Minnesota Lawyer
Senate GOP caucus Communications Director Steve Sviggum is leaving his post. Sviggum, a former speaker of the Minnesota House, said the move was voluntary: “I don’t have a real interest in serving in the minority again.” (AP file Photo: The Star Tribune, Glen Stubbe)
Sviggum out, along with Republican communications staff
Senate GOP caucus staffers knew personnel cuts were coming. But for weeks they weren’t sure about the extent of staff reductions that would be necessary to accommodate their new role as the minority caucus.
That’s no longer in question: Senate Republicans will have 38 slots to fill when the Legislature convenes on January 8. That’s down from the 43 staffers that DFLers were able to employ while serving in the minority over the past two years. Some of that reflects a slightly smaller minority caucus: Republicans occupy 28 seats, compared to 30 for the DFLers when they were out of power.
Communications Director Steve Sviggum, who was hired by outgoing Senate Majority Leader Dave Senjem last year, is among those not returning. In his case the move was voluntary. “I told Sen. Senjem when he hired me that I’d stay through the election for sure,” Sviggum said. “I don’t have a real interest in serving in the minority again.”
But on Dec. 21, a number of other employees – including almost the entire communications staff – received official word that they would not be offered jobs for the coming legislative session. Among the communication staffers laid off: Sandra Whalen, Neil Pursley, Peter Winiecki and Sara Amaden. Another key staffer not returning: leadership assistant Adam Axvig.
Whalen, who’s worked for the caucus for six years, says she intends to start her own writing and graphic design business. “We’re really disappointed that so many of our longtime folks have to go,” Whalen said. “The Friday before Christmas, it was very upsetting. It’s been weeks and weeks of not knowing and going back and forth.”
Winiecki doesn’t have any immediate plans after spending five years working in the communications department. “I’d like to bring my knowledge and skill set to a group advancing the causes I believe in,” Winiecki said.
Another Senate GOP communications staffer, Libbie Krueger, has landed a different job in the caucus: She will serve as legislative assistant to incoming Sen. Karin Housley, R-St. Mary’s Point.
According to multiple sources within the GOP caucus, Brad Biers will take over as communications director. (Biers did not respond to a phone call or email seeking comment.) Biers is currently the committee administrator for the Senate Health and Human Service Committee, which is chaired by incoming Senate Minority Leader David Hann. He’s also a veteran GOP operative, whose resume includes working for U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann.
But Republicans question whether they’re being treated fairly. “Certainly the reduction to 38 is a significant reduction, and it’s going to cause difficulty for the minority to prepare its members,” Sviggum said. “They’re talking about gutting the communications department completely.”
Disputes over partisan staffing levels are not a new development. The 2012 legislative session kicked off with a major dust-up over DFL staffing levels. Republicans proposed cutting $444,000 from the Senate DFL caucus budget – a reduction of roughly 12 out of 43 staff positions. DFLers accused the GOP majority of unfairly balancing the legislative chamber’s budget on the backs of the minority. “It’s a very dangerous precedent to say the minority caucus will take all of the staffing reductions when there’s a budget problem,” Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk said at the time.
But Sviggum points out that those cuts were postponed until after the end of the legislative session and were ultimately never enacted because the legislative chamber’s finances improved over time. ”They had no reductions in their staff – zero, none,” Sviggum said.
Sviggum cautions that he can’t fully assess the proposed staffing allocations until he knows the exact number of DFL partisan staffers. That number was not yet being disclosed by the DFL majority. “If they do not reduce their complement in the same fashion, it would be a very mean-spirited, a very, very harmful action for the institution,” Sviggum said.
DFLers point out that each legislator will still have a legislative assistant. They also note that there are three additional policy committees requiring administrators. “So we may be a couple of people over what they had just because we added those policy committees back,” said Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk. “Other than that, I think you’ll find our complement consistent with what they had.”
