Minnesota Lawyer
Attorney General Lori Swanson. (Staff photo: Peter Bartz-Gallagher.)
1.) The Strib’s Paul McEnroe reported yesterday that Attorney General Lori Swanson will fight Gov. Mark Dayton’s administration over the proposed release of a serial rapist named Thomas Duvall, who has been detained in the Minnesota Sex Offender Program after amassing a lurid rap sheet that includes roughly 60 documented attacks on women. “If the state Supreme Court Appeal Panel agrees with the DHS,” writes McEnroe, “the 57-year-old Duvall would become only the second person in 18 years released from the controversial program. The state is under federal court pressure to end its policy of continuing to hold offenders in the prisonlike sex treatment program indefinitely, even after they’ve completed treatment.” Swanson’s opposition creates another political obstacle to the administration’s efforts to modify the terms of confinement for about 700 men confined to MSOP before a federal court takes matters into its own hands. Legislative efforts to modify the program in 2013 broke down after Republicans in the Minnesota House refused to embrace a bipartisan plan hatched in the state Senate.
The story does not elaborate on the history of Dayton and Swanson’s run-ins, but Capitol watchers will recall that the AG’s office also proved a thorn in the side of the administration during the prelude to the 2011 partial state government shutdown, when Swanson’s office went to court to argue for a more expansive definition of the “essential” services that would remain intact for the duration of the closure. A number of Democrats think Swanson harbors long-range gubernatorial ambitions.
2.) Republican U.S. Senate candidates are lining up to tie DFL U.S. Sen. Al Franken to the fate of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. Sen. Julianne Ortman, R-Chanhassen, did so in a posting to her campaign Facebook page, where she blamed looming implementation of health care overhaul for stagnant economic and employment figures. According to Ortman’s line of attack, Franken is “primarily responsible for this mess as the Senator who cast the 60th and decisive vote for Obamacare.” GOP U.S. Senate candidate Mike McFadden went the route of posting a video online, which juxtaposes statements Franken made on the Senate floor with recent news reports. “People who are happy with their current [insurance] plan wouldn’t need to change it,” Franken had said. That statement, which echoes a similar line used often by President Barack Obama, has since been thrown in doubt, following reports that many existing plans won’t meet the baseline standards for the new law. Resulting changes could come with higher price tags for affected consumers, a group that is thought to include up to 140,000 Minnesotans.
3.) State legislators collected more than $3 million worth of reimbursements through mid-October, according to the St. Cloud Times, which has compiled the results of a data request into a searchable database. Of that total, $1.84 million came in the form of per diem payments, and another $1.3 million was used to cover travel, lodging and other expenses. The current figure is already higher than the 2012 total ($2.98M), though, as an even-numbered year, that legislative session was abbreviated compared to this year’s; the 2013 numbers through October are about $500,000 less than the total accumulated in 2011. Sen. Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, has collected the most in per diem payments in the upper chamber, with $15,996, and Rep. Lyndon Carlson, DFL-Crystal, leads on the House side with $10,890.
COMINGS & GOINGS
- As of last week, veteran lobbyist Ron Jerich will no longer represent Mortenson Co., the local construction powerhouse tasked with building the Minnesota Vikings stadium. Jerich’s lobbying gig with Mortenson lasted only four months; the construction firm brought on John Herman of Faegre Baker Daniels last week.
- 6th Congressional District GOP candidate Tom Emmer announced the lineup of his finance committee. Brenton Hayden, founder of Renters Warehouse, will serve as chair. Emmer has previously appeared a spokesman in an infomercial for Renters Warehouse. Other notables on the committee are Sen. Karin Housley, R-St. Marys Point; former legislator and GOP U.S. Senate candidate Kurt Bills; Tom Rosen, the CEO of the multi-billion-dollar food processing company Rosen’s Diversified and ex-husband to Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Fairmont; and former Republican U.S. Rep. Vin Weber, now a prominent Republican strategist and top-shelf lobbyist in Washington, D.C.
