in our budget deal there were more cuts than we wanted. Yet we faced them and worked to minimize their effects on you, our constituents.

Pawlenty turned a deaf ear to the desires and wants of the people of Minnesota to invest wisely in our future and pulled out his red pen to write “Veto! Veto! Veto!” and to move the state its from its progressive leadership to the status of such business and education “powerhouse” states as Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

In 2010, we don’t know if The Man With The Red Pen will be running again to be our governor, or if he will be foregoing this race to follow his true ambition for national office. It doesn’t matter. We need to pour our efforts into electing a governor from the DFL. The people of Minnesota have elected a divided leadership between the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch; but in the hopes that we could together find solutions to our mounting problems. Instead they see that the governor had no such intentions.

We have many exciting candidates for the DFL choice to run for governor. I have endorsed Matt Entenza, but whoever we as the DFL place on the ticket Minnesota will win by electing a serious governor who cares about our state and our economic recovery. In 2010,, this is the race that matters (as well as my own, of course.)