Burnsville’s new legislators see several of their ideas turn into law.
By Lee Ann Schutz Wahi
Burnsville Patch

Making laws is commonly compared to making sausage – the process can be very messy. And it’s rare that freshmen legislators are able to get in on the action.

Freshmen, it is said, are to be seen and not heard.

But during the 2011 Minnesota legislative session, the new crop of lawmakers didn’t take that direction. It turns out they were responsible for a good share of the session’s 117 new laws.

Republican first-termer Sen. Ted Daley, who represents District 38, which includes a portion of Burnsville and Eagan, believes the number of freshmen coming from the private sector gave them an advantage.

“The (new) folks have a lot of real world experience that they brought to the committees they served on. That really helped,” he said.

Burnsville and Eagan representatives were part of the tsunami of new Republicans taking a seat at the table in 2011. Of the 67 Senate members, 24 were new, and in the House, 36 new members comprised the body of 134.

With such a high percentage of newbies, mostly serving in the majority, they could play an active role in the bill-making process. Some of their bills made their way alone to the governor’s desk, while others were rolled into various omnibus bills.

Take for instance, Rep. Pam Myhra, a Burnsville Republican. A modified version of her statewide literacy initiative is part of the omnibus education bill, passed during the recent special session. It restates the goal that every child in the state be reading at or above grade level no later than the end of grade 3, and requiring school districts to adopt a local literacy plan toward that goal.

Myhra said she felt passionate about the issue, and learned that if you want to see a bill to law, it can be a long arduous process.

The House Education Reform Committee chair brought her the preliminary language and asked her to develop the bill. “I just started talking to people, and gave them the language and asked them to review it. As you go through it, it makes it much better,” she said.

After the bill is crafted, if you’re lucky it gets a hearing in committee.

“Sitting at the testimony table, you don’t know what questions are going to come at you,” Myhra said. When it came to the House floor, she had to “fend off a delete all amendment” from the minority.

Daley introduced 21 bills, and of those at least six made it to law. Quite a feat considering the bipartisan support needed, as well as the DFL governor’s signature.

Burnsville’s other new Republican senator, Dan Hall, fared well after introducing 17 bills, with about six turned into laws.

In the House of Representatives, Rep. Diane Anderson (R-Eagan) saw at least one of her seven bills become law.

Myhra introduced three bills. One of those was inserted in the first omnibus education policy bill that was vetoed by the governor.

Here are some of the laws sponsored by the new Burnsville-area legislators that take effect Aug. 1. For a more detailed look at Aug. 1 new laws, click on this link:

CPR requirements at child care centers

Sponsored by Sen. Dan Hall (R-Burnsville), a new law requires all teachers and assistant teachers at a child care center to successfully complete CPR training, including CPR techniques for infants and children.

Modifications to health services policies

A new law, sponsored by Rep. Diane Anderson (R-Eagan), makes notable changes to chemical and mental health care-related statutes to help those areas of the Department of Human Services and help them conform to the recent federal instruction.

Air carrier employees can trade shifts

Air carrier employees are now exempt from overtime requirements under the state’s Fair Labor Act. A new law, sponsored by Rep. Ted Daley (R-Eagan), which was effective April 8, allows air carriers such as Delta Airlines, to permit employees to trade shifts with other employees even if they would work more than 48 hours a week.

All bills introduced and not acted on in the 2011 session have another chance to make it to law when session convenes Jan. 24, 2012.

by John Gessner and Jessica Harper
Thisweek Newspapers

State Rep. Pam Myhra of Burnsville isn’t thrilled with the budget deal that ended Minnesota’s 20-day government shutdown.

But the deal, which ended the impasse between the Republican legislative majorities and DFL Gov. Mark Dayton with $1.4 billion in one-time borrowing over the next biennium, is the result of two sides on a collision course, according to Myhra.

“The governor vowed he would not sign any of our budget bills unless there were tax revenue increases,” said Myhra, a freshman Republican representing House District 40A. “Our GOP Legislature said we have been sent by our constituents to hold down taxes. Those are diametrically opposed views.

“I am very thankful that we were able to come to resolution. When you have diametrically opposed views and you can negotiate a final solution like this, I think it’s a win.”

Others in the all-Republican, all-freshman class of legislators from Burnsville and Eagan agreed that not raising taxes was of chief importance.

