“The idea that we should investigate Muslim interns as spies is a blow to the very principle of religious freedom that our founding fathers cherished so dearly,” said Ellison from the House floor on Monday. “If anything, we should be encouraging all Americans to engage in the U.S. political process; to take part in, and to contribute to, the great democratic experiment that is America.”

Reps. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., Sue Myrick. R-N.C., Paul Broun, R-Ga., and Trent Franks, R-Ariz., called for the investigation two weeks ago after reading a book penned by anti-Muslim authors David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry. Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that’s Conspiring to Islamize America.

Video and full text of Ellison’s statement:

Four of our colleagues, Reps. John Shadegg (AZ), Paul Broun (GA), Trent Franks (AZ) and Sue Myrick (NC) recently requested that the House Sergeant at Arms to launch an investigation of the civil rights group CAIR, or Council on American-Islamic Relations, to determine whether it was placing staff and interns in key Congressional offices who they fear are acting as “spies.”

This proposed investigation coincides with the launch of a book by Dave Gaubatz, an anti-Islamic activist and author of the book “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that’s Conspiring to Islamize America.” It features an introduction by Rep. Myrick, and was written after Gaubatz posed as an intern at CAIR in an effort to “infiltrate” the group.

These charges smack of an America of sixty years ago where lists of “un-American” agitators were identified. We should be affirming the importance of diversity and tolerance for all interns and staff who serve in Congress without suspicion of being identified as “spies.”

The idea that we should investigate Muslim interns as spies is a blow to the very principle of religious freedom that our founding fathers cherished so dearly. If anything, we should be encouraging all Americans to engage in the U.S. political process; to take part in, and to contribute to, the great democratic experiment that is America.

We all have experienced the sting of discrimination and we know that there will be challenges ahead. But our message should be firm that the America we believe in welcomes people of all backgrounds to the U.S. Congress.

We ask these charges be disavowed and we issue a hearty welcome to interns and staff of all creeds, color, ethnicities and sexual orientation.

Capitol Hill (WDCpix)

Congressional Quarterly has compiled their annual Vote Study for congressional votes leading up to the July 4 break. Each year, CQ compiles records based on party unity, support for the president and percentage of votes missed during the session. Here’s how the Minnesota delegation stacked up.

Reps. Betty McCollum, Jim Oberstar and Tim Walz were the “rubber stamps” for President Obama, supporting his initiatives 92 percent of the time. Rep. Keith Ellison followed, voting with the president 91 percent of the time.

Rep. Michele Bachmann was the ultimate “obstructionist,” only voting with Obama 10 percent of the time, beating out every member of the House except Republican Reps. J. Gresham Barrett of South Carolina at 10 percent and Jeff Flake of Arizona with only 5 percent. Rep. John Kline was on the low end, too, supporting President Obama only 20 percent of the time.

Rep. Erik Paulsen was exactly “moderate,” voting with the president on 50 percent of votes. Rep. Collin Peterson sided with the president 81 percent of the time.

Every member of Minnesota’s Congressional delegation had over a 90-percent party unity score except for Peterson, who came in at 88 percent.

Most of the delegation had a good record of showing up to vote on roll call votes, but Reps. Ellison and Bachmann dipped below the 90 percent mark. Both missed votes during the record-setting week of June 18 when more than a quarter of all votes this session were taken.

Ellison was attending his son’s graduation at CityView, an Americorps volunteer program, and missed votes that day, although he did try to make it back to vote.

Rick Jauert, Ellison’s spokesman, said, “His second son was graduating from CityYear that day in Miami and he thought he could get there and back without missing many votes. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t have… He did not anticipate the Republicans playing politics with the schedule as they did for several days… calling for motions to rise, adjourn, reconsider, offering endless extraneous amendments.”

Bachmann was absent during two days when a record numbers of House votes were taken because she was spending time with her family following the death of her husband’s mother.

On the Senate side, Minnesota’s Sen. Amy Klobuchar voted with the president 97 percent of the time and with her party 88 percent of the time, and she made it to 98 percent of roll call votes taken.

