Courage has left Minnesota's Republican party. Cronyism is alive and well. Great job Marty Seifert!
I guess that was the lesson doled out to 6 GOP legislators who supported a landmark transportation bill on Monday.
"We expect Republicans to follow other Republicans, and there is obviously a mixed message with what happened yesterday," Seifert said at a news conference Tuesday. "We're not taking anyone's secretary away. I'm not throwing their computers down the Capitol steps. I'm not severing their phone lines."
No, he just removed them from any leadership positions.
• Rep. Rod Hamilton, R-Mountain Lake, replaced by Rep. Dean Urdahl, R-Grove City, in the Agriculture, Rural Economies & Veterans Affairs Committee.
• Rep. Kathy Tingelstad, R-Andover, replaced by Rep. Larry Howes, R-Walker, in the Capital Investment Committee.
• Rep. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, replaced by Rep. Matt Dean, R-Dellwood, in the Health Care and Human Services Committee.
• Heidgerken, R-Freeport, replaced by Rep. Sondra Erickson, R-Princeton, in the K-12 Finance Committee.
• Erhardt, R-Edina, replaced by Rep. Morrie Lanning, R-Moorhead, in the Property Tax Relief & Local Sales Taxes Committee.
• In addition, Rep. Neil Peterson, R-Bloomington, was removed as an assistant minority whip and replaced by Rep. Pat Garofalo, R-Farmington.
Punish courage, reward cowardice. Good work!
While Rep Urdahl was quick to report "threats", it would appear he was a bit slower to report that he would be "promoted" for toeing the GOP party line, while at the same time, throwing his constituents under the bus.
Anyone ever read Wright County Republican?
Why did Drew Emmer remove the name of a legislator who supposedly "threatened" Rep Urdahl? Yesterday morning, he specifically named a legislator in his smear job. Now, the name is suddenly removed, although Urdahl was still "threatened".
Interesting...
So, having the courage to buck one's party and vote in line with one's constituents gets you removed from leadership positions.
The SC Times has an opinion on this as well today.
Most troubling, though, are the aftershocks emanating from the Republican Party and Pawlenty.
Within hours of the override, it became clear the party expects to punish Heidgerken and the other five House members for breaking ranks with the party and instead voting for what they believed was best for their constituents and all Minnesotans.
Heidgerken said he will lose his post as lead Republican on the House K-12 Finance Committee. News reports indicate other consequences could include others resigning similar posts, losing staff and research services, or not getting party support in re-election bids.
The Pioneer Press quoted Pawlenty as follows on this issue: "If you are going to be a team, you know, then there are going to be some team rules and team expectations, and I'll leave that up to the caucus leaders how they are going to address this further."
We expected a lot of things in the wake of this transportation bill passing — safer bridges, higher taxes and, yes, some Election Day changes. We didn't expect our governor and his political party to take such a low road in response to six votes cast for Team Minnesota, for once, instead of Team GOP.
Well said...I agree.