“This deal is great for job creators. This helps remove some of that uncertainty,” said District 38 Sen. Ted Daley of Eagan, who said Dayton’s tax-the-rich plan “would have made us the number two in the nation for taxes.”

District 38B Rep. Doug Wardlow said it would be “counterproductive to raise taxes,” and the budget deal “was the price we had to pay”to stop tax hikes.

“I think we had to end the shutdown,” Wardlow said. “Business were hurting, employees were out of work and we had to get up and running.”

Despite criticism of the borrowing – an additional delay of $700 million in K-12 school funding and the sale of $640 million in bonds to be repaid from the state tobacco settlement – Wardlow said the one-time measures are better than raising taxes “because we have too much government already.”

Myhra noted that the budget includes $50 in per-pupil funding so school districts can cover the cost of short-term borrowing to fund operations.

“The shift is repugnant, but it was the resolution,” Myhra said.

Said Daley, “I’ve talked to superintendents, principals, teachers and parents from across the state, and they said if they had the choice between cutting funding or delaying it, they would rather delay it.”

With the deal in place and government back to work, Daley and Wardlow called for extensive reforms in social services, health care and education.

The new budget will bend the cost curve on health and human services, which was poised to grow by 22 percent over the biennium but will now grow by only 11 percent, Myhra said.

She praised the future phase-out of the 2 percent medical provider tax and new restrictions to prevent abuses in the use of electronic welfare cards.

A member of the House education reform and finance committees, Myhra also said she’s pleased that part of one of her initiatives survived. New law requires annual evaluations of students’ reading levels in grades kindergarten through three and intervention in those early grades, Myhra said. It includes teacher training in effective reading methods, she said.

Her original literacy bill called for holding back third-graders who aren’t reading at grade level.

By Kris Berggren and Hank Long
Session Weekly

Conventional wisdom holds that the House Class of 2011 “right”-sized the session’s agenda. Of the 37 new members, 33 are Republicans who represent what many pundits termed a “wave of political conservatism” in the 2010 election.

Professionally, they’re from diverse backgrounds, including farmers, teachers, a soldier, a photographer, a day care provider, insurance agents, a lawyer and small-business owners. Politically, it’s been said by supporters and critics alike that they present a united front, which House Minority Leader Paul Thissen (DFL-Mpls), describes as “very conservative and leaning towards the Tea Party position.”

How do they describe themselves?

“Headstrong, and a little naïve and a little daring,” said Rep. Joe McDonald (R-Delano).

“It’s really kind of an even keel group of people that come from all different walks of life,” said Rep. Kurt Daudt (R-Crown), elected by his fellow Republican freshmen to represent them on the caucus executive board.

“It’s tough to lump us all in a class,” said Rep. John Kriesel (R-Cottage Grove), an outspoken war veteran who voted against his caucus majority on the marriage amendment.

The group that arrived at the Capitol in January is often mischaracterized by the media as an organized “Tea Party” bloc, Daudt said.

“But I do think they all campaigned on a message that, ‘Hey, let’s get Minnesota back into economic prosperity, let’s create jobs, let’s turn this economy around to get Minnesota back on the right track by attracting businesses and really being a pro-job creation environment,’” he said.

Maybe they aren’t a “bloc,” but the voting power of the freshmen class helped pass bills featuring spending limits, no new revenue and government reform plus an add-on slate of social issues such as abortion limits, a constitutional amendment to define marriage and requiring voters to prove their identity.

Although Rep. Bob Barrett (R-Shafer) said freshmen legislators have made it clear to their caucus where their principles lay — such as smaller government that costs less — he believes first-termers have been productive in understanding their role within the Legislature.

“Anyone who is new in their position can’t come in there, guns-a-blazing,” he said. “We should be listening a lot more than we are talking, and I think, as the new group of freshmen, we’ve done that.”

The new majority’s zeal for conservative reform was countered by the red pen of DFL Gov. Mark Dayton, who vetoed all but one of the budget bills passed by the Legislature during its regular session. As the session closed with a budget stalemate, Dayton said he believed a group of newcomers representing “the extreme right wing” of the Republican Party pressured their caucus leaders to refuse to compromise on a tax increase.

