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.

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!

Tim Pawlenty's Idea of "Leadership."

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.)

Memorial Day for most of us is a long weekend and a day away from work. It is a day of sales for those who work in car dealerships and furniture stores, trying to meet the month’s quota with a final blitz of discounts and cash back offers.

It’s an extra day at the cabin, spending time with your buddies and family trying to find the perfect spot on a Monday morning where the walleyes and crappies are biting.

It’s also a day to think about war and why we fight and why we never seem to achieve peaceful, diplomatic long-term solutions to the problems that lead to the massive violence that takes our young men and women away from us. Our defenders volunteer for various reasons, but all of them end up supporting our freedoms and rights whether directly or indirectly. They support the concept of democracy, but they also prevent foreign invaders from taking our shores.

We have vets that may not have died overseas, but bring the war back with them and can never shake it. Memorial Day is a day we should pause and reflect and thank those who have faced enemy fire and taken a hit from us. We should remember those who died in battle and at home, suffering the long-term effects of war.

I feel awkward saying “Happy Memorial Day” because it is not a happy occasion. Families are missing their fathers, mother, brothers, sisters, friends and children. It is a time to reflect on what we have as a nation, and to honor them. It is also a time to remember that we need to show our support and honor to those they leave behind. Thank a vet on Memorial Day, and thank a family.

Tim Pawlenty has just decided that he can do alone with a few broad strokes of his pen and behind closed doors, what they legislature has been working on since January. The Legislature and the Senate have been holding open door meetings for you so that you can have your input into the budget. And we have appreciated your input.

Unfortunately, we were faced with the reality in Minnesota of what will happen with draconian cuts in essential services and investments. Tim Pawlenty is apparently more interested in moving into Barack Obama’s current quarters at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, or at the least into Blair House, in 2013. So, rather than face our reality, he is doing what he sees is going to lead him more towards Washington. He is following the lead of the New National Party of No, with the big buck fund-raising power of the conservative wing of the Republican Party.

The videos I have been putting up over the last few days are the best way that I know how to illustrate what is happening at the close of the legislature.

Please call the numbers and tell Tim Pawlenty that he needs to be more responsible to Minnesota’s future than he does his own.

Minnesotans testify that the Governor’s proposed cuts would hurt the health of our hospitals, health care worker and the lives of millions of Minnesotans who depend on quality care.

Governor Pawlenty is going to slash and burn the future of Minnesota with his plan to use line item veto to balance the budget. Call the governor and tell them that his hard line on revenue (so that he can raise righ-wing campaign funds for his 2012 presidential campaign,) are taking Minnesota backwards.

Jack Horner, general counsel for the Minnesota Multi Housing Association, warned state legislators this week that landlords would face steep and unnecessary costs if cities enforce ordinances that are different from the State Building Code.

Horner told the House Labor and Consumer Protection Division on Monday that he once represented a rental property owner in Minneapolis who was fighting a city violation for not having an enclosed stairwell on an existing property with two stories or fewer. According to Horner, the state doesn’t allow such a requirement to enclose a stairwell in that kind of existing building.

“That can be expensive – several thousand dollars,” he said.

Horner opposes a bill alive at the Capitol in the last days of the legislative session that would allow cities to enforce building codes that aren’t part of the State Building Code. The bill’s author, state Rep. Tim Mahoney, DFL-St. Paul, wants to allow these local ordinances for one year while state officials sort out the implications of a recent Minnesota Supreme Court ruling.

Mahoney, a long-time pipefitter, said a grace period that would last until Aug. 1, 2010, is needed to address the state high court’s ruling in the City of Morris v. Sax that local ordinances can’t supersede the State Building Code.

“What we have right now is confusion,” Mahoney said.

Mahoney added that he doesn’t have agreement among groups that represent local government, construction and housing interests. Representatives from the League of Minnesota Cities and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul testified in favor of the bill.

Horner’s group and the Minnesota Association of Realtors and the Builders Association of Minnesota oppose allowing local ordinances that go beyond the State Building Code.

Mahoney said Monday during a House Commerce and Labor Committee hearing that he will offer his bill as a floor amendment if he can’t make progress in committee before the May 18 adjournment.

“If I get stymied, we’ll have a conversation about it on the House floor,” Mahoney said.

The Labor and Consumer Protection Division passed the bill on a voice vote. The Commerce and Labor Committee laid the bill over.

In May 2008, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled against the city of Morris. The city had issued eight code violations against residential rental property owner Sax Investments, Inc. The owner only fixed four of the violations. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Sax that three of the city’s rental requirements in the case were prohibited by the State Building Code.

