Political Notebook

Recount confirms Murray defeats Brown

My Austin Post-Bulletin colleagues Kay Fate and Jim Troyer sent in a report this morning that recounts in Mower and Freeborn counties confirmed that Republican Rich Murray defeated two-term DFL Rep. Robin Brown. Here is their report:

A mandatory recount between District 27A candidates Rep. Robin Brown, DFL-Austin, and Murray, the Republican challenger, showed no change in the Nov. 2 results in Mower County. And 22 miles away in Albert Lea, Freeborn County officials found no vote changes either, giving Murray a 57-vote margin.

Freeborn County was the difference for Murray.

In Freeborn County, Murray received 6,889 votes compared to 6,474 for Brown, a difference of 415 votes. Murray trailed Brown in Mower County's tally by 358 votes.

Freeborn GOP leader Al Arends noted that the District 27 vote was close and that Brown’s strong showing in Mower County was predictable. “Mower is more Democratic,” he said. “We are more of a swing county.”

Noting that the Albert Lea High School teacher has held the seat for the past four years, Arends said, “It’s good to get it back.”

Mower's recount of the legislative race took less than two hours Monday morning. It's the third time this election season that local ballot counts have been checked — and found to be 100 percent accurate. Focus then shifted to Freeborn County where it took seven hours.

Dayton gains 13 votes in Olmsted County recount

Olmsted County wrapped up its recount of 55,671 ballots within nine hours — much faster than anticipated. DFLer Mark Dayton got a boost from the recount netting 13 additional votes while Republican Tom Emmer lost 9 votes. A total of 10 ballot challenges were made with all six of those made by Emmer volunteers being deemed "frivolous" by election officials. That means these ballots were included in the final vote totals. Of the four challenges raised by Dayton volunteers, two were considered frivolous.

Statewide, 45 percent of the ballots have been recounted. Dayton gained a total of 20 votes and Emmer lost a total of four votes. A total of 367 ballot challenges were accepted with 281 of them coming from the Emmer campaign. Heading into the gubernatorial recount, Dayton was leading by 8,770 votes.

For number lovers, here is a breakdown of the recount results for area counties in southeast Minnesota. The first number is the Nov. 2 vote totals, the second is recount total and the third is the vote change. It should be noted that Mower County's results have not yet been posted on the Secretary of State's website.

Dodge County

Dayton:  2,579, 2,576, -3
Tom Emmer: 4,117, 4,116, -1
Ballot challenges by Dayton volunteers: 1
Ballot challenges by Emmer volunteers: 4

Fillmore County
Dayton:  3,535, 3,535, 0
Emmer: 3,648, 3,649, +1
Ballot challenges by Dayton volunteers: 0
Ballot challenges by Emmer volunteers: 5

Goodhue County
Dayton: 7,247, 7,260, +13
Emmer: 9,178, 9,180, +2
Ballot challenges by Dayton volunteers: 0
Ballot challenges by Emmer volunteers: 2

Houston County
Dayton: 3,187, 3,182, -5
Emmer: 3,774, 3,774, 0
Ballot challenges by Dayton volunteers: 2
Ballot challenges by Emmer volunteers: 12

Wabasha County (43% of ballots recounted)
Dayton: 1,317, 1,320, +3
Emmer: 1,950, 1,950, 0
Ballot challenges by Dayton volunteers: 1
Ballots challenges by Emmer volunteers: 1

Winona County
Dayton: 8,275, 8,273, -2
Emmer: 7,950, 7,950, 0
Ballot challenges by Dayton volunteers: 3
Ballot challenges by Emmer volunteers: 5

Let the ballot counting begin!

Counting of Olmsted County ballots is well underway this morning as the gubernatorial recount kicked off. Statewide, election officials will count 2.1 million ballots by hand. Here in Olmsted County, they will go through 55,671 ballots and hope to wrap up the recount by 9 p.m. tonight.

Election officials sported blue shirts with "election judge" in white on the sleeves. A volunteer for DFLer Mark Dayton's campaign and one from Republican Tom Emmer's campaign are sat at each table watching judges sort and count the votes. They can challenge ballots if they think there is a question about who the voter intended to cast a ballot for and those challenged ballots will be sent to the state. Prior to the recount, Dayton lead Emmer by 8,775 votes. That is less than one half of one percent of the total votes cast, which automatically triggers a recount under state law.

Mark Krupski, the county's Director of Property Records and Licensing, said so far things are going smoothly. They have 20,000 less ballots to count this time compared to the 2008 U.S. Senate race recount. As for the cost of the recount, he said he estimates the total price tag will be $20,000. The state chips in 3 cents per ballot for a total of $1,670 leaving county taxpayers to foot the rest of the bill.

Walz seeks leadership vote delay, ultimately backs Pelosi

1st District DFL Congressman Tim Walz had initially pushed to delay electing the new minority leader, according to spokeswoman Meredith Salsbery. He pushed for the later date because "he thinks we need to have a very serious discussion about how to ensure ideas from all parts of our diverse caucuses are heard and considered in House leadership."

But when the caucus opted to go ahead with a vote on Wednesday, Walz ultimately supported re-electing Nancy Pelosi as the Democrats' leader.

"Rep. Walz made the choice to support someone who has been an aggressive champion of the veterans’ issues he cares so deeply about, Speaker Pelosi. Continuing his work on veterans’ affairs will be a top priority and he looks forward to fighting for veterans in the upcoming Congress," Salsbery said in a statement.

