hPVI in visual form

This is my attempt at putting all the hPVI information into an easy to understand graphical format, preferably one with pretty colors.

First I'll take you through the individual elements of the chart; the legislative seat chart, the hPVI chart and the house district spread chart, then combine those into one easy to understand Minnesota Legislative hPVI Chart With Pretty Colors.

What initially got the ball rolling in this direction was Joe's request for some sort of graphical chart of legislative seats.

…I wonder if there's a graphical way to show who controls the house seats in each of those districts.

This was the result of that:



Each cell represents a legislative seat, the numbers are Senate seats, and the corresponding letters are House seats. Blue means that seat is held by a DFLer, and red means it's held by a GOPer. The headings at the top are shaded blue because both chambers are controlled by the DFL; if one were controlled by the GOP the cell would be red.

Joe liked that chart but I wasn't quite satisfied, I wanted a way to integrate that chart with hPVI, which lead to the next chart, a way of formatting the hPVI information in a graphical way:



In this chart the headings at the top refer to the seat type, SD for senate district, A and B for that house district with the numbers along the side referring to the district number. The numbers in the cells are the hPVI numbers and the cells are color coded so that neutral districts are white, and the more Republican a district is the deeper shade of red it is, the more Democratic the more blue.

To that we can add a column for the district spread, the difference between the hPVI's of the two house districts, color coded from white to green.



Now we have two sort of similar looking charts that can be combined into one:



In one graphic we can see what party currently holds the district, what its partisan tilt is and how big of a difference in hPVI there is between the two house districts.

hPVI; House districts, sorted

Below is the Minnesota House district hPVI list.

As with the Senate district list the most democratic districts are significantly more partisan than the most republican districts. This is not surprising; as the house districts are further segmentations of the Senate districts we would expect them to retain some of the same partisan tendencies. You can see this in the graph, which looks very similar to the Senate hPVI graph.



And I've said it before, but I'll say it again, SD61 is really, really liberal. Really. For reals.

Here's the house hPVI list:

hPVI; Senate districts, sorted

Below is the entire Minnesota Senate district hPVI list, but before we get to that let's first take a look at some information about the list.

As you would expect the most democratic districts are significantly more partisan than the most republican districts. In fact a full 16% of the districts are Democratic districts that are more partisan than the most republican district. Conversely there are relatively few Democratic districts in the +10 - +20 range, while there are lots of republican districts in that range. You can see the trend more easily when the list is graphed.



The republican districts are more plentiful, but less partisan while the exact opposite is true of the democratic districts. The other interesting feature is just how many +10 republican districts the DFL currently holds. Even if you exclude Lisa Fobbe in her R+24 district there are six districts with an R+10 score or greater that are held by DFLers while the most Democratic district currently held by the GOP is SD41 with an R+5 score. This is to be expected in a Senate dominated by the DFL, but it's still somewhat surprising to see how far into GOP land the DFL incursion has penetrated.

And SD 61 is really, really liberal.

Here's the entire Senate hPVI list:

New Ras poll, GPI update

It's been awhile since the Minnesota Governors race was polled, SurveyUSA released the last poll on the race over a month ago, so we haven't been able to update the GPI recently. Before we get to that let's just take a quick look at the results of the Rasmussen poll.



All three DFL candidates polled better this time than last time Rasmussen polled this race, by margins of 3 to 5 points while Emmer and Horner polled slightly worse, by margins of 1 to 2 points. These are the same trend lines that SurveyUSA caught in their now month old poll, Emmer slipping and the three DFL candidates gaining. It's not hard to see how these trends will only be magnified after the DFL primary in August.

Now onto the GPI update. Just a reminder on the methodology:

The weighted average is an average of all the polls, weighted against a variable called "weight". This variable represents a combination of the Pollster Rating and the age of the poll. The newer the poll and better the pollster the higher it will be weighted. The age of the poll has more effect on the weight then the pollster rating, with the age making up 75% of the weight and the Pollster Rating making up 25%. However the age weighting will essentially fall off at 50 days and this will get adjusted as we get closer to the race in question.

