At Capitol, power shifts noticeably to northeast

01/14/2007

The 2007 Legislature marks a resurgence of northeastern Minnesota political clout.


By Dane Smith,
Star Tribune
Last update: January 14, 2007 – 12:28 AM


The polka dancing may be livelier and the pasties may be a little more savory when northeastern Minnesota lawmakers throw their rollicking annual "Ranger Party" in St. Paul this winter.

And probably more lobbyists will be on hand.

After more than a decade of declining clout, DFL legislators from the Iron Range, Duluth and northeastern Minnesota suddenly seem to be in charge everywhere.

An up-and-coming 31-year-old legislator, state Rep. Tony Sertich of Chisholm, is the new majority leader, second-in-command of the new DFL House majority. Sen. Tom Bakk of Cook is the new chairman of the Senate Tax Committee, and Rep. Loren Solberg of Grand Rapids is again the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, the House's top appropriations panel.

Almost all of a dozen northeastern senators and House members, representing a sparsely populated expanse of forests and lakes containing little more than 5 percent of the state's population, now hold important committee chairmanships.

It's one of the most important geopolitical shifts in the 2007 Legislature, and could affect issues ranging from property tax relief to the statewide smoking ban to which proposed jobs projects get the most state subsidies.

"The Iron Range has definitely been empowered," said Rep. Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon, a veteran southern Minnesota legislator and just-replaced former speaker. "I think you are going to see an influential agenda from them on everything from LGA [restoring local government aid cuts when Republicans controlled the House] to the IRRRB [the Iron Range Rehabilitation and Resources Board, a regional development agency]."

Resurgent northeastern power results from one simple fact.

DFLers, who dominate northeastern Minnesota, regained control of the House in November through victories elsewhere. But because the northeastern legislators are in safe districts, they tend to be among the most senior members, and therefore were in line for chairmanships when control switched.

Good for the whole state?

Sviggum was one of many Republicans who criticized a perceived regional favoritism when northeastern DFL political power was at its zenith in the 1970s and '80s. Iron Ranger Gov. Rudy Perpich held office for 10 years between 1978 and 1990. Northeasterners, invariably DFLers, held a disproportionate number of leadership and committee posts and they met almost weekly with Perpich.

A legendary quote in 1989 from Rep. Gil Gutknecht, a southern Minnesotan who lost his congressional seat in November, summed it up best: "We're going to have to explain to these DFLers that the state motto ["L'Etoile du Nord," or "Star of the North"] does not mean 'Send the Money North.' "

State-subsidized economic development projects on the Range -- notably a failed chopsticks factory -- sometimes fueled frustration with attempts to turn around a boom-and-bust economy that always has relied on volatile demand for iron and wood products.

But the new class of northeasterners says the good old days for the Range also were good for the entire state. The new Ranger wave, they say, will keep the interests of the entire state foremost.

"You look back to when the Range had so-called power and a lot of stuff got done for the whole state," Sertich said. The Mall of America, a sports complex in Blaine, a state arts school and projects for Rochester were all products of the Perpich era, one of general prosperity for the state, Sertich said.

Rep. Tom Rukavina, a 20-year veteran and fiery populist who epitomizes the class-conscious Iron Range sensibility, said he thinks the Range renaissance is just right for times that are marked by increasing disparities in income, wealth and opportunity. Rukavina is the new chairman of a House Higher Education & Workforce Development Committee.

"Nobody has felt more pain and managed to persevere more than people on the Range," Rukavina said, referring to a century of challenges, including immigration, labor-management strife with the steel companies, massive layoffs and population loss.

"We know what's happening out there now in other parts of rural Minnesota, we know about the poverty in the inner city and we know about the immigrant community," Rukavina said.

"We managed to keep our culture going and we're going to do things for the benefit of people who need it the most."