NewsNight Minnesota; 6022; NewsNight Minnesota Episode from 10/07/1998; SD-Base

NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is a production of KPC old the stations of Minnesota Public Television you'll see my name in the 0 0 9. Well it's a little tiny amount of hairspray and I think I'd miss my live shot to the garden. Oh I'm so sorry you did not see if you watch Newsnight at all back every night between now and November 3rd you will enter the voting booth then for tonight Green Party gubernatorial candidate Ken and then tell those who know us or the candidates for secretary of state NEWSNIGHT dogs stay home without it. Welcome to NEWSNIGHT Minnesota a statewide new can information program for thoughtful Minnesota bringing context and depth to the region's most important storms. NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is made possible in part with support from the Blanton Foundation working to strengthen rural communities throughout Minnesota and by the midnight foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life for Minnesota family started with some headlines a crowd of about 600 iron Rangers cheered for Jesse clap for Norm and listen to skip last night.

Having high school was the site of the third gubernatorial debate since the primary and by most accounts it was a Reform Party candidate who got the warmest response and what's typically DFL country. I don't think it is without. Leaving. Just like. You know. Let me tell you what I and. My working man make. What we are going to get it for at the core of this political heat with your words. Everybody should be the one that I mean you know the issues. I am talking about me I am the usual I am lazy you know many I am we know what a steely does we need to be seen here.

You want to you see. Go with your sleep you're going to do whatever it was. You are the next gubernatorial debate is scheduled for Sunday at the University of St. Thomas. Doctors encouraging malpractise lawsuits are not something you hear every day but that's just what a group of Hennepin County doctors this proposing and they'd like to see patients have an easier time of suing not the doctor but their HMO this the Minnesota Medical Association's annual meeting opened today in St. Paul and that's just one of a dozen or so proposals by metro area doctors that challenge the way HMO do business with patients and providers. Catholics in the Diocese of New all have something new to talk about. In a letter published today Bishop Raymond Lucker says he supports the idea of married priests and he hopes

Catholics in his diocese at least discuss the idea. Now that flies right in the face of what the pope wants not only does Pope John Paul oppose the idea of married priests two years ago the Vatican issued a pronouncement prohibiting even talking about it. And one more item President Clinton today nominated Todd Jones to be U.S. attorney for the District of Minnesota. Jones was recommended by Senator Paul Wellstone and would be Minnesota's first African-American U.S. attorney. The Senate Judiciary Committee could act as early as tomorrow. Jones is a graduate of McAllister and the University of Minnesota Law School. OK we're going to get to our candidates in just a moment. But first we did want to let you know about a special event that's taking place tomorrow night. PBS is very excited to premiere the historical documentary Africans in America. That starts Monday October 19th. And tomorrow night award winning filmmaker Orlando Bagwell is in town to preview his series. Mr. Bagwell will be showing some of his clips and also talking about the project at the penumbra theater in St. Paul. It

starts at 7 o'clock and yes I will let you miss one NEWSNIGHT just this once. The number located at 270 north Kent Street in the capital city it's just off 94. The event is free and open to the public and if you want more information call 6 5 1 2 2 9 11. He. Wants to be our next governor tonight. We present the second in our series of one on one interviews with the minor party gubernatorial candidates. Now last night we started with Chris Wright from the grassroots party. If

you missed that or any of our other shows you can as many of our national and greater Minnesota viewers already know you can catch NEWSNIGHT at your convenience in real video from our website. That's w w w dot ca dot org. Go right to the NEWSNIGHT page. Each show is posted on the website right after the live broadcast. So download each of our minor party candidate interviews and compare notes and tonight we welcome Ken and tell the Green Party's candidate for Governor thanks for coming down. Want to start out by saying it was not fully body you know. I know that you don't stand any kind of a choose based on the pose of even pulling this thing close in any way shape or form so why do you campaign at this point why do you campaign in such a hard fashion as you have been doing. Well Lou because a number of things one is I feel there's critical issues that are not being discussed that need to be brought to the surface in such a high profile campaign. That's one of the main reasons and one of them was from basically I think one of the goals is how are we going to reconnect you know our economy with our ecology and

basically you know when we invest our resources how do we not undermine our water air soil and habitats and how do we build from that economies that give people full human dignity and dignity to find its food shelter clothing healthcare education transportation and a living wage jobs. So the social and the natural world in balance sustainable. That's our goal and that's what we offer as a Green Party not as people here green part of the thing are going to talk environmental and all you other good stuff. And how do you wrestle people from that and get them to start to listen to you. Well one the environment is all encompassing in compassing So we're all sharing the same air. We're all sharing the same water. The ecosystems are the sustenance where we've extracted our wealth from. So we all of our economy is dependent on the health of the natural condition. So we cannot separate from the environment the environment is where we are right now. But the other thing is yeah there are other areas of creating more social