SSP diarist Nathaniel90 has analyzed nearly half the states’ redistricting possibilities, but Minnesota is the first with politics complicated enough to warrant two possible maps — one if Republicans retain the governorship, another if the DFL party somehow breaks its jinx and gains that office in 2010.

Both scenarios assume Minnesota moves from eight to seven congressional districts, jumbling familiar boundaries and district numbers.

The first version, the imagined result of bipartisan redistricting, protects Bachmann’s seat. Instead it pits incumbent Democrat Rep.Tim Walz against incumbent Republican Rep. John Kline in a reconfigured First District in the state’s southeastern corner.

The second version, with Democrats controlling the state Legislature and the governor’s office, puts Kline up against fellow Republican Bachmann in a new district that wraps around the Twin Cities in a U shape. Nathaniel90 concedes, however, that Bachmann still could emerge the victor in a GOP primary battle.

For reference, here’s the current Congressional map. Note: District numbers don’t match because the maps above envision seven districts instead of the current eight.

Related:

Redistricting: What’s It Really About? (Part I)

Redistricting: Losing, Keeping Seat Too Close to Call

Ellison (front), Paulsen (back, center).

You could read about how Republican U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen tried to help Liberians and Republicans last week. You could hear about Paulsen’s opposition to the federal stimulus package in a radio ad by Americans United for Change (the ad that mistakenly urged outraged listeners to call Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania). But if you want to watch Paulsen – Minnesota’s happiest member of Congress — talk about “eye-ran” on his YouTube channel, you have to first follow his videographer on an Omnitheater-worthy trip past Rep. Keith Ellison’s head.

G.W. Carver. Photo: NPS

When Peanut Corp. of America CEO Stewart Parnell took the Fifth this week instead of telling the House Committee on Energy and Commerce why he let salmonella-tainted peanut butter kill eight people (so far) and sicken thousands, the setting was ironic.

It was before another House committee (Ways and Means) in 1921 that the peanut’s greatest promoter, George Washington Carver, sprung onto the national scene with willing, winning, inventive testimony that helped propelled the lowly product of the South to prominence and many uses in the food industry. 

It was a different story on Wednesday: Parnell cemented his status as a pariah to the food industry and beyond with his repeated refusal to answer the committee’s questions about what he knew of his plants’ poisoned peanuts and the suffering his company has caused:

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, on the advice of my counsel, I respectfully decline to answer your question based on the protection afforded me under the United States Constitution.

Parnell’s appearance took place in a committee hearing room in Washington, D.C. So did Carver’s, 88 years earlier. But in every other way the scene this week couldn’t have been farther from Carver’s triumphant Jan. 21, 1921, debut on the national stage on behalf of the peanut.

One striking note: After demonstrating dozens of uses for the peanut, Carver made this now-portentous-sounding claim:

I do not know of a single case — that is, I mean [a] normal [person] — that complains because peanuts hurt them.

A transcript of his testimony appears in a 1991 book called “George Washington Carver: In His Own Words,” and all but two of 12 pages can be read online. Here are a few excerpts from his charming remarks (even in the face of racist digs):

Mr. CARVER: Mr. Chairman, I have been asked by the United Peanut Growers’ Association to tell you something about the possibility of the peanut … [T]he peanut comes in, I think, for one of the most remarkable crops … [I]t has possibilities that we are just beginning to find out.

This is the crushed cake … which may be used in all sorts of combinations — for flours and meals and breakfast foods and a great many things that I have not time to touch upon just now…. This is another confection. It is peanuts covered with chocolate. As I passed through Greensboro, S.C, I noticed in one of the stores that this was displayed on the market, and, as it is understood better, more of it is going to be made up into this form. Here is a breakfast food. I am very sorry that you can not taste this, so I will taste it for you. [Laughter] Now this is a combination and, by the way, one of the finest breakfast foods that you or anyone else has ever seen. It is a combination of the sweet potato and the peanut, and if you will pardon a little digression here I will state that the peanut and the sweet potato are twin brothers and cannot and should not be separated. They are two of the greatest products that God has ever given us.

