On kids and cuts: Plain talk from a congressman

"To continue demoralizing our students and parents with programmatic cuts while rewarding failure in our financial system is unacceptable."

What about a bonus for our children?

By Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minn.)
Reprinted from the Mankato Free Press
March 21, 2009

On Monday evening, I attended the Mankato Public Schools forum on the upcoming budget adjustments. I observed this meeting as the father of a Roosevelt Elementary second grader. As students, parents, teachers and counselors spoke passionately about what the cuts would mean for the Mankato area and the activities they believe are worth sustaining, I found myself more proud than ever before that I am a part of this community.

When West freshman Michael Maurer spoke, I could not help remembering other young men like Michael who sat in my classroom. He spoke with confidence about the sense of belonging that he felt as part of the academic decathlon team. Countless times my colleagues and I watched as a shy, self-conscious freshman entered that big high school building, only to be transformed from an outsider in awe of the upperclassmen to an integral part of the fabric of the school community. The most common factor in this transformation was the student’s involvement in activities like speech, debate, cheerleading and academic decathlon.

Michael and his teammates spoke out because the hard choices involved in balancing the budget means these programs will likely be cut. Many of these students and parents understood that so much more than a “program” was being cut; rather a way to belong was ending.

The truly tragic thing is that when I came back to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, the news broke that AIG would be doling out bonuses not to the beacons of the financial industry, but rather to the people who invented the exotic financial tools that caused part of the meltdown.

The anger and frustration that I feel is because this was so preventable. Last fall, after I voted against the first Wall Street bailout, my vote was characterized by some as irresponsible. At the time, I publicly cited the failure of the bailout package to address excessive executive compensation as one of the primary reasons I could not vote for it.

Today, we see how fundamentally unfair it is that the Wall Street bailout provides million-dollar bonuses to executives who made bad decisions. In contrast, the leadership of Ed Waltman and the Mankato School Board has made our school district a beacon to which others aspire. But sadly, there are no bonuses for schools. Even beacons like Mankato are facing deep and dramatic cuts this year.

I am saddened for the young people of our community who are seeing their opportunity to gain the sense of belonging and self-confidence that comes with participation in these activities eliminated while we watch fat-cat CEOs and unscrupulous financial brokers walk away with taxpayer dollars for a job poorly done.

As we prepare the fiscal year federal 2010 budget, I will continue to be governed by the conviction that a budget is far more than just a spreadsheet; it is a moral document that reflects our values as a country and rewards those who we believe to be inspirational examples for the rest of the country.

We can and must do better for our children. We must invest in them and the future and in inspiring the country to greater heights. To continue demoralizing our students and parents with programmatic cuts while rewarding failure in our financial system is unacceptable.

Tim Walz is a Democrat from Mankato who represents the 1st Congressional District of Minnesota.

Tim Walz: Public 'poorly protected by the bailout plan'

Why I voted against the bailout bill

By Rep. TIM WALZ (D-Minn.)
October 6, 2008

Throughout the debate over how best to address our nation's financial and economic crisis, I have been guided by a simple question: What is the right policy for the American people? We face a real and serious economic crisis, and inaction is not an option. But action motivated by panic and fear is no substitute for getting it right.

The public is, I believe, poorly protected by the bailout plan that Congress was asked to vote on, so I voted against it both times it came before the House of Representatives. The Star Tribune Editorial Board called those votes "reckless." To the contrary, I believe they were responsible.

Virtually everyone reacted with horror when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson released his initial, three-page plan giving him unchecked power to spend 700 billion of our tax dollars to bail out Wall Street. The proposal read like a ransom note, and I appreciate the efforts of congressional negotiators to make the best out of a bad situation. But at the end of the day, Wall Street was well-represented in the negotiations in a way that Main Street wasn't.

The plan we voted on is a bad deal for the American taxpayers on several fronts:

(Continued here.)

As southern Minnesota goes, so goes the nation?

The Republican Party thinks 1st District Congressman Tim Walz is one of the country's vulnerable freshman Democrats. Two Republicans, Dr. Brian Davis and State Sen. Dick Day, hope to oust Walz. One analyst says Walz has inoculated himself against a Republican challenger. But will it be enough this November?