“I don’t think leadership needed our coaxing,” said McDonald. “If we contributed to their determination to hold the line on the budget then we’ve done what I think the people elected us to do: cut some wasteful spending, lower taxes and balance the budget.”

Leadership views

Are those principles so extreme? They served as a campaign platform – along with creating jobs — for many lawmakers, including House Speaker Kurt Zellers (R-Maple Grove).

The Republican House leader calls most of the new group “center-right” and said their values generally match his own. “My voting record especially when it comes to spending is, I’m as conservative on fiscal issues and probably most issues as anybody here,” Zellers said.

He’s impressed with his freshmen’s chops – they’ve carried “complicated” bills that he doubted many of his own Class of 2003 could have pulled off.

“On the reform side our freshmen have been dynamic. Our freshmen are interesting in that they’re not really freshmen,” said Zellers. He said the life experience and personalities of this year’s class have given them the tools to carry significant bills through an often heated and very public process.

For example, Rep. Pam Myhra (R-Burnsville) carried a significant education bill proposing a statewide literacy plan featuring a third-grade retention policy for students unable to read. She learned from the give-and-take of the committee process that a bill gets better with the vetting and tweaking throughout the session.

“You take an idea that you feel passionately about or that has come from a constituent and mold it like clay. And as you bring it forward to your colleagues on both sides of the aisle they have really good ideas. One of the things a DFL colleague mentioned was the need for instructing teachers in more effective ways of teaching reading. And that was emphasized in the final bill presented to the governor,” Myhra said.

Myhra also said party leaders respected all members’ ideas and contributions.

“I’ve never sensed that because I’m a freshman it’s diminished my influence in the caucus,” she said.

“Open mic night”

To build communication and trust, Zellers used tools he learned during his early years. For one, he asked first-year Republicans to elect one of their ranks to serve on the executive team.

“It was important they felt not only were they part of the process but they had representation on our leadership team, a seat at the table. I learned that from (former House Speaker) Steve Sviggum.”

One practice that helped freshmen find their sea legs was the regular Monday post-floor session “open mic night.” During these gatherings, new members could ask anything – and they did, from whether they ought to bring a toothbrush and pajamas for late night sessions to “deep philosophical questions” to demands for justifying budget targets.

“If there’s one question we hear time and time again, it’s ‘Well, why?’”Zellers said. “We’re going to spend this much money on this budget, ‘Well, why?’ This is a priority to us and these dollars are for education, these dollars are for higher ed, ‘Well, why?’

“The extra time helped us come along in caucus and as a leadership team,” he said.

Social versus spreadsheet priorities

Leaders’ attention to new members’ needs didn’t help them get a budget enacted by the end of session, however.

After tending to spreadsheet priorities by passing a budget that held state spending to $34 billion without raising revenue, the House took up social issues that drew fire, such as abortion limits and a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

That’s where the conservative class’s influence came into play, believes Rep. Carly Melin (DFL-Hibbing), one of only four new members of the party currently in the minority.

“I thought that the Republican freshmen went to St. Paul to create jobs too,” Melin said. “Yet we wasted how many hours talking about divisive social issues?”

Others downplay that argument. McDonald said he spent just seven hours on the marriage amendment while it was debated on the House floor.

“We’re able to do many things at once. … There is no reason we can’t be working on many projects at one time,” McDonald said.

In contrast, Kriesel believes the end-of-session focus on social issues didn’t serve the people of Minnesota. “Right or wrong, what’s the thing that sticks out about the end of session? The marriage amendment. And so perception is reality.”

Compromise or caving in?

Merely passing fiscal or policy bills isn’t enough, and there’s the rub. The majority has to pass bills the governor will sign into law.

What to some is pragmatic compromise others might call caving in.

“I think we are willing to compromise to a certain extent,” Daudt said, “but the way we are seeing the word used, as it’s being used by the governor right now, is not compromise. The term I would use instead is ‘playing games.’”

Days before a possible state shutdown, Rep. Doug Wardlow (R-Eagan) remained hopeful the governor and Republican leadership could come to a budget solution, but he too, said the word “compromise,” as it was used in the context following the legislative session, is the crux of the problem.

“There is no compromise between right and wrong,” said Wardlow. “It’s difficult sometimes to discern what the right answer and wrong answer is. And people have different opinions about that. So you compromise in your attempts to define what the right or wrong answer is, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a right answer.”