Mahoney’s bill applies to housing, property maintenance and rental licenses. Leading up to Aug. 1, 2010, Mahoney’s bill would have the state Department of Labor and Industry (DLI) create a report to legislators addressing the “thresholds of safety criteria to existing buildings through local ordinances,” according to the bill.

Horner, however, said the bill would undermine the uniformity of the State Building Code, costing landlords thousands of dollars in unnecessary work to meet the requirements of some local codes.

“This bill simply deems as a matter of law that local ordinances are right and the state code is not applicable,” Horner said.

Mahoney said the bill “does not abandon” the State Building Code, but provides clarity under current law.

Tom Joachim, DLI assistant commissioner, wrote a letter to Mahoney on May 8 that said cities have been grappling with the issue of licenses for local buildings since the State Building Code was created in 1972. For example, he wrote that window manufacturers have experienced “heartburn” from several ordinance changes in escape window openings.

Joachim said DLI will be examining some of its rules this summer.

Rep. Kurt Zellers, R-Maple Grove, implored Mahoney not to offer a floor amendment because the issues are too complex.

“This is too big to bring up” this late in the session, Zellers said.

WORTHINGTON, Minn. — G. Steven Burrill envisions a radically different future for U.S. health care, one in which diseases are predicted and stopped before they even produce symptoms.

Burrill, who spoke Friday at the fifth annual Regional Bioscience Conference in Worthington, is CEO of Burrill and Co., a life sciences venture-capital group.

His company announced in March that it would fund the Pine Island biotechnology project with a $1 billion investment, in hopes of developing new technologies coming from the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota, as well as attracting new companies.

Diagnosis via T-shirt

Health providers from antiquity through present times have waited until someone got sick, done “something” and then waited to see if it helped, he said.

“But what we do in the next 10 years is going to change everything from how we do things today,” Burrill said. “We’re going to move health care to a consumer digital-device system provided by the Wal-Marts.”

A patient will put on a T-shirt that has sensors in it and go about her normal activities. The T-shirt will remotely tell her doctor the results of her test.

When a baby is born, that baby will have its genetic code read. The reading will be downloaded onto a computer chip and put under the baby’s skin, or the baby will get a medical card containing the genetic chip to carry around.

Any genetic predispositions will then be watched for, or prevented altogether.

When the patient, later in life, goes to the doctor, the chip will be scanned before a drug is prescribed so the patient gets only drugs that actually work for that individual.

Why? Because 55 percent of medicines currently taken do not do the job they’re intended to do for the person taking them, Burrill said.

Already, he said, children can monitor their elderly parents with remote devices to make sure the parent is following normal routines, is breathing properly and hasn’t fallen.

Rep. Tim Mahoney, DFL-Saint Paul, said he’s frustrated by interest in a ban on testing of blood from newborns to catch rare diseases before they kill newborns.

“This saves lives,” he said. “This gets early diagnosis.” A doctor might have to do 50 or 60 tests to diagnose a rare illness. But with standard screening of all babies, the babies with rare illness get early diagnosis and treatment.

“There is a move at the capitol to shut that down, because of DNA privacy issues. I don’t understand it. It is ludicrous,” Mahoney said.

Burrill agreed with him.

“You spill your entire guts on Facebook,” Burrill said, including who you’re sleeping with, what you’re watching and what you drank at a party in college.

President Obama has lightened the restrictions on stem-cell research, and increased research funding,, which is a good thing, Burrill said. But it will be years before that money sifts down to companies that need it.

The $19 billion that’s aimed at rewiring the health care system so each patient will only have to have one medical record, regardless of where she gets treatment, will be a good thing, he said.

Yet Obama might throw money at problems without much immediate reward, which is a bad thing, Burrill said.

Education reform

Several panelists who spoke with Burrill at the conference suggested the educational system needs radical reform. Instead of a ladder approach, involving multiple prerequisites before a course can be taken in high school or college, students should instead get an education that includes hands-on involvement.

After his presentation, Burrill toured science projects made by the middle school students.

“I think the challenge for our young people today is that they to some extent have the wrong role models,” he said. People who are trying to do good things, to heal people, don’t get the attention they should.

“Math and science get short shrift,” Burrill said. But he’s hopeful that will change so that students can blossom.

Making mistakes is part of that process, Mahoney reminded the students. And he reminded the adults that the same is true of people who are already in the industry.

“If you have a courageous or outspoken civic leader, back that person up. They will fail. They will make mistakes. Don’t shut them down,” he said.