Mr. [John Q.] TILSON [R-Conn.]: Do you want a watermelon to go along with that? …

Mr. CARVER: Here is the original salted peanut, for which there is an increasing demand, and here is a very fine peanut bar. The peanut bar is coming into prominence in a way that very few of us recognize, and the manufacturers of this peanut bar have learned that it is a very difficult matter to get a binder for it, something to stick it together. That is found in the sweet potato syrup. …

Now there is an entirely new thing in the way of combinations. It is a new thing for making ice cream … a very new product that is going to have considerable value. …

I wish to say here in all sincerity that America produces better peanuts than any other part of the world, as far as I have been able to test them out. …

Here is a bottle of milk that is extracted from peanuts. Now, it is absolutely impossible to tell that milk from cow’s milk in looks and general appearance. This is normal milk. …

Now here is a very attractive product — an instant coffee. … Here is a bottle of Worcestershire sauce. … Now here is a very highly flavored sauce that imitates the Chinese sauce that enters into chop suey and the various Chinese confections that they are so very fond of. …

[T]he curds can be taken out and made into the various fancy cheeses the Neufchatel and Edam …

Mr. CAREW: Did you make all of these products yourself?

Mr. CARVER: Yes, sir. They are made there in the research laboratory. That is what the research laboratory is for. …

The sweet potato products now number 107 up to date. … The peanut products are going to beat the sweet-potato products by far. I have just begun with the peanut. So what is going to come of it why we do not know.

This is the very last thing. Now this is a pomade. That is, it is a face cream and will be attractive to the ladies …

Mr. GARNER: I understood you to say that the properties of the peanut combined with the properties of the sweet potato was a balanced ration, and that you could destroy all other vegetable life and continue to sustain the human race?

Mr. CARVER: Yes, sir. Because you can make up the necessary food elements there. … Then again if we think of how the peanut is used, it is the only thing that is universally used among civilized and uncivilized people, and all sorts of animals like it, and I do not know of a single case — that is, I mean normal — that complains because peanuts hurt them.

Born to slavery in Missouri near the end of the Civil War, George Washington Carver graduated from high school in Minneapolis — Minneapolis, Kan., that is.

He spent the better part of the 1890s studying at Iowa State University before accepting Booker T. Washington’s offer to head the agriculture department at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute.

One place to read more about his life, research, inventions and other pursuits is the Web site of the National Park Service’s George Washington Carver National Monument in Diamond, Mo.

Klobuchar, DFL-Minn., also had strong words for food safety officials after salmonella-tainted peanut butter may have cost three Minnesotans their lives. MinnPost has the transcript.

Rep. Keith Ellison, DFL-Minn., helped lead a successful push to add more mass transit money, $3 billion, to the stimulus bill this week. He was also in Chicagoland to speak about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights and Obama’s election. “It would have been impossible to imagine from the standpoint of someone in 1959 that we would have a president of African descent in 50 years,” he told students at Lake Forest College. Ellison was also a featured speaker at the Good Jobs, Green Jobs Conference in Washington, D.C.

Bluestem Prairie reports that Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., has very little campaign money left (less than $2,000) and that all her big donors were from outside of Minnesota.

The contentious State Children’s Health Insurance Program passed the House this week, with Rep. Erik Paulsen breaking ranks with the Republicans and voting for the measure. The only Minnesota representatives to vote against the final version of SCHIP were Bachmann and Republican John Kline.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put DFL Rep. Collin Peterson in charge of fixing the default credit swap mess that, in part, brought about the current economic crisis.

Paulsen sign, Election Night

Minnesota’s U.S. representative-elect for the Third District, Republican Erik Paulsen, ran one of the best five House campaigns in the country, according to the Washington Post blog The Fix. Paulsen “beat back the anti-Republican trend,” writes Chris Cillizza (citing President-elect Barack Obama’s showing and Al Franken’s apparent success), “by focusing on his own accomplishments in the state legislature.”

