Category Archives: Lori Swanson

Wait, Lori Swanson Wiretapped Her Employees?

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The coverage in The Intercept and other news outlets about accusations of wrongdoing by  Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson is voluminous. These are very long stories. Headlines and summaries have focused on the accusation that Swanson pressured staffers to do campaign staff work in a government office, and punished those who refused.

But is that really the most surprising and shocking thing that’s being alleged?

I don’t want to make light of politicking on the government dime, and strong-arming employees to do so. That’s a big deal, particularly if done as forcefully and punitively as Swanson’s employees claim. If the accusations about Swanson pressuring employees to do campaign work are true, the state’s chief law enforcement officer broke the law.

Now, are those accusations true?  I don’t know, but the fact that the documents show that Swanson ran statewide Attorney General and Governor campaigns with $0 in personnel costs indicates that there very well may have been substantial illegal government subsidization of Swanson’s political campaigns.

As significant as that is, there may be an even bigger scandal buried deep in those long stories. In the 32nd paragraph of The Intercept story was this little Nixonian nugget about an accusation by former Swanson employee D’Andre Norman.

Similarly, in one of the Star Tribune’s follow-up stories, under the headline “Lori Swanson hits back at former aide who says she politicized attorney general’s office,” this item was buried in the 26th paragraph, long after many readers stopped reading.

Wait, what? A guy who work worked at Lori Swanson’s side for years says he was wiretapping employees at Swanson’s behest, presumably so Swanson could retaliate against them? I’ll leave it to others to determine whether this kind of alleged spying on employees is illegal, but it certainly is, if true, supremely creepy and unethical.

Keep in mind, these employees weren’t accused of doing anything illegal. They were thought to be supporting an effort to unionize their workplace, which seems like something that a would-be standard bearer for the Democratic Farm Labor (DFL) Party should support.

If the spying and wiretapping accusations are true, that’s a seismic political event. And if the recent headlines had been more like “Accusation: Swanson ordered wiretapping of employees,” the pre-primary political damage done to Swanson might have been much worse.

MN GOPers Aren’t the Health Care Saviors They Claim To Be

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Exuberant Minnesota Republicans seem to think they have a winning health care issue for the 2018 election season–reinsurance. And they do deserve a great deal of credit for helping to enact a state reinsurance program that is reducing premiums for Minnesotans in the individual market. The individual market is for the 162,000 Minnesotans who can’t get insurance from their employer or the government.

While their claim that premium increases in 2016 and 2017 were due to DFL policies is ridiculous, it is true that the Minnesota reinsurance program they helped pass is helping those consumers. As the Star Tribune reported:

Jim McManus, a Blue Cross spokesman, said that were it not for the state’s reinsurance program, the carrier’s Blue Plus HMO would be seeking an average individual market premium increase of 4.8 percent as opposed to the 11.8 percent decrease cited Friday by Commerce

Impressive, and Republicans deserve credit for this.

The Rest of the Story

But as Ricky Ricardo would say, before Minnesota Republicans can credibly brand themselves health coverage saviors, they still have some splainin to do.

Why Not National Reinsurance? First, they need to explain why their party – in complete control of the U.S. Senate, U.S. House and the Presidency and entire U.S. Executive Branch of the federal government – doesn’t enact reinsurance to help all Americans. Because of economies of scale and the need for market consistency, a national reinsurance program makes much more sense than a hodgepodge of variable state programs.

Moreover, if stabilizing the market and helping consumers pay less is good for Minnesotans, wouldn’t it be even more awesome to do that for all Americans?  That’s likely why 75% of Americans support enacting reinsurance at the national level.

Why Sabotage the ACA?  So why aren’t Rep. Erik Paulsen, Rep. Jason Lewis, Rep. Tom Emmer, Jeff Johnson or former Governor Tim Pawlenty pressing for reinsurance at a national level? Because they and their White House puppet master would rather sabotage the remarkably effective Affordable Care Act (ACA) than improve the ACA to help American families.

The list of things Trump and his congressional Trumpbulicans are doing to irresponsibly sabotage American families benefiting from ACA protections is long and breathtakingly irresponsible.  This is hurting tens of millions of struggling Americans.  Republicans are ignoring the 71% of Americans who say the Administration should do all it can to make the the ACA work, compared to just 21% who support efforts to make the ACA fail and replace it later.

Why Oppose Adding A MinnesotaCare Buy-in Option?  The other thing Republicans boasting about the state reinsurance bill need to explain is this: Why aren’t they supporting giving the 162,000 Minnesotans in the individual market a MinnesotaCare buy-in option?

The MinnesotaCare buy-in option would achieve much of what Republicans profess to support — more plan and doctor choices for consumers in sparsely populated areas, guaranteed coverage for all Minnesotans in sparsely populated areas, and more competition to control prices.

The fact that Minnesota Republicans won’t support the common sensical MinnesotaCare buy-in option proposal, won’t push for a national reinsurance program, and continue to actively sabotage the ACA makes their gloating about being health care saviors ring very hollow.