Sailer, Lindgren meet in televised House 2B debate

 

By Brad Swenson
Bemidji Pioneer

 

Voting against a $1 billion capital bonding bill because it didn’t include local projects presents a parochial view, Doug Lindgren said of Rep. Brita Sailer.

But DFLer Sailer said Republican Lindgren’s push to clarify the state’s role in providing services to the Red Lake Reservation is divisive, since it is a federal issue, and diverts debate from real House 2B issues of affordable health care and quality education.

The two squared off Thursday night during Lakeland Public Television’s debate at which they were asked questions from a panel of journalists from Lakeland News, the Pioneer and KAXE Radio.

 

Lindgren of Bagley has criticized Sailer of Park Rapids for her vote against last session’s bonding bill, saying as a representative of Minnesota, she should support measures that benefit the whole state.

The bonding bill “missed most of the district with projects that were most important for the district,” Sailer said. Deleted from the bill were an emergency services training center at Gonvick, an interpretive center for the Big Bog State Recreation Area and school construction funds for Red Lake.

“When you’re considering investing state dollars, is how much it will bring to this area,” she said. “While I’m happy the bonding bill went through, and there were many good things, I really do feel I represented this district. … I really felt it was my duty to vote against it.”

Lindgren, whom Sailer beat in 2004, was asked about his 2003 vote against a K-12 funding bill, despite being crafted by House Republicans, because it adversely affected schools in his district.

“That was just one issue in the education bill … and it didn’t serve our district well,” he said. “But with a bonding bill, you’re not just talking about education, but about schools, hospitals, roads, you’re talking about everything else. We are elected as Minnesota state representatives, we have to look out for the good of the state of Minnesota.”

Lindgren said he understood Sailer’s reason but said that the items could have been included as parts of other bills had she lobbied House Speaker Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon, directly. He added that Sviggum “had a soft spot in his heart” for Gonvick as he once considered teaching there.

“I thought it was really interesting about just how soft Speaker Sviggum’s spot is for Gonvick,” Sailor said, adding that she and a delegation had met with him.

When Sailer bemoaned cuts in K-12 funding in 2003 when Lindgren was in office, saying the state pushed school costs through operating levies onto local property taxes, Lindgren said spending priorities are amiss.

Sailer said Park Rapids has failed four times to pass a levy for schools, and faces cuts which could threaten the state’s constitutional mandate to provide equal opportunities to all students.

“Many of our schools, Park Rapids in particular, are facing terrible cuts,” Sailer said. By using operating levies to support schools, “some areas have more capacity for that, and those students will then have much more opportunity for lower class sizes and different classes to be offered.

“We don’t have many of those opportunities when we have to cut, cut, cut,” she added. “Education has not been funded at the level it should be funded.”

But Lindgren said not all schools have funding problems, and cited Kelliher as a district that is well funded with no problems.

“There has been an increasing amount of money going to education the whole time out,” he said. “Even when we had the $4.5 billion deficit, there was more money going to education. It wasn’t the full amount everybody asked for, but asking for 18 percent (increase) and getting 7 percent isn’t a cut.”

For a long time, Minnesota has “been throwing money at education time and time and time again,” he said. “Yet everybody still says we’re hurting.”

Priorities are also askew, he said, noting that Sailer worked to get school construction monies to Red Lake, a $75 million total project, when that money could be better used at Park Rapids or Clearbrook.

“That education should be taken care of by the federal government,” Lindgren said.

“The state of Minnesota’s Constitution says that all children in the state of Minnesota are educated equally, that they have the same opportunities,” Sailer said, which extends to Red Lake students as well.

Lindgren has made the reservation a campaign issue, sparked by the seizure last spring of a non-Indian angler’s boat and tackle after he strayed into reservation waters on Upper Red Lake. Citing an 80-year-old U.S. Supreme Court decision, Lindgren and others suggest the state owns water rights to both Upper and Lower Red Lakes, not the tribe.

But he also extends the issue to other state services, such as schools and human services, for which state taxpayers have no accountability as Red Lake is a sovereign Indian nation.

“It seems like they want to be a part of Minnesota, but then yet we have no jurisdiction over what they do,” Lindgren said. “I respect the fact that they want to be a sovereign nation, but they are accountable to the Department of the Interior … why then are we always putting money into schools, when the federal government should be taking care of.”

That Red Lake has government-to-government relationship with the federal government is why the issue belongs there, not in a state campaign, Sailer said.

“The Red Lake Nation’s treaties are with the federal government, not with the state of Minnesota,” she said. “To spend time at the state level, at the local level, asking questions that have been settled already, I’m not sure how helpful that is to any of us to be causing more animosity.”

It serves to divide people, Sailer said. “A lot of this is an issue to get people thinking about the Red Lake issue rather than thinking about our health care situation, about our education in general, about our property tax situation.”

And, Sailer said, the GOP-led cuts to education in 2003 “had a far more effect to education in Park Rapids and every other place than any amount of money that has been proposed to go to Red Lake schools.”

Asked about transportation funding, both seemed to agree that the proposed constitutional amendment facing voters Nov. 7 to dedicate motor vehicle sales tax to transportation and transit is the wrong way to go, as it is something the Legislature should have done.

Also, the proposal is worded so that transit could end up with all the funding.

Asked point-blank if they will vote for the measure, Lindgren said he will vote against it, while Sailer said she is still undecided.

“When I walk into the polls, I’m going to vote against it simply because of the fact that when I get down to the state, I’m going to be the voice that’s not going to beat around the bush,” Lindgren said.

“We definitely need more funding” for roads, Sailer said, adding she supported a 10-cent a gallon gas tax hike which was vetoed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do about the amendment, because I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“If you can’t make up your mind and speak your voice, how are you going to do it when you’re in St. Paul?” Lindgren asked. “You can’t beat around the bush, you have to stand up for what you think is right.”

“I’ve always been told that people like to hear honesty in politics, and my honest answer was I am not sure yet what I’m going to do,” Sailer said. “I wasn’t beating around the bush, I was giving an honest answer.”

If re-elected, Sailer said she would work next session for better roads, Internet and cell phone access across the state and an energy security plan that focuses on renewable energy and Minnesota-made energy.

Calling Republican health care plans, such as health savings accounts and incentives to health insurers “profit centered and not people centered health care,” Sailer said she again would reintroduce her bill to allow small businesses to pool their coverage with the state-subsidized MinnesotaCare program.

She asked Lindgren about those GOP health plans, saying she met a family while campaign which must decide on moving to the Twin Cities where the husband works to get health coverage. They must decide to move to get insurance, or stay in their home without insurance, she said.

But Lindgren said the state program has eligibility requirements and that people who aren’t on MinnesotaCare simply aren’t eligible.

“I’m sorry about these people who have to make such decisions, but that’s life is,” Lindgren said. “You have to make your decision of where you’re going to live, what you’re going to do, and how you’re going to do it. … You do have to make those sacrifices.”

The best thing for health care, he said, “is to get government out of it.”