A referendum on Rep. Tim Walz

by Sea Stachura, Minnesota Public Radio
July 24, 2008

St. Charles, Minn. — It's Saturday morning at Mike's Food Center in St. Charles. Democratic Congressman Tim Walz holds court in front of a display of baked beans and ketchup. Ten or so shoppers form a circle around him, nodding their heads.

"Get together and compromise. Make it work. Even those who are staunchly opposed to drilling are saying if takes a little compromise on that to get them to compromise to move toward investment in renewals, do it," Walz tells the group.

One woman chimes in, "That sounds really good."

Walz talks fast. In 2006 he beat another fast talker by six percentage points. That was auctioneer and Republican Congressman Gil Gutknecht. Gutknecht had served the district for 12 years, and in 2006 most political scientists said the district was too conservative for Walz. They said a tidal wave of anti-Republican sentiment was the only way he'd get into office.

(Continued here.)

Creating fairness in the tax code for wind power

Another example of how the tax code is skewed to help the rich and how one congressman is attempting to fix it:

An energy incentive is drifting in the wind

By JOHN FARRELL
Minneapolis Star Tribune
May 1, 2008

A wind turbine can power up to 600 homes, but 600 homeowners can't get together to own a wind turbine. Why? Because federal law makes local ownership virtually impossible.

Here's how. The federal wind tax credit of 2 cents per kilowatt-hour can be taken only against taxes on passive income. Passive income does not include wages or salary; it only counts income from investments or real estate. Most Americans do not have any passive income. Those who do have very little. Thus wind turbines are financed by a handful of firms that attract investments from a few hundred or a few thousand wealthy individuals who can use the tax incentives.

The federal wind-energy incentives -- up for renewal this year -- discriminate against local ownership and favor absentee ownership. They also severely restrict the number of investors who can finance wind-energy generators.

Changing the incentives would pave the way for rural Americans to own wind turbines and for the economic benefits of wind energy to truly accrue to the host community's advantage. It would reward self-reliance. And it would level the playing field for average citizens.

Continued here. John Farrell is a research associate with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Minneapolis. More about the proposal is here.

One reason why a teacher is now a congressman ... and why Congress is better for it

It's not often when one is intellectually challenged by a politician. Sometime awhile back I was just so challenged by Rep. Tim Walz when he referred in a speech to the phrase "the banality of evil," coined by the author, philosopher and thinker Hannah Arendt. The audience was mostly high school and college students, and I wondered how many of them were likewise challenged. I had heard of Hannah Arendt, but somehow her work had escaped me.

The phrase comes from the book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, and alludes to the fact that even the most ordinary people can be perpetrators of the most hideous crimes. Of course, right away I found the book and read it.

Challenging students — and even older folks like me well past their high school and college years — is nothing new to Walz. The article below, relating to when he was still a high school teacher, illustrates why he brings a fresh and unique vision to Congress:

High School Project on Genocide Was a Portent of Real-Life Events

By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN, New York Times

In 1993, when Travis Hofmann was a freshman of 15, he had traveled little beyond the sand hills that surrounded his hometown, Alliance, Neb. He was the son of a railroad engineer, a trumpeter in the high school band, with a part-time job changing the marquee and running the projector at the local movie theater.

In Travis’s class in global geography at Alliance High School, however, the teacher introduced the outside world with the word and concept of genocide. The teacher, Tim Walz, was determined that even in this isolated place, perhaps especially in this isolated place, this county seat of 9,000 that was hours away from any city in any direction, the students should learn how and why a society can descend into mass murder.

Mr. Walz had already taught for a year in China, and he brought the world into his classroom in the form of African thumb pianos and Tibetan singing bowls. For the global geography class, he devised something far more ambitious than what the curriculum easily could have been — the identification and memorization of capitals, mountain ranges and major rivers. It was more ambitious, too, than a unit solely on the Holocaust of the sort many states have required.

The rest is here.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the Iraq war is that its proponents understood very little about the history, culture and geography of the region. Perhaps had they had a teacher like Tim Walz, they would never have initiated this monumental blunder that has so defined the George W. Bush presidency.

— LP

BREAKING NEWS! Copernicus wrong! Earth still center of the universe!

Global warming not man-made, says presumptive Walz opponent

by Leigh Pomeroy

Even the most diehard climate change deniers are begrudgingly admitting that yes, global warming exists. Yet, they hurriedly add, man is not the cause: It's all a function of a natural cyclical phenomenon.

