Photo by Clay Schuldt S u r r o g a t e Micah Olson spoke on behalf of GOP Governor candidates Dr. Scott Jensen during Saturday’s GOP County Convention

BROWN COUNTY–The Brown County GOP and Brown County DFL held their county conventions Saturday.

The GOP convention was held in Sleepy Eye at the Brown County REA building and the DFL convention was at the New Ulm Community Center.

GOP

The GOP convention was visited by several of the candidates for the 1st District special election, including Matt Benda, Brad Finstad, Jeremy Munson, Kevin Kocina, Nels Pierson and Jennifer Carnahan.

Surrogates also spoke on behalf of GOP Governor candidates Dr. Scott Jensen, State Sen. Paul Gazelka and Mike Murphy.

The top issues addressed by GOP candidates were preventing Critical Race Theory (CRT) from being taught in schools. Multiple candidates spoke out against CRT and the need for parental rights in education.

Benda spoke against school boards limiting parents to two minutes when speaking out and labeling parents as a terrorist when objecting to the curriculum.

The GOP convention did pass a resolution to the state GOP convention to ban the teaching of CRT.

COVID-19 mandates were another source of concern for the GOP candidates. Several spoke about the need to reign in further mandates from restricting personal freedoms and hurting the economy. Resolutions were passed to abolish all mandates regarding personal health choices and limit the Governor’s ability to declare a peacetime emergency.

State Senator Gary Dahms and State Rep. Paul Torkelson also spoke. The two Republican candidates are seeking re-election. Dahms addressed the state’s $9.3 billion surplus. He said with a surplus this high it is impossible to say residents are not being overtaxed.

Dahms and Torkelson both stressed the importance of paying off Minnesota’s unemployment insurance. Dahms said the state’s unemployment insurance went from a billion surplus to over a billion deficit during the pandemic. Dahms recommended redirecting Advancing Resilience & Community Health (ARCH) funding to pay off the deficit.

DFL

The DFL convention was visited by DFL congressional candidate Richard Painter. Painter stated he was a moderate and had once been a Republican, but left the party in 2018 because he no longer believes the GOP has moderated. As the DFL candidate, he supported single-payer healthcare, cracking down on corporate monopolies to fix inflation and seeking energy independence through renewable energy.

Maggiy Emery spoke on behalf of DFL candidate Jeff Ettinger and played a video message from the candidate. Ettinger is the former Hormel Foods CEO. Ettinger believed he could win the election as a moderate in a moderate district.

Ryan Russell spoke on behalf of State Auditor Julia Blaha. He said Blaha would fight against GOP efforts to privatize elections audits.

Minnesota DFL Secretary Ceri Everett and DFL Outreach Officer Cheniqua Johnson spoke during the convention. The two wanted to encourage delegates to reach out to more voters. Johnson said the state party is looking to get more people involved in the party. The DFL wants to be inclusive and be the voice for rural people. Multiple speakers said it was important to put “farmer” back into the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

Of the 20 top resolutions submitted to the state DFL convention, five were related to agriculture. Other popular resolutions addressed civil rights, health care and education.

The DLF Convention addressed recent GOP opposition to CRT being taught in school. One of the resolutions passed to the state convention supports the right of the local school board and individual teachers to establish a school curriculum.

The conventions were a chance for the parties to nominate delegates to the congressional and state conventions; submit party resolutions to the state and hear from candidates in the upcoming elections.

Complications

This year’s county conventions were complicated by two unique issues, the redistricting and the special election to fill the vacant seat of Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District.

In February, the state redrew the Congressional District (CD) based on the 2020 Census, resulting in Brown County being split between CD1 and CD7. Previously, nearly all of Brown County was in CD1 but now the western portion of the county is in CD7. This required the two parties to elect delegates for the CD1 convention and the CD7 convention.

Attendance at the county GOP and DFL conventions was nearly equal with over 40 attending both conventions. The majority were from CD1. Both the GOP and DFL conventions had four people attend from CD7.

Congressman Jim Hagedorn’s death in February created a vacancy in CD1, requiring a special election to fill the remaining term. There are currently 20 candidates filed for the special elections. The special election primary will be held Tuesday, May 24 with the special general election held Tuesday, August 9th.

Further complicating the issue is the CD1 congressional seat is up for a regular election Tuesday, Nov. 8. The primary for the general election is Tuesday, Aug. 9.

This means on Aug. 9, voters in CD1 will be voting for the congressional seat twice. The first vote will be to elected a representative to finish out the year and the second vote will determine which candidates compete for the congressional seat in the general election.

Another complication is that since the special election is to pick a candidate to finish the unexpired term the former district boundaries will be used for this election. This means former CD1 voters who moved to CD7 because of redistricting will still be able to vote for the CD1 representative in the special election.