urbanMSP

Precinct Caucuses take place on Tuesday, March 1


Pioneer Press political reporter Rachel Stassen-Berger is tracking all House and Senate retirements here: https://storify.com/rachelsb/minnesota- ... e-election

https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPres ... g_amas_in/

Wednesday, January 20th: Chris Meyer - a progressive candidate for Minnesota's 60th district - will do an AMA from 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm. Chris is running in opposition to a Democrat incumbent that leans conservative.

I don't know much about either Kari dziedzic (the incumbent) nor Chris Meyer. Chris' "Issues" page on his website looks like it's still in progress (well, the website only has two pages): http://www.meyerforminnesota.com/issues/

SD60 encompasses all of Northeast and Southeast Minneapolis, including the U of M area, as well as Cedar-Riverside and a little corner of Seward.
Map: http://www.gis.leg.mn/pdf/leg2012/senate/60.pdf

Some of you might remember Chris from the Streets.mn (fun)draiser back in December. He's running a very progressive platform so these questions should be helpful to get his views on multiple issues.

How would we feel about making a single thread for all 2016 legislative races?

The vast majority of contested/open seat races will be decided at the party conventions in March. Holy crap that is soon!!
A small handful of suburban and outstate seats will be competitive in the actual November election, but I doubt many of those races will inspire much discussion here. Every single one of the city and inner suburban seats will be decided at the March DFL conventions, aside from Phyllis Kahn' house seat, which will again be decided in a primary election.

Also, the SD60 Senate race and House 60B Kahn-Omar-Noor(?) will be at the same convention! That ought to be a spectacle.

SD61 (Sen. Dibble, Reps. Hornstein and Thissen) should be uneventful, unless we get a surprise retirement in the next two months.

Will Sen. Jeff Hayden get a challenger in SD62? (Whittier, Phillips, Powderhorn, etc.) He probably should, even if only to provoke a healthy discussion.

As for Mr. Meyer in SD60, I think he'll have a good shot at blocking the nomination from Dziedzic, but it will be a heavy lift for him to actually get the nomination.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS: Precinct Caucuses are March 1!

Dzeidzic is still a very good name to have in Northeast. Friends of mine who live in that district who are very smart and much more progressive than me have nothing but good things to say about her. I'd say that this is absolutely her race to lose.

Hayden is my guy, and given the shenanigans he's been associated with, somebody absolutely ought to run against him. But that won't happen.

Dzeidzic is very thin-blue-line-law-and-order. Maybe progressive compared to an exurban, but not keeping up with her district. Also a crony capitalist based on her opposition to Sunday Sales.

http://blogs.mprnews.org/capitol-view/2 ... -4th-term/

State Rep. Carly Melin, DFL-Hibbing, announced today that she will not seek re-election to the Minnesota House in District 6A this fall.

Melin is serving her third term. She was first elected to the House in a special election in 2011, and then re-elected in 2012 and 2014.

Melin, an attorney, said in a news release that she plans to focus on her legal career and spend more time with her family.

“Although I’ll exit public life when my term expires, I will always have a passion for serving the public and plan to continue doing so through other community involvement,” Melin said.

That's a huge loss. Both for the range DFL and for the statewide DFL "bench".
I wouldn't be too surprised to see her take a job with the state or IRRRB or whatever.
Rick Nolan is again running for MN-08 this year, but he's getting up there in years. I wouldn't be surprised to see Carly Melin take a stab at that seat when Rick retires in 2018 or 2020.

Link to the Q&A:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPres ... idate_for/

Lots of policy positions to look through; Probably too much to quote here.

Intra-party challenges for state House/Senate seats are pretty rare, and more importantly almost universally unsuccessful, unless the incumbent has done something to anger their constituents. Capturing a party endorsement over an incumbent who has done nothing wrong (even if they are arguably ineffective at their job) is a colossal task.

Anyone think this lady in Edina has a chance over Ron Erhardt? http://www.heatheredelson.com/

I do think this district in Edina is now fully Democratic-leaning, and is at the point where a real DFLer can win the general election, not just a former-Republican-centrist type like Erhardt. That said, ol' Ron will very likely win the DFL endorsement again, and defeat Dario Anselmo again in the general.


