Capitol Retort: Roads, slogans, jobs, holiday

Editor’s note: Welcome back to Capitol Retort, our weekly review of issues in state and national news, with input from a rotating cast of local characters. Answers have been edited for length and clarity, but not unity. Any instances of agreement are accidental. Our respondents are comfortable sounding-off in any way, and about anything, and this is no place for them to stop.

Question 1: The Legislature was unable to pass a comprehensive transportation bill. What road, bridge, or transit project would you like to be No. 1 on the list?

John Kriesel, former Republican legislator and author of “Still Standing”: Statewide, there’s a lot of road projects that should be done. I live in the Twin Cities. … Instead of being reactive and waiting for a population boom, I think there shouldn’t be two-lane Interstates in the Twin Cities anymore. That’s something I think needs to change. That’s a start. But there’s so much work that has to be done.

Sarah Janecek, lobbyist and former publisher of Politics in Minnesota: Highway 12. That thing is a disaster. There have been so many tragic accidents on that stretch.

Rep. Carly Melin, DFL-Hibbing: Anything not in Pat Garofalo’s district.

Question 2: Imagine you’re a campaign manager for a legislative candidate of any party. What’s your slogan or ad about the legislative session? 

Melin: “Make the Minnesota Legislature Great Again.”

Janecek: Well, if I’m working for a Republican: “We did no harm and gave you some tax breaks.” If I’m working for a Democrat: “We did no harm and got nothing done.”

Kriesel: I would say that members put politics before people. So I would attack that. Putting politics before the people of the state. There’s a lot of breakdown there. There’s many people to blame. But “Politics Before People” would be it. It would be a negative slogan, of course. There is good work that got done. But overall I think it left a bad taste in people’s mouths.

Question 3: The Minneapolis school board hired Ed Graff of Anchorage, Alaska, as the new superintendent. What’s the greatest distance you’ve ever had to go (or commute) for a job? 

Melin: I suppose the job I have now. Hibbing to St. Paul: 380 miles, round trip.

Kriesel: I guess Minnesota to Iraq. That’s the farthest I’ve gone for a job. But I do commute from Cottage Grove to Anoka. That’s a fair distance. I get to see some of the road projects that need to get done.

Janecek: To go to a job, I went to the Ural Mountains in Russia to teach the Russian women how to lobby in their new democracy, courtesy of the National Endowment for Democracy, or actually the International Republican Institute, which funds both Democrats and Republicans. (What year was that?) As soon as I said that, I was trying to think. Because they only had a few years of optimism about their new democracy. Pretty brief. Sometime in the ’90s.

Question 4: Gov. Mark Dayton says he’ll think about a special session over the holiday weekend. What will you be thinking about over the weekend?

Melin: Probably about how to Make the Minnesota House Great Again. DFL majority, here we come.

Janecek: How well my heirloom tomatoes are going to grow at the lake. I have 36 plants. I do about eight to 10 different kinds. And I will also be wishing that one of nieces or nephews would catch a bunch of pan fish, because I haven’t had a sunfish fry in years. (Do they read this newspaper?) I don’t think they do! I’ll forward it on.

Kriesel: I think every day about my friends that I lost in Iraq, but especially this weekend it hits home a little. It stings a little more. So I’ll be thinking about Bryan McDonough from Maplewood, Corey Rystad from Red Lake Falls, and James Wosika Jr. from St. Paul. There were in my platoon, and they gave their lives when we were deployed to Iraq.

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