Minnesota legislators will visit Hennepin County Medical Center Friday to discuss the facility's potential loss of $43 million to $109 million with Gov. Tim Pawlenty's elimination of general assistance medical care, which provides health care for more than 30,000 Minnesotans.

"I want to be clear: The decision to drop health care for over 30,000 Minnesotans was immoral and unacceptable to the people of Minnesota," Rep. Paul Thissen (DFL-Minneapolis), chairman of the House Health and Human Services Policy Committee (and a DFL hopeful for governor) said in a statement. "Nonetheless, the governor is standing by his decision."

In May, Pawlenty line-item vetoed GAMC, eliminating $381 million from the 2010-11 biennial budget but also cutting access to health care to single adult Minnesotans without children, including veterans, senior citizens, the homeless and the mentally ill.

In addition to HCMC's loss estimate of $43 million to $109 million, Regions Hospital in St. Paul has said that it will be forced to cut its budget by $46 million, or 10 percent of its gross revenue.

Thissen and other members of his committee toured state hospitals this week to discuss "alternative ways to meet the needs" of those now on GAMC, which stands to be wiped out entirely next March. Legislators visited hospitals in Thief River Falls, Detroit Lakes, Brainerd, Bemidji and Cambridge, and three Twin Cities hospitals, including HCMC.

It's shaping up to be a nice Fourth of July weekend, and we've updated our 2010 governor's race grid with the latest new websites and filings. Sen. David Hann (R-Eden Prairie) has filed, and Sen. Joe Gimse (R-Willmar) is his campaign chair, according to the filing. Also, former GOP U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman is no longer listed as "recount pending;" Recent commentary (like from Eric Black, for example) has thrown cold water on the idea that Coleman will launch a gubernatorial campaign. Of course, if the election process hadn't dragged on for so long, he would have been in a far better position to run!

We've also added new contender, Sen. Mike Jungbauer (R-East Bethel), and filled in Rep. Paul Kohls' (R-Victoria) website and campaign finance info. (By the way, Kohls' campaign chair is Rep. Joe Hoppe (R-Chaska).)

Speaking of Victoria, a Washington Post story (carried in the Pioneer Press) discussed the nationwide controversy over infant DNA testing and data policies; some of Kohls' constituents aren't happy with the state policy. On May 29th, PIM was the first news source to release the actual legal contracts between the state Department of Health, the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota. As we noted, the clauses about who owns the "intellectual property" of the DNA samples and their derivative works are quite significant. If you want PIM's special 105MB multi-file PDF of newborn screening documentation, get it here [Acrobat 8+ required to view, full text-searchable].

Pat Lopez has been chosen by Star Tribune Editor Nancy Barnes to be the paper's new political editor. She replaces Doug Tice, who moved to the paper's editorial page (replacing Eric Ringham, who left the paper to become an editorial voice at Minnesota Public Radio).

As political editor, Lopez will direct both state and federal coverage. What to expect from Lopez? "More distinctive high-profile political stories that nobody else has," she told me.

Replacing Lopez is a person yet to be named. Unclear at this point is whether the paper will hire internally or elsewhere.

The rest of the top-notch political coverage team remains: Kevin Diaz and intern Eric Roper in Washington, and Mark Brunswick, Kevin Duchschere, Pat Doyle and Mike Kaszuba.

Congrats, Pat!

Note: This story originally appeared in the June 26, 2009 edition of The Weekly Report.

Make sure to check our Who's on First? matrix for the latest status updates on gubernatorial candidates.

The 2010 governor's race is a political junkie's dream come true. Never before have there been so many candidates with no clear favorites on both sides of the aisle. One of the great traditions of this publication is handicapping fields of candidates. We do that after talking to dozens of people and most of the candidates themselves. For now, we decided to place candidates in two categories, "top tier" and "not-so top tier" (that's a little less offensive than bottom tier!). 

The major factors to be considered at this point in evaluating the candidates are money, the GOP party endorsement, general election prospects and what we're going to call "the jazz factor."

First, money. GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty raised and spent about $4 million for his 2006 reelection. The general consensus is that candidates in both parties will need somewhere between $4-8 million to win in 2010. So, it helps if a candidate has demonstrated ability to raise money or if there are indicators he or she can do that. 

Everyone at PIM offers our deepest condolences to the family of former U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad on the passing of his father.

The Pioneer Press reports that the former GOP congressman’s father, Marvin, died Wednesday in St. Louis Park at age 89.