Senjem, Davids score key committee chairmanships

Republican leaders announced this morning in Rochester that two southeast Minnesota lawmakers will chair among the most powerful committees at the Capitol. Sen. Dave Senjem of Rochester has been named chair of the Capital Investment Committee, which is responsible for putting together the bonding bill which funds construction projects across the state. That's good news for Rochester, which has been pushing several projects including seeking $34 million to expand the Mayo Civic Center.

"It's a big important committee and Sen. Senjem is going to do a wonderful job," said incoming Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch of Buffalo.

Rep. Greg Davids of Preston will head the House Taxes Committee, which wields considerable power since virtually ever bill must go through his committee. At the news conference, Davids said he is honored to have been chosen for that post.

"My goal will be to make sure that Minnesotans keep more of what they earn. I believe that wealth is created throught the private sector, not the public sector," Davids said.

Republicans to unveil new committee structures today

Incoming Speaker of the House Kurt Zellers and Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch have scheduled a press conference for 2 p.m. today to unveil the new committee structures. The Republicans have vowed that they are going to cut down on the number of committees in the Minnesota Legislature.

I talked with Senate Minority Leader Dave Senjem last week and he said Republicans have been hard at work on designing the structure. One challenge on the Senate side is that there are only 16 incumbent Republicans leaving a limited number of senators who could chair committees. Even more important than the new committee structure will be the announcement of the new committee chairs. Senjem said he is expecting to get a key committee chairmanship. He has his eyes on finance, taxes, capital investments and higher education. Meanwhile on the House side, Rep. Greg Davids will also likely get a key committee assignment since he ranks second in seniority among the House GOP.

 

Republicans file first lawsuit related to gubernatorial election

The first lawsuit related to the gubernatorial election has officially been filed. Emmer for Governor and the Repulican Party of Minnesota have filed lawsuits against St. Louis and Pine counties accusing them of not responding in a "timely manner' to data requests related to the Nov. 2 election.

Republican Party of Minnesota Chairman Tony Sutton issued the following statement about the lawsuits:

“The unacceptable foot dragging of St. Louis and Pine Counties cannot persist. The Emmer for Governor campaign and the Republican Party of Minnesota should not have to go to court to get counties to respond to data practices requests in a timely manner. We will continue to pursue any counties that do not promptly meet their legal obligations during this process. Minnesotans deserve better."

Click the links to view copies of the lawsuit against St. Louis and Pine counties.

Meanwhile, the recount team for DFLer Mark Dayton had a press conference this morning at the Capitol. David Lillehaug, an attorney for Dayton, accused Emmer campaign of going on one of the "biggest fishing expeditions of all time" by requesting tens of thousands of documents.

Olmsted County Elections Administrator Pam Fuller said Olmsted County has been deluged with data requests from  the Republican Party of Minnesota and that the Dayton campaign has asked for copies of whatever the Emmer campaign gets. She estimates it will take 60 staff hours to fufill these extensive data requests.

Walz not saying whether he will back Pelosi

Today I caught up with DFL Congressman Tim Walz after he spoke to Plainview-Elgin-Millville High School students at a Veterans Day assembly. I asked him whether or not he planned to support current U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in her bid to become minority leader in the new GOP-run House.

Walz said right now he is more concerned about making sure his bills have support and picking up bills sponsored by members that lost re-election — not who should be minority leader.

"We haven't given it any thought. I've told them, 'Let me get on the ground back there and let us talk about that.'"

He said he sees this discussion about minority leader as "inside baseball" that the average American doesn't care about.

So what does he think the focus of the Democratic minority needs to be in the U.S. House this upcoming session?

"We've got to talk about jobs. We've got to talk about how we are going to be constructive and like I said, I just want to make sure none of my bills fall through the cracks."

When asked about efforts by the Republicans during the election to tie him to Pelosi, who they described as a San Francisco liberal, Walz said that strategy ended up failing.

"Obviously it didn't work as well as they thought it would because I think I've always been an independent voice and I think we made that case again," he said.

Walz talks to students in Plainview on Veterans Day

1st District Rep. Tim Walz will be at Plainview-Elgin-Millville High School this afternoon to talk to students about the imporance of honoring the nation's veterans. He has a busy day of activities including speaking to students this morning in New Richland. He will be in Plainview at 1 p.m. and will end the day at the Nicollet County Veterans Day Dinner in Nicollet.

Walz's visit comes on the heels of his election victory last week over Republican Randy Demmer. Walz won by 49 percent over Demmer who had 44 percent. Smart Politics did an interesting analysis that showed just how revved up Republicans were in last Tuesday's election. Their analysis found that support for Republican candidates rose 22 percent statewide. In the 1st Congressional District, there was a 34 percent increase in GOP votes this year compared to 2008. That is the third largest shift in the state behind the 8th and 7th congressional districts. Meanwhile, statewide support for the DFL in 2010 dropped below the 50 percent mark just for the sixth time since 1954.

 

 

 

Senjem as Senate president? Thanks, but no thanks

There has been plenty of talk about whether Rochester Sen. Dave Senjem will be elected majority leader tomorrow after having led the Senate Republicans for four years. I wrote a story about it today noting that some people had suggested he might be considered for the role of Senate president. But in a chat with Senjem today, he made clear that is a job he has no interest in.

"I don't want to be Senate president. It's not my style. I don't have the attention span," he said.

To be an effective Senate president, he said you have to constantly be on alert looking senators making points of order on the floor. That's something that Senjem says "I would not do well at."

As for being the majority leader, Senjem said "I would be absolutely honored to serve, but it's not something that I absolutely have to do."

Ultimately, he said he has already achieved his primary goal as leader of the Senate Republicans.

"My goal was to win the majority for the Republican Senate — the almost impossible dream — and we were able to do that," he said.