Elsewhere in Minnesota News this morning …

STATEWIDE: Local property taxes up 3.5 percent. That’s an estimated average; the truth comes out at Truth-in-Taxation hearings starting next week. [Associated Press]

RAMSEY COUNTY: She gets put on the Coleman-Franken recount board, the unallotment lawsuit, now the dad-shirt case. Doesn’t Judge Kathleen Gearin deserve a “Stay Out of the News Free” card?” [St. Paul Pioneer Press]

STATEWIDE: Al Franken’s bill would aid homeless kids. Bill would help them stay in the same school when possible. [ECM Publishers]

OWATONNA: Texts (both kinds) prompt race tensions. White kids and Somali kids are fighting after anti-Somali writings circulate. [Star Tribune]

MOORHEAD: Native Americans in college. They’re the focus of a national conference today.  [Associated Press]

ALBERT LEA: “Pay-to-play” charges could sink junior-league puck squad. The whistleblower is a bowling alley owner in Elkhorn, Neb. [Albert Lea Tribune]

Coleman wrote his own fundraising letter on behalf of Bachmann in September. Franken was a listed co-host for a fundraising event for Clark, a DFL Party state senator, in Minneapolis last week. Maureen Reed is also mounting a 2010 challenge to Bachmann.

Coleman’s comments Tuesday came in response to a question from his Harvard audience about whether “death bed” rhetoric and “Nazi imagery” were hurting the Republican Party. “I don’t think that the signs you mention are part of the party or central to the discussion,” Coleman countered.

In the course of his response, Coleman brought up “the Michele Bachmanns out there.” He disputed a link between extreme rhetoric and elected officials or the Tea Party movement. “Your basic notion is mistaken,” he said. “You’re taking something way out on the fringe and you’re applying it to the legitimate anger that folks have.”

But earlier, Coleman seemed ready to harness anger himself with this line in his speech: “Pity the politician who comes between a citizen and their constitutional Second Amendment rights.”

Coleman, a visiting fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, is treading on Franken’s former stomping grounds: the Minnesota funnyman-turned-statesman was a math major at Harvard.

He has cast himself as someone who can bring young people into the Republican Party, showing off his savvy by naming things like travel agents and 8-track tapes that the students in his audience don’t use. Besides, he asserted, young people don’t deal with social issues on a day-to-day basis. “Very rarely are you going to think about what’s going to happen on Roe v. Wade today,” Coleman said.

Coleman said he looks for middle ground on social issues. He advocated “doing those things that support young women so they don’t have to have an abortion.” Gay marriage is “a pretty narrow issue,” he said, citing civil unions as a possible compromise on the more contentious issue of how to define marriage.

“The philosophy of conservatives really is more in line with your generation,” Coleman said. “I just think we haven’t done a good job of articulating it.”

Coleman articulated this reason for having lost his re-election battle to Franken last year: his yes vote on bailout bills to stave off a depression in October 2008. “But for the collapse of the economy, I don’t think the race would have been close,” he said.

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

STATEWIDE: Ask Al more. Five dollars and cab fare to New York City will get you a lunch audience with Sen. Franken. [Washington Post's In the Loop]

TWIN CITIES: Random acts of criminality on YouTube. Police are on the trail of local thugs who posted a clip showing them attacking people on bikes and on foot. [Fox 9]

PRIOR LAKE: Native Americans get ready for Copenhagen. They want a say in climate-change talks. [Associated Press]

DASSEL: Steve Dille out. The Republican state senator won’t run again; he was one of the eight GOPers who helped override Gov. Pawlenty’s veto of transportation funding in 2008. [Litchfield Independent Review; Polinaut]

PRAIRIE ISLAND: Lege has last say on nuke storage. The people’s reps at the state Capitol could reverse a regulatory OK for Xcel Energy to store more nuclear waste. [Rochester Post-Bulletin]

STATEWIDE: Or possibly universe-wide? Minnesota Public Radio’s designs on dominance in news. [Braublog]

No, it’s not the return flight-path for those errant Northwest Airlines pilots. It’s U.S. Sen. Al Franken’s hand-drawn map of Minnesota, done on spec for National Geographic. 

Franken and 10 other senators responded to the magazine’s request that they draw the outline of their home states, marking three important places. The assignment was right up Franken’s alley, since he regularly shows off his ability to draw a freehand map of the entire United States from memory.

But highlighting only three places stumped Franken, who responded in wordy fashion with “the importance of Minnesota in the region,” “the entire state” and  ”my hometown, St. Louis Park.”