Melin said sticking to your guns is “admirable, but it doesn’t work in politics. You might run on one thing, but when you get to St. Paul, you’re trying to strike a deal with hundreds of other people,” she said.

Kriesel also called for practicality from both sides of the aisle. “People need to be reasonable right now because there’s a lot on the line. Saying we’re not budging, that’s fine. But it’s not reasonable. What do we teach our kids? What do we expect when we’re dealing with people? We say, you need to compromise, but then some of us don’t?” he said.

Compromise, Thissen said, not only means accepting things that you don’t necessarily agree with, “but more importantly, that your base doesn’t necessarily agree with.

“What Minnesotans want are legislators who are willing to come to the middle and simply not just appease their base. That’s what the Democrats in the Legislature did with Gov. Pawlenty … and I think that’s where the Republicans need to move.”

Nobody’s immune from the pressures of running for office or of considering whether their vote will cost them at the ballot box. Kriesel said he tries not to think about that but rather, to vote his conscience. “You’ve got to think about what’s right regardless of whether or not if it’s going to hurt you or help you in your campaign next year.”

Burnsville’s Myhra lands key assignments, sponsors bill to grade Minnesota schools

by John Gessner
Volume 31, No. 52, Thisweek Burnsville-Eagan

Pam Myhra still marvels at the galvanizing power of education.

As a struggling elementary student whose first language was Spanish, Myhra found life-changing success in fifth grade, thanks to a special reading program and a cherished teacher.

As a parent she vowed to home-school her children when they were young, but found it so rewarding she finished the job. Now all three home-school graduates are top college performers.

So Myhra, Burnsville’s new state representative in District 40A, was naturally thrilled when she landed requested seats on the House Education Finance and Education Reform committees.

High-quality education isn’t all about the money, said the 53-year-old Burnsville Republican, who also serves on the taxes and capital investment committees. There isn’t much to dole out anyway, with Minnesota facing a $6.2 billion deficit.

“To be quite honest, education really was not the issue in the campaign at all,” said Myhra, who unseated former DFL Rep. Will Morgan by four percentage points in last November’s election, which put her party in charge of both houses of the Legislature. “It was jobs and people not wanting to be taxed anymore because they’re having problems with their own budget.”

But Myhra is hoping to nudge school performance with her first chief-authored bill: a measure to grade individual schools’ annual performance on an “A” through “F” scale and use financial incentives to reward top performers.

“Educational failure is cruel,” said Myhra, who recently toured her alma mater, Burnsville High School, where she graduated in 1975. “I speak from experience.”

Her parents were missionaries who ran a boys’ orphanage in Bolivia, where her father also planted churches.

After the family returned to Minnesota, elementary school was a “nightmare,” said Myhra, whose primary language was Spanish.

She had little success until fifth grade at the old Park Elementary School in Bloomington, where Myhra was put in a class built around SRA Reading.

“I entered fifth grade with nil reading skills,” Myhra said. “I had a phenomenal teacher that year who literally changed my life. I gained five years of education that year and never looked back.”

That rookie teacher was let go after that year when the program was discontinued, Myhra said. By comparison, her more experienced fourth-grade teacher had demanded little of her and encouraged her to get answers from other students, Myhra said.

“I believe that teacher evaluation is so important,” she said. “If I had to give out a number, I’d say that above 90 percent of our teachers are fabulous.”

She found the keys to success with her own children, who are now “highest honors” students at Northwestern College in Roseville.

Myhra said her grading plan for Minnesota schools comes from the Foundation for Excellence in Education, based in Florida, where grading has been part of a turnaround in student achievement, including among minority and low-achieving students.

Myhra has added her name as co-author to numerous bills, including one that would streamline the flow of reporting and record-keeping between home-school families and their local school superintendents.

Other bills she’s signed onto include an alternative teacher licensure proposal that would provide two-year licenses for eligible applicants; a bill requiring new teachers to pass a basic-skills test; a measure requiring photo ID to vote; measures that would limit funding for abortions in state-sponsored health programs and authorize “Choose Life” license plates with proceeds going to agencies that support adoption; and a $9 million bonding bill for the Cedar Avenue bus rapid transit project.