We expect this view from some neolithic politicians and the oil and coal company executives who feed them, but from a physician running for Congress? That's hard to believe, especially in light of the overwhelming evidence that (1) the rapid rise of greenhouse gases is causing global warming and that (2) this rise has been created by humankind's burning of fossil fuels.

But don't trust me on this issue. Ask the long list of climate scientists and distinguished researchers, including many Nobel prize winners, who say so.

So one has to wonder why a Mayo Clinic physician, certainly an impeccable credential not lightly gained, would proudly proclaim his adherence to the "mankind is not the cause" fringe group of climate change deniers. Okay, maybe he's just a contrarian. But no, that's not it. It's something much more sinister: He's a candidate for Congress.

The physician in question is Brian J. Davis, who just today was endorsed by Minnesota's 1st Congressional District Republican Party to face first-term Democrat Tim Walz.

Davis is not coy about his unorthodox (by a strictly scientific standard) stance. In a letter sent to area Republicans in January he wrote:

A large portion of this flawed Energy Act is based on the premise that global warming is influenced substantially by human combustion of fossil fuels which in the U.S. provide 86% of all our energy needs. While it is important to maintain high standards for air quality and to limit air pollution, there really is no consensus that global warming is man made. [Emphasis ours.]

Later on in the letter he added:

Our nation’s energy policy and economic well-being should not be based on the deeply flawed theory that carbon dioxide produced from fossil fuel combustion will lead to catastrophic climate change. [Emphasis ours.]

While the degree of "catastrophic" is still being debated among climate scientists, the consensus is clear: The levels of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere are the highest they've been in 650,000 years — a time when the planet was much warmer than it is today. And those levels are slated to go even higher.

It is seemingly inconceivable that anyone with a serious scientific background in 2008 would question the overwhelming evidence that greenhouse gases as a byproduct of human civilization are at least a partial cause of global warming. Yet, surprisingly, there are a few still around, just as for well over a century there were those who denied the Copernican model of the heliocentric solar system.

If you want to find one, all you need to do is take a trip to the campus of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and ask for the guy who's running for Congress.

More Department of Justice favoritism: Why are we not surprised?

Some members of the Republican caucus may yell and scream about earmarks — and swear not to pursue them — but behind the scenes the Bush administration is doing a little earmarking of its own. Theoretically, the grant making process in the Department of Justice should be based on merit, not politics. But in reality, well, it doesn't quite work that way:

Justice Department grant process gets Waxman's attention

By Peter Cohn, Congress Daily, March 24, 2008

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., is investigating how a Justice Department agency awarded grants in fiscal 2007, when most federal agencies operated with a freer hand under the yearlong earmark moratorium Democrats imposed.

Waxman wrote to Attorney General Michael Mukasey March 13 requesting a briefing no later than Friday -- and related documents by April 4 -- in response to reports that the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention awarded noncompetitive grants in fiscal 2007 to less-qualified applicants.

Citing a recent investigation by the trade publication Youth Today, Waxman noted that in fiscal 2007 the the office awarded a $500,000 grant to the World Golf Foundation, even though its application was ranked lower than 38 other bids in a review done by career Justice Department officials.

The foundation is the parent organization of The First Tee, a popular program among lawmakers with an aim to "promote character development and life-enhancing values through the game of golf" for young people. The group received a $3 million earmark in the fiscal 2008 Defense spending bill last year, which received criticism from conservatives who argued such items demonstrate Congress should not be directing federal funds to local interests.

As the Justice grant indicates, the administration can pick similar winners and losers, and Waxman's letter is more striking because he has sworn off requesting earmarks for his district this year.

Waxman said the situation was brought to light by Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., a freshman who complained that a worthy applicant in his district was unfairly shut out of the grant-making process in fiscal 2007. An aide to Walz said his interest was piqued when OJJDP ignored a request to direct money to the National Child Protection Training Center at Winona State University, even though it ranked fourth out of more than 100 applicants in the agency's review.

The rest is here.

Fear and False Claims

Playing the terrorism card, a GOP-linked group twists facts about a controversial electronic surveillance bill

By Viveca Novak, factcheck.org via Newsweek

A widely-seen ad pushes a White House-backed bill that would make it easier for the government to wiretap Americans. It also would give retroactive legal immunity to telecom companies that cooperated with Bush's secret, post-9/11 warrantless wiretapping program.

