Legislators learn the tangled ropes

07/05/2005

Dan Wascoe,
Star Tribune
July 5, 2005

In January, three suburban moms moved into the State Office Building as legislative freshmen. They’d studied school finances for years and advocated vocally for their kids’ schools. Now they’re six-month veterans who have climbed a steep learning curve at the Capitol and at home. They’ve endured a mix of frustration, pressure and exhilaration, occasionally crossing their DFL leaders in the House. And they value the support they’ve received to keep their households going.

Rep. Denise Dittrich, DFL-Champlin, who has three kids, hired extra help at home. Rep. Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, complains that making laws isn’t as orderly or fair as her old job practicing law. Rep. Maria Ruud, DFL-Minnetonka, expects to decompress after final adjournment by staring at a blank wall.

All three agree that legislators should have finished their work on time, avoiding the special session. Symbolically, none of the three is accepting the special-session pay for which legislators are eligible.

As newcomers in the House minority party, they learned to cope simultaneously with legislating, parenting and living. They also learned that to help their districts, they sometimes had to vote against the insistent wishes of their caucus leaders.

They say they are heartened by what they describe as a flickering of collaboration and moderation that they hope will grow and help avoid the political standoffs that have blocked House action in recent years.

Dittrich, Hortman and Ruud are this year’s freshmen with strong education connections. They’re among at least 25 members (15 DFLers, 10 Republicans) who have come to the Legislature with experience on school boards, classrooms, parent action groups and such. But they’ve had to deal with differing views on education matters. And they’ve had to learn and vote on other issues ranging from power lines to ethanol to minimum wage.

Mary Cecconi, a former Stillwater school board member who heads the Parents United Network, said she has watched the three struggle with their votes. They have come to realize the need to consider “the whole of a state,” she said. Nevertheless, she added, “They all seem to be really very much dedicated to their [local] constituencies.”

House Speaker Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon, said the three DFL freshmen may have found it “eye-opening” that positions they favored on education issues were supported more strongly by Republicans than by their own party. At the same time, he said, they may have felt frustrated and learned that “nobody gets everything the way they want it.”

Rep. Karen Klinzing, R-Woodbury, is a legislative sophomore who understands. She’s a Bloomington high school social studies teacher who campaigned in 2002 because of what she called her passion for education and disenchantment with the application of the Profile of Learning, an experience-based system of education.

Once in office she found that getting things done at the Capitol “is very incremental” because it takes awhile to build trust, develop relationships and educate other members about certain issues. She said she has seen progress and momentum on some issues as a sophomore that she did not see during her first session.

One of her bills this year would require that 65 percent of public schools’ operational dollars be spent in the classroom--a measure whose fate rests in a House-Senate conference committee.

But she said her most meaningful victories have come on issues she never expected. One allows the parents of stillborn infants to receive a birth certificate. The other allowed students to carry epinephrine, normally a drug that must be locked up, as a countermeasure to potentially fatal allergic reactions.

Those bills “might not be huge in the big scheme of things,” she said, but they meant a lot to those involved.

She has gotten to know DFLers Dittrich, Hortman and Ruud better than she did some Republicans in her own freshman class, she said.

“I’ve approached them” on some measures “and they’ve done likewise,” she said, adding, “We have to be careful to not judge a person’s character on their political philosophy. There will be issues on which those with conservative or liberal philosophies, believe it or not, will converge.”

It doesn’t require a moderate bloc or core to reach across the aisle, she said, but it does take a willingness to oppose someone on philosophical grounds “and still be friends.”

Sviggum said that it’s important to reach out and build coalitions but that it is “more important to have leaders than moderates” because moderates also can be regarded as “wishy-washy” and “not standing for anything.”

As legislators waited for a negotiated agreement by House and Senate leaders and Gov. Tim Pawlenty on key financial and policy issues, Dittrich, Hortman and Ruud talked about the lessons of their first terms.

Dan Wascoe is at dwascoe@startribune.com.

Rep. Denise Dittrich, DFL-Champlin

Home: Champlin

Occupation: Homemaker

Education: B.S., elementary education, University of Minnesota

Elected: 2004

Committees: Education Policy and Reform, Transportation

Dittrich, a former teacher and Anoka-Hennepin school board member, was pleased to be appointed to the two committees she most coveted: Education Policy and Reform and Transportation. She was one of only two DFL freshmen named to one of the House’s 32 conference committees, according to the office of Speaker Steve Sviggum.

She supported a bonding bill that will help build the North Star commuter rail line—an issue in her campaign. Her predecessor opposed the project. Dittrich also is hopeful that schools will emerge with more state money this session. Those results alone would constitute success, she said.

But she acknowledged it has been difficult sometimes to decide: “Do I vote for the party, my district or our own principles? ... It’s a lonely place to be some days.”

She bucked DFL leaders by voting for a Republican-backed education bill that provided a tempting sweetener: $4 million in the next two years for a pilot project in her Anoka-Hennepin School District, the state’s largest. She could not refuse the offer, she said, because the district needs more than it gets from state formulas that do not reflect the district’s circumstances.

Her own circumstances have led her to rely on a cell phone, an electronic e-mailer and scheduler and a reminder “to bring enough cash to have something to eat. ... I did not realize [the job] would be full-time in the day and in the evening.”

Rep. Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park

Home: Brooklyn Park

Occupation: Lawyer, family businessperson

Education: B.A., political science/philosophy, Boston University; J.D., University of Minnesota

Elected: 2004

Committees: Environment and Natural Resources, Transportation

Of the three, Hortman was most critical of “the pretend world” of the Legislature. She doesn’t like being expected to stand in line behind her party’s leadership, she said, although “it is very difficult to make your party unhappy.” But she did, voting for the same bill that Dittrich did to gain extra money for Anoka-Hennepin.

She also does not appreciate “gotcha scheduling”—meetings called on short notice if one side thinks it can gain an advantage.

The special session “has infuriated me,” she said, because the process of relying on data to make decisions and of hearing pros and cons gives way to “a dictatorship of three”: the leaders of the House and Senate and the governor, she said. “In the special session they have all the power.”

Meanwhile, she has tried to get to know Republican colleagues personally because “relationships are the basis for getting things done.”

Even so, she said that “proposals have gotten crossover votes because of what’s in them,” not as the result of deals.

Hortman, once a staff member for U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., criticized “the rural/metro divide” because Twin Cities area legislators seem to begrudge aid to the outstate areas whose agriculture and mining “helped build this state.”

Rep. Maria Ruud, DFL-Minnetonka

Home: Minnetonka

Occupation: Nurse practitioner

Education: B.S.N., nursing, University of Minnesota; M.S.N., nursing, University of California, San Francisco

Elected: 2004

Committees: Education Policy and Reform, Regulated Industries

Ruud, a practical nurse, plastered her office walls with art from schoolchildren in her district—“a reminder of why I’m here.”

Like her two colleagues, she voted for the House education bill because “it was a way to move the process forward” by allowing districts to raise more property taxes than currently permitted. But DFL leaders “wanted me to be aware that I may be angering and isolating certain special-interest groups.”

She said she appreciated that some of those groups understood that “there’s a difference between being an activist and a representative.”

With a 12-year-old and 14-year-old at home, she said, she appreciated the help of relatives and friends to get her through the session: “It takes a village to help your representative survive.”

One of her frustrations, she said, was with the Legislature’s “glacial pace.”

“I understand strategy and why things don’t happen,” she said, “but I don’t understand why they can’t.”

She added that in the legislative give and take, “you hold your nose,” although “you don’t want to compromise your integrity.”

Nevertheless, she said, “I’m not one of those who sees compromise as failure.”