Becoming a Delegate or Alternate to the National Convention, July 18 -21 in Cleveland, Ohio, takes planning, time and your own funding of approximately $3000 of travel and convention costs.

National Delegates and Alternates are nominated and voted on at each Congressional District’s convention (3 elected per District) and an additional 11 are nominated and voted on at the State Convention.  Before the conventions, those interested must complete a formal application to be a National Delegate, thus there will be no nominations taken from the floor without a formal application having been submitted.

Here are the requirements as issued by the Minnesota GOP for potential Delegates:

“A potential candidate to serve as a delegate or alternate from Minnesota to the 2016 Republican National Convention must be selected by a vote of Republican delegates elected at either their respective congressional district convention or the state convention.

Voting is conducted by secret ballot, and the nomination process for becoming a candidate for national delegate is governed by the convention rules.

Timing of election of Minnesota’s National Delegates

• Each congressional district will elect three (3) national delegates and alternates at a convention held on Saturday, April 23 (CD 3) and Saturday, April 30 (CD 5).
•  The deadline to apply to run for national delegate for the Third Congressional District is April 18, 2016 at 3:00 PM.

On January 15th of this year Governor Dayton announced his $1.4 billion bonding proposal in what was titled a “Jobs Bill.” Since that date, non-partisan state officials have indicated that we don’t have the debt capacity to accommodate that amount for a bonding bill, with targets set at about $850 million or less.

 The Governor proposed the following list of projects, listed by county:

 http://www.mn.gov/governor/images/2016_01_15_snapshot_jobs_bill_by_county.pdf

Additionally, here is the list of water projects in his proposal, by city:

http://www.mn.gov/gov-stat/pdf/2016_01_14_snapshot_projects_by_city.pdf

Nonetheless, House Republicans remain disappointed that the Governor did not set aside funds for Greater Minnesota or suburban transportation projects. Within the Governor’s bonding bill, only Minneapolis and St. Paul represent metro / suburban projects. Additionally, Gov. Dayton revived the gas tax as part of his supplemental budget proposal just last week.

The House Capital Investment Committee, led by Chair Paul Torkelson (Republican of St. James), is taking the necessary time to properly vet all bonding requests during this legislative session

Franchise Fees: a bad idea (even if everybody does it)

Bloomington residents, nonprofits and churches started seeing a city Franchise Fee on their Excel and CenterPoint Energy bills in March.  With these new “taxes in disguise”, they joined the 85% of the residents of Hennepin County who are already subject to franchise fees. This includes neighbors from the cities of Edina, Eden Prairie, Minnetonka and Richfield.

Peter J.  Nelson, Vice President and Senior Policy Fellow at Center of the American Experiment, testified March 3, 2016, to a division of the MN House.  He provided an understandable in-depth look at the legal pitfalls of using franchise fees in place of taxes. 

http://www.americanexperiment.org/publications/commentaries/testimony-utility-franchise-fees-imposed-by-cities-are-often-taxes-in-disg

 If you’re seeing the SD49 Newsletter for the first time, it’s probably because you attended the March 1 Caucus.  Welcome!  A small group of volunteers has been working non-stop since then to add and update email addresses so we can keep in touch.  We hope you’ll find this information helpful.  While it is tempting to write about national and international events, our focus is on state and local political news and issues.  The Newsletter is sent out every 7-10 days by the volunteer writers and editors. Adding us [email protected] to your address book should help make sure the Newsletter lands in your inbox.     

 Other ways you can stay connected:

Co- Chair Randy Sutter opened the March Dinner meeting by introducing GOP candidates from our District: Tyler Keenan (House District 49B) and Dario Anselmo (House District 49A).  They gave overviews of their campaign programs, issues and asked participants for their support.  

UPDATE:  Tyler halted his campaign prior to the endorsing convention.  Max Rymer declared shortly before the April 9 convention and was endorsed for the MN House 49B race.