The elder Ramstad was president and CEO of Midwest Motors in Jamestown, N.D., according to the paper. He retired to Plymouth in 1984. He was active in campaigns for his son and his daughter, Tax Court Judge Sheryl Ramstad, the paper reports.

Jim Ramstad represented Minnesota’s Third Congressional District in the western Twin Cities suburbs from 1991 to 2008. He also served in the Minnesota Senate for much of the 1980s.

Top Story: Jungbauer in for governor 2010, will Coleman enter the race?
Staff note: We won't be publishing a Morning Report tomorrow, July 3. May everyone have a happy, safe patriotic 4th of July weekend.

State Rep. Marty Seifert, R-Marshall, will tour the state next week as he launches his gubernatorial campaign. Seifert, and his new campaign staffer Ben Zierke, dropped by the Capitol press area this afternoon to deliver a schedule of the 14-city tour.

On Tuesday, Seifert plans to kick things off in Fridley, Mankato, and Rochester. On Wednesday, Seifert’s campaign is scheduled in St. Cloud, Alexandria, Moorhead, East Grand Forks and Bemidji.

He’ll spend Thursday in DFL country with stops in Grand Rapids, Virginia and Duluth. The tour wraps up on Friday in his southern Minnesota homeland with stops in Marshall, Worthington and New Ulm.

Seifert announced his run for governor last month after Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty said he wouldn’t seek a third term in 2010.

PIM was asked by the Washington Post to participate in a online question-and-answer session this morning about the Minnesota's U.S. Senate election, the recount, DFL U.S. Senator-elect Al Franken, the absentee ballots, and many other subjects. Publisher Sarah Janecek (with help from PIM Web Editor Dan Feidt) fielded 22 questions in about an hour this morning. Here are a few excerpts from the chat; please visit the Washington Post for the rest.

_______________________

Tampa, Fla.: I have a question about dem Senate race in Minnesota, jah, dat I hope you might be answer, jah? Did dat third-party candidate, I forgetten his name, eh, take more votes from dat Franken or dat Coleman, eh?

And does da winner get to put lutefisk on dat Senate dining room menu, jah?

Sarah Janecek: The third party candidate was Dean Barkley, who was appointed by then-Gov. Jesse Ventura to fill out the remainder of Paul Wellstone's term.

In the 2008 contest, Coleman and Franken each got 42% and, Barkley, 15.2%.

Polling at the time showed that Barkley drew about equally from both Coleman and Franken...BUT this race was so close (312 votes!) that Barkley may have made all the difference in the world.

_______________________

Boston: The WSJ editorial page is pretty emphatic that Franken "stole the election." Does the state media view Franken as legitimate? What about the electorate, including those that voted for Coleman?

Sarah Janecek: The state media -- and a majority of the public -- do think Franken's election was legitimate. We had an open and very public recount process.

On the other hand, there's no question that absentee ballots were counted differently by the different vote counting jurisdictions (these were counties and some big cities like Minneapolis). Unfortunately for the Republicans, Coleman's lawyers never succeeded in getting some of those ballots into evidence. So, the Minnesota Supreme Court -- an appellate court that couldn't hear new evidence -- punted. More on the losing Equal Protection argument is here.

In a rare moment of bipartisan sentiment following yesterday's confrontational Legislative Advisory Commission meeting, House Taxes Committee chair Ann Lenczewski (DFL-Bloomington) applauded Gov. Tim Pawlenty's letter to Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle demanding that income tax reciprocity payments from Wisconsin residents who work in Minnesota be remitted sooner. (The June 16 letter went on to threaten Wisconsin with an end to the reciprocity agreement--which, for the 80,000 people who cross state lines to go to work, would mean filing an additional tax return every year.)

Lenczewski noted the long lag in those payments at present (around 17 months) and said she agreed with Pawlenty that Minnesota can't afford it anymore. "It would be

When Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced his plan to balance the state budget through unilateral cuts applied under Minnesota's emergency budget-cutting statute, the buzz about possible litigation was a leading source of speculation--and more than a few privately uttered threats--at the Capitol complex. But in the ensuing month-plus, all that talk has quietly but steadily fallen off.

House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher (DFL-Minneapolis), who has probably confabbed with more aggrieved parties than any other legislator during that time, admitted as much to PIM contributor Britt Robson last week for an upcoming Capitol Report story on the Pawlenty schools shift: "The situation gives people pause whether or not to challenge in court, because the other alternatives [for shifts or cuts] are probably worse alternatives--if not for the schools, then for other folks." 