There are only two polls that meet the 50 day shelf life criteria right now, the just released Rasmussen poll and the June SurveyUSA poll, so the GPI is simply a weighted average of the two polls. The only recent poll on the DFL primary is the SuveyUSA poll, so there will be no update to the primary GPI right now.

Here's the current GPI poll list:



And now the actual GPI:



All of the DFL candidates increased their wAve by about 3 points while Emmer held steady and Horner dropped a couple. The trend lines certainly look good for the DFL going forward.

Top 5 House districts by hPVI

Last week I posted the top 5 most partisan Senate districts in the state, according to hPVI, this week we'll look at the House version of those lists. First the top five most Democratic House districts:



Just like its Senate counterpart the Democratic list is all Twin Cities districts. In fact, the top 15 most Democratic house districts are located in the Twin Cities. And if you needed any more proof, SD 61 is really, really liberal. Really.

Here are the top 5 most Republican districts:



There's Tom Emmer, hailing from the fourth most Republican district in the state. The flip side of that is Margaret Anderson Kelliher, whose 60A is the seventh most Democratic district in the state at an hPVI of D+50. It's entirely possible that the two major party candidates for Governor will be from two of the most partisan house districts in the state, with a full 80 points of spread between their constituents.

I'll post the complete lists for both the house and senate soon.

Battle at the Ol’ Mexico

Tom Emmer held a town hall event yesterday at the Ol' Mexico Restaurante & Cantina in Roseville. The event was billed on Emmer's website as "a town meeting with servers in the hospitality industry to listen to their concerns regarding wages, tips, taxes and health care." Concerns would be the polite way to describe what most of the people at the event felt. Something like "really pissed off" would probably come closer.

By the time I arrived, the Banquet Hall where the "town meeting" was being held in was full, so I took a seat in the restaurant with the rest of the overflow. The event inside was audible through the restaurants audio system. Most of the people in attendance were wearing stickers that claimed "I'm not overpaid," supplied by Alliance for a Better Minnesota. One woman I talked to told me she had worked for Norm Coleman back when he was Mayor of St. Paul and again when he ran for Senate, but she was now questioning if she could vote for Tom Emmer. She was wearing a sticker.



So how did Tom Emmer handle this hostile crowd? As you would expect from Tom Emmer he lied:

What I said last week was this; when I was asked about the tip credit I said absolutely. I was asked next so you're saying reduce the minimum wage, I said we can't do that.

And lied:

I'm more than willing to listen to you and see what you have to say the other thing is I've never proposed, ah, in the past week it was never about a proposal to reduce minimum wage, so we're not even having that discussion.

And lied:

The point is not to cut wages, when you are losing hours, when you're not able to make wages and support your family, when your employer's not getting the business that they need to give you the hours that you need to survive there's a problem.

And lied:

I don't want to see your wages go down, let's not talk about that any longer, what the media has reported is Emmer said he wants to cut your wage, no I don't, I said it again I want to raise your wage.

Throughout the entire event Tom Emmer claimed that he never said he wanted to reduce anyone's wages. The problem for him is that he said he wanted to reduce people's wages. From earlier this week about cutting the minimum wage:

"If somebody is going to pass that through the Legislature, we would absolutely sign it."

So which is it Tom? Do you want to cut the minimum wage or not? What is your actual position, because if anyone learned anything at this event it certainly wasn't what your actual position is.

A theme that Tom Emmer kept coming back to was the idea that by reducing the minimum wage, servers could earn more money. How is this possible? Tom explains:

The minimum wage, I believe if you excel, if you're the best server in the house you should be allowed to make more than the minimum wage and if you're not the best, maybe you're the weakest, you should make a little bit less and be able to work your way up.

Right now, at this very moment employers have the ability to pay their best servers more; the minimum wage doesn't prevent that. But is that what really happens in restaurants? Do the strongest servers get paid more in hourly wage than the weakest? Not usually. If you're a trainer you might get paid more, but this is because while you are training you typically will be taking less tables and making less in tips. In fact, there's already a system in place that rewards good servers, it's called tipping.