Sponsored by Defense of Democracies, a group with GOP connections, the ad takes the House to task for not passing the bill, as the Senate has. The ad appeals to fear, with its image of Osama bin Laden and similar ploys. But we find that it also makes several misleading claims.

Specifically, the ad says that:

• "The law" allowing government eavesdroppers to intercept al Qaeda communications has expired. But the main, 30-year-old law that lets them listen in, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, is still on the books. It's a law amending FISA, making it easier for intelligence-gatherers to eavesdrop on communications that might include Americans, that has expired.
• "[T]he House refuses to vote" to replace the lapsed law. Actually, the House passed its own version of the legislation months ago. The House and Senate are now in conference to resolve the differences in their bills, which is the normal legislative process.
• "[N]ew surveillance against terrorists is crippled." The administration has admitted that surveillance authorized under the expired bill will extend at least into August. It has also admitted that when a new member of a known terrorist organization is discovered, that person can be surveilled via authorizations granted under the expired law. And at any rate, FISA itself hasn't expired, and any time the government has strong evidence that someone is a member of a terrorist organization, it can still get a court order to eavesdrop on that person.

(More here.)

An Honorable Man with Guts, a Veteran, Fights to Expose a Smear

By Jim Klobuchar

This appeal appeared yesterday on the website of an Army veteran, Tim Walz, who is serving his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives and running for re-election in Minnesota’s First District:

Dear Friends,

The national GOP slime machine went up on the air this past weekend in southern Minnesota with a dangerous and misleading TV ad targeting me.

The right wing is once again playing politics with our national security. The ad shows high-tech security equipment, plays ominous music and flashes photos of Osama bin Laden and me, all while implying that House Democrats have put our country at an increased risk for a terrorist attack.

Yes, you read that right. Osama bin Laden and me featured in the same sleazy Republican ad… reminiscent of Karl Rove’s attack on other Democratic military veterans who have served in Congress, like Max Cleland and John Kerry.

Defense of Democracies, a secretive right-wing lobbying group based in Washington, DC, paid for the $40,000 ad-buy. This well-funded organization favors President Bush’s proposal to grant retroactive immunity for telecommunication companies that participated in his illegal wiretapping program. Because I refused to buckle under President Bush’s fear mongering tactics, his neo-conservative buddies are coming after me. And, they are playing dirty.

I served my country for 24 years in the National Guard. I will not take these misrepresentations about my record lying down. No one will question my commitment to protecting the American people… And if we have learned anything from past elections it is that we must counter these Swift Boat ads.

His supporters are responding with their dollars. But the question he raises hangs, ominous and taunting, over the 2008 elections.

How much have the voters actually learned from the corruptions of decency and truth that emasculated John Kerry’s campaign in 2004?

One thing we probably haven’t learned is how easily it was done. The architects of it were shadowy surrogates of the real political hatchetmen and corporate pirates who brought the Bush government to power. In the middle of it some credulous Democrats actually asked George Bush to disavow the Swift Boat fraud.

Were they serious?

Two years ago at a campaign rally on the banks of Mississippi River in southeastern Minnesota, Tim Walz was introduced as the next speaker. As he was stepping to the microphone, a man got up from the second row in the audience and began walking toward the stage where Walz stood. A moment later another came down the aisle to join him, and then more, all of them veterans. Some had served with the candidate, some had never met him. There must have been 40 or 50. They formed a circle around Tim Walz and began applauding in unison. Others on the platform who had worn the uniform joined them. They were together; they felt aroused and united not only because they shared a bond but because this was a man of impeccable public service as a National Guardsman and educator, a man of energy and principle and a demonstrated leader.

He unseated the Republican incumbent and became in two years one of the respected members of the new majority in the House. And now he is fighting off an ambush picturing him as a harborer of terrorists.

One reason why defamation is so easy in American politics today is the nosedive decline of what was once characterized as the “mainstream media.” CNN yesterday put together a leery sideshow of clips out of the Obama-Clinton encounters, the happy contestants holding hands, beaming at each other at close quarters, all of this supposed to be prelude to the gut-kicking to follow. CNN’s competitor, Fox, is the de facto White House producer. CNBC, despite Keith Olberman or some times with him, turns its coverage into vaudeville. The major networks try fairness but news doesn't deliver the money for them the way the lost-in-the-jungle melodramas do. Newspapers are trying to dodge the bankruptcy courts or are owned by Wall Street. Corporate power owns the radio stations. The New York Times, for years the best newspaper in the world, is trying to fight through a crisis of confidence, worried about political reprisals from the right wing, and not sure of its news judgment anymore.