The Fix tracked the Third District contest closely throughout the campaign season as one of the nation’s most competitive — and expensive — congressional races, with Democrat Ashwin Madia and David Dillon of the Independence Party vying with Paulsen to replace Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad, who is retiring. And Paulsen’s margin of victory was wider than the recount-tight result that most polls appeared to predict (48 percent of the vote compared to 41 for Madia and 11 for Dillon).

But in several ways Cillizza’s summary this morning doesn’t exactly square with how home-state observers might recall the race:

- It may almost be timely, but it’s still a bit silly to cite a prospective victory by Democrat Franken over incumbent U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman as part of any anti-Republican factor in the Third District, since Madia outperformed Franken there.

- With Dillon pulling down more than 10 percent, this contest was a better example of how Republicans win three-way races than how Paulsen bucked an anti-Republican trend that wasn’t a game-changer in any of Minnesota’s congressional races. Even Republican U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, despite her best efforts, won by 3 percentage points, in another race with an Independence Party candidate topping 10 percent.

- Far from focusing on it, Paulsen ran away from his record as one of the most conservative members of the state Legislature.

- What the Republican campaign did focus on (but Cillizza didn’t mention) was how Paulsen, a white homeowner and father of four, fit the district’s “demographics” better then Madia, a single renter of South Asian descent. That point, made by Paulsen stand-ins at not one but two ham-handed state Capitol press conference appearances, was underscored by a National Republican Congressional Committee ad that made Madia’s skin darker and drew worldwide rebuke.

Here’s the full item on Paulsen from The Fix, followed by a video from one of the press conferences where Paulsen’s “demographics,” not his accomplishments, were the focus.

At first glance, the retirement of Rep. Jim Ramstad (R) presented an ideal pickup opportunity for national Democrats. The suburban Twin Cities seat gave President George W. Bush a narrow 51 percent victory in 2004 and looked to be the epicenter of anti-war movement in the state. And, when Democrats nominated Iraq war veteran Ashwin Madia, it looked like a tailor-made pickup. Enter state Sen. [sic] Erik Paulsen, one of the best (and only) recruits for House Republicans in 2008. Paulsen was able to beat back the anti-Republican trend in the state (Obama won the state by 10 points and it appears as though Al Franken is going to win the Senate seat) by focusing on his own accomplishments in the state legislature. A rare bit of good news for Republicans nationally.

(Hat tip to Political Animal for spotting The Fix’s error in ID’ing Paulsen as a state senator — he’s a state Rep.)

The Minnesota DFL Party put together this highlight reel of remarks by state Republican Party Chair Ron Carey and state Sen. Geoff Michel speaking on behalf of Paulsen:

“In my district, I don’t sense racism, and that’s why I’m thankful that hopefully this will send a national signal across our country that America is not a nation made up of racists. … On the same hand, I hope that the national media will not confuse disagreement with Obama’s policy positions with being consumed [by] racism.”

She also expressed gladness that voters didn’t “let the media intervene” in the race she won Tuesday for her second term representing Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District and said her goal is to join the House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Committee. Qualifications? “My husband and I were Joe the Plumbers,” she told Politico, in reference to the Christian therapy business she and her husband started.

Another way Paulsen’s ahead: KSTP gave Paulsen’s campaign an early preview of the poll results, according to Joe Bodell at Minnesota Campaign Report. Citing unnamed sources, Bodell writes that KSTP revealed the poll results to Paulsen but didn’t tell Madia until Madia’s staff, having heard heard Paulsen’s campaign had the information, called KSTP to ask if they could also see the new numbers too.

Madia spokesman Dan Pollock wouldn’t comment except to say that the results contradict the anecdotal evidence the campaign is seeing on the ground. MnIndy is awaiting comment from KSTP. Dillon campaign manager Bruce Anderson tells the Minnesota Independent that Dillon didn’t get a head’s up; Anderson learned the poll results by watching the news. When told of the Minnesota Campaign Report story, he said he’s skeptical of anything sinister and anyway doesn’t see a big advantage for Paulsen in hearing poll results early.

