December Newsletter
The Resistance
by Alton Brown
I’ve always heard that a frog will jump out of a pot of boiling water, but not a slow warming pot. No matter the end result.
The impeachment of Donald Trump is clearly boiling with obstruction, corruption and impeachable offenses. Just as obvious are the floating frogs supporting the president.
Those like White House policy advisor Stephen Miller appear fine with swimming among Nazis and white supremacists given his emails from 2015 and 2016.
At the same time, there are a pretty sizable number of just plain old toads that stayed in the pot too long.
Frogs who wanted “the right kind” of Supreme Court Judge, or an industry protected, or a big tax cut. Those frogs are holding on to power. They continue to argue that this will all work its way out at the ballot box.
Democracy is a recipe. Never a finished product. Grab your share while it’s here.
Could be gone soon.
We have fought racism and hate in this country forever. It’s not new.
Lies in politics are certainly not new.
What feels different are Donald Trump’s overwhelming greed, inadequacy, and complete lack of conscience. No president has ever lied this much, this often, and this obviously. Not only does this president not care that he is lying, he doesn’t care that you know he is lying.
It’s like an inside joke.
Also, the orange. That will be difficult for future generations to miss.
I can see a kid on a school tour thirty years from now asking, “So, the orange one was the really hateful, rich guy who put children in cages? He put LA, NYC, Houston and Miami underwater? Wow. People really voted for that? What was wrong with them?”
Probably be more difficult to use the frog analogy in thirty years. Not sure how many amphibians will be left with an environment that gets worse every day Donald Trump is in office.
Which is the great tragedy of warming frogs.
Some frogs don’t get it. He’s doing what he said he’d do. It’s just tweets. Etc., etc., etc.
They might want to pay a little more attention to the Eddie Gallagher case. Gallagher is a Navy Seal who lost his rank after posing with an enemy’s corpse.
Sacking of cities. Pillaging. Posing with enemy corpses. These are things that the largest military industrial complex the world has ever known tends to frown upon.
Trump may come across as the professional wrestler president, but the military of this country is no act. It is real. The US spent a third of the $1.8 trillion in global military spending for 2018 (SIPRI Military Expenditure Database). That is almost as much as the next eight countries combined.
Trump has made it clear with the Gallagher case that this is his military.
He made it clear with Syria that he doesn’t have a clue as to what to do with the largest military ever, but he likes to play with it occasionally. Especially when he is on the phone with dictators.
Navy Secretary Richard Spencer lost his job in November trying to navigate the Gallagher fiasco. He spoke to NPR.
“… What is of concern today, though, is most presidents grow in that job; in the third year, they're handling it better than handled it in the first year. And it's not clear that that's the case with President Trump,” Spencer said.
Spencer said Trump’s message is, “That you can get away with things.”
You can get in a little hot water and Trump will fix it.
After all, Trump’s attorney argues that he can shoot someone on 57th Street and cannot be prosecuted. He argues that Trump’s pardons are unlimited.
He can even erase war crimes.
Getting warm.
Funny how life, liberty and freedom can disappear like a puff of steam when it gets like this.
A Letter From Our Chair
We are only a month away from 2020. We will need your help next year. We need you to donate your time, money, and resources to ensure we win up and down the ballot.
The first quarter of 2020 will be very busy.
Early voting for the Presidential primary begins Friday, January 17 and is available through Monday, March 2. We have more details about early voting elsewhere in this newsletter
Precinct caucuses will be Tuesday, February 25 from 6:30- 8 PM. It should be easier to get to caucuses in 2020 as we have moved caucuses for seven precincts from Willow Creek Middle School to John Marshall High School and for two precincts from Willow Creek to Century High School. These caucuses will be closer to the people in those precincts and will make it easier for those who have caucuses at Willow Creek to find parking there.
The Presidential primary is Tuesday, March 3. Polls will be open from 7 AM- 8 PM.
The Senate District 26 DFL Convention will be Sunday, March 15 at Mayo High School.
