If Norm Coleman can get away with it, shouldn’t you too?
"Letter to Editor"07/03/2008
Dear DFLers,
It’s the first of the month, which for many of us means that the rent is due. But just for July, we’re encouraging Minnesotans to pay the rent in used furniture — just like Senator Norm Coleman does.
Late last week, the National Journal reported on a sweetheart deal that Norm Coleman is getting in Washington, D.C., from one of the most powerful Republican political operatives in Washington — or as Coleman himself put it, from “the most connected person in D.C. that nobody in Minnesota knows.” (Meaning that you don’t know him.)
Coleman rents what a real-estate agent describes as a “huge English basement” with an “airy bedroom” in a “simply divine” million-dollar townhome on Capitol Hill — and he gets it all for a mere $600 a month. Never mind that market-value rents in the same neighborhood for similar spaces go for double that or more — and never mind that getting a discount that big is a violation of Senate ethics rules.
But it gets worse. For four of the 11 months that Norm Coleman has lived there so far, he didn’t actually pay the rent, paid it late, had it held back for months, or — most bizarrely of all — paid it in used furniture.
That’s right: once, instead of paying his landlord money, Coleman paid him with an old couch, desk, table, and chairs. And even luckier for Coleman, once Coleman “sold” the furniture, the landlord left it with Coleman to keep using — as if he had never “sold” it at all.
So find an old couch, a desk, a table and chairs — really, any old furniture will do — and let your landlord know that it’s worth $600. Of course, if you’re renting in a million-dollar home here in Minnesota, 600 bucks just isn’t going to cover your rent, so you’ll have to come up with more used furniture than Coleman did.
And don’t forget to insist on still using the used furniture after you’ve sold it. After all, if it worked for Norm Coleman, it should work for you, too, right?
Do we really think it will work for you? Probably not, because average Minnesotans don’t get sweetheart deals like Coleman did. But give it a shot, anyhow — then shoot us a message at , with a photo of the used furniture that you tried to pay with, and let us know how it went.
Just remember: Norm Coleman got away with it, so you should, too. And if you don’t, ask yourself why Norm did.
Sincerely,
Brian Melendez
Chair
Minnesota DFL Party