I worked as a server in a tip penalty state (Florida) many years ago. I got paid more per hour than most of the other employee's and it wasn't because I was a good server, on the contrary, I was what is known as a weak server. Why did I get paid more per hour than almost everyone else? Because I worked the graveyard shift, didn't get barely any tips and had a ton of side work to do. Most servers got paid $2.13 an hour. I got $3.12. Is that Tom Emmer's idea of climbing the ladder?

One of the servers there who had some words for Tom Emmer was a friend of mine, Ann Potter. Her statement got one of the loudest applauses of the night and part of it was featured in the MPR article about the event. Here's the whole thing:

Hi my name is Ann, I've waited tables for over ten years. I'm absolutely horrified by the statement's I watched you make on film, basically claiming that we don't deserve to make the wages that we do, that it's ridiculous that a server would make $100,000 a year while an owner is making less than that or is having a hard time putting their bills together. My understanding of your statement is the only people who deserve to make six figures are people who own property.

(cheering and applause)

An attack on minimum wage is an attack on the working class. $7.25 is hardly a livable wage. We work so hard, most of us don't have health insurance, most of us don't have 401k's, most of us don't have any kind of financial protection I just am absolutely enraged with what you have to say, I find it to be abhorrent and incredibly irresponsible.

(more cheering and applause)

I think this is a good point and something I've noticed before about Tom Emmer, his lack of respect for working people. This is the same sort of attitude that stiffs a contractor for money on work they have done simply because he determines that he was overcharged and then when the contractor takes him to court he claims ridiculous court fees for himself. The laborer doesn't deserve to get paid the same amount as Tom Emmer the lawyer.

The event ended without an ending. Robert Erickson Nick Espinosa of the group BAM!, Boycott Arizona – Minnesota, went up to the table Tom Emmer was sitting at and dumped a sack full of pennies down in front of him. Another member of BAM! had a statement to make:

BAM! dropped the pennies because you support S.B. 1070 and the irony is not lost on us that you're in a Mexican restaurant in support of a law that's assaulting that community, so until you speak out against S.B. 1070 we will not listen to anything you say. And you need to stop lying, the tip credit is a penalty, we all know it, stop lying.

(cheering and applause)

That was it. Apparently the microphone wasn't working in the Banquet Hall anymore, even though everyone out in the restaurant could hear it just fine; the only explanation I can think of as to why this would happen is that the amplifier for the Banquet hall went down, either it got shut off or shut itself off. Either way Tom Emmer went out the back door and the servers out the front with the media waiting for both.

More fun with hPVI

Last week I introduced hPVI, hybrid PVI, and posted the scores of the 87 counties in Minnesota. For anyone who hasn't ever read one of my posts, those who have must think I suffer from PVI turrets, PVI is short for Partisan Voting Index. It's a metric, created by The Cook Political Report, for measuring how partisan a congressional district or state is. I've adapted it for use at the statewide level and added a letter to the front of it to distinguish it from its predecessor, as is all the rage now among baseball statisticians.

Today we're going to look at the top 5 most partisan Senate districts in the state. First the top 5 most Democratic districts:


Those are some huge scores and not surprisingly they all come from the Twin Cities, in fact the top 9 most democratic senate districts are all in the Twin Cities.

Now let's take a look at the other side of the spectrum, the top five most Republican districts:


Notice something that's different from the previous chart? The third most Republican senate district in the state is occupied by a DFLer; the Republicans, on the other hand, don't occupy a single Democratic leaning district. Additionally the most Democratic senate district is more than twice as partisan as the most Republican district.

That's it for now but I'll have more on these numbers in future posts, including the full list for both the Senate and House.