Anderson did have a problem with Survey USA’s previous poll, however, in which Dillon’s name wasn’t part of the candidate preference question. (”Some other candidate” was the wording instead.) His complaint to Survey USA prompted the firm to admit its mistake and offer to do another poll using Dillon’s name and without charging KSTP, Anderson said.

The re-do poll shows a sudden swing in a race that has looked effectively tied in previous polls, including a Survey USA poll that came out just a day before the polling began for this one. Survey USA suggests Paulsen’s lead might be due to a TV ad showing Madia with darker skin than the son of Indian immigrants really has. But if so, the effect would seem to arise more from widespread news reports about the ad’s darkening technique rather than the National Republican Congressional Committee’s ad itself. The NRCC released its ad a full week before the first of Survey USA’s pair of back-to-back polls last week.

The new 3rd District survey results were ready on Halloween along with a separate survey showing a tie in Minnesota’s 6th District race between Republican U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann and Democrat Elwyn Tinklenberg. But KSTP waited until yesterday to announce the news along with results from two other new Survey USA polls: a dead heat for U.S. Senate and a remarkably small 3-point deficit in the state for Republican presidential candidate U.S. Sen. John McCain. That result led Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com to observe that “SurveyUSA’s polling in Minnesota has been very, very weird all year… SurveyUSA does not have a Republican lean in general, but in Minnesota, it has consistently had a huge one.”

Survey USA seems to have taken to heart criticism of earlier 3rd District polls in which the pollster posed the candidate preference differently. This time the question matches the firm’s Oct. 6–7 poll question, with each candidate, including Dillon, identified by name and party. Survey USA’s analysis also finds the pollster apparently responding to criticism that it isn’t trying to count Minnesotans who are likely to vote but will register at the polls:

Respondents for this survey were chosen at random from Minnesota registered voter lists. Minnesota allows same-day registration, and any in Minnesota who on Election Day 2008 register and vote for the first time are undercounted here. If same-day registrants disproportionately favor one candidate, that candidate’s support will be understated here, but that is just one source of possible error when polling a contest as volatile as this one now is.

Here’s Survey USA on the possible influence of the NRCC skin-darkened ad in the 3rd District race:

Coincidence? Or Correlation? Women, Whites Look Twice at ‘Darkened’ Madia in Minnesota’s 6th District … In three previous SurveyUSA polls, the Democrat and Republican were separated by 3 or fewer points. Then, ads appeared with photographs of Madia that may have been altered to darken his skin color. It is impossible to know whether the ads had much to do, or nothing to do, with these newest poll numbers: Madia’s support among whites has dropped from 45% on 10/08/08 to 39% today. Madia’s support among women has dropped from 46% on 10/08/08 to 41% today. Madia’s support among Independents has dropped from 43% earlier this week to 34% today. When all of the demographic subgroups are combined… 42% of voters now have an unfavorable opinion of Madia, almost twice the 23% Madia unfavorable number that SurveyUSA found on 08/29/08.

That was the list on which Minnesota’s 3rd District race to replace U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad used to appear, but now it’s at No. 29, one notch behind that upstart competitive contest next door in the 6th District made famous by U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s funny comments and DFL challenger Elwyn “Cash Magnet” Tinklenberg’s funny name. The relevant quote, with links, after the jump.

29. Minnesota’s 3rd district (R): Democrat Ashwin Madia appears to have edged ahead of state Sen. Erik Paulsen (R) in this race in the suburbs of the Twin Cities. In a neutral year, Paulsen would likely win. But Madia’s grassroots campaign, his service in Iraq and the strong year shaping up for Democrats in the state make him a slight favorite.

28. Minnesota’s 6th district (R): Note to vulnerable incumbents: Don’t go on national TV two weeks before an election. Just don’t do it.