The Senate Higher Education Committee on Wednesday adopted an amendment by Sen. Michelle Fischbach, R-Paynesville, that would prohibit state or federal money from going to somatic cell nuclear transfer, a type of embryonic stem cell research, in Minnesota. A broader bill, which would criminalize that type of stem cell research, awaits a vote on the Senate floor. The full omnibus bill passed out of key committees on Thursday and has moved to the Senate floor for a full vote.

The amendment offered by Sen. Fischbach to the higher ed bill states:

No state funds or federal funds the state receives for state programs may be used to either support human cloning or to pay for any expenses incidental to human cloning. For purposes of this section, “cloning” means generating a genetically identical copy of an organism at any stage of development by combining an enucleated egg and the nucleus of a somatic cell to make an embryo.

The higher ed bill with the SCNT ban passed the Senate Higher Education Committee on a party line vote on Wednesday.

Sen. Terri Bonoff, DFL-Minnetonka, told the Senate Finance Committee Thursday, “We want to be a leader on research and development and to have this provision in here will curtail our ability to do that research. It’s a pretty sweeping thing that’s been put in this bill.”

The bill passed the finance committee and will now head to the Senate floor.

Pastor Dennis Campbell of St. Cloud’s Granite City Baptist Church appeared on Bradlee Dean’s radio program on Saturday to talk about a controversial prayer he gave on the Minnesota Senate floor last week that offended many of the non-Christians of that body. Campbell said that the Founding Fathers would have supported his prayer and that Jewish members of the Senate shouldn’t be offended because, after all, Jesus Christ was a Jew.

Campbell’s prayer departed from the tradition of the Minnesota Senate where clergy from many faith traditions offer nondenominational prayers at the start of every session. So far this year, Jewish and Christian leaders have offered prayers that avoided charged religious rhetoric. Campbell’s prayer invoked Jesus and passages from the Christian Bible. And some believe the prayer may run afoul of the constitutional separation of church and state.

Campbell told Bradlee Dean and his sidekick Jake McMillian about the aftermath of his prayer.

“After the prayer we were ushered out to the back room there and I had one or two people that opposed the prayer — and they were both Jewish folks — to one of them I said, ‘I want you to know that as Christians that we really love the Jews,’” said Campbell. “He made a comment that they weren’t interested in our love so much as respect.”

He continued, “We weren’t seeking to offend anybody but seeking to show respect for Jesus Christ, the creator, redeemer, savior and one day our judge, and we know the founders of the constitution were very supportive of Jesus Christ and the Bible.”

McMillian added, “When we are talking about religious equality we all know that when our founders referred to the term ‘religion’ they were referring to Christian denominations.”

Campbell explained his decision to conduct an overtly Christian prayer. “One of the things that I really tried to keep in mind was that I was not praying to the Senate, we were praying to God,” he said. “One of the Senators, the Jew, did you notice he quoted from the Old Testament? — and, by the way, Jesus was a Jew — one of the Jews said, ‘If you pray to God, that’s good enough.’”

Campbell continued, “Well, then atheists could be offended. That’s not going to solve the problem and not having prayer at all is not going to solve the problem because we are going to have one freedom after another taken away.”

Dean and McMillian discussed DFL Sen. Terri Bonoff who had first protested the sectarian prayer offered by Campbell. Dean suggested that his ministry should try to take her out in 2012.

“Maybe what we need to do is get her name eradicated,” Dean said. “She’s looking to get rid of who we are as a people, well then why don’t we help her possibly leave.”

Independent expenditure committee MN Forward issued a slew of new endorsements earlier today. MN Forward has previously only supported GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, but their new docket of local endorsements include an equal mix of Republicans and Democrats.

The organization has become a focal point for a national debate about corporate spending in elections after the Citizens United Supreme Court decision earlier this year. MN Forward has received funding from Target and Best Buy among other Minnesota-based corporations. They’ve used that money to run ads supporting Emmer. Progressive organizations have focused on Target’s donation in particular with immigration advocates planning to protest outside a Minneapolis store today.

With equal distribution between DFL and GOP candidates, MN Forward’s new endorsements appear designed to distance the group from being associated solely with Emmer. But though they offered endorsements on their web page, the group’s YouTube page still lists the Emmer spot as the group’s only advertisement.