For Chaudhary, the hits just keep on coming

Satveer Chaudhary has had a very bad couple of months and it doesn't look to be getting better for him anytime soon. From today's Pioneer Press:

The Minnesota state senator who pushed through last-minute legislation for Fish Lake that contributed to the governor's veto of a major fish and game bill is the subject of a federal tax lien for $252,000 in past-due income taxes, the News Tribune has learned.

Sen. Satveer Chaudhary, DFL-Fridley, and his wife, Denise, failed to pay $100,000 in income taxes in 2007 and $151,000 in 2008, according to tax records.

Ouch. That's quite the tax hit. Here is Chaudhary's attempt at an explanation:

Chaudhary, who owns a home on Fish Lake that would have been affected by his legislation, told the Duluth News Tribune on Thursday that the delinquent taxes were due to his wife's wrongful termination by Celgene, a biopharmaceutical company.

"It forced her to exercise or lose some of her stock options," he said. "In general, she had to use some of her stocks to purchase other stocks, and so that led to a huge tax liability."

He said his wife has filed a wrongful termination suit against Celgene with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission.

He said he didn't know the reason for the 2007 tax delinquency and was checking with his accountant to learn more.

It's hard to tell what effect, if any, this will have on Chaudhary's already difficult re-election bid, I mean at this point the damage has been done, but for anyone still on the fence about Chaudhary's actions this is yet one more issue to cause doubts.

PVI breakdown by county

As part of a continuing effort to generate some objective tools for better understanding and analyzing the politics of the state I've created a county level PVI index, what I'm calling hPVI. For those of you unfamiliar with PVI, it's a tool created by The Cook Political Report for evaluating the partisan makeup of congressional districts.

In formulating a congressional district's PVI, the results of the last two presidential elections are used. But should that be what we use for formulating a county's PVI? The whole point of this exercise is to get a better idea of the partisan makeup of the state at a local level; in that case would the results of the last two gubernatorial elections be a better way to go? How about a hybrid of the two, using the last presidential election and the last gubernatorial election? What about Senate races, should those be included?

In the end I went with the hybrid method and did not include Senate races, this means the county level PVI is arrived at by averaging the Democratic vote share of the 2008 Presidential election and the 2006 gubernatorial election and subtracting from that the average of the Republican vote share in those two races. This is than compared with how the state voted to arrive at the county level PVI, or what I'm calling hPVI.

So for example, in Beltrami county the average Democratic vote share for 2008 and 2006 was 52.5% and the average Republican vote share was 43.4%, when you subtract the GOP average from the Democratic average you get 9.1, when you than subtract the PVI of the state as a whole (with this method it's 5) you get 4.1, for an hPVI of 4 (PVI is rounded to the nearest whole number).

Here are the top 5 most Democratic counties according to hPVI:

Here are the top five most GOP counties:

Keep in mind that the hPVI is telling you how Democratic or Republican a county is compared to the state as a whole. Since Minnesota itself has a hPVI of 5, a county with a -1 hPVI is 1 point more Republican than the state, but is still a baseline D+4 county.

***

Here's the complete list:

More on per diems with Tom Emmer

On Morning Edition last Thursday Cathy Wurzer interviewed Tom Emmer on the campaign trail; one of the subjects they touched on was per diems, which I just posted about last week. When Emmer was asked about the issue he reiterated his stance that per diems be eliminated, along with pensions and health care benefits. That's when Cathy Wurzer called him out.

Cathy Wurzer: As a state lawmaker you have taken these perks, why are you denouncing them now? You've taken advantage of pensions and per diems and that kind of thing.

Tom Emmer: Part of it is when you get to the legislature you've gotta learn how this thing operates and for me it never has been a career so when you say you've taken it, no it was all set up when I got there and if you look at what I've done in my last three four years I was one of two or three legislators that actually brought a lawsuit on the per diem issue and I still think we're right I think the courts handled that wrong, obviously that's done so you've got to go at it a different way, but I'd move to eliminate per diem.

There's a lot contained in that response, but first let's look at the last four years.