Which more of less leaves the voters to fend for themselves, as a worried democracy’s ultimate defense. What the voters cannot do is to take their eyes or their good sense away from the real perils for America this year, neatly summarized in today’s opening paragraph from an Associated Press analysis:

No good news today on the economic front. Consumer confidence plunged, the wholesale inflation rate soared, the number of homes being foreclosed jumped, home prices jumped sharply and a report predicts big increases in health care costs.

Just in case you thought November is just another month.

________________________________________

The above is from Jim Klobuchar Writes, Feb. 26, 2008.

Information on the euphemistically named Defense of Democracies can be found here. Of particular note in this report is the last paragraph, which, although dated, gives some idea of where the money is coming from. It reads:

According to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), it receives money from "a diverse group of individual philanthropists" and "does not accept any government funding." An investigative report in the American Conservative put the FDD's annual budget at close to $3 million (American Conservative, November 17, 2003). According to the American Conservative report, the FDD relies on the support of 27 individual high-end donors, including Leonard Abramson of U.S. Healthcare; New York financier Michael Steinhardt; Edgar S. Bronfman Sr., patriarch of Seagrams and president of the Jewish World Congress, and his brother Charles Bronfman; and Lynn Schusterman, widow of Oklahoma oil executive Charles Schusterman. In 2002, the FDD received $250,000 apiece from Edgar Bronfman, Michael Steinhardt, and Home Depot founder Bernard Marcus. Other donors who each gave $100,000 included Abramson, Charles Bronfman, Lynn Schusterman, and Dalck Feith (father of Douglas Feith). In its Form 990 tax form for 2004, FDD indicated that Ameriquest Capital had donated a generous $1.55 million to the foundation. The forms also showed [Director] Clifford May's salary at more than $305,000 a year in 2004. The FDD also receives funding from the State Department for its democracy programs and has worked in tandem with the U.S.-government funded NED. In 2004, the Sarah Scaife Foundation granted the FDD $125,000 for general operating expenses, and a combined $275,000 in 2005 for program and project support. In 2005 FDD had assets of close to $5.5 million, according to MediaTransparency.org. (For more on FDD funding, see Mediatransparency.org.)

A no-win vote on the AMT: 'It's an ad made in heaven'

WALZ: Navigating the tricky political middle ground

By KEVIN DIAZ, Star Tribune

With Congress rushing to adjourn for the holidays, Tim Walz confronted the kind of uncomfortable choice that defined his first year in the U.S. House.

The Minnesota Democrat could vote to stop the dreaded Alternative Minimum Tax from catching up with 20 million taxpayers next year. Or he could vote to kill a so-called temporary "patch" that would suspend the tax but blow a $50 billion hole in the federal budget.

Walz voted against the patch, and against the tax relief that went with it, taking an unpopular stance he knew would lose soundly while still playing into the hands of his Republican opponents.

"It's an ad made in heaven for them," Walz said, sighing.

(More here.)

Following in Tim Walz's footsteps

Two vets redeploy to campaign trail

In races for Congress, a pair of DFLers bring their Iraq war experiences to the campaign, offering personal perspectives to a central election issue.

By MARK BRUNSWICK, Star Tribune

It doesn't take long for war stories to emerge when congressional candidates Ashwin Madia and Steve Sarvi hit the campaign trail.

Both are Iraq veterans running as DFLers. The battle for hearts and minds now takes Madia to the western suburbs of Hennepin County, where he is running for the Third District seat left open by retiring Republican Jim Ramstad. It takes Sarvi to the southeastern suburbs and farmland of the Second District, where Sarvi is challenging Republican incumbent John Kline.

They join a nationwide redeployment of at least a dozen other Iraq or Afghanistan veterans running for Congress in 2008. Most of the veteran candidates are Democrats. Many, like Sarvi and Madia, are running for a major elected office for the first time.

With war weariness much on voters' minds, the vets' march on Washington looks like a winning strategy to some.

"Vets like Sarvi and Madia have just come back recently," said James Bootz, chairman of the DFL veterans' caucus.

