When campaign fliers take flight from the truth

10/01/2006

Lori Sturdevant, Star Tribune
Published: October 01, 2006

If Minnesota had a Smart Citizen Award, I’d have a nominee: Elaine Zimmer of Brooklyn Park.

Zimmer, a semiretired education paraprofessional, takes pride in learning about candidates for elective office and voting for “the person, not the party.” So when she came across a brochure with the headline “Say No to Melissa Hortman!” in the stack of mail that accumulated while she was on vacation, she read closely.

Hortman is a DFL state representative in District 47B, seeking a second term. She won with a bare 402-vote margin two years ago. That puts her high on GOP hit lists this year.

Zimmer said she was disturbed by what she read. For example, it said, “Even though she promised to ‘reduce homeowner property taxes,’ Melissa Hortman failed to introduce even one bill to do so.”

It also said she voted “no to a cleaner environment,” and “no to giving you a vote on the stadium tax.”

The fine print said, “This is an independent expenditure not approved by the candidate, nor is the candidate responsible for it. Paid for by the Republican Party of Minnesota.”

So here’s what a smart citizen does: Zimmer decided not to take the brochure’s word for it. She looked up Hortman’s telephone number, and dialed. She asked for an explanation.

Hortman was happy to provide one. She was chief author of a bill to reduce homeowner property taxes via a change in the law governing school levies. Her bill wound up in the 2005 K-12 spending bill. Its impact, she says, is to bring $1.5 million in property tax relief to the Anoka Hennepin School District this year, and another $1 million next year.

Hortman told Zimmer the Republican brochure is lying about her record on property taxes. She said as much to the state Office of Administrative Hearings, where she has lodged a formal complaint about the brochure.

“We stand by our brochure,” was Republican Party spokesman Mark Drake’s terse response to Hortman’s charge.

Hortman says the brochure mischaracterizes her record in other ways. For example, she voted against the Clean Water Legacy Act not because she’s against clean water, but because the bill weakened state standards for phosphorus in water. She voted for, not against, requiring Hennepin County voter approval for a sales tax increase to fund a new Twins ballpark. But after that amendment failed, she voted for the final ballpark bill.

Zimmer also asked Hortman about the photo on the brochure. It portrays the 36-year-old attorney and businesswoman as an overheated, annoyed person—which she was after walking in a local parade on a 95-degree day last July and observing a stranger take photos of her by the score. When she scowled in his direction, the shooter evidently got the shot he wanted.

Those answers convinced Zimmer that the brochure, not the legislator, was off base. So she did another smart thing: She told her friends what she’d learned. All in attendance at the adult forum at last Sunday’s Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Brooklyn Park (including the guest speaker from the Star Tribune) heard her warning: Beware the brochures of autumn.

It’s good advice. It goes for the second GOP shot against Hortman, a slick piece that slices all the context out of a hypothetical comment she made on the House floor. It’s made to seem like an admission that she bills clients $195 per hour as an attorney. In fact, the only law she practices is for her family’s auto parts business.

I’ll add some advice for any candidate who doesn’t like smear bombs being shot into their districts: Speak up.

Hortman’s opponent Andrew Reinhardt is a political greenhorn whose eyes are opening fast. He calls what his party is doing with brochures in his district “the sleazy side of politics. ... This is why people don’t run. It scares the hell out of people.”

He doesn’t know what’s coming next from his supposed allies. Neither does Hortman—who was in Reinhardt’s position two years ago, watching helplessly as her party fired scuds at GOP Rep. Stephanie Olsen. The parties know enough to adhere to the independent-expenditure rules forbidding collusion with candidates.

Hortman apologized to Olsen two years ago, and asked her party to stop. Reinhardt should do as much. Then he should publicly denounce false and misleading attacks on his opponent. If he doesn’t, he risks losing the respect and the votes of smart citizens like Zimmer.