While Tom Emmer, lawyer, was filing lawsuits to try and stop increases in per diems, Tom Emmer, legislator, was taking per diems. But we already know this, what is new is the claim that it was all "set up when I got there" so you know, he couldn't be expected to not take the per diems. 

That is a lie.

Per diems are claimed by individual legislators and they can claim whatever they want up to a daily maximum, for the house thats $77. To receive per diem though you have to claim it, nothing about per diems is just "set up" when you arrive in St. Paul. If a legislator receives per diem it's because they filed the paper work to claim it.

So if you were a legislator who had a philosophical problem with per diems, or just didn't want to take them for whatever reason, you could elect not to. But, is there such a person?

That's Rep. Steve Simon (D), 44A and he didn't even collect per diems his first year when Tom Emmer claims "it was all set up" and collected $11,068. And why doesn't Rep. Simon receive per diems? For a very simple reason he told me, "it's a personal decision."

So Tom Emmer could have decided not to take per diems, but he didn't. He took almost $50,000 dollars in six years, apparently all the while not believing in them and filing lawsuits against them.

***

Now we come back around to why Tom Emmer is calling for getting rid of per diems in the first place; again from that MPR interview (transcribed by me):

Cathy Wurzer: According to a story in the St. Cloud Times last week, you're interested in cutting pensions, health insurance benefits and per diems for law makers and constitutional officers. We did a little research that shows that would only save about $12.7 million over the biennium. What's your thinking behind such a potential move?

Tom Emmer: Well Cathy I'm glad you brought that up because you talk about it in terms of just the budget item it sounds like all we need to do, again, is patch up the budget, find where we're gonna cut and how it's gonna operate, that's not what we're talking about. And with that proposal it's not even about the budget, it's about emphasizing the word service when it comes to public service. This was not supposed to be your career; this was supposed to be serving your state serving your community.

I think the good people of this state that seek elective office, take leave from their private careers and families, they should be compensated. But that compensation should be in the form of a salary or some type of stipend that is very open and transparent so people can see it. Where we've gotten into problems is we've got this per diem that people can change and the general public doesn't know what it is, there's perks that they include, pension benefits and Cadillac health care benefits that the average tax payer does not have access to, that should not be for elected officials.

It's not for budget reasons that Tom Emmer wants to eliminate per diems, it's for a reason much more esoteric, emphasizing the word service in public service. Apparently the budget isn't really that big of an issue. But wait, what was that quote of his again?

Rep. Tom Emmer, a freshman Republican from Delano, said he and the other legislators who claimed per diems have no apologies to make. Emmer, an attorney, said the $1,320 he earned in special session per diems was far less than he would have made in his law practice. 'You're talking to a guy who at 44 years old made a significant personal and financial sacrifice to serve my constituents,' Emmer said.

Oh yeah, that's right, in 2005 Tom Emmer defended his per diems as justified because of the tremendous sacrifices he was making on behalf of his constituents. All the way up until June of this year Tom Emmer has collected per diems, but now in late June, collecting per diems means you don't understand what the word service means in public service.

Stay classy Tom.

***

Here's the whole interview, it's worth a listen.

Tom Emmer's per diem switcheroo

Tom Emmer has the Emmer Truth page on his website to try and spin some of his past statements and actions, in response Alliance for a better Minnesota launched a Real Emmer Truth page. Last Friday Xavier posted about the newest Emmer fact, his flip flopping on per diems.

Earlier this week, Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer told the St. Cloud Times that he would like to cut benefits and per diem to state elected officials. Yet throughout Emmer's legislative career he has taken full advantage of this perk, at the cost of thousands to taxpayers.

It's not just per diems that Tom Emmer wants to cut though:

Emmer proposed one cost-cutting move: eliminating job benefits and per-diems for state and local elected officials. Minnesota's constitutional officers and legislators receive benefits including health insurance, pensions and per diems, which may be claimed for attending meetings and other events.

Such perks encourage public servants to become career politicians, Emmer said.

"People seek to serve, and once they get elected, it's too good a gig to give up," Emmer said.

