Collin Peterson

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and Reps. Tim Walz and Jim Oberstar each earned a 100-percent rating from Environment Minnesota in a year-end congressional scorecard published last week. Rep. Erik Paulsen scored the lowest among Minnesota’s member of Congress with a rating of 17 percent.

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) thinks it can convince 17 Democrats — including Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson — to retire before next year’s election. The “Dem Retirement Assault List” targets 14 seats in districts that voted for Sen. John McCain in the 2008 election, plus three other Democrats in districts Barack Obama won.

Rep. Michele Bachmann is a member of an exclusive club: like only six others in the U.S. House of Representatives, she sent more than a million messages to constituents last quarter using her congressional franking privilege.

Minnesota’s Congressional delegation weighed in on President Obama’s plans for the war in Afghanistan on Wednesday with a mix of skepticism and cautious praise.

The rate of uninsured residents in Minnesota’s eight congressional districts is a good predictor of how members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted on health care reform. But, according to data in a new report by the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, there’s one glaring exception: Blue Dog Democrat and Seventh Congressional District Rep. Collin Peterson.

Asked at Saturday’s Netroots Minnesota conference what blogs he follows, Rep. Tim Walz pulled out his iPhone and rattled off a few sites: Talking Points Memo, Bluestem Prairie, MN Publius and others. Then he showed off his favorite iPhone app — a new one that features his likeness and that of every other member [...]

The president didn’t authorize it, so by definition the protest Sunday of a speech by former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice might have been torture. More than 100 people picketed Beth El Synagogue in St. Louis Park Sunday (Norm Coleman was inside, Coleen Rowley outside). Signs like “Try Condi Rice for War Crimes” referenced [...]

The U.S. House of Representative has passed H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, by a vote of 220-215. In dramatic late-night action Saturday, the bill passed with two votes more than the minimum needed — and one of those votes was from a Republican: Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana.

Third-quarter campaign finance reports seem to show a trend: The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Rep. Michele Bachmann, whose cable-TV and townhall tour has had her rattling off now-infamous claims about “anti-American views” and wrist-slitting to oppose health care reform, is raking in the dough today, thanks to a new fundraising appeal that calls supporters [...]

U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen has raised nearly $1 million so far this year. The freshman Republican took in $318,000 in the third quarter of 2009 and had $725,000 in the bank, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.