In attempting to cover all conceivable bases while not playing favorites, Franken seems to have inadvertently tipped his hand, mentioning the state’s prairie land twice:

There’s natural beauty throughout Minnesota, from the Boundary Waters in the Northeast that we share with Canada to the prairies in the west back to the gorgeous bluffs of southeastern Minnesota. There’s the prairies of the west — the fertile farmland along the Red River Valley of the North and the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers.

The senators’ entries appear to have been done in permanent marker, so even if Franken realized he’d let his prairie obsession show, he couldn’t fix it. Or maybe he’s trying to curry favor in areas where Democrats have to work harder for votes. In any case, here’s his whole sketch:

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

STATEWIDE: That’s our gal. The proportion of voters who don’t approve of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann is greater in her own district than statewide … so she should run against U.S. Sen. Al Franken in 2014. [Smart Politics]

MINNEAPOLIS: People who voted like instant-runoff voting. Somehow pollsters found 504 of them to ask. [Minnesota Public Radio]

STATE CAPITOL: State IT pros support Gov. Pawlenty. An audit says the guy who online outdoorsmen call a “slob hunter” didn’t track his office’s computer-support expenses either. [Associated Press; Star Tribune]

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: U2 at TCF in June. Bono will talk to Bill Cooper about debt relief. [Star Tribune; City Pages]

MAPLEWOOD: Al Franken visits City Hall. It’s safe to go to Maplewood again. On a Sunday, anyway. [John Nephew]

ST. PAUL: Heckuva job, Goldie. The feds say the Gopher State did good after I-35W fell down. [Minnesota Public Radio]

Photo: Paul Demko, MnIndy

Senate Democrats are salivating at the prospect of attacking Republicans in 2010 who voted against an anti-rape amendment sponsored by Al Franken, reports Politico. The provision, which was supported by 68 senators, would prevent the Department of Defense from contracting with companies that prohibit employees from suing over workplace disputes — including complaints of sexual assault.

The amendment was inspired by the story of a 19-year-old KBR employee who was gang-raped by co-workers while detailed to Iraq. Upon returning to the U.S., she learned that she was unable to sue the company because of a clause in her contract. Thirty Republicans voted against the measure, often coming up with rather tortured explanations for their votes.

“I think anyone who voted against that has some tough explaining to do,” New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told Politico. “And I think particularly some incumbents already in a challenged position — it can be very detrimental to them because women voters are going to look at that and wonder, ‘Does this senator stand on my side?’”

But Politico posits that the amendment could also prove politically problematic for Franken as he attempts to complete the transition from liberal pitbull to respected legislator.

“Franken’s amendment may make sense for national Democrats in laying down lines of attack heading into the 2010 campaign — but this is not what Franken needs to build a base in Minnesota,” Larry Jacobs, of the University of Minnesota, told Politico. “Being a poster boy of a hard-hitting campaign against the Republican Party is the opposite of what he needs in Minnesota.”

Coming in at 12th dumbest, our Senate race (dubbed “Land of a Thousand Recounts”) is illustrated by the spoof pharmaceutical ad, which asks, “When the time comes to concede, will you be ready?”

The copy continues:

If you’ve already tried futile legal challenges and angry calls for recounts, yet continue to suffer from an inadequate vote tally, Democra-cialis may be right for you. Losing candidates who have used Democra-cialis have seen a marked reduction in electile dysfunction, leaving their opponents victorious and satisfied.

Also making the list are Illinois’ Rod Blagojevich (#15), corporate bailouts (#9), and “Angry Town Hall Meetings” (#6, “Birthers, deathers and other rightwing morons stopped any intelligent discussions about healthcare reform”).

The full ad, via NBC Chicago:

It’s not the first faux pharmaceutical ad created on behalf of Coleman. In April, Tildology came up with one for Dragra, an “oral argument for electile dysfunction.”

“[T]oday, in 2009, in our country, it’s still perfectly legal to fire someone because they’re gay,” Franken told the committee. “You can be a hard worker, show up on time, and get exemplary performance reviews, but if your boss discovers that you’re gay or transgender, they can fire you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Franken noted that Minnesota was the first state in the nation to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and the sky hasn’t fallen here.

Now, most Minnesotans attend religious services every week. Minnesota is home to 19 Fortune 500 companies. Minnesotans enjoy a very high standard of living. So it might surprise some of you that the Minnesota Human Rights Act was passed in 1993. This law protects workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. This law has been protecting workers from discrimination for fifteen years, and Minnesota’s sky has not fallen. Minnesota is basically the same as it was before this law was passed with only one small exception—about 20 or so people per year exercise their rights under this law after they are discriminated against based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Only one person spoke against the bill. Craig Parshall, Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the National Religious Broadcasters Association, said ENDA would “impose a substantial, unconstitutional burden on religious organizations.”

