May 21, 2013 
2 Comments
With the 2013 Legislative Session in the books, here’s a look back at how Carver County’s House delegation, Rep. Ernie Leidiger (District 47A – central and western Carver County), Rep. Joe Hoppe (District 47B – eastern Carver County), and Rep. Cindy Pugh (District 33B – northeast Chanhassen) voted on the key bills that the chamber took action on this year:
[CORRECTION, 5/21: Pugh voted "Yes" on the SF 541 Sunday sales amendment, not "No".]
Data sourced from the House archive of roll-call votes.
May 13, 2013 1 Comment
State Rep. Ernie Leidiger will be holding his annual hog roast fundraiser next month. This year’s event is themed “Meet The New Republican Party”, and features a pulled pork dinner, silent auction, activities for kids, karaoke, and a bonfire. On-site camping is also available if needed. Lots of special guests are also invited, like these fresh faces:
Hog Roast Emcee and failed gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer
U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann
U.S. Representative John Kline
U.S. Representative Erik Paulsen
Radio talk show hosts Jason Lewis and Sue Jeffers
State Senator Julianne Ortman
State Representative Joe Hoppe
Of course, these aren’t “new” faces at all. These are just the same faces we’ve been seeing and hearing from for years now. Keep looking down the list and — aha! — here are the new faces we’ve been looking for!
State GOP Party Chair Keith Downey
State GOP Deputy Party Chair Kelly Fenton
State GOP Secretary Chris Fields
Of course, of these folks, only Fields really qualifies a “new” face. Heck, Fields hasn’t even lived in Minnesota for two years and he already has lost a race for Congress by 49 points. Downey is a two-term former state representative who was heralded as an ideological leader behind the Republican House majorities that got routed in 2012. Fenton, meanwhile, is a longtime party activist.
Even more to the point, though, is that while you can theoretically argue some of the faces are “new” — the ideas are the same old stale ones they’ve been peddling for years. Let’s hope the pulled pork is fresher than the ideology.
[Picture above is 2010 gubernatorial loser and voice of the "new" Republican Party Tom Emmer]
May 9, 2013 58 Comments
The marriage equality bill passed the Minnesota State House of Representatives today 75-59. Four Republican Representatives voted in favor of the bill: Jenifer Loon (Eden Prairie), Andrea Kieffer (Woodbury), Pat Garofalo (Farmington), and David FitzSimmons (Albertville), while two DFL Representatives voted against it: Patti Fritz (Faribault) and Mary Sawatzky (Willmar).
Carver County Representatives Joe Hoppe (R-Chaska), Ernie Leidiger (R-Mayer), and Cindy Pugh (R-Chanhassen) all voted no, even after FitzSimmons’s amendment to rename all references to “marriage” in Minnesota statute as “civil marriage”, thereby providing additional reassurance that religious institutions would not be impacted by approval of marriage equality.
As previously noted, voters in both Hoppe and Pugh’s districts voted against the marriage amendment last November so they are swimming upstream in this regard. Pugh’s vote is a distinct contrast from her district, as 33B voted against the marriage amendment by 17 points – -the third largest margin of the 21 House Republican districts that voted against the amendment.
[Picture of the voting board above courtesy of Leanne Kunze's Twitter stream.]
May 7, 2013 1 Comment
The Minnesota House of Representatives will vote on H.F. 1054 — the marriage equality bill — on Thursday. The movement of this bill to the floor is a signal from leadership in the DFL majority that they have the necessary 68 votes to pass the bill, as Speaker of the House Paul Thissen has indicated he would not bring the bill up for vote unless there was sufficient votes to pass it.
In recent weeks, there has been substantial movement among rural DFL legislators towards the bill, including Hinckley’s Tim Faust and Crosby’s Joe Radinovich just within the last few days. With passage seemingly assured at this point, the interesting thing to watch will be if any suburban Republicans vote yes on the bill as well. 21 House Republicans — including Chaska’s Joe Hoppe and Chanhassen’s Cindy Pugh — represent districts that opposed last November’s marriage amendment. As of now, none of them have publicly indicated their support for marriage equality.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk says he has sufficient votes in his caucus to pass the bill in that chamber as well, but does not intend to bring the bill to the floor until after the House vote. Governor Mark Dayton has indicated he will sign the bill if it passes both chambers.
Ten states currently have marriage equality, and Delaware’s legislature is also voting on the issue this week (with passage expected).
Meanwhile, negotiations designed to produce a compromise budget between the House, Senate, and Governor are ongoing. As noted previously, untangling the three tax plans is likely to biggest source the most difficult challenge faced by the negotiators. With less than two weeks left in the session, the pace is likely to be rather hectic to get through all the necessary business by then.
March 28, 2013 2 Comments
This week’s Chaska Herald features a letter to the editor by Carver County GOP Chair Vince Beaudette on behalf of the group’s Executive Committee. The letter, titled “An open letter to Rep. Joe Hoppe (R-Chaska)”, calls out Hoppe for his support of H.F. 1083, which would institute judicial retention elections.
Scan of letter from March 28, 2013 edition of the Chaska Herald
While I agree with Beaudette and the GOP Executive Committee on the merits of the judicial retention elections issue, this is a somewhat unusual step. It’s not as if Hoppe has a long history of straying from party principles, although his vote in favor the the Vikings stadium did result in a poorly-organized challenge to his endorsement last year. Perhaps it was prompted by supporters of State Sen. Julianne Ortman alleging something of a double standard regarding treatment of local legislators when they back bills seen as insufficiently conservative.
