Erlandson won’t seek fourth DFL chair term

02/07/2005

Bill McAuliffe, Star Tribune
February 7, 2005 DFL0207

Mike Erlandson, the longest-serving chair of the Minnesota DFL Party, will not run for reelection when his term expires.

Erlandson, 40, who served as an unpaid volunteer, told members of the party’s State Central Committee he would not be seeking a fourth two-year term at the party’s annual convention later this year.

In an interview Sunday, Erlandson, who also is chief assistant to U.S. Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn. and commutes to Washington, D.C., said he wants to spend more time with his two children, both under age 2. He said he would not rule out a run for elective office himself but won’t run in 2006.

Erlandson succeeded Dick Senese as state DFL Party chair in 1999 after the party’s candidate, Skip Humphrey, finished a distant third in the race for governor and the party lost control of the Minnesota House. In 2002 Erlandson was chair when the death of U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone preceeded other electoral losses, including that Senate seat to Republican Norm Coleman.

But Erlandson noted that the party nearly pulled even in the state House in the last election and delivered the state for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry by a wider margin in 2004 than Al Gore’s over Republican George W. Bush in 2000. The party has also gone from being in the red to having a bank balance of nearly $300,000, Erlandson said, and now owns its headquarters in St. Paul.

“I laid out a lot of goals in 1999. We accomplished all those goals and exceeded most of them,” Erlandson said. “I feel like it’s a good time to let somebody else take on the day-to-day role of being party chair.”

Former state Rep. Betty Folliard, now a political and business consultant, and Brian Melendez, a Minneapolis attorney who is chair of the city and Fifth Congressional District DFL, both announced at Saturday’s meeting they will seek election as party chair. The election is scheduled for May. Erlandson said he expects other candidates to emerge.

Both Melendez and Folliard said in interviews they want to build on Erlandson’s successes. Melendez added he wants the party to devote more energy to grass-roots party building; Folliard said she would aim for winning the governorship, which the DFL has not won since 1986 and other statewide offices “so we can begin to set the agenda and promote our democratic values.”