St. Bonifacius city council member Joe Arwood announced on Monday that he will soon file paperwork to challenge Sen. Amy Klobuchar for the U.S. Senate.
Former governor and presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty will not challenge Sen. Amy Klobuchar in 2012, the Associated Press reports. Republican Party of Minnesota chair Tony Sutton had suggested that Pawlenty take on Klobuchar following his exit from the presidential race on Sunday.
President Obama will return to Minnesota at the end of August to address the national meeting of the American Legion. Obama was in Minnesota on Monday as a part of his jobs tour. Also speaking at the American Legion meeting will be Michele Bachmann, considered in the top tier of Republican presidential candidates vying to defeat Obama.
Tim Pawlenty ended his campaign for president on Sunday morning following a poor performance in the Iowa Straw Poll on Saturday evening. Initially the campaign said it would forge ahead despite coming in a distant third to Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul, but on ABC’s This Week, Pawlenty made the announcement that his campaign was over. Almost immediately, however, high ranking GOP officials began suggesting Pawlenty take on Sen. Amy Klobuchar in 2012.
Long a holdout in signing on to back the Respect for Marriage Act, Sen. Amy Klobuchar indicated this week she’ll sponsor the bill, which would repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Klobuchar is the last Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to back the measure after Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin expressed his support in April.
U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum called it a “terrible bill” that hurts the economy.
On Tuesday, two groups called on Sen. Amy Klobuchar to sign on as a cosponsor of a bill to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) noting that she is the only Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee who has not taken that step.
As Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s bill to amend U.S. copyright law to make it a felony to stream copyrighted material online heads for a vote on the Senate floor, more attention is being paid. The nonprofit government transparency group MapLight notes that backers of the measure — which includes the Recording Industry Association of America, the Motion Picture Association of America, NBC and CBS, among others — have given more than $85 million to sitting senators in the last six years. And the progressive group Demand Progress is challenging Klobuchar’s assertion that the bill will only target “criminals” hoping to make big money from copyright infringement.
A bill introduced last month by Sen. Amy Klobuchar could make it a felony criminal act to stream copyrighted “performances” online without permission. The bill — “To amend the criminal penalty provision for criminal infringement of a copyright, and for other purposes,” or S. 978 — assigns a maximum 5-year prison term for those convicted of streaming “10 or more public performances by electronic means, during any 180-day period.” Critics call the measure “horrible” and say it could stifle innovation online.
A survey released by Public Policy Polling on Thursday shows that Sen. Amy Klobuchar maintains a formidable lead going into the 2012 election cycle. She maintains a high favorability rating and would best any announced candidates and rumored candidates by large margins, including Minnesota’s presidential duo Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
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