Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) (WDCpix)

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s stamp is all over Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s announcement today that she will leave office at the end of the month. Media reports (video) aren’t failing to note the parallel to Pawlenty’s decision last month not to seek re-election. Palin and Pawlenty were reportedly the two finalists for the Republican vice-presidential slot in last year’s election, and both governors are said to be gunning for the top of the GOP ticket in 2012.

Pawlenty’s term won’t end until a new governor replaces him in early 2011. Palin said today she’ll quit July 26 and won’t seek re-election as governor.

Palin already has formed a leadership PAC, a national political fundraising group; Pawlenty has been advised to do so if he’s serious about seeking the Republican presidential nomination.

Both governors like to travel, but Pawlenty has an easier time of it from his home base in the center of the country. Palin has been hamstrung by her distant location far north of the lower 48 states — a handicap her resignation will resolve — and by a propensity to court scandal in her spending on trips and other items.

Pawlenty has so far been careful to characterize his trips out of state as being prompted by invitations to speak, and his press office makes sure to explain that expenses are covered by the sponsoring group, not Minnesota taxpayers.

Two other Republican presidential aspirants took steps nearly in tandem — but backwards — in recent weeks: Sen. John Ensign of Nevada and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford announced extramarital affairs that appeared to doom their White House hopes.

Palin has a much higher profile than Pawlenty, and a stronger grip on the conservative base still essential to Republican support. But that didn’t stop a speaker at last year’s Republican National Convention in St. Paul from calling her “Sarah Pawlenty.”

That mixed-up appellation makes a bit more sense today.

Photo: whitehouse.gov

Vice President Joe Biden has been booked for Al Franken’s swearing-in as a U.S. Senator, and Franken says he will be accompanied at the ceremony by former Vice President Walter Mondale and Sen. Amy Klobuchar. It “looks like” it will happen next Tuesday, he said — a date that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office told the Minnesota Independent is “likely.”

Franken was asked in a Thursday afternoon interview on The UpTake whether he was pinching himself.

“I am. There’s something surreal about all this. I don’t think it would been quite as surreal if I’d just won on election night,” Minnesota’s senator-elect said. “Finally, so suddenly, just boom! It happens.”

The six-month delay in getting seated rankles Franken. He called his absence — while a committee he’s assigned to (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) tackles health care — “one of the things I’m most upset about not being seated right away. … I’m going to sit in on the [health care bill's] markup but I’m not actually a member of the committee until [after] they get this finished.

“I am very predisposed to a public option [for health care reform],” Franken said. “But the devil’s always in the details.”

Franken was interviewed by phone on the citizen-journalism website that streamed live video of most of the recount and election-contest trial. ”I want to thank you and The UpTake,” Franken said, “for showing the process for what it is.”

Did he watch the post-election proceedings on The UpTake? “I did watch. In fact, you ruined my vacation,” Franken deadpanned. “My campaign manager made us take a vacation the first week of the trial. We just couldn’t enjoy ourselves at all.” Apparently he still has a tanline from his laptop.

If Norm Coleman runs for governor, what advice would Franken have for a DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party) candidate running against him?

“To call me,” Franken quipped.

What does he think of Rush Limbaugh comparing Minnesota’s U.S. Senate election to Iran’s recent presidential election?

“That’s one of the great things about running for public office,” Franken said. “You don’t have to listen to Rush Limbaugh. That’s one of the great pleasures of not being on the radio, where it was kind of the easy thing to do, listen to it and react to him.”

Franken offered no defense of the controversial Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). “I’m pro-same-sex marriage,” he said. “I think DOMA will be history soon.” He cited commentator George F. Will’s observation that to his daughter’s generation, being gay is about as interesting as being left-handed. “I actually think it’s more interesting,” Franken said, adding that despite predictions that his out-front support for same-sex marriage would sideline his Senate campaign, “it just never became an issue.”

UPDATE: Here’s a video of TheUptake’s online/radio interview with Al Franken on July 2:

He couldn’t find out quite everything about her: whether she is selling agricultural products in her home, the state of her mental health, how much she is spending on fuel, or her ancestry.

Bachmann’s office disputed the accuracy of some of Third Coast’s answers, but wouldn’t say which information was wrong. 

See Third Coast’s handiwork for yourself at this pdf.

Photos: Chris Steller, Andy Birkey/MnIndy

What was that all about? We shook the last two 24-hour news cycles’ worth of media mumbo-jumbo on the Norm Coleman-Al Franken fracas, and this is what fell out.