"They've got firsthand experience and still have connections to people who are over there," Bootz added. "It's a big advantage just having them in the race."

(More here.)

What big business will do to keep government funds flowing to its coffers

Special interest ad misleads

by Rep. Tim Walz
Published in the Mankato Free Press

[Recently,] Free Press readers had an opportunity to observe how special interest groups attempt to influence decisions made in Washington.

The so-called Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care and the American Health Care Association ran a full page color ad costing anywhere from $1,500 to $3,000 in Friday's and Tuesday’s editions of The Free Press. These special interests urged constituents to call my office in opposition to a bill that most Americans support, the CHAMP Act.

This legislation provides 11 million children from low-income families with health insurance, corrects overpayments by Medicare to private insurers, expands preventative care coverage and mental health services under Medicare, ensures patient access to physicians, and safeguards high-quality care in rural areas.

Hundreds of non-profit groups and professional organizations supported my vote, including the AARP, Children’s Defense Fund, American Nurses Association, the AFL-CIO, and the American Medical Association. These grassroots and non-profit associations stand in stark contrast to the big businesses that bought the ad.

(More here. Rep. Tim Walz is a Democrat who represents Minnesota's First Congressional District.)

Tim Walz clarifies vote on FISA

Wiretapping law is imperfect but necessary

by Tim Walz, from the Rochester Post-Bulletin

On Saturday, Aug. 4, I cast one of the most difficult votes of my tenure in Congress, supporting legislation that makes temporary changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA).

Almost three decades ago, the original law set up a special FISA court to review Executive Branch requests to conduct surveillance on targets within the United States. It wasn't charged with monitoring surveillance of foreign targets. FISA attempted -- sometimes unsuccessfully -- to strike a delicate balance, protecting Americans' civil liberties while allowing intelligence officials to gather information.

The basic tension between security and civil liberties has been constant over the past 29 years, but the threats have evolved and changed during that time, and so has the technology involved in the interception of this information. By tradition, the FISA court reviews all communications that physically move through U.S. infrastructure. But today, much of the communication taking place in the world travels through fiber optic communication channels that exist in the United States -- even when the parties communicating are outside our country.

(The rest is here.)

Washington Post on Walz

An Antiwar Freshman Leader Faces His Constituents

By Lois Romano And Mary Ann Akers, Washington Post

Tim Walz -- the newly installed president of the freshman Democratic congressional class -- was among the 30 members swept into office in November as reformers, vowing to change what they called a culture of corruption and to end the war in Iraq.

But after seven months in office and especially last week's raucous march to the summer recess, the affable former high school teacher is returning home to a skeptical electorate in Minnesota with little progress to report on the war. Like the rest of his colleagues, between now and November 2008 he will have to prove to his constituents that they made the right choice to hand control of Congress to the Democrats.

And he's trying not to sound worried as Republicans circle his seat.

"My constituents are thoughtful and pragmatic people who focus on outcomes rather than ideology," he said. "They want good government and ethics reform. . . . They need to have their faith restored in government. We can't just sound good."

Walz, 43, was a popular geography teacher and military veteran when he launched his new career as a candidate with an eye toward the 2006 election. As Reps. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) and Chris Van Hollen (Md.) scoured the country for moderate Democratic challengers who could be credible speaking on the war in Iraq, no one came knocking on Walz's door. But he was certainly what they were looking for: He had spent 24 years in the Army National Guard before retiring, not happy with the direction in Iraq and willing to say so.

(More here.)

Walz receiving flack for supporting Bush on FISA

Tongues are wagging and keyboards are pounding on the left side of the blogosphere questioning Rep. Tim Walz's "yea" vote on the Protect America Act of 2007, which more or less legalizes all the illegal electronic surveillance stuff that's been going on since 9/11. (It's a little more complicated than that.)

The blogosphere is one thing, but now the heretofore solidly conservative Rochester Post-Bulletin minces no words in calling Walz to task for his vote.

To see the Post-Bulletin chastising a Democrat for supporting the president signals one of two things. Either the Post-Bulletin has taken a decidedly leftward tack in its editorial policy, or Walz actually did make the wrong decision. If you want to read the editorial, go here.

A strong challenger for John Kline's seat?