Editor’s note: Look for a profile next week on Burnsville’s freshman senator, Dan Hall, who represents District 40.

John Gessner is at burnsville.thisweek@ecm-inc.com.

Session Weekly – Volume 28, Issue 3
By Kris Berggren

“High-octane” is how Rep. Pam Myhra (R-Burnsville) describes herself. She’s a certified public accountant, Republican Party activist since 1994 and a mother of three whom she home-schooled from preschool through 12th grade.

During her campaign for the House, she personally knocked on about 12,000 doors, taking three or four shifts a day. Her children offered social media advice, door-knocking company and help with household chores. Her husband also lent his full support.

“I have always been a person who has given 110 percent,” Myhra said. She believes that level of dedication was a reason she was elected.

“People realized I wanted the job and once I had it, I would work really hard for them,” she said, adding that one voter told her he didn’t want to know what party she represented, but that he’d vote for her because she came to his home.

Ironically, door-knocking was the one aspect of grassroots politics she’d previously avoided.

“I thought it was a little intimidating,” Myhra said. “It turned out I really loved it.”

She also learned from it.

“I was stunned how many homes were vacant in a whole variety of neighborhoods,” Myhra said, evidence of the foreclosure crisis.

That drove home what she heard from voters who, she said, are hurting from wage freezes or job losses. Her own family experienced a downturn in income in 2009. “We had to go through our budget and reset priorities, and I feel state government should do the same,” she said.

Besides education, which is her passion, her priorities include economic development, reducing taxes and paring government spending within its means. She said there is a difference between what’s essential or important, and what’s nice. Protecting nursing homes and care of vulnerable adults is an example of what’s essential. A new stadium? Merely nice.

“I just love the Vikings,” she said, “but building a stadium now would be like laying linoleum in the kitchen while the bedroom is on fire.”

by John Gessner, Erin Johnson, Aaron Vehling and Andrew Miller
Thisweek Newspapers

Burnsville and Eagan state legislative seats turned Republican red again Tuesday, in a sweep reminiscent of the DFL blue that overtook the cities in 2006.

Voters returned the cities’ legislative districts to the party that had traditionally held most of them before the ’06 Democratic insurgence that solidified DFL control of the Senate and handed the party control of the House of Representatives.

Now both chambers are in Republican hands, with help from local candidates.

Members of the DFL Class of 2006 who fell Tuesday are District 38 Sen. Jim Carlson of Eagan, District 40 Sen. John Doll of Burnsville, District 38A Rep. Sandra Masin of Eagan and District 40A Rep. Will Morgan of Burnsville. Also defeated was District 38B Rep. Mike Obermueller, an Eagan DFLer elected in 2008.

They’ll be replaced by Republicans Ted Daley of Eagan in Senate District 38, Dan Hall of Burnsville in Senate District 40, Diane Anderson of Eagan in House District 38A, Doug Wardlow of Eagan in House District 38B and Pam Myhra of Burnsville in House District 40A.

Senate District 38

CPA and military veteran Ted Daley unseated incumbent senator Jim Carlson in Senate District 38 in Eagan and eastern Burnsville.

Daley comes in as part of the Republican wave that not only swept out the south metro DFLers but ushered in a GOP state senate majority for the first time in 38 years.

“It’s a great day to be alive,” Daley said in a phone interview Wednesday. “It’s quite an honor to be part of this historic freshman class.”

Daley said the election results indicate that Minnesotans “want government to live within its means just like hard-working families have to.”

Daley commended his opponent.

“It was a spirited contest,” Daley said, “and I thank Senator Carlson for his great service.”

Carlson, a retired engineer who was elected as part of a DFL wave in 2006, said on Wednesday morning that “it is no time for sour grapes.”

“It’s going to be a very big challenge (for the Legislature) to deal with what has to be dealt with and with the promises that have been made.”

He said he is still concerned with the same things the day after the election as he was the day before.

“We have to somehow invest in our people and our infrastructure,” Carlson said. “If we don’t, the Minnesota that we knew will be something of history.”

The state Republican Party targeted seats in both the state House and Senate that were perceived as vulnerable.

In the south metro, which leans conservative, this was evident in the campaigns, Carlson said.

“They spent a lot of money marketing their ideas,” he said. “This demonstrates that there was money coming in from certain groups and ideologies.”

