Hottinger to leave Senate after 16 years

11/22/2005

Bout with depression not a factor, he says

BY BILL SALISBURY
Pioneer Press

State Sen. John Hottinger, the former Democratic-Farmer-Labor majority leader who acknowledged last month he had suffered from clinical depression, announced Monday he would not seek re-election next year.

At a Capitol news conference, the lawmaker from St. Peter, Minn., said his decision to leave public office was unrelated to his bout with mental illness.

“I can see why you would see a correlation between positive mental health and leaving the Legislature,” he joked, “but that wasn’t a factor.”

Instead, he said, he decided after his re-election in 2002 — months before the depression set in — that 16 years in the Senate would be long enough for him.

“I don’t believe in term limits, but I do believe in turnover,” he said. “I don’t want to be like one of those baseball players who used to hit .300, and when he starts hitting .200, they have to gently cast him aside.”

Last month in a Twin Cities Public Television documentary on mental illness, Hottinger, 60, publicly revealed that he had slid into a depression during the contentious 2003 legislative session. He was the new DFL majority leader at the time, and many of his colleagues blamed him for caving in to the spending cuts Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the House Republican majority demanded to balance the budget. A few months later, DFL senators voted him out of the leadership position after just one year in the post.

After the session, Hottinger said, he realized he needed help, got treatment and now has the disease under control.

He went public, he said, to help people recognize that depression is an “illness, not a character flaw” and that it can be treated. He said that message was particularly important to “men my age or somewhat (younger) who grew up in an era when it was a stigma.”

Sue Abderholden, state executive director of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, which collaborated on the television documentary, said Hottinger has “done a lot to erase stigma on that issue. … He was in many ways very courageous to come forward, especially as a high-ranking elected official.”

A prolific sponsor of bills on a wide range of issues, Hottinger is best known as a passionate advocate for early childhood education. He chairs the Senate panel with jurisdiction over that issue. He previously chaired the Senate Health and Human Services and Rules committees.

He also has been a leader on state government issues at the national level. He chaired the Midwest Legislative Conference in 2000 and the Council of State Governments in 2004, the only Minnesotan to lead that organization.

Hottinger, an attorney, said he isn’t sure what he will do after he leaves the Legislature, but he’s writing a baseball book that he expects to publish next year. He said he’s also open to lobbying on early childhood and health care issues.

When asked what he has gained in 16 years in the Legislature, he deadpanned, “On the average, about 2 pounds a year.”