As Xavier notes, in 2005 Tom Emmer was singing a different tune, from a Pioneer Press article:

Rep. Tom Emmer, a freshman Republican from Delano, said he and the other legislators who claimed per diems have no apologies to make. Emmer, an attorney, said the $1,320 he earned in special session per diems was far less than he would have made in his law practice. 'You're talking to a guy who at 44 years old made a significant personal and financial sacrifice to serve my constituents,' Emmer said.

Ah yes, here we have the class act that is Tom Emmer, he is not ashamed of taking per diems because he has made tremendous sacrifices to serve his constituents. To be clear, I don't have a problem with per diems, it's the arrogance with which Tom Emmer talks about the sacrifices he has made to serve his constituents. It's called public service for a reason Tom, because you are doing a public service, not enriching yourself.

When Tom Emmer was not running for Governor and not trying his best to show how extremely conservative he is per diems were okay and he claimed his as does virtually every other legislator. Now that he's running for Governor per diems are like welfare benefits, keeping legislators on the dole and in office for perpetuity, even though he has received $5,764 already this year in per diem. This is yet another example of the class act that is Tom Emmer.

Chaudhary out, Goodwin in, Chaudhary still running

From The Big E at Minnesota Progressive Project:

At an emergency meeting of the DFL SD50 Central Committee, Sen. Satveer Chaudhary was unendorsed 33-12 (exact totals unconfirmed) 32-12.  After unendorsing Chaudhry, they endorsed former two-term legislator Barb Goodwin 33-7.  Apparently, several Chaudhary supporters stormed out of the meeting after the unendorsement. 

So there you have it, Satveer Chaudhary is no longer the DFL endorsed candidate, Barb Goodwin is. So that's that right? Not quite.

Chaudhary will appeal the unendorsement to the DFL's Constitution Committee.  Brian Rice will be representing him.  Allan Weinblatt will be representing the SD50 Central Committee.

All he can contest is whether or not SD50 Central Committee were within their rights to unendorse him and will probably contest whether they did it correctly and had a quorem present.

So Chaudhary will appeal the action on the basis that the committee didn't actually get a 2/3 vote of those eligible to attend, just a 2/3 vote of those who actually attended. While I'm not too familiar with the unendorsement process, my suspicion is that his appeal will fail. That leaves us with a primary between Goodwin and Chaudhary, as Chaudhary has said he will run to the primary regardless of what happens with the appeal.This sets up what should be an interesting race, as Barb Goodwin is someone whom people in SD50 will be familiar with from her time in the state house.

One thing that I think is worth knowing about Chaudhary's attempts to keep the endorsement prior to last night's meeting (via Minnpost):

He'd also angered party leaders by supporting former Sen. Mark Dayton in the governor's race over DFL-endorsed House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher. Chaudhary tried to remedy that problem over the weekend when he sent a letter and a $100 check to the Kelliher campaign.

That is close to a perfect encapsulation of how Satveer Chaudhary has handled this whole situation, a day late and a dollar short.

I'll have more on this race as it develops further.

Moving to a new district, 50(A)

Over the weekend I moved from Minneapolis to Columbia Heights; from district 61A represented by Karen Clark and Linda Berglin, to district 50A represented by Carolyn Laine and Satveer Chaudhary.

Tonight is the SD 50 DFL Central Committee meeting to decide if Chaudary will keep his DFL endorsement. The outcome will determine if the primary will be contested or not as former state Rep. Barb Goodwin has said she will challenge Chaudary in the primary if he is stripped of the endorsement, which she also characterized as a likely occurrence. I'll have more on this after the committee meeting today.

In this post I instead wanted to focus on Carolyn Laine's GOP opponent for state house this year, Timothy Utz. Let's just start with the quote on the front page of his website:

"Liberty only endures when Americans diligently use the chains of the Constitution to restrain the three branches of government."
~Timothy Utz
February 9, 2010

What exactly does that mean? What are the "chains of the Constitution"? I thought that the point of the three branches of government was to restrain each other. Aren't the three branches of government made up of Americans? This is one of those quotes that's meant to sound really deep and meaningful, but it doesn't mean anything. How about some more?

