Tag: CD3

Messages are dividing the country

The upcoming election is again subjecting voters to inflammatory and deceptive advertisements by candidates and special interest to artificial divide our country.

Recognizing that these divisive advertisements have some success in creating harmful divisions, I have faith we can still agree on something: Congress isn’t working as confirmed by Gallup Inc.’s 40 years of polling America’s approval of Congress. Since 2010 approval of Congress has hovered between 10 percent and 20 percent. The institution is broken. Why?

Listening to eulogies for Sen. John McCain, I was struck by one speaker’s words of the senator: “He did understand that some principals transcend politics, that some values transcend party. … he understood that if we get in the habit of bending the truth to suit political expediency or party orthodoxy, our democracy will not work.” Continue reading “Messages are dividing the country”

Voters consistently rank health care as their top political concern. What does that mean for Minnesota’s House races?

Ask any candidate for Congress in Minnesota this year about health care, and they’re almost certain to tell you it’s one of the most important issues in their districts — if not the single most important issue.

Opinion polling backs that up: a recent CBS News poll found that 70 percent of Americans think health care is a very important issue, a larger share than any other top issue. A similar conclusion has been reached by plenty of other polls conducted over the last few months, which also find that health care is foremost in voters’ minds, even above the economy and headline-grabbing topics like immigration.

Just because seemingly everyone agrees health care should be a top focus, though, doesn’t mean they agree on what parts of the issue to focus on: for the most part, Democratic and Republican candidates are telling voters very different stories when it comes to the politics of health care.

View the complete September 28 article by Sam Brodey on the MinnPost website here.

24 House Ratings Change in Favor of Democrats, One Month Out

 

Roll Call elections analyst Nathan L. Gonzales has two dozen House race ratings shifts — and they’re all positive for Democrats. Nearly one month from Election Day, Gonzales discusses how it’s more a question of Democratic prospects being good or great in the House than anything else. See below for a full list of all the ratings shifts and watch the video for more analysis.  Continue reading “24 House Ratings Change in Favor of Democrats, One Month Out”

These representatives voted to keep Trump’s sketchy tax practices hidden from the public

NOTE:  Rep. Erik Paulsen sits on the House Ways and Means Committee and is one of the representatives who voted to keep Trump’s taxes private — more than once.

21 House Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee blocked disclosure of Donald Trump’s tax returns last month.

The New York Times published a lengthy investigative report on Tuesday accusing President Donald Trump of participating in “dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud.” Despite his many 2016 campaign promises to eventually release his tax returns, he refuses to do so, and the public is still in the dark about his personal finances. Now, thanks to a vote last month by the 21 Republican members of the House Ways and Means Committee, those tax returns are unlikely to come to light in the foreseeable future. Those Republicans voted to keep the president’s tax returns hidden.

Relying on a “vast trove of confidential tax returns and financial records,” the Times determined that Trump “helped his parents dodge taxes,” established with his siblings a “sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents,” assisted their father in taking “improper tax deductions worth millions more,” and formulated a “strategy to undervalue his parents’ real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing the tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings.”

A Trump lawyer claimed these “allegations of fraud and tax evasion are 100 percent false, and highly defamatory,” but the president didn’t deny them. In a tweet, he repeated his standard and false claim that the paper is “failing” and described their story as “a very old, boring and often told hit piece.”

View the complete October 3 article by Josh Israel on the ThinkProgress website here.

Phillips is a champion for affordable health care

To the editor:

Why did Third Congressional District Rep. Erik Paulsen use a big money super PAC mouthpiece to mock DFL nominee Dean Phillips, instead of directly addressing affordable health care issues facing his constituents?

An advertisement claims that Phillips did not provide health care to his employees at Penny’s Coffee. Paulsen’s campaign then echoed the claim in an ad with a similar tone. These are misleading and false, as numerous local media outlets have reported.