We will need your help with planning, reaching out to voters, and volunteering for the day of the caucus and the convention. If you are interested in helping, please contact me at jen.verhagen90@gmail.com.
I want to sincerely thank everyone for their involvement this year. Our party wouldn’t be successful without your help. I am extremely grateful for everyone I have met and worked with this year. I look forward to what we can accomplish this upcoming year.
Jen Verhagen, Chair of Senate District 26 DFL
Sd26mn.dfl@gmail.com
TWO CANDIDATES ARE RUNNING FOR STATE SENATOR
The Senate seat in Senate District 26 is up for election in 2020. Two candidates have said they plan to run for the DFL endorsement. They hope to replace Carla Nelson, who has held the seat since 2011.
Tyrel Clark, who was the DFL candidate for the District 26B House seat in 2018 and received over 46% of the vote, the best of the four DFL candidates who have run for the seat, will have an official announcement/campaign kickoff event in the coming weeks. His campaign website is TyrelForSenate.com and the campaign is on social media sites, including Facebook.com/TyrelForSenate.
Rich Wright, who was the DFL candidate for this seat in 2016 and for the District 26B seat in 2014, is leaving the race for Congress to seek the endorsemnent for this seat.
In 2018 the total votes for Clark and Representative Tina Liebling exceeded the votes for the two Republican candidates for the Minnesota House of Representatives. This, along with the strong performance of statewide DFL candidates and Dan Feehan in Senate District 26, has raised hope that Nelson is vulnerable. One analyst who rates partisan leans of Minnesota legislative districts rated the Senate seat as having a DFL lean for the first time this year.
There is likely to be a lot of interest statewide in this race. Minnesota is the only state where the state Senate and state House are controlled by different parties. Every seat in both bodies is up for election in 2020. Most observers think the House is likely to stay in DFL hands and DFL governor Tim Walz is in office through 2022, so if the DFL can take over the Senate, it will have full control of Minnesota government. The Republicans now have a 35-32 lead in the Senate, so the DFL will have to win two more seats to take the majority. There are only 8 (of 67) seats that are thought to be plausible to flip, with Senate District 26 (and Senate District 25, which is the rest of Olmsted County and some of Dodge County) among them. Both parties and lots of interest groups will be involved in the election.
The endorsement will be made at the Senate District 26 DFL convention on March 15 by delegates who are elected at the February 25 precinct caucuses.
John Austinson, who had filed a campaign committee with the Campaign Finance Board for the seat, is no longer interested in running for this or any other seat this year.
WE NEED A DFL CANDIDATE FOR THE HOUSE DISTRICT 26B SEAT
No one has declared so far for the House District 26B seat for the 2020 election. The seat, held by Nels Pierson since 2014, covers some of southern Rochester, the neighborhoods north and south of Century High School, and all 11 townships in the Senate District.
Looking at the geography may be misleading. 46% of voters live in Rochester, 21% live in the small cities (Chatfield, Dover, Eyota, and Stewartville), 18% live in the three more settled townships adjacent to Rochester (Haverhill, Marion, and Rochester Townships), and 16% live in the more rural townships. The growth in the district over the last seven years is largely in Rochester.
Tyrel Clark got 46% in the district last year, the best any DFL candidate has done in the four races since redistricting created it, without a lot of outside support. Next year it’s likely the Presidential, Congressional, and state Senate campaigns will all want to identify DFLers and increase turnout in the district, which may be enough to push a hard-working House candidate to success.
If you’re interested in running, contact our chair, Jen Verhagen, at jen.verhagen90@gmail.com.
The endorsement for the seat will be made at the Senate District 26 DFL convention on March 15 by delegates who are elected at the February 25 precinct caucuses.
DFL EVENTS
There will not be a Senate District 26 DFL Central Committee meeting in December. Instead, there will be a holiday party on Monday, December 9 (see below). The Minnesota DFL’s Founders Day Dinner fundraiser will be Friday, December 6 at the Minneapolis Hilton (1001 Marquette Ave. South). However, tickets are sold out. The DFL State Central Committee meeting will be the afternoon of Saturday, December 7 at Washburn High School in south Minneapolis.
