Senate District 41 Republicans

Local political goings-on receive hardly any coverage in the media, so here is a brief summary of Republican activities this year.  We will be posting updates fairly frequently, so check back regularly.

Endorsements: The urge to purge

Republicans in Senate District 41 held their convention on Saturday, March 8.  It was a doozy!  They voted overwhelmingly to purge their two incumbent members of the Minnesota House of Representatives. 

Keith Downey defeated House District 41A incumbent Ron Erhardt by 123 votes to 49.  Jan Schneider defeated HD41B incumbent Neil Peterson by 92 to 37.  It is almost unheard-of for a political party unit to take its endorsement from an incumbent, but to put it mildly, these are not normal times for Minnesota Republicans.  (You can read the Edina Sun-Current's coverage of the convention here.)

Numerous polls have shown that the public is increasingly disenchanted with the Republicans' extreme, right-wing ideology.  Accordingly one would have expected the Republicans to try to appear reasonable and moderate, even if only superficially.  Instead they insisted on an ideological purge.

The catalyst for the purge clearly was Erhardt's and Peterson's voting with the Democrats in February to override Governor Pawlenty's veto of the transportation bill.  The override passed by a narrow margin.  Erhardt and Peterson, along with four other Republican House members who voted for the veto override, were referred to in the media as the "Override Six."  House Republicans retaliated by stripping them of their leadership positions.

A large majority of Minnesotans agree that voting to override the Pawlenty veto was common sense.  Some commentators even called it courageous.  That was an exaggeration.  The fact is, both Erhardt and Peterson voted on May 21, 2007 against an override of Pawlenty's veto of a similar bill.  (You can read the official record of the vote here; the roll call is on page 7571.) 

It's commendable that they realized their error.  However this wasn't leadership; it was the minimum acceptable response to a tragedy that should have been avoided.  Remarkably, even this modest acknowledgement of reality was too much for their fellow Republicans.

Republicans in SD41 remain adamant that the purge was right and proper.  They claim that Republican House members should mirror the opinions of the people who are active in Republican party units in their districts; they feel that Erhardt and Peterson came up short in this respect.  You can read their defense in the May issue of their newsletter here.

Security camera images show the I-35W bridge collapse in animation

We don't have a dog in their fight !

Democrats don't have a dog in this Republican ideological fight.  We have fine candidates who are campaigning actively and talking about the issues that Minnesotans care about.  You can read more about them and their Republican opponents here.