Randy introduced the main presenter, Andy Cilek, Executive Director of the Minnesota Voters Alliance (MVA).  Andy opened his comments by thanking the group for having him and said it felt good to see familiar faces. 

Andy reviewed the MVA and its focus on defending liberty by protecting the voting process.  

On March 1, the results of another significant vote were announced.   Minnesota in-home child care providers overwhelmingly rejected union representation. 

 As Tom Steward wrote in a blog on the Center of the American Experiment website,

 “Despite more than a decade of organizing, card campaigns and expenditures, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 5 garnered 392 votes, compared to 1,014 for providers opposed to the union.”

Grandview is the part of Edina that stretches west from the City Hall across Highway 100 and along Vernon Avenue, encompassing the site of the former Edina Public Works facility.  Development of portions of the Grandview area of Edina has been under discussion for as long as eight years.  The Edina City Council took a significant step on March 2, voting 4-1 to approve special tax treatment to encourage development.  Mary Brindle was the lone vote against approval.

This vote came despite the reservations voiced earlier by some residents to the use of Tax-Increment Funding (TIF).  Before the vote, the Edina School Board also voiced concern.  The School Board sent a letter on March 1 questioning whether TIF is needed at all and listing reasons it could be harmful long-term to school-funding.

John Reinan, who has followed the Grandview issue for years, reported  in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on March 1:

 ” In a letter sent this week to Mayor Jim Hovland and the City Council, the school board questioned whether the 11-acre parcel in the heart of Edina really needs special tax treatment.

 ”The Edina schools want the city to redo its math on a financing proposal for the Grandview development district.”

 CLICK HERE to read the Star Tribune article

A record-setting 2606 neighbors from SD49 came to the March 1 Caucus. This exceeded the prior record, set in 2008, by 27%!   

The MN GOP recognized the level of effort put in by our caucus leadership team by recommending us for media attention.  NBC Nightly News, CNN, KARE11, and FOX 9 television teams as well as radio and newspaper reporters added to the crowds of Republicans at our caucuses.

Your votes at caucus determined how many of Minnesota's presidential delegates will be bound to each presidential candidate at the National Convention.  Eighty-two (82) Republicans were elected as precinct officers in SD49, while 293 Delegates and 137 Alternates were elected to the SD49 convention on April 9^th.   Thank you to everyone who stepped forward!  

The following table shows how Republicans in precincts within Senate District 49 voted as compared with Minnesota Republicans as a whole:

                                  SD49           MN GOP

• Marco Rubio       49%            36%                    

• Donald Trump    18%            21%

• Ted Cruz            16%            29%

• John Kasich        13%            6%

• Dr. Ben Carson   3%              7%

CLICK HERE to view the detailed results of the Presidential Preference Poll recorded on the Secretary of State site for the Republican and DFL caucuses. 

MN GOP Delegate Allocations

As a result of the GOP voting, Marco Rubio will be allocated 17 of Minnesota’s 38 delegates to the Republican National Convention.  Ted Cruz will be allocated 13 delegates, and Donald Trump will get 8 delegates.

 CLICK HERE to go to the MN GOP site to see how the delegate allocation occurred across the Congressional Districts.

With the Republican caucuses on March 1st getting closer, Senate District 49 Republican Party hosted a Dinner Program on February 23rd that featured a panel of Minnesota representatives for each of the five Presidential campaigns. More than 100 attendees listened intently as each panel member stated why they were passionate about their candidate and what was most compelling about the candidate’s life story.

There were further questions on streamlining government, controlling healthcare costs, dealing with foreign threats, and improving education outcomes.  The candidates’ representatives answered with sound conservative solutions with differing areas of emphasis.

The positions of the panel members are summarized below, in alphabetical order of the candidate’s name.  The candidates’ websites are also provided.

Now it’s time for each of us to complete our own homework, study the five candidates, and select the one who’ll get our personal vote at the March 1 Caucus.