Daley said that, regardless, voters elect people and not parties.

“You’ve got to listen to the people,” he said. “I’ll listen to them and do my best to represent them.”

Neither Daley nor Carlson saw the GOP taking the Senate, though.

“We thought that maybe there was a small chance,” Carlson said, “but we never thought it would be this bad.”

Carlson was never over-confident about his own race, though, he said.

Daley agreed with the surprise factor.

“I don’t think anyone saw this coming,” he said. Surely, “it never crossed my mind.”

Looking to next year, Daley said he looks forward to working with legislative colleagues and with the governor—whoever that will be, because at press time Dayton was leading by a slim margin but that race will end up in a recount.

“It’s a time for leadership,” Daley said of the tough road ahead financially for Minnesota. “We’ll need innovative solutions.”

House District 38A

Republican challenger Diane Anderson defeated incumbent DFLer Sandra Masin by a vote of 7,606 to 6,829 to win the District 38A seat, which includes parts of Eagan and Burnsville.

Anderson, a small-business owner, had previously challenged Masin in 2008 but was unsuccessful. This year, she said, her message resonated with district voters more than her opponent’s.

“The number one issue for most people was the economy and jobs,” she said. “The increase in government spending has been out of control at both the state and federal level.”

Anderson said 38A was a Republican seat for years until the DFL sweep of 2006 that clinched the seat for Masin, who was re-elected when President Obama was elected in 2008.

“People realize they shouldn’t have voted for Obama and that they support the issues that I stand for,” Anderson said. “I really think our hard work of door knocking and meeting the people of the district paid off.”

Masin said she’s still trying to sort out what caused the tide to turn against incumbents Tuesday.

She said she definitely felt a lack of voter confidence this year compared with 2006 and 2008. And while people are upset about the state of the economy, statistics show it is already starting to bounce back, she said.

“There were enough signs to show the economy was recovering. So is it a matter of people just selecting what they’re believing? I don’t know,” she said. “People wanted change, and change was coming. If that’s what they really wanted over the last couple of years, how do you account for what happened Tuesday?”

Masin said she felt the amount of negative literature distributed by her opponent made it hard to get the message out about “a lot of good stuff that’s happened.”

“The amount of money and literature that went into this race was huge,” she said. “Whatever people say about negative advertising, it works.”

House District 38B

Republican Doug Wardlow defeated DFL incumbent Mike Obermueller to win the District 38B seat, which was previously held by Wardlow’s father, Lynn.

Wardlow received 8,323 votes to Obermueller’s 7,680 votes.

Lynn Wardlow lost the seat in 2008 to Obermueller when another national sweep ousted numerous Republicans.

But Doug Wardlow, an attorney, said he doesn’t think he’s riding into office on a national wave.

“This is not riding a tide, but rather I believe voters have demanded that state government trust the people of Minnesota to plan their futures and care for themselves,” he said. “People are just tired of the government trying to solve all their problems.”

He said he believes his message of limited government – one that creates a safety net and provides for roads and schools – resonated across the district.

Even though he won by only 643 votes, Wardlow said, “I feel it’s a clear mandate to enact the people’s will.”

Obermueller said Wardlow is a hard worker who cares deeply about Eagan and Minnesota, and he ran a great campaign.

But unlike Wardlow, he believes the district followed the national trend of booting Democrats out of office.

“I do feel it was national frustrations that played themselves out here in the district,” he said.

He said he doesn’t necessarily think that’s unfair – Republicans worked hard down here, he said, and voters have made it clear in which direction they want to go. But it’s a “bummer” for him because he would have loved to keep serving the people of Eagan, he said.

“Now (Wardlow) will have to face the budget challenge I thought I’d be facing, and it’s going to be just as hard for him. But I think he’s up to the challenge,” he said. “I wish him and his family the best. They’re about to begin an amazing journey in public service and I know they’ll make us proud.”

Senate District 40

Republican Dan Hall unseated DFL incumbent John Doll in Senate District 40, which contains the largest portion of Burnsville among the city’s three Senate districts.

Hall, who won 53 percent of the vote, said he took a national group’s pledge during the campaign to not vote for tax increases as the state addresses an estimated $5.8 billion deficit.