Other SD26DFL events:
Thursday, December 5 6:15- 8 PM DFLs of Olmsted County First Thursday Discussion Series, Ranked Choice Voting- Presenters: Anna Froehling and Vangie Castro. A light meal will be available 6:15-6:45 (free will donation) with the presentation at 7.
Thursday, December 19 Time TBD DFLs of Olmsted County Debate Party, DFL office
MEET OUR OFFICERS-TREASURER
Anastasia Hopkins Folpe grew up in the Philadelphia/South Jersey area. She lived in several areas around the country, including Seattle and Atlanta, before settling in southeast Minnesota in 2006. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1991 with a B. A. in Cultural Anthropology.
Ana lives in Rochester Township with her husband, 3 children, and 2 Aussie dogs. Her interests and experience include the nonprofit sector, education, the arts, running, soccer, and the environment.
She became Treasurer late in 2018 after her predecessor moved to Georgia. Her goals for Treasurer this term include learning the ropes, improving general processes, supporting fundraising and ‘friendraising’ activities, and helping where needed to keep the DFL strong in SE Minnesota. She can be reached at ahfolpe@gmail.com.
DONATE TO SENATE DISTRICT 26 DFL
We need your help to maintain a DFL presence in Rochester between now and the 2020 election. While one-time donations are welcome, we especially need monthly donations. We don’t get money from the national Democratic Party. The state DFL only contributes $500 a month, less than 1/3 of our rent. We rely on our local supporters to keep going and to get the DFL message out. There are tremendous opportunities for the DFL, locally and statewide, this year and in 2020, including replacing Carla Nelson with a DFL Senator. We need more money at the local level to take advantage of them. We need the money and you want an active DFL. If you give, there will be an office for DFL events and meetings, DFL participation in events and parades that require entry fees, technology that makes the DFL work better, outreach into underrepresented communities, and, if we can afford it, local people hired to talk to people in Senate District 26 to find out who supports the DFL and thus improve our performance in 2020. You can make a refundable donation in 2019 even if you made a contribution to us, to another party unit, or to a candidate in 2018. Donate to Senate District 26 DFL and you can get up to $50/person or $100 per married couple back from the state of Minnesota if you are eligible to vote in Minnesota and haven’t claimed the refund already this year. Do it now. Make your donation via ActBlue (https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/senate-district-26-dfl-party-1?refcode=sd2). If you would rather write a check, please make it payable to DFL SD26 and send it to:
P.O. Box 9044
Rochester, MN 55904-9044
Send us a donation and we’ll send you a receipt. Send the receipt and a form
(https://www.revenue.state.mn.us/media/59866) needed to claim the reimbursement to Minnesota Revenue Political Contribution Refund St. Paul, MN 55146-1800. Make a donation, file a claim, and you’ll get a check back soon.
If you send a check, please include whether you are retired, self-employed or employed. If employed, include the name of your employer and your job title. The Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board requires us to collect that information. If you use Act Blue, the appropriate information is collected.
PRECINCT CAUCUSES ARE IN LESS THAN 3 MONTHS
The 2020 DFL precinct caucuses will be Tuesday, February 25, 2020 at 6:30 PM. We won’t have a presidential preference poll this year, because there will be a primary a week later. However, we will elect precinct or township party officers, elect delegates to the Senate District 26 DFL convention (where endorsements for the DFL candidates for the Minnesota House and Senate in Senate District 26 will be made), and vote on resolutions that if passed at several levels may become part of the DFL Platform or Action Agenda.
Because of parking problems at Willow Creek Middle School in 2016 and 2018, we will be moving the caucuses for the seven precincts that are closer to John Marshall High School than to Willow Creek to JM and moving two caucuses for precincts that are closer to Century High School than to Willow Creek to Century. We will be sending postcards to previous caucus goers and placing reminder calls about the new locations in February.
PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY WILL BE IN MARCH
The first Presidential primary in Minnesota in decades will be Tuesday, March 5, 2020. This will be run by the state of Minnesota, not the political parties, so you will vote in your precinct, city, or township, as if this were the November election. You can go www.mnvotes.org to see where you vote. Polling places will be open from 7 AM-8 PM.