As a general statement, precinct caucuses are just 5 weeks away(!), and I haven't heard "boo" from any direction (mnleg races or Presidential). Part of that could be because MN has no statewide offices on the ballot this year. But there are going to be a significant number of open MN house & senate seats around the state....you think the parties would be starting to amp up the messaging to get folks to attend on March 1.

Senator Katie Sieben of Newport has announced her retirement. Another rising star female DFL'er leaving the legislature...
http://www.twincities.com/2016/02/02/df ... -election/
This has always been a safe DFL seat for Sieben, but might be considered a swing seat again without her name.
Perhaps Rep. Dan Shoen will step up and run (seems like a pretty decent guy, and always nice to have a DFLer who is also in law enforcement)

Perhaps Rep. Dan Shoen will step up and run

News now is that he is running for the seat.

Damn I'm good (or it was fairly predictable).

Assuming he wins though, that's trading a Yes vote on Sunday liquor sales (Seiben) for a No vote (Shoen).
Overall, the Senate looks to lose some ground on Sunday sales (Reinert, B. Peterson, etc) which is a shame after that close 2015 vote.
On the other hand, younger/newer legislators tend to support Sunday sales by large margins over veteran legislators.
Of the 7 folks retiring/leaving the House in 2016 (so far), all but one voted against Sunday sales last year.
At worst the Senate will tread water or lose a couple "Yes" votes (including outspoken advocates Reinert and B. Peterson)
At best the House will trade 5 or 6 "No" votes for new "Yes" votes.

Looks like GOP won back House District 50B

https://twitter.com/rachelsb/status/697245434364846080

"won back" isn't how I would characterize this. Ann Lenczewski had held the seat since 1998!!!

This is a "safe" DFL seat that was lost in a super low turnout special election. And the DFLer wasn't some nobody - he is a sitting member of the Bloomington City Council and was endorsed by Lenczewski. This is a f***ing disaster for the DFL.

Sure, the DFL could probably take this seat back easily in the fall with the bigger turnout and all...but this is still really bad. Heads should roll tomorrow in the DFL party.

Poor wording on my part. I suppose I meant more, "Wow, the DFL really f-ed up." Bloomington is pretty safely DFL at this point. The entire city went for Obama by something like +15 in 2012 if I remember correctly.

Here's how f-ed up this is:

2016 50B Special election results:
Republican CHAD ANDERSON 2582 51.24%
Democratic-Farmer-Labor ANDREW CARLSON 2452 48.66%

2014 results:
Republican ZAVIER BICOTT 5251 34.24%
Democratic-Farmer-Labor ANN LENCZEWSKI 10060 65.60%
2012 results:
Republican RICHARD BOHNEN 7836 34.56%
Democratic-Farmer-Labor ANN LENCZEWSKI 14800 65.27%

Obama-Romney was 57-41 in the district. Franken won by nearly the same margin in 2014.

The silver lining of course, is that the DFL will likely take this seat right back in November and it will likely have little impact on the 2016 session.

EDIT: It appears Andrew Carlson may have lost due to his support for organized trash hauling on the Bloomington City Council. It's been a very contentious (and recent) issue in Bloomington and is still in that weird in-between phase where the "anti" people are still angry about it, but haven't yet realized that everything is going to be just fine. Given that situation, I guess I'll back off the DFL a bit. There's nothing they could've done...Carlson was the only DFL candidate to run.

So it's probably just because I've never had to think about my trash hauler, since my tiny hometown had only one provider, and I've been in apartments since then, but I cannot comprehend how trash collection can possibly be as big of a deal as the various suburbs are making it out to be. Good lord.

The Pioneer Press is trying to maintain a list of legislators who aren't running again this year. There are 14 who haven't already been replaced:

http://www.twincities.com/2016/01/28/mi ... nd-charts/

They also have a list of House representatives who are running for state Senate:

https://storify.com/rachelsb/minnesota- ... esota-sena

https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPres ... g_for_the/

Someone else running for the state senate did an AMA. This time it's in central western MN, the district Alexandria and Fergus Falls are in.

Edit: A district currently held by the state GOP.