“We have been overtaxed for years,” said Hall, a 19-year Burnsville resident, Burnsville police chaplain and CEO of Midwest Chaplains, which trains and certifies community chaplains. “The people are finally getting to the point where they said, ‘Enough is enough.’ It’s learning how to work together and agree that the answer is not taxes.”

A lay pastor at River Valley Church in Apple Valley and a chaplain at the state Capitol, Hall said he’s been involved in ministries for 30 years.

But most folks on the campaign trail didn’t want to talk about social issues, he said.

“If they did, they’d want to know if you’re pro-life or not,” said Hall, 58. “That’s no question in my case. I’ve always been pro-life, and I expect that I always will be.”

Hall said a flyer mailed to district households by the DFL Party suggesting that he, a minister, is indifferent to the poor may have backfired some on the DFL candidate. Doll had nothing to do with the mailing.

“I don’t think it hurt me, at least,” said Hall, who said his faith calls upon him to help the needy and vulnerable. “The question is, is it the place of the government to do that, and if so, how much?”

Doll, 49, said he’s helped bring jobs to Burnsville by successfully sponsoring measures to aid the expansion of Goodrich Sensors and Integrated Systems and enable tax-increment financing in Burnsville’s Minnesota River Quadrant.

“Even the Chamber of Commerce was appreciative of the results I was bringing to the city,” Doll said.

As a Democrat on traditionally Republican turf, Doll said he was “adamant that tax increases were not, by any means, the first, second or third choice” for balancing the budget.

Doll, who voted for the DFL’s proposed $1 billion tax increase on high-income earners and alcohol in 2009, said he also voted for more than $3 billion in cuts in the last biennium. He also voted to increase the gasoline tax.

“I go away knowing I can sleep well at night because I did the job I promised I would do and I think most people wanted me to do,” Doll said.

House District 40A

Republican Pam Myhra, who unseated DFL incumbent Will Morgan in House District 40A by 50.2 percent to 46.2 percent, said she will have three main priorities at the Capitol:

Keeping spending sensible, promoting job growth and protecting family incomes.

“I am a social conservative. I am pro-life,” said Myhra, 53. “But my focus is going to be on those three priorities that, literally, I heard at just about every single door.”

The 32-year Burnsville resident and 1975 Burnsville High School graduate said she began the race as a virtual unknown and visited more than 11,000 homes.

She had been visible in Republican politics as a convention delegate, former chair of House 40A Republicans and a local leader in the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns.

“With high taxes and regulation, you end up having a stagnant economy,” Myhra said. “What we need to do is we need to open up the gates through gradual reduction of business taxes and allowing competition with health care. That will allow businesses to flourish and the job market to grow.”

Myhra, a certified public accountant who has worked as a manager for the firm KPMG, said she didn’t take a no-new-taxes pledge during the campaign. Myhra said she doesn’t want to box herself in but intends to hold the line on taxes.

Morgan said that during his two terms in the House, “I voted against more tax increases than I voted for.” Morgan voted for the DFL’s 2009 $1 billion budget-balancing plan to raise taxes on high-income earners.

A Burnsville High School science teacher, Morgan said Myhra delivered more of her voters to the polls than he did his.

“By our math, if you look at the numbers, Pam only got maybe 150 more votes than Duke (Powell, the Republican he unseated) got in 2006. But I got 1,300 fewer votes. It’s not like people were moving massively from me to Pam. I just think that the people who voted for me before didn’t show up, and that’s our fault.”

Senate District 37

Incumbent state Sen. Chris Gerlach, R-Apple Valley, won his re-election bid in Senate District 37 on Tuesday with a win over Democratic challenger Michael Germain.

Gerlach garnered 20,622 votes (59.6 percent), while Germain claimed 13,984 votes (40.4 percent).

Gerlach, the owner of a direct marketing company in Eagan, was first elected to the state Senate in a special election in 2004, and won re-election in 2006.

Germain, of Apple Valley, is the news editor at OpedNews.com.

Senate District 37 includes Apple Valley, Rosemount and southeastern Burnsville.

House District 37A

State Rep. Tara Mack, R-Apple Valley, won her re-election bid on Tuesday for the House District 37A seat.

