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Rudy Takala: Posted on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 3:43 PM
Campaign Finance reports filed today showthe Vikings spent$350,000 on lobbying legislators to support a new stadium between June and December. That figure doesn't include salaries paid to eight lobbyists. That data will not be disclosed until March.
If an institution has this much money to spend on political access, it should have the money to support itself without taking money from others. If an institution can only get legislation passed in its favor by paying for access and paying off politicians in a manner that normal people could never match, that isn't a capitalistic system. |
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Rudy Takala: Posted on Monday, January 16, 2012 4:56 PM
_____________________ “ State [of Minnesota] not rushing to act on Vikings stadium,” fretted the January 13 headline of a column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. New Jersey billionaire Zygi Wilf, owner of the Minnesota Vikings, is seeking about $700 million in taxpayers’ money to build his team a new stadium in the state. The $700 million would be roughly split between state and local taxpayers. |
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Rudy Takala: Posted on Sunday, January 01, 2012 11:18 PM
As reported in the media, Pat Shortridgeis the new chairman of the Republican Party of Minnesota (RPM). He was elected with 224 votes, or 66% of the total delegation.Terry McCallreceived 103 votes.Todd McIntyrereceived just nine votes. What I found interesting is that, while legislative leaders and party operatives (paid officials or people who are seeking to become paid officials) supported Shortridge, members of the Republican Party’s State Executive Committee and leaders within the party supported McCall by a slight edge. |
Kurt Zellers, Matt Dean, Minnesota Republican Party, Terry McCall, David Fitzsimmons, Rick Weible, Todd McIntyre, Pat Shortridge, Adam Weigold, Bill Jungbauer, Dan Hall, Dave Senjem, Jim Taylor, Marco Rubio, Margaret Cavanagh, Steve Perkins, Ted Lovdahl
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Rudy Takala: Posted on Friday, August 05, 2011 5:42 PM
This is a piece authored by Charley Shaw of the St. Paul Legal Ledger/Capitol Report. He graciously included my analysis in the piece. You may access it byclicking here, or, if you are not registered to access full pieces on the Politics in Minnesota Website, you may simply scroll down.____________________________________________ If you hear political activists calling for change in the 2012 state House and Senate elections, you won’t be faulted for thinking that the rhetoric must be coming from DFLers. |
Minnesota Budget, Minnesota Legislature, Good Legislators, Sue Jeffers, Bad Legislators, Liberal Republicans, Taxes, Kurt Zellers, Michele Bachmann, Michael Brodkorb, State of the GOP, Minnesota Republican Party, John Kriesel, Jim Abeler, Pat Garofalo, Tea Party, Mitch Berg, Politics in Minnesota
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Rudy Takala: Posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 10:42 AM
From an unfiltered political perspective, the $35.7 billion budget signed by Governor Dayton on Wednesday served a purpose desired urgently by both Republicans and Democrats to claim some sort of victory. That appeared to be the most admirable quality of the legislation for both sides. Yet what is notable is that only Republicans are touting the legislation around, calling it a "victory." The Minnesota GOP went so far as to issue a press release on Thursday titled, "Republican Party of Minnesota Hails Budget as a Victory for the MNGOP and the People of Minnesota. |
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Rudy Takala: Posted on Friday, June 03, 2011 5:01 PM
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Rudy Takala: Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 6:04 PM
P olitics in Minnesota's Charley Shaw did an article recapping the RNC race between Tom Emmer & Jeff Johnson that quoted me very briefly. Text of the article is below. (Otherwise view it on Politics in Minnesota byclicking here.) _____________________________________________________________ When Republicans from around the state flocked to the Ramada Mall of America last Saturday, there appeared to be little question who would win the race to replace Brian Sullivan as Minnesota’s man on the Republican National Committee. |
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Rudy Takala: Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 2:51 PM
Before State Central took place, I stated that the conservative bloc held a majority of power in the Minnesota GOP right now. That statement was absolutely correct, and unfortunately for Tom Emmer, it was one big reason he lost the campaign for national committeeman. When he won the gubernatorial nomination last year, it was because he represented a break from the traditional paradigm of a candidate who had little to no personality, who voted like a moderate, and who acted only after instructed to act by his party's most out-of-touch leaders. |
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Rudy Takala: Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 2:37 PM
You can access Bob's interview with Zellers from last Friday byclicking here; you may access Sue's program of speaking about the budget byclicking here. (The headline on the segment with Bob & Zellers is wrong; so is the date. Ignore it and simply run the audio file.) Asked by Bob why Republicans were increasing, spending Zellers replied,"It was the forecast.... The taxpayers of the state produced more than the bureaucrats at the capitol expected them to." |
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Rudy Takala: Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 2:28 PM
Paul Demko has a story in Politics in Minnesota talking about all of the budgetary issues I've been talking about here.Click here to view it.(Subscription required; otherwise simply scroll down.) Speaker Zellers was on KTLK this morning with Bob Davis & Tom Emmer. He makes a really bad spokesman for the GOP. He simply cannot explain in anything but double-talk how the GOP can justify increasing spending by $2 billion. All he wants to talk about is the fact that Mark Dayton wants to increase spending as well. |
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