The U.S. House of Representatives released personal financial disclosures of its members last week in a process intended to announce possible conflicts of interest and to provide a glimpse at the relative wealth of each legislator. A review of Minnesota’s delegation finds Rep. James Oberstar is the state’s wealthiest representative, while Rep. Keith Ellison the poorest. Rep. Bachmann benefited the most from special interest–funded travel, while neither Rep. Tim Walz nor Rep. Betty McCollum traveled on trips paid by interest groups. None of Minnesota’s delegation had any investments in BP.
Bachmann and McCollum filed their reports late, McCollum by nine days and Bachmann by 31 days. According to a spokeswoman at the Legislative Resource Center, Bachmann applied for and was approved for a filing extension this year.
Bachmann’s net worth (pdf) is between $512,000 and $2.055 million, an average of $1.283 million (Note: The congressional disclosure forms only record very broad estimates of assets and liabilities for each member). Bachmann’s assets are in the form of mutual funds, property, her family business and family farm.
Bachmann has accepted seven trips from interest groups including Concerned Women for America, Pat Robertson’s Regent University, and Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum.
Rep. Ellison’s assets (pdf) are invested in mutual funds and are worth between $2,004 to $34,000, an average of $18,002. Ellison accepted one trip, paid for by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to Nairobi, Kenya.
Rep. John Kline (pdf) has investments totaling between $288,000 and $700,000 (an average of $494,000) and accepted a trip from the Heritage Foundation in 2009.
Rep. McCollum (pdf) has money in mutual funds worth between $25,000 and $200,000 or an average of $112,500. She accepted no money for trips in 2009.
Rep. Oberstar (pdf) has the most wealth of any member of the delegation, somewhere between $4.773 and $8.222 million, an average of around $6.5 million. He owns stock in numerous corporations including Apple, Exxon Mobil, Disney, General Electric, Home Depot, and Microsoft. He accepted two trips to the Aspen Institute in 2009.
Rep. Erik Paulsen (pdf) has mutual fund investments and holds stock in Proctor and Gamble, Excel Energy, Cisco Systems and Coca Cola among others. His worth is between $69,000 and $385,000, for an average of $227,000. He accepted one trip in 2009, from the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas.
Rep. Collin Peterson (pdf) has few investments but counts rent on a farm property and partnership in a property among them. His net worth is between $77,300 and $204,300, an average of $140,800. Chair of the House Committee on Agriculture, he accepted one trip in 2009, paid for by the Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation.
Rep. Tim Walz (pdf) lists a rental unit, several mutual funds, and retirement accounts from his years teaching in Mankato public schools. His net worth is between $154,000 and $310,000, for an average of $232,000.
According to the Federal Reserve Board, the average family net worth in America is $120,300. That number, the most recent available, is from 2007 — before the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009.













21 Comments »
Comment posted June 29, 2010 @ 9:30 am
Michele Bachmann’s family farm income is reported at between $15,001-$50,000. I wonder how much of that is from federal farm subsidies? The Bachmann family farm has harvested more than a quarter-million-dollars in federal farm subsidies since 1995–over $127,000 of that since the family farm partnership wasd formed in 2001.
http://ericblackink.minnpost.com/2007/11/08/a-guest-post-rep-michele-bachmann-opponent-of-farm-subsidies-benefits-from-them/
Comment posted June 29, 2010 @ 10:02 am
Hey Karl – Do you know any farmers? Do you think $13k a year is a lot for a MN farm subsidy? Just asking.
Comment posted June 29, 2010 @ 10:22 am
It’s funny though, reading and listening to Bachmann’s populist, tea-party rhetoric while looking at her net worth and special interest trips.
Oh bachmann.
Comment posted June 29, 2010 @ 11:31 am
Oberstar is worth between four and eight million. I don’t believe that he has ever held a private sector job once he left college. He was 8th District Congressman John Blatnik’s chief aid and then won that seat when Blatnik retired.
Pretty impressive. Inside information?
Comment posted June 29, 2010 @ 2:32 pm
MB does not file her paperwork on time and she accepts bribes in the form of trips to exotic locations.
This woman should be in jail rather than in Congress.
Comment posted June 29, 2010 @ 3:01 pm
Wow, T-Paw, if you think giving speeches to fellow citizens in Washington DC or Virgina is accepting a bribe, I can just imagine your characterization of Ellison’s paid tourist trips to Mecca and Kenya.
I think it’s instructive that no one saw fit to pay to hear what Betty has to say.