Below are all of the new candidates supported by MN Forward. The first three are running for the state Senate, with the last three running for a seat in the state House:

Sen. Terri Bonoff (D)

Rep. Doug Mangus (R)

Sen. Jim Metzen (D)

Rep. Gene Polowski (D)

Doug Wardlow (R)

Rep. Kurt Zellers (R)

It was 10 years ago that Ted Thompson set Bachmann on a path to the state’s and nation’s capitols, losing to her by 4,359 votes, 52 percent to 43 percent. Now he’ll coordinate Team Meffert (say it fast).

Meffert and Hackett both want to unseat freshman Rep. Erik Paulsen, whose re-election prospects, like Bachmann’s, continue to earn a “favorable” ratings.

Other staffers announced Tuesday include veterans from campaigns of Ashwin Madia and the state senator he bested to earn the Third District DFL endorsement two years ago, Terri Bonoff. Madia went on to lose to Paulsen in the general election.

Bonoff hasn’t said if she’ll run for Congress again.

I’ve been humbled by the initial support for our efforts. Thanks to many generous contributions, Freedom First has already been able to help the campaigns of Representatives John Kline, Eric Paulsen, and Michele Bachmann, as well as former Congressman Rob Portman, who is fighting to retain a critical Senate seat for Republicans in Ohio. This support is just scratching the surface — we plan to support many more candidates next year as we work to elect more Republican governors and retake control of Congress.

MPR notes that the message doesn’t mention the PAC’s support for Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate who ran against endorsed Republican Dede Scozzafava in a New York State special election to Congress. Judging by the statement, Minnesotans account for three of five recipients of cash from Freedom First so far.

A challenger to Paulsen, the lone first-termer among that GOP trio, is Maureen Hackett, whose campaign unveiled a new radio ad over the weekend. Unlike an earlier email from her campaign, the spot doesn’t make reference to Bachmann, the incumbent in the neighboring Sixth District.

I’m Maureen Hackett. I’m running for Congress in the 3rd District because I want to make sure the opportunities I had are available for my daughter’s generation. My parents didn’t have much money, but I was able to get affordable loans to attend college and earn my medical degree. I served as an Air Force officer then raised a family here in the Twin Cities with my husband, a small business owner. That’s the American Dream and we need to defend and revive it.

Education, jobs, health care and clean, American-made energy. Those are the issues won us the last two elections and they’re the keys to making sure our future is as strong as our past. Now it’s time to make this the decade when America reaches new levels of opportunity. If you’re ready to help lead the way, attend your precinct caucuses on Tuesday, February 2nd. Sign up, become a delegate. By standing together and defending our values, we can make the change we voted for into reality.

PREPARED AND PAID FOR BY HACKETT FOR CONGRESS. WWW.HACKETTFORCONGRESS.ORG.

I’m Maureen Hackett and I approve this message.

Also running for the Third District seat is DFLer Jim Meffert. State Sen. Terri Bonoff, who lost the DFL endorsement to Ashwin Madia in 2008, has said “the door is open” to her entry into the race.

Meffert sent signals he was ready to run six weeks ago. He jumps in two weeks after forensic psychiatrist Maureen Hackett announced her bid for the seat, while another potential DFL rival to Paulsen, state Sen. Terri Bonoff, remains on the fence though she is leaning toward running.

Update: “I’m not in this race and the door is open,” Bonoff told the Minnesota Independent. “The election is a year from now.” By what date would she need to announce were she going to run for Congress? “No comment.”

After a year in office, Paulsen has an enormous financial advantage over any challenger, with nearly $1 million in his campaign coffers.

Still, outside observers and the Republican Party itself have singled out Minnesota’s Third District as a competitive race in 2010. Democrats have selected the district as worthy of attack ads targeting Paulsen on issues and votes.

Politically speaking, a Meffert-Paulsen matchup would offer classic DFL/GOP contrasts. Paulsen has charted a more conservative course than his predecessor, moderate Republican Jim Ramstad. Meffert, chief executive at the nonprofit Minnesota Optometric Association, pledges to use government to fight for “jobs, stronger schools, health reform, [and] a strong economy.”