Franken won by being very, very quiet: Everyone seems to agree on this point. First, Chris Cillizza at his Washington Post blog The Fix:

When the race ended in a tie, Franken did something very smart; he stayed out of the spotlight. He was rarely seen or heard and when he did pop into public view it was during an occasional visit to Washington when he was huddling with potential colleagues and getting briefed on issues by potential staffers — in short, acting like a senator. He gave Republicans nothing to use to sow doubts about whether he was ready for the office to which he was headed. While Franken’s personal discipline did little to effect the legal outcome, it played a critical part in slowly but surely securing public support behind the idea that not only had he won but that he was ready to be a senator.

Newsweek’s Howard Fineman is a pal of Al’s:

One would-be advisor told him that the best way to deal with his show-biz background was to shine a light on it, play it up. ”That was 100 percent wrong!” Al told me last night.

Politico’s Mike Allen, appearing on MSNBC’s Hardball, put it more bluntly (video):

He shut his mouth, and when you’re Al Franken that’s not easy to do.

What’ll that Norm do next?: Through all the rancor, outrage and mock-outrage — and then all the graciousness, which may have been harder to take — the question was always what Coleman might do next. Appeal? Appeal again? Appeal again and again? And still, that’s the question of the hour, now revolving about whether he’ll run for governor, as he teased at his backyard concession event. Eric Black at MinnPost attacks it from all angles, concluding with this memorable image:

All of which should have taught Coleman by now that when people try to tell him how his next race is a can’t-miss proposition, he should smile, tiptoe into a padded room, and scream.

It’s getting meta all the time: The Associated Press asked Franken who should play him on Saturday Night Live, the TV show he used to write for. Franken picked Fred Armisen, who currently plays President Obama on the show.

Franken himself once portrayed a Democratic senator for an SNL spoof of the confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. And in two weeks Franken will play that role for real during hearings into Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the high court.

Last one out, wake up the Lizard People: Local talking heads, who for months told millions via a grateful news media what had just happened and what would happen next, now can seek out pillows and rest up for the next Minnesota election debacle (a word none of them would use even if they sometimes wanted to). One was Hamline University Law School Professor David Schultz, who according to Politico:

… stood outside Coleman’s St. Paul house Tuesday, where the former senator delivered his concession remarks. There, the professor bounced from reporter to reporter, from television satellite truck to satellite truck, summing it all up. In June, he had predicted that the state Supreme Court would hand down a 5-0 decision in favor of Franken and that it would come just before the July 4 weekend. Schultz has, in fact, been in fine form with his prognostications for much of the recount, making up for what he says was a string of bad calls he committed during the 2000 Florida recount. “I have to sort of say I got dumb lucky on this on one level,” Schultz told POLITICO.

Schultz made any number of other predictions that would have put the end to the fight at various points from at least April to the end of June, but who’s counting and who cares? He was willing to stick his neck out, and that counts for a lot.

Another person who stuck her neck out and crowed about it was Minnesota’s long-suffering solo senator, Amy Klobuchar. Her prediction on “The Rachel Maddow Show” for an early end to her misery (by ice-out) wasn’t half-bad, but we’re all lucky her revised prognostication (by the Fourth of July) came true or she would have been “mad” — a point she repeated when she revisited the MSNBC show this week (video).

Land of Loons: Back in Minnesota, commentators tended to be clear-headed about the affair despite the national buzz. As good a short summary as you’re likely to read appeared in the St. Cloud Times:

“I supported Coleman and thought this process raised some interesting legal questions,” said Jim Knoblach, a St. Cloud Republican, former state representative and prominent Coleman supporter. “Having said that, a lot of people were long ago ready for this to be over.”

Of the 74 upper-chamber lawmakers who supported the $700 billion financial rescue in October, at least 15 own direct shares in institutions receiving federal funds under the Troubled Assets Relief Program, according to financial disclosure forms filed by members of Congress last month. Combined, those 15 members hold between $1.2 million and $3.0 million worth of stock in TARP beneficiaries — firms that have received no less than $330 billion in TARP funds and loan guarantees since the program began.

Under federal law and congressional rules, it is perfectly legal for lawmakers to be invested in the industries they fund and regulate. Indeed, while judges are often forced to recuse themselves from cases where they have a financial interest, the Congress members who control the nation’s purse-strings have no similar obligation. Yet, the trend has raised the eyebrows of some public interest advocates, who warn that even the appearance of lawmakers voting their wallets can erode the voters’ trust in the elected officials they send to Washington.