Comment posted June 29, 2010 @ 3:40 pm
Dennis – It’s not a lot of money but it is bald faced hypocrisy for Bachmann to rail against subsidies and entitlements on the one hand and then silently accept them for her family farm on the other. Practice what you preach. She is entitled to her wealth, but she is not entitled to her ethical incongruencies
Ray – So Oberstar isn’t entitled to invest his money? Did you complain when Dick Cheney’s Halliburton stock increased several fold over the course of the Iraq war, no doubt as a direct result of the no-bid contracts it received to run a bunch of the admin and logistics?
Comment posted June 29, 2010 @ 5:21 pm
Noel – She voted to END the farm subsidies – so she voted against her own self-interests. Seems to me the news story should be about the democrat farmers in congress who voted FOR the subsidies. That’s a clear conflict of interest.
THAT would be the story in a fair and balanced press, or that the republican farmer voted against her own self-intersts, NOT that Bachmann is simply following the law as it is, just as she would take a tax deduction for minor children on her federal income taxes.
Comment posted June 29, 2010 @ 10:26 pm
It doesn’t matter that Bachmann voted to end the farm subsidies. (My gosh! She actually was present at her job this once instead of at a lucrative speaking engagement elsewhere …) What matters is that she could have elected NOT to accept those subsidies thereby actually practicing what she preaches.
It would be interesting to find out how many in Congress on both sides of the aisle have financial interests in farming operations that draw on those subsidies. After all, Republicans aren’t exempt from conflict of interest, either.
Comment posted June 30, 2010 @ 7:28 am
Well, look Lane. You could, on principle, elect to not take the $1000 deduction per child for your kids on your federal taxes, but that would be hurting your family, all of whom might not agree with you.
She’s not the sole owner of that farm. Her refusal to take the legal subsidies would hurt the other owners, some of whom probably disagree with her.
Comment posted June 30, 2010 @ 11:25 am
Well, look Dennis. I don’t have any children. I have not been railing against the $1,000 federal tax deduction per child.
If the hypocrite Bachmann feels as strongly as what she preaches, she could sell her share of the farm.
“The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.” Seems like you are a hypocrite as well.
Comment posted June 30, 2010 @ 7:37 pm
If Bachmann was a democrat who had voted against her self-interests, she would be hailed in the press as a principled legislator going against her corrupt colleagues who continuously vote themselves raises and subsidies. But she isn’t so she’s not.
If there’s any hypocrisy in this, it’s the biased press.
Comment posted June 30, 2010 @ 11:40 pm
Talk about the pot calling the kettle … given Dennis’ penchant for inane and obviously very biased statements to at least every other article on this website which makes him very much a part of the biased press that he makes such a hue and cry about. Welcome to Web 2.0!
Comment posted July 1, 2010 @ 7:39 am
Lane, I like to think of my comments as the fair and balanced feature of this site.
Comment posted July 2, 2010 @ 2:31 am
And we all know what “fair and balanced” is code for: strong right-wing bias.
Comment posted July 2, 2010 @ 8:10 am
Not my fault if the two go together.
Comment posted July 2, 2010 @ 11:39 am
Dennis’ comments are a form of spin control which falls in the realm of public relations rather than true journalism. I think his services would be far more useful elsewhere than here. Unfortunately for him given his generally stupid observations and conclusions, he wouldn’t last a day in the very competitive field of political punditry.
Comment posted July 6, 2010 @ 4:16 am
Nothing has changed in MN… Bunch of guilt-ridden, self-hating, flip-flopping on the issues dems are selling this great country… Judging others so very righteously while keeping quiet about their little welfare/disability/unemployment schemes… Nice life…
Comment posted July 6, 2010 @ 7:49 pm
Just wait until Citizens/United kicks in.. I predict a ONE Party system of politics.. Politicians and the Corporations they represent.. The Roberts court might have successfully created a nation of Brain Dead , Dumbass, Idiot Republicans. Well see?!?!
Comment posted July 11, 2010 @ 5:20 pm
@YourGod
How Vein of you to use your own Gods name to represent who YOU are!! Freak! Take your Bible and stick it where the Sun don’t shine you FOOL!!..Liberalism has given to you so much yet you give NOTHING! That is unless YOU give to the same preachers that give NOTHING to our society!!! Like the OBESE preachers that are TAX exempt because they are a bunch of selfish, Religious, Racist, Republican pricks like you!! Republican Dip Sh!ts think that Unemployment Compensation is a “Giveaway ” or an ” Entitlement Program” !! Personally I didn’t spend 6 FUCKING years of my life to be in an “entitlement program” Asshole!! There are NO JOBS for people that want to live the AMERICAN DREAM.. Thanx to pricks like YOU who worship at the alter of Douche-Bag Reagan.. Take that you COWARD! Thanks for the misery.. BTW Jesus told me that you are Hell bound.. FREAK!
Comment posted September 5, 2010 @ 12:56 pm
marcus_w71 you are an idiot. The only thing liberalism as given us is more taxes and more goverment control. THANKS
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