Mack claimed 60.5 percent of the ballots cast (9,675 votes), while Democratic challenger Derrick Lindstrom of Apple Valley garnered 6,301 votes, or 39.4 percent.

Mack is currently serving her first term in the state House, having defeated Shelley Madore, DFL-Apple Valley, in the 2008 election. Prior to her election in 2008, Mack worked as a legislative aide at the state Capitol.

Lindstrom, a community college instructor, was making his first bid for elected office.

House District 37A includes the western portion of Apple Valley and southeastern Burnsville.

A county where DFLers had made gains in recent years snapped solidly back into the hands of Republicans on Election Day.

By KATIE HUMPHREY and NICOLE NORFLEET, Star Tribune staff writers
Last update: November 6, 2010 – 6:24 PM

Purple, it seems, no longer suited Dakota County.

The county had moved steadily toward a mix of Democratic and Republican representation in the Legislature in recent years, but this election season, voters wiped most of the blue off the map and painted the county red instead.

“All the seats that we picked up here in ‘06, we’ve now lost,” said Rep. Will Morgan, a Burnsville DFLer who lost his seat to Republican Pam Myhra.

Before Election Day, DFLers held 11 of the House and Senate seats with districts that touch Dakota County, and Republicans had just six. Now, after gaining seven seats, Republicans will hold 13 and DFLers will have just four.

And the six Republicans who were reelected in the county did so in landslide victories, drawing at least 60 percent of the vote in most cases.

The dramatic shift is a microcosm of what happened around the state on Election Day, as Republicans knocked DFLers out of the Legislature one by one. For the first time since the 1970s, Republicans control both the Minnesota House and Senate.

“Nationally, when you look at where the Democrats have taken us, people have woken up and they are ready to take a stand,” said Dan Hall, R-Burnsville, who unseated Sen. John Doll, winning by two percentage points. “Stop the taxing and stop the spending. We’re just excited to see fiscal responsibility.”

Many of the Republicans who won seats in the Legislature said their budget-cutting message resonated with voters as they went door-to-door during the campaign.

Myhra, who defeated Morgan for the House District 40A seat, said she spent a lot of time talking to voters who were unemployed, worried about the economy and discouraged by what they have seen since 2006, when the county swung more toward the center.

“That came in a wave [in 2006],” she said, explaining that voters now want to make another switch. “I think this area is made up of people who want their voices heard, and they want to be listened to. Whether that’s by Republicans or Democrats, that might go either way.”

But Doug Wardlow, who knocked DFL Rep. Mike Obermueller out of the District 38B seat, said he thinks the shift back toward the Republican Party is more permanent.

“Dakota County is going to be a county that is conservative,” he said. “In Dakota County, they realize that government isn’t the answer to all problems.”

And Republican Rep. Denny McNamara of Hastings, who won 66 percent of the vote to hold onto his seat, said the shift in power presents new opportunities.

“We’ve been running into a headwind,” McNamara said of Republicans’ struggles in the House since he was first elected to represent District 57B in 2002. “The issue before Minnesotans and everyone is that government needs to live within its means.”

The DFLers who are still standing after the Republican wave serve districts in the northern tip of the county.

“I guess I’m feeling just happy to be alive after what happened to so many of my colleagues … on the DFL side,” said Rep. Joe Atkins of Inver Grove Heights, who garnered the highest percentage of votes for a DFLer in Dakota County when he beat Terry Pearson 63 to 37 percent.

Sen. Jim Carlson, DFL-Eagan, was one of those who found himself a couple of percentage points shy of victory, falling to Republican challenger Ted Daley.

Carlson wondered, the day after the election, what the shift might mean for local public transit projects — such as Cedar Avenue bus rapid transit and future transitway planning — and the autonomy of the south metro bus provider, the Minnesota Valley Transit Authority.

“We were supportive of the Dakota County Board, the rail authority and local opt-outs [including MVTA],” Carlson said. “It’s hard to say what’s going to happen there.”

State Sen. James Metzen, DFL-South St. Paul, retained his seat, but he will no longer be a committee chairman or presiding officer.

While Metzen said that the DFL “lost a lot of good people down in Dakota County,” he said that it will take cooperation from both parties to deal with the challenges ahead.

“I’m hoping that we can cross the aisle and smile a little bit more,” Metzen said.

Katie Humphrey • 952-882-9056