In other words, no one can see any remedy to be had by suing the governor, only financial and political costs. As one lobbyist for local units of government put it to PIM about a month ago, "If somebody were to successfully challenge the governor's authority, what would the remedy be? That's the $64,000 question. And if we simply wait until the next legislative session [for reversals of unallotment cuts], then half of the biennial budget will already be spent and there would be fewer options for doing $2.7 billion in budgetary adjustments.

Top Story: Senator-elect Al Franken looks toward Washington.

Note: Please tune into a special Washington Post online Q&A with Politics in Minnesota at 10 a.m. today, July 1 (Central time). Submit questions here.

[Note: Please tune into a special WashingtonPost.com online Q&A with Politics in Minnesota at 10 a.m. Wednesday (Central time).]

Sen.-elect Al Franken and his wife, Franni, greeted their supporters and the press in front of his Elliot Park condo; coffee, cookies and brownies were in the offing at the end of this epic campaign trail. As cars honked at the sidewalk gaggle, Franken said he was "thrilled" and agreed that the phone call between him and former Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman was very gracious; both men talked about the how tough the experience had been for their families, and they agreed that it was time to bring the state together again. It was a "nice way to end this" between "two people that really fought hard," he said.

Franken's been slotted onto the Senate Judiciary Committee, Health, Education Labor and Pensions, as well as Indian Affairs and the Special Committee on Aging.

With a less-than-commanding 312-vote victory, Franken said he'd "really have to earn the trust" of all those Minnesotans who didn't vote for him through his actions, "not by saying so." He said that Minnesotans could take pride in the transparency and thoroughness of the election, recount and contest, as well as the proven integrity of election officials.

Franken's thumbnail description of his agenda? Providing health care, education, renewable energy and to "restore our standing in the world." He says he's partially staffed up; Franken will be able to hit the ground running, not "trotting," and would "stand on principle" but compromise when it's in the state's best interests.

The end of the interminable U.S. Senate race between Democrat Al Franken and outgoing GOP incumbent Norm Coleman catches at least one prominent Republican in a foul mood – not about the race’s long-delayed outcome, but about the fact that his party dragged its feet for so long.

Former Gov. Arne Carlson expressed anger that Coleman, the national Republican Party and Minnesota GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty let the post-election legal contest drag on for nearly eight months. The ex-governor spoke just moments before Coleman conceded the race to Franken Tuesday afternoon, following Coleman’s 5-0 loss before the Minnesota State Supreme Court that declared Franken’s victory should be certified.

“You can use the legal system in a proper way and you can use the legal system for mischief,” Carlson said. “What, frankly, the Republican Party nationally did on this case was use the legal system for mischief. And as a Republican, I find that very offensive.”

Though Coleman and his legal team proclaimed a desire to have “every vote count” –a justification that Coleman repeated in his afternoon press conference Tuesday – Carlson was having none of it. [Photo by Bill Klotz]

At about 6:15 this evening, GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed the election certificate for the U.S. Senate contest in Minnesota, making Democrat Al Franken the official winner.

The certificate now goes to Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie for his "countersignature."

The governor's office said the certificate "will be faxed to the Secretary of the United State Senate this evening and the original will be sent overnight and hand-delivered to the Secretary of the United States Senate tomorrow."

At today's second--and likely final--meeting of the Legislative Advisory Commission, House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher (DFL-Minneapolis) (pictured) promised that the 2010 session of the Legislature will bring legislation designed to clarify and narrow a Minnesota governor's powers under the state unallotment law.

Her statement, directed to Management and Budget Commissioner Tom Hanson:

"I am going to say for the record that I believe you and the governor have taken the unallotment statute far too far. And in fact I believe it is going to be necessary for the Legislature to change the law next year to modernize the unallotment law in accordance with what other states do. No one could have imagined before this point that a governor would veto a balanced-budget bill in order to go it unilaterally and go it alone in balancing this budget.

"And so I think it's very necessary at this point to put on the record that there will be a bill--there have already been two bills introduced, but I believe there will be a bill that legislators bipartisanly can hopefully support, so that this never happens again, whether the governor's a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent. This has been a move that I believe is out of step and illegal in many aspects. We will maybe never know if it is not challenged in court. But I do think the Legislature must retain the power of the Legislature has to change the law. And I think it is necessary to say that at this point that it is absolutely imperative that the Legislature curb the power of a chief executive in terms of impinging on the legislative powers of this state."