So many elected officials at the Minnesota state level, Democrats and Republicans alike, continue spending our taxes, restricting our personal liberties and creating an ever greater heavy hand of government. The result is an endless gorging of Minnesota tax payer's dollars and intrusion in our lives. Party affiliation fails to draw any real distinction when considering electing leadership in Saint Paul. Year after year the state government continues expanding to the point where few if any elected officials today understand the proper or legal function of State government.

I wonder if you "understand the proper and legal function of state government" Tim? The reason that "so many elected officials at the Minnesota state level, Democrats and Republicans alike, continue spending our taxes" is because that's why taxes are collected, to be spent. This should be obvious. Conservative calls for lower taxes are one thing, but what Tim seems to be saying is that the problem is not the taxing, but the spending of the taxes. What does he propose we do with all that tax money that isn't spent? He doesn't elaborate.

The other critique contained in the above passage is about "restricting our personal liberties and creating an ever greater heavy hand of government." What examples of this does Tim Utz tell us about on his website? Exactly one, the primary seatbelt law. That's it. That's the totality of government intrusion. Look, I'm not going to say that the states seatbelt laws are the greatest thing in the world, but to hold it up as the pinnacle of government intrusion in our lives is ridiculous. If the primary seatbelt law is the extent of government intrusion in our lives than I'm not concerned about government intrusion in the least. Seriously, how hard is it to buckle your seat belt?

Not surprisingly he is also against the smoking ban.

I am a non-smoker and I would still vote to repeal the statewide smoking ban. Our constitution and logic (a quality long lost in Saint Paul) dictates free association. Two examples are local watering holes or bars and Middle Eastern Hookah eateries where culture dictates smoking.

As stated before, when government taxes, they legitimize goods, services or products. Restricting, limiting and banning them, they become hypocrisy. Well-intended legislators and lobby groups have long forgotten that "We the People" rule our personal lives, not government. A government's first duty is to protect personal liberty, not dictate conduct.

What he is saying is that if the government taxes something they legitimize it and therefore it should be subject to no restrictions whatsoever. I suppose he feels this way about everything the government taxes than; like prescription drugs, we should just be able to go into CVS and buy as much Oxycontin as we want right? Who's the government to tell us we can't? What about Alcohol, minors should be allowed to buy beer at school I guess, you can't place any restrictions on it if it's being taxed right? Same with cars, we don't need drivers' licenses because we pay taxes on the car itself.

Suffice it to say if you believe any of the above Tim Utz is the guy for you. If, however, you are a sane, rational person who values quality government you will be supporting Carolyn Laine in house district 50A.

Tom Emmer, Class Act

The StarTribune's Pat Doyle published an article yesterday entitled "Emmer's feisty spirit fuels legal fights." That's putting it as graciously as possible given the content of the article. I would have gone with "Emmer's douchy nature fuels frivolous legal fights," or more simply "Tom Emmer, giant asshole." But whatever, let's get to the good stuff.

Tony Poppler, 35, of Corcoran, runs a small landscaping business that was hired by Emmer's wife, Jacquie, in 2006 to grade land, build a rock wall, dig a trench and replace rocky soil at Emmer's Delano home. Jacquie Emmer later added excavation for a hockey rink and garden.

There was no formal, written contract. When he finished the work, Poppler sent Emmer a bill for $3,237, which included removal of 18 truckloads of soil.

Emmer gave him $2,000 and said in his statement that the landscaper "overcharged for work."

When Poppler took Emmer to small claims court to recover the remaining $1,237, Emmer sought $3,600 in attorney's fees for his time in small claims court.

You should see the contracts that our clients have to sign and it's because of assholes like Tom Emmer that we need them. There are caveats in our contract that if you saw, you would think to yourself "well, no one could be that bad." Yes they can, and this is a perfect example. Tom Emmer had a contractor come to his house to do work and then he decided that the contractor was charging too much so he only paid what he thought he owed, no explanation of what he believed he was overcharged for, just that he was overcharged.