“Americans will be skeptical, if it looks like their representatives are making money off of the deal,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

To date, roughly 650 companies have received more than $400 billion in federal funding since the financial rescue began, according to researchers at ProPublica, with a bulk of that money going to enormous Wall Street firms like American International Group, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase. That influx of cash has benefited not only the companies themselves, but also the shareholders whose investments were rescued from sheer collapse as Wall Street tanked last fall.

Financial disclosure rules make it difficult to pinpoint the extent to which lawmakers are invested in the firms benefiting from the program they helped to launch. But at least 20 percent of the senators who supported TARP own stock in institutions later propped up by the program, according to financial disclosures.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), for example, along with his wife, reported holdings between $66,000 and $166,000 in Bank of America, which has received $52.5 billion in TARP-backed funds and backstop guarantees. He also claimed between $151,000 and $365,000 in shares of Citigroup ($50 billion from TARP), and between $251,000 and $516,000 in shares of American Express ($3.4 billion from TARP).

He’s hardly alone. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) reported holdings between $100,000 and $250,000 in Key Bank ($2.5 billion from TARP). Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) claimed between $15,000 and $50,000 of stock in Capital One ($3.6 billion from TARP), and another $15,000 to $50,000 in JPMorgan Chase ($25 billion from TARP). The list goes on.

In all, at least 15 senators supporting TARP have benefited financially from the program — a number that’s likely to rise. Thirteen upper-chamber lawmakers have yet to submit their financial disclosures this year.

No one is accusing these lawmakers of voting solely to benefit themselves. Indeed, economists across the ideological spectrum had warned last year that a failure to enact an enormous, government-backed Wall Street rescue would spiral the country even deeper into recession.

Yet the size and scope of the federal bailout efforts — not to mention the popular criticisms of them — have focused more eyes on the workings of Washington in the last year. Some government watchdogs are concerned that the new scrutiny, combined with the awareness that some lawmakers are heavily invested in TARP-backed banks, will lead to public suspicions that their elected officials are blind to conflicts of interests. Those suspicions are intensified when lawmakers conduct financial transactions near to votes on related topics.

“It suggests they have insider information,” Sloan said.

Congressional lawmakers, who build careers preening images that they’re just like everyone else, tend not to be like everyone else when it comes to personal finances. Almost every lawmaker, for example, dabbles somehow with Wall Street, whether their investments take the form of direct purchases of publicly traded stocks or mutual funds tucked away into blind trusts. By contrast, less than 18 percent of American families owned stock in 2007, according to the Federal Reserve’s latest Survey of Consumer Finances. And less than half of all Americans have investments of any kind on Wall Street, including mutual funds and 401(k)-style retirement accounts, according to researchers at the Economic Policy Institute.

Some prominent lawmakers have gone out of their way to eliminate suspicions that they’re using their power to enrich themselves. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, for example, owns no direct company stock, instead putting his holdings almost exclusively into municipal bonds. Aside from benefiting his home state, Frank said in a phone interview Tuesday, that strategy precludes accusations that his legislative activities are motivated by his own financial well-being.

“It is the one conflict-of-interest-free thing I can do,” Frank said. He was quick to add, though, that he doesn’t want to be held up as some example for other members to follow. “I do what I do,” he said. “I can’t be a role model.”

Some money-in-politics experts argue that lawmakers’ personal holdings are largely insignificant as they relate to the legislative process. Mary Boyle, spokeswoman for Common Cause, said that from a public interest standpoint, the more threatening influence is tsunami of campaign contributions generated each year by special-interest groups in search of legislative favors.

Robert M. Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, a Los Angeles-based non-profit research group, agreed, arguing that a few thousand dollars invested in an enormous Wall Street firm wouldn’t sway most legislators one way or another. On the other hand, Stern added, a lawmaker with significant holdings in a small community bank — or a seat on the company board — might easily be motivated to act on the bank’s behalf.

“If it’s a small bank and there’s a big investment,” Stern said, “then it’s a big deal.”

Stern’s comments came one day before The Washington Post and ProPublica reported that the office of Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) had made an inquisitive phone call to federal officials about the fate of a struggling state bank that had applied for TARP funds. Although TARP was designed to strengthen only healthy banks, Hawaii’s Central Pacific Financial, which Inouye helped establish 55 years ago, received $135 million in federal help shortly after the phone call, the reporters found. Inouye, who has delayed submission of his 2008 financial disclosures until Aug. 13, claimed between $350,000 and $700,000 in Central Pacific shares between he and his wife in 2007.