I always thought Norm Coleman's best shot at invalidating the State Canvassing Board ruling declaring Al Franken the winner was a violation of the Constitution's equal protection clause.

Applied to the Franken-Coleman case, that meant that absentee ballots had to counted -- or not counted -- exactly the same in each vote-tabulating jurisdiction. Coleman, of course, argued that counties had counted absentee ballots differently. To be more precise, Coleman contended that some counties (GOP-leaning ones) threw out absentee ballots that the Iron Range and urban areas (DFL turf) did not.

Apparently there never was a legally valid equal protection argument -- a huge surprise to Coleman and other lawyers who argued or closely followed the equal protection aspect of the case. 

Let's see if I can distill this down for the non-lawyers out there (which means I'm leaving out the case citations, all of which can be found in the opinion, here).

First, mere fraud or mistake will not render an election invalid. Second, and most important when it comes to the absentee ballots, the crucial distinction is that absentee voting is a privilege, not a right. [Voting, of course, is a right.]

I must respectfully disagree with my colleague, Sarah Janecek: Norm Coleman did not exhibit the "gold standard" of graciousness in this near eight-month 2008 election recount battle.

This thing dragged on for two and a half months more than it had to or should have. Coleman would have been gracious had he conceded back on April 13, when a three-judge panel issued its trial court findings of fact and order of judgment, ruling that Franken had received 1,212,629 votes and Coleman 1,212,317 -- a margin of 312 votes.

Some would argue that Coleman should have accepted the Jan. 5 ruling of Minnesota's State Canvassing Board, which found that Franken had won by 225 votes (the trial that the three judges oversaw increased Franken's favorable margin). I would not say that -- I think most reasonable people would have pushed the recount one more step, as Coleman did.  

But that was enough. Franken should have been seated in the U.S. Senate sometime in mid-April.

Many believe that Coleman pushed the recount on by appealing that finding to the Minnesota Supreme Court (which, by the way, found that three-judge panel's April 13 ruling flawless) only because national GOP leaders wanted him to and were paying for it -- in order to kidnap Minnesota's second U.S. Senate seat and keep it out of the hands of a Democrat.

And Al Franken was the most gracious I've ever heard him. For example, at his press conference, Franken recounted a phone conversation with Norm Coleman the same way Coleman did. Both agreed that it was a hard-fought race and brutal on their families. Franken confirmed that Coleman told him being a U.S. senator was the best job he'd ever have.

Good for Al for saying he's Minnesota's "second senator," not the Democrats' 60th vote. 

While I won't hold my breath, now that Franken has won, he gets a second shot in my book. 

Will he be the humble Stuart Smalley or the smart aleck who tried to make a go of it on Air America?

A 312-vote spread doth not a mandate make. 

Going forward, the operative question is whether Franken keeps his word: Will he be Minnesota's senator, or U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) 60th vote? 

[And, hey all you Politics in Minnesota: The Directory 2009-2010 owners:  We'll have Al Franken's page here on the site for you to download as soon as key decisions on committees and staff are made.]

Most of my writing about general political maxims is buried in old snail-mail Politics in Minnesota newsletters (and thus not linkable), but let me reiterate my longtime thinking on the two general rules in Minnesota politics as I see them:

1.    The most optimistic candidate wins (except if there's a brutal, eight-month recount).
2.    The true measure of a politician is how he or she handles defeat. 

Norm Coleman set the gold standard today on my maxim number two, saying, "I've never believed that my service [as U.S. senator] is irreplaceable."

And, on the unanimous 5-0 Minnesota Supreme Court decision ruling against him?

"We're a nation of laws, not men and women."

He's right about that, and too often, the egos of statewide pols never let them get their heads around that. Not Coleman.

I post as we await Al Franken's "acceptance" speech.

One can only wonder if Franken can be that gracious.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty plans to sign Sen. Al Franken's election certificate today.

In a statement issued just a few minutes ago, the governor said:

“The Minnesota Supreme Court has today addressed the issues surrounding the accuracy and integrity of our election system during the 2008 U.S. Senate race in Minnesota. In light of that decision and Senator Coleman’s announcement that he will not be pursuing an appeal, I will be signing the election certificate today as directed by the court and applicable law.