Now serving in Iraq, Steve Sarvi is considering run for Congress in Minnesota's 2nd district

by Leigh Pomeroy

I distinctly remember the moment when Tim Walz told me he was thinking of running for Congress against then incumbent Gil Gutknecht.

We were talking because I had been the stopgap 2004 Democratic candidate after endorsed candidate Joe Mayer (now a contributor to this site) was forced to drop out of the race because of health reasons.

We made a good effort — the grassroots supporters of change throughout the district and I — but with no money, no time and no support from the national level, our efforts were all but doomed to fail.

Then Tim told me that some people had asked him to consider running, and I knew right then he would be the perfect candidate in '06:

• A leader in the National Guard
• An award-winning teacher and coach
• An individual with extensive knowledge of and contacts with China, whose future is so entwined with ours

Tim was not a politician; rather, he was an ordinary citizen who cared. He was in his early 40s, close in age to our country's founding fathers, men of vision, energy and creativity unlike so many career politicians today. And yet I had seen him and his wife, Gwen, campaigning in '04 for John Kerry and for veterans issues. They both demonstrated a natural ability to communicate — honest and desirous to connect rather than to preach.

It is this meeting with Tim that came to mind when I read Mike McIntee's post on Steve Sarvi at Inside MN Politics. I found myself thinking, "Could this be déjà vu all over again?"

Read on and listen to Mike's interview of Steve Sarvi. Perhaps this Iraq veteran could be for Minnesota's 2nd what Tim Walz has become for Minnesota's 1st....

Possible DFL Congressional Candidate Steve Sarvi Interview

Just as it takes courage to jump out of a plane or serve in Iraq, it takes courage to leap into politics. Steve Sarvi has done both and has been mentioned as a possible DFL candidate to face Congressman John Kline (R- MN02) in 2008. Steve has been in the Army for nearly 20 years and is on track to be part of the longest deployed Minnesota National Guard unit in Iraq. He's been there since March of 2006 and is hoping to return home in late July or early August. He's also the former Mayor of Watertown, MN.

Inside Minnesota Politics has an exclusive audio interview with Steve you can listen to here. Since he's on active duty in Iraq, he really can't talk much about running for office, but we did get to talk about how he's helping local governments get started in Iraq and how the City of Victoria, Minnesota (his employer) has been very supportive of him and his family while he's been in Iraq.

The rest is here.

Iraq Quote of the Day

Thursday, May 3

"Now the president's rejected our legislation, he has the responsibility to tell the American people how many more years does he expect us to stay. Do you think it will be five, maybe 10? ... Wishful thinking, political talking points and rigid ideology do not make good foreign policy." — Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., from the Chicago Tribune

New York Times on Tim Walz the Educator

Congressman, Teacher, Soldier, and He’s Back in Town for a Visit

By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN, New York Times

MANKATO, Minn.

Tim Walz strode eagerly across the tile floor and past the metal lockers, heading toward center hall of Mankato West High School. At the reception desk he borrowed a walkie-talkie and put a call out for Wayne Johnson, the janitor. Half a minute later, the custodian bounded down the stairs, broom and dustpan in hand, and the reunions began.

Every time Mr. Walz moved a few steps, he bumped into a familiar face and a memory. He asked one girl from the track team about her best time this season in the 800 meters. A boy, just admitted to Northwestern, thanked Mr. Walz for the recommendation letter. A couple of teachers recalled when, stuck in the basement during a tornado, they sang those endless rounds of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”

After his first 100 days as a Congressional representative, Mr. Walz was home. He was back in his district, a vast swath of southern Minnesota, but more important, on this April morning he was back at his old high school. Here he had taught geography, coached football, advised seniors and supervised the lunchroom.

His return to Mankato West, though, was more than nostalgic. Of the 535 members of Congress, Mr. Walz, 43, is the only active schoolteacher, still a tenured faculty member here. As the federal government has grown deeply enmeshed in public education, exemplified by the No Child Left Behind law now up for reauthorization, only Mr. Walz among his colleagues has experienced its effects in his own classroom.

(The rest is here.)