But demographically — to use a word the Paulsen campaign wielded against DFL opponent Ashwin Madia last year — Meffert and Paulsen make an intriguingly matched pair. Both are graduates of St. Olaf College, where Paulsen delivered the commencement address last spring. (Meffert is two years younger.) And both are suburban fathers: Paulsen has four children to Meffert’s three.

Meffert put his family status front and center in announcing his candidacy, stating in the second sentence of his news release that he “lives in Edina with his wife Karrin and their three young children” and beginning the last paragraph with this: “Being a husband and father of three has shaped Jim’s volunteer efforts.”

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

MINNEAPOLIS: Paid for, done that. Mayor Rybak reneged a long time ago on pledges to reform how he and other city candidates finance their campaigns. [Star Tribune]

ST. PAUL: Governor, Dems break their fast. By the time you read this, Gov. Pawlenty and top DFLers will have shared a morning meal and decided how to unmake the hash that is the state budget. [ECM Publishers]

STATEWIDE: An uncrowded gubernatorial field. Slim pickings so far for the Independence Party. [Minnesota Public Radio]

ST. PAUL: Abe Lincoln in Minnesota. He never was, but a panel explores his legacy here today. [Associated Press]

MAHTOMEDI: Kelley might try primary. DFL Party endorsement is not the be-all, end-all this time around for former state Sen. Steve Kelley in the governor’s race. [Associated Press]

ST. PAUL: Al Franken behind on recount bills. Numbers don’t yet add up for the Harvard math major turned U.S. Senator. [MinnPost]

]]> http://minnesotaindependent.com/47556/am-mn-paulsen-bonoff-nelson-meffer/feed 1 http://minnesotaindependent.com/42295/bonoff-still-weighing-3rd-cd-challenge http://minnesotaindependent.com/42295/bonoff-still-weighing-3rd-cd-challenge#comments Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:58:24 +0000 Paul Demko http://minnesotaindependent.com/?p=42295

Terri Bonoff Photo: Wikipedia

Terri Bonoff is not running for Congress — yet. But the Democratic state senator, who lost a tough endorsement battle to Ashwin Madia in 2008, is seriously considering a challenge to freshman Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen.

“I’m certainly not being lighthearted about it,” Bonoff tells the Minnesota Independent. “I love public service and I have a lot of work to do, whether it be for this state or at the national level.”

Opinions vary on how vulnerable Paulsen will be in 2010. The 3rd district doesn’t track decisively red or blue. President Obama won it by six percentage points, while Norm Coleman carried it by eight points over Al Franken. Paulsen surprised political observers by handily winning the open seat last year in what was one of the most closely watched (and heavily funded) congressional races in the country. Bonoff, however, still believes it’s winnable.

“It will depend on the environment and the candidate,” she says. “There is no given.”

No other Democratic challenger has emerged to take on Paulsen. Madia has ruled out another run. State Rep. Steve Simon, whose name has also been floated as a possible candidate, is ruling out a run. “Not me,” he says.

Raising sufficient funds to mount a credible challenge to Paulsen will be difficult. With many Democratic incumbents facing tough reelection fights, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and other national groups will likely pick their takeover targets sparingly. But Bonoff says she doesn’t feel any pressure to make a decision soon.

“The public doesn’t pay attention until a long time from now,” she says. “People find a way to raise enough money regardless of when they get in. I think that’s a false urgency.”

The freshman Republican legislator won the open Third Congressional District seat by a surprisingly comfortable margin last year in one of the most closely watched contests in the country. Paulsen garnered 48 percent of the vote, while Democratic challenger Ashwin Madia drew support from 41 percent of voters. Independence Party candidate David Dillon was also a factor in the race with 11 percent of the vote.

The Cook Partisan Voting Index currently gives neither party an advantage in the district, where Republicans historically had an edge. Democrats have made serious inroads in state legislature contests, picking up 10 House seats during the last three election cycles. Most recently state Reps. Jerry Newton and Paul Rosenthal took over seats that had been help by the GOP. And President Obama won the suburban district by a 52-46 percent margin last year.

But his coattails proved non-existent. In addition to Paulsen’s comfortable victory, Norm Coleman outpolled Al Franken there by a 47-39 spread in the U.S. Senate contest.

