Teacher wants to unseat Gutknecht

05/26/2005

Eric Black,
Star Tribune
May 26, 2005

High school teacher and National Guard veteran Tim Walz of Mankato is seeking the DFL nomination to challenge U.S. Rep. Gil Gutknecht in Minnesota’s First Congressional District.

Walz has not formally announced his candidacy but makes no secret of his intentions. He has a website (http://www.timwalz.org), has filed with the Federal Election Commission and had raised $10,433 as of April 30.

Gutknecht is a six-term incumbent whose winning margins have crept up during his campaigns from a low of 53 percent in 1996 to a high of 61 percent in 2002.

Walz said he will remind voters that when Gutknecht was first elected he promised to limit himself to six terms. He also will argue that Guknecht is “not as independent as he claims” and has sided with House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on 94 percent of votes over the past two congressional sessions.

Gutknecht spokesman Bryan Anderson said that the congressman still believes in term limits but feels that to implement them unilaterally would be disadvantageous to his constituents. Gutknecht has a record of bucking the party leadership, notably on the reimportation of prescription drugs, Anderson said, adding “if Mr. Walz wants to run against Tom DeLay, that’s his business.”

Walz, 41, is a Nebraska native and 24-year veteran of the Army National Guard. He was activated in 2003-04 and spent eight months in Italy in support of U.S. operations in Afghanistan. He resigned with the rank of command sergeant-major. He teaches geography at Mankato West High School, was Blue Earth County coordinator for the John Kerry campaign and First District coordinator of Veterans for Kerry.

Walz gained some attention in 2004 because officials tried to keep him from attending a campaign rally for President Bush in Mankato, although he was ultimately admitted. Walz is married and has a 4-year-old daughter.

• In other campaign news:

Cheri Pierson Yecke, running in the Sixth Congressional District, was in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday and claimed the endorsement of her former boss, Virginia Sen. George Allen. He is considered a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. “He’s the person who got me involved in politics in the first place,” Yecke said.

Allen and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore were scheduled to attend a fundraiser in Washington for Yecke on Wednesday night.

Yecke, one of five Republicans vying to succeed Rep. Mark Kennedy, who is running for the Senate, was appointed by then-Gov. Allen to serve on the Virginia Board of Education in 1995. Gilmore later named her secretary of education. Yecke, who worked in the Department of Education before moving to Minnesota to become the state’s education commissioner, said her ties to Washington will separate her from the other candidates in next year’s election. “Washington is the sort of town where you have to know people to get things done,” she said.