First off, Paulsen does not know of the pressures of maintaining a small business, especially during the tumultuous first year of a company. If anyone is qualified to speak on such issues, it is Phillips. Continue reading “Phillips is a champion for affordable health care”

So, you saw a nasty ad …

As you may have noticed, Erik Paulsen and his special interest patrons are spending millions of dollars to flood the airwaves with negative attack ads again Dean Phillips. You might have questions, and Dean and his campaign team were happy to shed light on the truth:

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Dean Phillips is running a people-powered campaign because he believes that our politics are broken — and these kind of ads are part of the problem. Dean has taken $0 from PACs, lobbyists or members of Congress; instead, 64,000 individuals have contributed to the campaign, at an average donation of us $32. Change is coming, and everyone’s invited!

 

Dean Phillips Leads Call For Reform to Be the First Item on the Agenda in 2019

In letter to Congress, Phillips and other House challengers unite in call for sweeping reform bill to be H.R.1

Excelsior, MN – Dean Phillips today led a coalition of House challengers who are calling on Congress to make a government and electoral reform bill the first item on the agenda for the next Congress in 2019. In a letter to the House of Representatives, coordinated by Phillips and 11 other House candidates, they write:

“Restoring faith in our elections and in the integrity of our elected officials should be a top priority that all members of Congress can agree upon. Without these reforms we will be unable to truly regain the public’s trust or tackle the challenges of our day, like the costs of healthcare and prescription drugs, the opioid epidemic, or building an economy that is strong for working families. For those reasons, these reforms must be sweeping, and they must be bold. They must be the very first item Congress addresses. We must not yield on this demand, the American public is counting on us.”

Key elements of the bill would include: reforming the role of money in politics to ensure more transparency and accountability in our elections, eliminating foreign money from our political system, limiting the undue influence of mega donors and special interests, incentivizing small dollar donors, as well as lobbying reform, ethics reform, redistricting reform, and voting rights protections. Continue reading “Dean Phillips Leads Call For Reform to Be the First Item on the Agenda in 2019”

Despite not hosting a public Town Hall for seven years, Paulsen calls himself ‘one of the more accessible members of Congress’

‘Congressman Paulsen certainly has an interesting definition of the word accessible’

In an interview this week with KARE11, Congressman Erik Paulsen called himself “one of the more accessible members of Congress,” despite not holding a single public Town Hall for seven years. Paulsen’s statement came in response to DFL candidate Dean Phillips’ viral Bigfoot ad, which WCCO’s Pat Kessler called true and KARE11 rated as ‘mostly true.’ 

“Congressman Paulsen certainly has an interesting definition of the word accessible,” said DFL Executive Director Corey Day. “The only people Erik Paulsen is accessible to are the special interests and corporate PACs who have donated millions of dollars to his campaign. What’s more, Congressman Paulsen and his Republican allies have resorted to attacking Dean Phillips in ads that are consistently revealed to be inaccurate, misleading, and flat out false.”

“Dean Phillips is offering voters a clear alternative, showing them what true accessibility looks like. He’s appeared at over 120 public campaign events to which everyone is invited, not just wealthy donors. And unlike Erik Paulsen, the sixth biggest recipient of special interest money in Congress, Dean hasn’t taken a penny from PACS or special interests.”

LCV Victory Fund Trolls Erik Paulsen in New TV Ad

Cartoon Shows Paulsen, Trump Canoeing Through Polluted Waters; Highlights Paulsen’s Votes to Dump Coal Waste Into Waterways & Gut Limits On Methane Pollution

Minneapolis, Minnesota– In a new TV ad, LCV Victory Fund calls out Rep. Erik Paulsen (MN-03) for trying to deceive voters about his record of siding with Trump and corporate polluters.

Paulsen has attempted to convince voters that he’ll stand up for Minnesota’s environment, focusing his first TV ad of the cycle on efforts to protect the Boundary Waters. But Paulsen has continually voted to gut protections for clean air, water and public lands, earning a 14 percent on LCV’s 2017 National Environmental Scorecard. That included votes to block the Clean Water Rule and cut millions from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which recently provided $4 million to protect an addition 50,000 acres of the Boundary Waters.

Last month, the Trump administration announced they will be allowing mining exploration just outside of the Boundary Waters and stopped an environmental review of how mining would impact the wilderness area.

View the complete October 2 article by Alyssa Roberts on the League of Conservation Voters’ website here.

House Candidate Phillips Says We Can Do Better on Health Care