The Third Congressional District is one of just two 2010 House races political analysts view as competitive in the state. The other is the Sixth Congressional District, where Rep. Michele Bachmann’s high-voltage rhetoric makes her an irresistible (if elusive) target for Democrats. She’s already attracted two DFL challengers in Elwyn Tinklenberg and Maureen Reed.

David Wasserman, House Editor for the Cook Political Report, figures Bachmann is slightly more vulnerable than Paulsen. But he believes Paulsen is among the top ten GOP House incumbents nationwide that Democrats could target in 2010. “That’s not to say he’s extremely vulnerable,” Wasserman notes. “It’s just that Democrats don’t have many options.”

Indeed, widespread gains for Democrats in the last two elections mean that the party will be playing defense in a lot of GOP-friendly districts. In addition, the party that controls both the White House and Congress has historically fared poorly in the first mid-term elections. Those factors likely mean that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and other national groups will choose their takeover targets prudently. Whether the Third District attracts significant attention — and money — will probably hinge on how strong a challenger emerges.

So far the race hasn’t drawn any takers. Madia says he doesn’t expect to make another run for the seat. “I felt like I had a good crack at in 2008 and I came up short,” he says. “We should give somebody else a chance.”

The name most often mentioned as a possible contender is state Sen. Terri Bonoff. She was widely viewed as the favorite to earn the DFL endorsement in 2008, but was thwarted by Madia’s upstart candidacy. At present, Bonoff’s not entering the fray.

“I’m not considering it at this time,” she says. “You can only take each day as it comes.”

Other names in the ether: state Rep. Steve Simon and former Edina mayor Jim Hovland. Neither returned a call seeking comment.

Wasserman doesn’t deem the vacant DFL field this early in the election cycle to be a liability necessarily.

“I think most of the candidates who got a very early start in the 2008 cycle fizzled out,” he says. “It’s often the late-breaking candidates who received the necessary buzz.”

Whoever ultimately emerges to challenge Paulsen will undoubtedly face an uphill battle. Bonoff argues that the DFL missed a prime opportunity in 2008.

“The Third District was ripe to elect a Democrat,” she says.

Madia doesn’t disagree. He believes that Paulsen won in part because the Republican did a better job of keeping a fine-tuned message.

“I think that they were very disciplined about their message, which was just taxes, frankly,” he says. “Taxes, taxes, taxes, taxes.”

Democrats in the district insist that they can still win the seat. Marge Hoffa, chair of the Third District DFL, argues that Paulsen is much more socially conservative than his GOP predecessor in the post.

“He’s no Jim Ramstad,” she says. “He’s just not. He’s much more conservative.”

But she acknowledges that the odds of taking over the seat will decrease with each election cycle.

“If we come up with somebody that’s really an outstanding candidate the money will pour in,” she says, “because this is our shot to take Paulsen out.”

“That should have been the headline in the media: Surge failed. But it didn’t play. It almost reminds me of when Oliver North testified before Congress back in the ’80s. He showed up with a chest of medals and everyone was  dazzled by his presence. I just wonder if the media was similarly dazzled by seeing this general, and [was] unwilling to dig beneath.”

We also discuss the looming Third District endorsing convention, where one-time dark horse Ashwin Madia appears to be on the verge of securing enough delegates to take the prize. “Terri Bonoff was way in the lead for a while as the presumptive DFL nominee,” Schultz notes. “Ashwin Madia came out of nowhere. The stories are that he is within about eight votes of getting the 60 percent necessary for the nomination. Bonoff appears to be nowhere near getting that.

“That will tell us a lot about what the race is going to look like this coming November. You have Erik Paulsen, who is very, very conservative — probably, I’ve argued, more conservative than the district is. And you have Bonoff and Madia, who each are trying to paint themselves as moderate Democrats, with Madia looking like somewhere between an Obama grassroots candidate and, as he describes himself, a McCain supporter in 2000. It’s a race that both the Democratic and Republican national committees have highlighted for putting a ton of money into.”

The Schultz Report: Petraeus talks to Congress, plus Minnesota’s Third District Congressional endorsement battle (14:32)

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