John Kline

In brief, back-to-back appearances, U.S. Reps. John Kline and Jim Oberstar delivered diametrically opposed statements on the floor of the House of Representatives Saturday night during the historic debate over national health care reform.

Getting named in a developer’s lawsuit on Thursday, five days before Election Day, was bad enough. But Friday wasn’t much better for Minneapolis Council Member Diane Hofstede, whose office got more than 50 calls after the city’s public works department towed cars to clear University Avenue for cleaning without having posted required warning signs. Among [...]

Dan Powers will seek the DFL endorsement to take on U.S. Rep John Kline in the Second Congressional District. The construction contractor and Burnsville resident argues that the four-term Republican incumbent is out of touch with his constituents.

U.S. Sen. Al Franken has it in for Brian Williams. That’s one conclusion to be drawn from Franken’s backing of a bill that would end tax breaks for pharmaceutical ads of the sort that pepper TV network news shows. Meanwhile, Franken is having unintended side effects of his own. National Geographic magazine is challenging other [...]

Michele Bachmann raised $345,000 in the the third quarter of 2009 — slightly more than Democratic challenger Tarryl Clark. The Sixth Congressional District incumbent had just over $600,000 in the bank at the end of September, as reported by The St. Cloud Times.
Clark reported earlier this week that she brought in just over $300,000 in [...]

Of 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, only ten have missed more votes this session than Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, according to the Washington Post’s tally. Bachmann has missed 105 votes, or 13.6 percent of all votes. Fellow Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen had the state’s best record, missing only six votes in the [...]

Rep. John Kline is holding a health-care forum this evening in Lakeville. The four-term Republican is notorious for his lack of interaction with his constituents, so it’s a rare opportunity to question him about his views on health care proposals currently being hashed out in Washington. As the ranking Republican on the House Committee on [...]

The U.S. House voted to suspend all federal funding for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) on Thursday afternoon by a vote of 345 to 75. Now the measure heads to the Senate, which passed a bill banning federal housing monies from going to the embattled nonprofit.

U.S. Rep. John Kline knows his buttons. As a Marine, he stayed at the side of Presidents Reagan and Carter, carrying the satchel known as the “nuclear football” that holds the how-to kit for pressing the most fearsome button of all. Now he’s once again the go-to guy, carrying the ball for Republicans who want [...]

Bowing to pressure from some parents in the district, the superintendent of schools in Fergus Falls is directing teachers not to show President Obama’s live “Back to School” speech to students next week. But while some call the speech unprecedented, in 1991 the roles were reversed: a Republican president was blasted by Democrats for the same type of address to students.