Either way, it’s an interesting side note to what has been a relatively quiet session thus far for Carver County’s House delegation.
March 13, 2013 0 Comments
State Senator Julianne Ortman introduced the Senate version of the compromise gun control bill today. The bill has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Ortman is one of 17 Republicans who have indicated support for the bill, while five DFL legislators have signed on as co-authors of the measure.
Provisions in the bill include:
Supporters of the bill include the National Rifle Association, the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance, and the Minnesota Sheriffs Association. Carver County Reps. Joe Hoppe and Ernie Leidiger are co-authors on the House version of the bill.
Read the full press release from Sen. Ortman’s office below:
March 12, 2013 273 Comments
The marriage equality bill, S.F. 925, had a hearing today in the Senate Judiciary Committee. State Senator Julianne Ortman (R-Chanhassen) was part of the party-line vote on the bill, with all five DFLers voting in favor of the bill and all three Republicans voting against the bill. The bill is now eligible to vote to the full Senate for a vote.
In the 2012 election, Ortman’s SD 47 voted in favor of the amendment, earning 51.4% of the votes. However, the results sharply varied from the eastern side of the district to the west. The eastern portion of the district, House District 47B, voted against the amendment (only 45.4% voting yes), while the western portion of the district, House District 47A, had 57.5% voting yes. It will be interesting to see if the dynamics in 47B play a role in influencing State Rep. Joe Hoppe’s vote. Hoppe voted in favor of the amendment last session.
The counterpart bill in the House, H.F. 1054, had a hearing this morning in the Civil Law Committee that will continue tonight. State Rep. Cindy Pugh, who represents northeast Chanhassen as part of District 33B, sits on that committee. Pugh is a solid “no” vote on marriage equality.
March 7, 2013 2 Comments
Carver County State Representatives Joe Hoppe (R-Chaska) and Ernie Leidiger (R-Mayer) have signed on as co-authors of a compromise gun control bill, H.F. 1323, which contains only measures that have significant bipartisan support. More controversial measures, such as universal background checks and bans on assault weapons or high-capacity magazines, are not included in the bill.
Provisions in the bill, chief authored by Debra Hilstrom (D-Brooklyn Center) include:
73 House members (17 DFL, and 56 GOP) are sponsoring the bill, which also has the support of the Minnesota Sheriff’s Association and the National Rifle Association. That’s a majority of the House’s 134 members.
Despite the broad support, however, the bill is not without its critics. House Public Safety Committee Chair Michael Paymar (D-St. Paul), who earlier introduced a bill that included universal background checks, has indicated he won’t give the new bill a committee hearing. In the State Senate, meanwhile, the Judiciary Committee is poised to also move forward a bill containing universal background checks. No Senate version of the Hilstrom bill has been introduced yet, although this bill would seem to fit the parameters of what Sen. Julianne Ortman was talking about when she discussed alternative legislation to the Senate bill (S.F. 235).
Resistance from the critical committee chairs in both houses may mean that supporters will be forced to engage in some parliamentary maneuvering to get this bill to the floor for a vote. This bill clearly opens the fissures in the DFL party on this issue, as well as revealing a gap in the law enforcement community, as the police chiefs and officers have lined up behind bills with universal background checks. It should make for some interesting times at the Capitol over the next two months.
March 4, 2013 10 Comments
State Representative Joe Hoppe (R-Chaska) has signed on as a co-author on H.F. 1083 that would fundamentally change the way judges are selected and elected in this state. The bill would place a constitutional amendment before voters asking them to replace traditional judicial elections, where candidates can challenge incumbent judges, with judicial retention elections. How would a judicial retention election work?
Supporters of the bill point to the fact that about 90% of judicial elections are unopposed today, meaning that even “unqualified” judges may be getting a free pass to another term on the bench. They also suggest that retention election will work to get money out of judicial elections, lessening the possibility of moneyed interests essentially buying a judgeship.
Opponents of the bill point out that in some ways, judicial elections lessen accountability by putting selection of judges solely in the hands of the governor. Additionally, there are concerns about the standards to be used by the Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission. The bill specifies the following as criteria to be used: ”knowledge of the law, procedure, integrity, impartiality, temperament, respect for litigants, respect for the rule of law, administrative skill, punctuality, and communication skills.”
What is excluded from these criteria include measures of a judge’s quality of work. The language of the bill specifically excludes looking at measures like how often their opinions are overturned by higher courts or statistical studies of how their sentences compare with sentencing guidelines. Such data is readily available and should be included in any comprehensive evaluation of judicial performance.
Local judicial activists have indicated preferences for candidates (legislative and judicial) who are opposed to retention elections.
I’m inclined to agree with the opponents of judicial retention elections. Retention elections do not create accountability and transparency to the extent supporters claim they do — in fact, on net, they tend to limit public input on judges. Being able to directly challenge an incumbent judge — even if rare and even if rarely successful — is important and shouldn’t have additional layers of bureaucracy placed in between the people and their preferences. Minnesota has campaign finance law that has been reasonably effective in limiting the influence of moneyed interests from influencing judicial election results and the political parties themselves have exercised restraint in turning these elections into partisan sideshows.
(Additionally, it should be pointed out that this yet another example of Rep. Hoppe backing yet another constitutional amendment while claiming not to like legislating that way.)
March 4, 2013 1 Comment
Here’s a roundup of some of the happenings around the area:
MN Blue Blogs