There Is Progress Against Meth, but the Problem Is Still Huge

Rep. Walz: "If we don't take care of these things now, we'll pay for them later."

by Leigh Pomeroy
Mankato, Minnesota

It was an impressive speaker list: State Senator Julie Rosen, DFL-Fairmont; Ramsey County Attorney and presumptive gubernatorial candidate Susan Gaertner; State Gang and Drug Force Coordinator Bob Bushman; Statewide Meth Coordinator Chuck Noerenberg. All had gathered at the Midwest Wireless Civic Center in Mankato Tuesday morning at the behest of Rep. Tim Walz, DFL-Minn., to discuss the progress and challenges of dealing with the methamphetamine problem in rural Minnesota.

The news they delivered was both good and bad. The bad news: Meth still remains one of the major problems for law enforcement and social services in Minnesota, one that costs the state in terms of violent crime, financial and property crime, child abuse and neglect, and taxpayer dollars. According to the Revealing Meth in Minnesota website put up by the Minnesota County Attorneys Association:

• 90% of financial crimes investigated by the Minnesota Financial Crimes Task Force are connected to either meth or crack abuse
• 69% of Minnesota counties report that child protection cases have increased due to meth abuse
• the societal cost of meth to Minnesota taxpayers has topped $130 million annually

"When we realized that one in eight prisoners in our penal system were there because of meth, we knew we had a problem," said Susan Gaertner, former president of the Minnesota County Attorneys Association.

All the presenters stressed that the meth problem was not just about crime, but about the devastation it has on families and communities. Several panelists noted that unlike other types of substance abuse, meth is as far as the sexes are concerned an equal opportunity destroyer. There are nearly as many female users as there are male, which makes the addiction even more devastating since women are the principal family caretakers.

It also creates havoc in other ways. State Gang and Drug Force Coordinator Bob Bushman said that some people like to claim that drugs are a victimless crime, "but if you've ever seen a baby born addicted to meth, you know that's not true."

Yet there is good news about the problem as well. Jeff Hunsberger of the Minnesota Department of Human Services noted that meth use declined in 2006 after steadily rising from 2000 through 2005.

Dealing with the problem requires a multi-pronged approach of treatment, prevention, and education as well as law enforcement. "We're not going to arrest our way out of the drug problem," said State Gang and Drug Force Coordinator Bob Bushman.

Hunsberger noted that even the most conservative studies say that $1.33 is returned to the taxpayer for every $1 spent on drug treatment programs; some studies say that return is actually much higher. "We need to look at the total picture, including mental health," said Sen. Rosen.

She pointed out that Minnesota has been a national leader in applying a broad-based approach to the problem. When the state began to craft legislation to deal with meth several years ago, "we were pretty much all by ourselves," she said. Other states were also coping with the crisis, but there was no legislative model. Minnesota passed its first methamphetamine law in 2005, and since then the rest of the country has been looking to Minnesota as a leader.

Rep. Tim Walz, who moderated the panel, let the panelists do the talking. But the fact that his office set up the event points out that the problem requires a multi-level governmental approach. While counties deal with the meth problem most directly through law enforcement and social services, the state provides information, coordination and funding, and the federal government provides the majority of funding.

Rosen and Walz spoke of the need to pass legislation at both state and federal levels to provide enough money to tackle the problem on all fronts. Bushman pointed out that the meth problem transcends party lines.

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The Minnesota County Attorneys Association offers a DVD for only $5 (for shipping and handling) about the meth problem to anyone who requests it. The DVD can be ordered at revealingmeth.com.

Third Challenger Steps Into Ring Against Walz

According to the Rochester Post-Bulletin, Randy Demmer, a four-year member of the Minnesota House, has indicated he will run for Congress in Minnesota's 1st district. Two other Republicans have already declared their intentions for the same seat, Sen. Dick Day of Owatonna and Lake Crystal Welcome Memorial school board member Mark Meyer. Demmer, a business consultant from Hayfield, near Rochester, said at the Olmsted County Republican Convention recently, "The district fits me very well. It's really a mirror of the district that I represent in the Minnesota House."

In 2006, Demmer was re-elected to his seat by 58% of the vote, defeating longtime labor activist Wes Urevig.

Demmer is known to be a strong supporter of agricultural interests. According to Project Vote Smart, he votes with business interests (Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, National Federation of Independent Business) 75-100% of the time, with labor interests 0-40% of the time, and in the interest of the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, an anti-abortion group, 100% of the time. In addition, he has received "A" ratings from the National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund and Minnesota Concealed Carry Reform, Now! (CCRN!).

Another possible candidate for the seat held by freshman Congressman Tim Walz is Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau, according to the National Journal.