Not only that, he then turns around and tries to collect attorney's fees for more than the entire landscaping project. In Tom Emmer's world small claims court attorney's fees > the cost to grade land, build a rock wall, dig a trench, replace rocky soil and excavation for a hockey rink and garden.

One has to wonder if this is how Tom Emmer is planning on balancing the state's budget, by stiffing contractors and paying expensive lawyers to deal with it. But it gets worse.

Emmer took his appeal to District Court, where his lawyer argued that he wasn't responsible for the landscaping bill because his wife had initiated and modified the job.

Earlier, Mottl had disagreed with that notion. "She essentially did so as her husband's agent," she wrote.

But District Judge Dale Mossey ruled that Emmer was not responsible for his wife's actions. Poppler said Jacquie Emmer has not paid the $1,237.

He said he's considering suing her, but he is concerned about attorney's fees.

So one judge rules against Emmer and he appeals, arguing that he's not responsible his wife is. He blamed it on his wife. I don't doubt that she's the one who made the actual requests for more work, but essentially what Tom Emmer is saying is that they are not really partners in life, he has his own life and she has hers and he's not responsible for the bills when his wife tells the contractor to "excavate for a hockey rink and garden." What's funny is that earlier in the article, when discussing another of Tom's many legal disputes over the years there is this nugget.

McElroy wouldn't comment on the deal, but her husband said she maintains her innocence and wants to avoid more legal fees.

"It cost me an arm and a leg," said Todd McElroy.

Patricia Anne Thomson McElroy was charged by Tom Emmer with stealing $7,901. The case was settled with an order of repayment and a letter of apology. Todd McElroy didn't throw his wife under the bus, he didn't pass it off as her problem, he paid Emmer $14,146 and moved on. Tom Emmer threw his wife under the bus for $1,237. I mean, really Tom? Really? Really?

Emmer concluded in his written statement that "the billing dispute was presented to the court and properly resolved."

Has it been resolved Tom? Has the $1,237 been paid? Are you going to keep blaming your wife or will you man up and pay your bills?

The Senators

Over the past few weeks I've been analyzing Minnesota's congressional delegation, focusing first on the state's house delegation, and then on some specific house members. Now it's time to look at the state's Senators.

You can go here for a more detailed explanation of what the different numbers represent; briefly, the "DW-Nom" number is the legislators DW-Nominate score and the "PVI" number is Minnesota's Partisan Voting Index score. The "PVI v ave" and the "DW-N v ave" represent a comparison between the legislators score and the average score of their party caucus. The "SILVER" score is a composite of these two comparisons and the rank number is the legislators SILVER rank among their party caucus.



This shouldn't be that surprising; Al Franken is one of the most valuable liberals in the Senate, behind only Russ Feingold (-0.757) and Sherrod Brown (-0.375) in SILVER and his DW-Nominate score is to the left of even Keith Ellison, making him the state's most liberal legislator. Amy Klobuchar meanwhile is the only member of Minnesota's congressional delegation who has a SILVER score on the wrong side of 0 for her party.

In a strange coincidence Wisconsin has a similar situation with Russ Feingold being the most liberal member of the Senate, according to SILVER, and Herb Kohl (0.112) ranking 44^th, tied with Amy Klobuchar.

Let's take a look at another chart.



Here you can see the DW-Nominate score's of Minnesota's last eight Senators, as well as a graph of the total DW-Nominate scores for the state's two active Senators combined. As you can see, besides the 107^th congress when Minnesota had an all liberal Senate delegation, the total DW-Nominate score of the current Klobuchar/Franken alignment is as liberal as Minnesota's had since the Humphrey/Mondale/McCarthy days. And that probably won't change anytime soon, given the current dynamics there's a pretty good chance that this will be our Senate configuration until at least 2014 when Al Franken will be up for re-election.