Despite those concerns, the bill does state that it “shall not apply to a corporation, association, educational institution or institution of learning, or society that is exempt from the religious discrimination provisions of title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

Here’s video of Franken’s remarks:

But first things first. Below is the clip from the 2006 movie “Talledega Nights” that provided Pawlenty with one of his most commented-on gag lines, used to describe his wife. After calling the movie “goofy” and “silly,” Pawlenty set about recounting a scene in which Will Ferrell, as race car driver Ricky Bobby, gives a dinner-table blessing that includes thanks for this “red-hot, smoking wife.” (Note that Pawlenty resisted using Ferrell’s addendum to that description: that his wife is also a “stone-cold fox.”)

The Weekly Standard’s Daily Grind liked it: “I don’t immediately think of Tim Pawlenty as being cool with the pop-culture references, but quoting Ricky Bobby shows promise.”

The Des Moines Register’s Kathie Obradovich seems to fall in the “didn’t bring it” camp:

“… Pawlenty delivered a spirited performance … but it didn’t automatically scream ‘presidential candidate.’ … It’s safe to say Pawlenty is the first potential presidential candidate to come to Iowa and quote a Will Farrell [sic] movie. Pawlenty turned to ‘Talledega Nights’ when introducing his wife, Mary: ‘Thank you, Lord, for my red-hot, smokin’ wife.’ … I thought it was funny, but some might take potshots at that brand of humor. … He didn’t knock Iowa Republicans’ socks off, but he’ll likely find plenty willing to look him over the next time he ventures across the border.”

Obradovich also noted: “He attended a gathering at Des Moines businessman Doug Reichardt’s house before the GOP dinner and stayed until the bitter end of the evening event. (Believe me, people noticed.)”

That gibes with what Jason Hancock observed at the dinner itself, which he covered for the Minnesota Independent’s sister site, the Iowa Independent: Pawlenty stayed through the gubernatorial candidates’ speeches that followed his.

But Norwegianity notes that the Register didn’t include Pawlenty in its trio of pictured “heavy hitters” who visited Iowa over the weekend.

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza headlines a post this morning at The Fix this way: “Pawlenty’s national forays show need for polish.” But he’s talking about T-Paw’s dalliance in the New York State special congressional election, not the Iowa appearance.

But what Cillizza sees as a gaffe — Pawlenty’s dissing of Sen. Olympia Snowe — Kathryn Jean Lopez at the National Review’s The Corner views as possibly successful overture to Iowa conservatives: “At least as an Iowa strategy, I’m not sure that’s was [sic] a fumble.”

Iowa’s Democratic chairman, Michael Kiernan, attacked T-Paw’s boasts about not raising taxes, saying Pawlenty “has increased ‘fees’ by hundreds of millions of dollars while at the same time putting the state in a terrible economic bind.”

Powerline’s John Hinderaker concludes that “Pawlenty and Mitt Romney are far and away the Republicans’ best Presidential prospects for 2012.”

Pawlenty didn’t miss while hunting deer in northern Minnesota earlier in the day on Saturday, but the buck was only injured and got away. That supplied another gag in his Iowa speech about a “shoot-and-release” program for deer, but Ken Korczak of Kittson County wasn’t laughing: “Governor, if you don’t mind, a note from a lifetime northern Minnesotaner: Real men track and butcher their own deer.” But instead, Korczak surmises, “he needed to be in Iowa for a major speech to Republican activists.”

Photo: Chris Steller, MnIndy

U.S. Sen. Al Franken introduced legislation Thursday that would encourage states to examine untested rape kits for DNA evidence. The bill would also provide for more health workers trained to administer rape-kit exams, particularly for Native American women.

Another aspect of the bill is that women couldn’t be made to pay for all or part of their rape kit exams — an issue that came up in the 2008 presidential campaign.

“We don’t bill criminals for fingerprint processing,” Franken said in a statement.

The Justice for Survivors of Sexual Assault Act is co-sponsored by Republicans Orrin Hatch of Utah and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, as well as Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California.

The bill follows by only a month Senate passage of Franken’s amendment defunding military contractors that make employees sign away their rights to take sexual assualt allegations to court.

Rape came up during Franken’s campaign for Senate when opponents publicized instances in his comedic past that touched on the topic.