Early voting starts Friday, January 17 and the last day is Monday, March 2. The main early voting location will change from where it was in 2018 to the 4-H Building on the Olmsted County Fairgrounds in Graham Park. Voting hours will be 8 AM-5 PM weekdays and 10 AM-5 PM Saturday, February 29. There will also be early voting at the Government Center and at the 125 Live building (125 Elton Hills Drive, NW) Tuesday, February 25-Friday, February 28 and Monday, March 2 from 8 AM-5 PM and Saturday, February 29 from 10 AM-5 PM.
We don’t yet know exactly who will be on the ballot as the deadline for candidates to submit their names is midway through December. However, unlike the Republicans who refused to put anyone but Trump on their primary ballot, DFL party leadership will let any declared candidate for the DFL nomination who applies for a ballot slot appear on the ballot.
Fun Fact: Because of our long early voting period, you can vote in the primary before any votes have been cast in the Iowa caucuses or New Hampshire primary, but their results will be available well before ours will.
YOUNG DEMOCRATS OF OLMSTED COUNTY UPDATE
At the October Minnesota Young DFL (MYDFL) meeting, the Young Democrats of Olmsted County was chartered. This has been something we have been working on for 2 years and are excited for the state MYDFL to help engage more young Democrats in Olmsted County. If you are 35 or younger or know someone who might be interested and would like to get involved, please email me at jen.verhagen90@gmail.com.
ELECTRONICS COMING TO CAUCUSES AND PRIMARY
We’re told the DFL plans to debut an electronic system for registering people who come to precinct caucuses in February and for documenting who is elected as a precinct officer or as a delegate to the Senate District convention. This is a completely new system from the failed one that was withdrawn just before the 2018 caucuses and has had good reviews from DFL staff in St. Paul who have tested it. DFL activists will be hearing much more about it at the State Central Committee meeting December 7 and we’ll have details in the next two issues of the newsletter.
If you voted in the Rochester School District referendum November 5, you’ve already seen the new PollPad. If you haven’t, your next chance will be when you vote in the primary. In place of the large books election judges used to have to check voters in, voters will now give the first three letters of their first and last names to allow the judges to find them in the electronic database on the PollPad. Once the name is found, the judge generates a receipt that the voter uses to get a ballot. The PollPad can also be used to let people register at the polls. This device increases privacy for voters as no one else can see if you’ve voted. The devices are only connected to the internet for a short time several times during the day, so they would be difficult to hack. The voting database is not connected to any other database. This device is not involved in counting votes.
CENSUS 2020 IS COMING SOON
The 2020 census will be happening in the first part of the year. It’s important that everyone completes the census, since undercounts cost governments funding and decrease political representation of undercounted areas. Olmsted County, and especially Rochester, are at high risk for undercounts, since we are in the most diverse county in southern Minnesota and the poor, immigrants, and people of color are the most likely to be missed by the census. The Trump administration’s attempt to put a citizenship question on the census form, though unsuccessful, may reduce the willingness of families that have undocumented people or legal immigrants to complete census forms. There will be efforts to encourage everyone to complete the census forms by mail or talk to enumerators when they go house-to-house.
The Census has to hire lots of people, so this may be an opportunity for short-term work, either part-time or full-time. Go to https://www.census.gov/about/regions/chicago/jobs/minnesota.html if interested.
SD26mn.dfl@gmail.com AND OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA
This is a monthly newsletter. However, events often happen on short notice, so we may not be able to include them in the newsletter. Check our website and Facebook pages for the latest news on what is happening.
Official communications come from SD DFL (though the full address is above). Watch for them.
We tweet from @sd26dfl and have a website at www.senatedistrict26dfl.com
We have a closed Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/144866495637545/
We share an open Facebook page with Olmsted-25 DFL and Senate District 25 at
https://www.facebook.com/sd26sd25olm25/?fref=ts
Our Instagram account is at dflsenatedistrict26.