The laxity of congressional conflict-of-interest rules, watchdogs say, allows it all to happen. Sloan pointed to a 14-year-old saga surrounding former Sen. Lauch Faircloth (R-N.C.) to illustrate the leniency of those guidelines. In 1995, Faircloth was chairman of a Senate subcommittee on clean water and wetlands. But he was also part-owner of a hog-farming empire, with a stake estimated to be worth nearly $20 million. From his perch, and claiming no conflicts of interest, Faircloth tried to roll back federal wetland protections — efforts that would have been a boon to many hog farmers by exempting “large-scale animal feed lots” from some provisions of the Clean Water Act. A local paper, the Charlotte Observer, estimated that the senator’s own farms housed 500 acres of wetlands that would be affected by his proposals.

The Senate Ethics Committee looked into the tale, and found no conflicts of interest.

Alexandra Jaffe and Aaron Wiener provided extensive research for this report.

But on Thursday, members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota showed up at McCollum’s St. Paul office to praise her efforts on the health-care front. In honor of the July Fourth holiday they brought a replica U.S. flag emblazoned with the stories of union members’ frustrating encounters with the current health-care system.

“It’s time to declare independence from the tyranny of living under a broken health-care system,” said Rick Varco, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota’s political director.

McCollum wasn’t on hand to accept the flag. That duty was left to Josh Straka, the lawmaker’s district director.

Varco believes the July Fourth holiday was a natural fit for highlighting the nation’s dysfunctional health-care system. “There’s that line in the Declaration of Independence about a ‘long train of abuses,’” he says. “That’s what the American people have suffered from this health-care system.”

The health-care debate is reaching a critical juncture in Washington. Committees in the House and Senate are in the midst of tough negotiations over the details of possible legislative action. President Obama has stated that he hopes to have a bill on his desk by October. In some instances, SEIU and other liberal interest groups have attacked Democratic legislators for being insufficiently committed to the cause.

But Varco insists McCollum doesn’t deserve such treatment. “We were out in Washington, D.C., last week meeting with members of Congress and Congresswoman McCollum was just on fire,” he said.

On Wednesday night, McCollum hosted a town-hall meeting at the Highland Park Pavilion on the topic of health-care reform. Roughly 100 people showed up to share their thoughts on the subject. Advocates of a single-payer system were well represented in the crowd.

When McCollum stated at the beginning of the event that a public option for health-care insurance is “not socialized medicine,” she received a tart response from one member of the crowd. “Yes it is,” he stated, “and it’s good.”

Varco is not troubled by McCollum’s failure to sign on to the single-payer bill, however, even though SEIU supports the legislation.

“We think that the president is right when he says Americans don’t want to be forced to give up their health-care plan,” he said. “Competition with a strong public plan is the best way to get us towards quality affordable health care for everyone.”

Northern Minnesota community colleges are preparing for a hit of 26 percent: “We’re looking really hard at areas where we can share costs,” said Sue Collins, president of the Northeast Higher Education District. “We’re also looking at how we can use technology to keep costs down, and pursuing more group purchasing to reduce the cost of supplies. Our preference is to keep from cutting people or programs that students need.”

White Bear lake will be cutting weed-spraying and scaling back snow plowing:
“The focus will be more on safety and less on convenience,” City Manager Mark Sather said. “You know, that difference between plowing snow when it’s 3 inches on a Sunday, or waiting until Monday to do it. People say, ‘I can get through, and I have to drive a little slower because they haven’t been salting and sanding, but the streets are still safe.’ ”

In Freeborn County, the Dept. of Human Services working are looking at scaling back programs and instituting wait-lists.

“It’s going to boil down to the level and amount of services that the clients will be seeing because of a reduction in funding,” Freeborn County Department of Human Services Director Brian Buhmann said. “We may see a waiting list for services. And we may see families having to step up to the plate even more.”

Rep. Tom Bakk, a gubernatorial hopeful, says that thousands of jobs will be lost in the wake of the unallotment: “In determining the impact of unallotment on Minnesota employment, [State Econoimist Tom Stinson] divided direct job losses through 2011 into: local government (non school) 1,630 – 1,970 positions; state government (including higher education) 870 – 1,630 positions; school districts 300 – 600 positions; and the private sector 500 positions. An additional 1,500 to 2,500 jobs could be lost as people without jobs purchase fewer goods, the industries losing employees purchase fewer supplies, etc.”

Brainerd is looking at cuts of $269,942 in local government aid for 2009 and $622,858 in 2010. City leaders say furloughs and retirements are a definite, but are still looking at options to make up the losses. “This year is going to be a difficult year for budgeting,” City Administrator Dan Vogt said. “In the type of budget times we’re in I think we need more direction from elected officials as far as coming in with a budget you’d like to see.”

Photo: MnIndy

A new poll suggests Sen.-elect Al Franken would have trouble following President Barack Obama’s vault from a single Senate-election victory to the White House. Beyond that, it’s not clear why it matters that 44 percent of voters across the country have an unfavorable view of the Democrat or that 34 percent like him at least “somewhat.” According to the pollster, Rasmussen Reports, “It is fairly typical for individual legislators to have negative favorability ratings on a national basis.”

The 22 percent who aren’t sure what they think of Franken and the 40 percent who followed his election saga not very closely or not at all will get a chance to form an opinion in less than two weeks, when the Senate Judiciary Committee takes up the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court. Senate leaders saved Franken a seat on the committee, where he’s sure to be under the national media microscope.

Rasmussen’s polls within Minnesota have provided interesting peeks at the progress of the battle between Franken and former Sen. Norm Coleman, both before and after Election Day. In late October, Rasmussen reported Coleman leading Franken by a four-point spread that was within the poll’s margin of error. Between two polls taken in December and March, the proportion of Minnesotans who thought Franken won increased by 16 points to a level reaching nearly half the voting population.

By mid-May, Rasmussen put the percentage who wanted Coleman to concede at 54 percent (other polls pegged it at 10 percentage point higher).

Whatever the number, this week they got their wish.

As part of the “public option” in the health reform package currently being debated in Washington, a Health Benefits Advisory Committee would make decisions about what health care procedures can be covered under a government-run system. The anti-abortion Democrats want specific legislation that prevents that board from allowing coverage of abortion services.

Full text of the letter:

Dear Honorable Pelosi:

As the debate on health care reform continues and legislation is produced, it is imperative that the issue of abortion not be overlooked. Plans to mandate coverage for abortions, either directly or indirectly is unacceptable.

We believe in a culture that supports and respects the right to life and is dedicated to the protection and preservation of families. Therefore, we cannot support any health care reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan. We believe that a government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan, should not be used to fund abortion.

Furthermore, we want to ensure that the Health Benefits Advisory Committee cannot recommend abortion services be included under covered benefits or as part of a benefits package. Without an explicit exclusion, abortion could be included in a government subsidized health care plan under general health care. The health care reform package produced by Congress will be landmark, and with legislation as important as this, abortion must be addressed clearly in the bill text.
Furthermore, funding restrictions save lives by reducing the number of abortions. The Guttmacher Policy Review, a leading pro-choice research organization noted “that about one third of women who would have had an abortion if support were available carried their pregnancies to term when the abortion fund was unavailable.”

Thank you for taking the time to consider our request. By ensuring that abortions are not funded through any health care reform package, we will take this controversial issue off the table so that Congress can focus on crafting a broadly-supported health care reform bill.

Sincerely,

Dan Boren (Okla.), Bobby Bright (Ala.), Travis Childers (Miss.), Jerry Costello (Ill.), Kathy Dahlkemper (Penn.), Lincoln Davis (Tenn.), Steve Driehaus (Ohio), Tim Holden (Penn.), Paul Kanjorski (Penn.), Marcy Kaptur (Ohio), Mike McIntyre (N.C.), Charlie Melancon (La.), John Murtha (Penn.), Jim Oberstar (Minn.), Solomon Ortiz (Texas), Collin Peterson (Minn.), Heath Shuler (N.C.), Bart Stupak (Mich.), and Gene Taylor (Miss).

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning…

ST. PAUL: Ford plant still set to shut despite demand for its trucks. Sales of Rangers leaped 9 percent last month, compared to a 6-percent drop for Ford trucks and vans overall. [St. Paul Pioneer Press]

MINNETONKA: More arms of Opus fall into bankruptcy. Two divisions of locally based developer Opus Group filed for Chapter 7: Opus East and Opus West joined Opus South (already in bankruptcy court), leaving only Opus North and Opus Northwest. [St. Paul Pioneer Press]

STATEWIDE: Economy hard on homeowners, renters. No surprise, but the stats are still grim: A study shows mortgage defaults up, renters falling behind. [Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal]

MINNEAPOLIS: Students have no say in U of M tuition hikes. Revenue from tuition now outpaces what the University of Minnesota gets from the State of Minnesota. [Minnesota Daily]

ALBERT LEA: Let the municipal mosquito wars begin. The city of Albert Lea started spraying Wednesday night. [Albert Lea Tribune]

STATEWIDE: Nanny state says shut your mouth while swimming. Worry not only about the poop coming out of Duluth’s pipes but also your fellow bathers’, says the Minnesota Department of Health. [Associated Press]