stability so the areas of taxation education you know those are things that we can also talk about as well the Green Party has a very broad based platform that offers answers to all the questions that are being asked the Major Carlen we're going to talk about some of those right now if you like the government tobacco settlement money well you know tobacco settlement money well one I would make sure that we would provide health care for everyone who does not have it in the state of Minnesota that should be a given. That's a critical step. The other thing is we can set up a fund for what I would propose as a vital issue which is energy the contamination of our environment through the dependency on fossil fuels a mercury in our fish asthma emphysema in our inner cities. Those are critical issues that we need to deal with and we can make a transition to a new energy system that offers cleaner fuels in a renewable fashion that is economically more stable for our communities and school vouchers for a post of public money going to private. Schools would you

do to help Minnesota farmers farmers what we would do is shift the economy one providing a shift in energy right now we import 98 percent of our fuels. We want farmers to grow crops for energy put windmills on the land diversify economies. We want to shift away from a low value clearcutting economy in northern Minnesota forests to farmers growing fiber for paper. That's critical in the short term. We one no more farmers get run off the land. We mediate debt so people stay on the land the people that are willing to take care of the soil and the ground water are an asset they will be given farm trusts no property taxes. We need to re-establish a relationship between the farmer and the consumer much closer much stronger I support like the movement towards community supported agriculture organic farming. These are positive sustainable steps that are good economically for our communities and in their lives. You say one feedlots want to reduce the concentrated

feedlots so coarse the most pertinent discussion is moratorium. General environmental impact statements yes I support that. But I think the way we farm needs to move towards more balance. We cannot you know people that don't want high taxes high regulation big government then we should be creating 10 to 20 million gallon lagoons out in Minnesota it's putting our resource base at risk. So I want to have grazing. As a way of farming rather than concentrated facilities and make sure yes we might reduce some yields but we will live more in balance within the natural resources of Minnesota and offer economic gain to farmers because their costs would be reduced. All right I think it's fair to say the Green Party has probably more respect than you did say 10 years ago. How do you how far away do you see yourself being able to channel all this energy into the major parties and say hey we've got a platform better listen to it and adapt these things rather than say running for office knowing you're not going to get anywhere. Well basically what we have to do is go out there and present our case.

And over time if we start taking votes away from the dominant two parties they will listen. Is that what you were getting at I mean is. Yeah we have to do is hold him accountable I mean when people go in the booth in November 3rd they will have a chance for the first time ever to vote for a Green Party candidate. The integrity of a democracy depends on people voting for what they believe in not what they fear. We want people to vote for what they want to celebrate and that will create more integrity. It will force the dominant candidates to be more honest. And if anything we can re-establish a new base of politics in Minnesota that people feel good about and that's what we're offering. A celebration of sustainable ways of living. And that's the goal sustainable ecosystem stable economies. That's what we're offering. And I think that's positive. And I want to know if you were involved in something like the Northwest Airlines situation when they had the strike would you get involved in something like that. What I would do is I would not be involved I believe that one that unions have a

right to negotiate their contracts if there was an agreed upon mediation between the two parties then I would feel it and they approached the government to help mediate it. And I think that's appropriate. But I believe that unions have a right to negotiate their contracts and work out a deal with it with the companies. And that's important. All right green party candidate for governor thank you very much. Take care. Right most of us know who Joan Groh is. She's been Minnesota's secretary of state and is about to step

down after twenty four years in office which means someone's about to step up and that someone is sitting here in our studio tonight. There are four candidates for secretary of state we're going to spend the next 10 minutes or so talking to them finding out what they would do if they were elected. And there is a lot more to this job than not counting votes once every two years in alphabetical order yes I know that's boring but here they are. State Representative Edwin Garcia the DFL candidate Kenneth Iverson is running on the libertarian ticket. Mary Meyer is the Republican candidate for secretary of state. And Allen Show Lecky is the former DFL or who is now the Reform Party candidate. OK we're going to start talking about voter turnout. 20 percent voter turnout in the last primary voter turnout continues to slide downhill in Minnesota and elsewhere. What could you do would you do and should you do about it as secretary of state and I'll start with you Representative. OK we've got to know one thing that the secretary of state is the

guardian of our process of our democratic process we have to bring politics back to the people. We can do that in a number of ways. We have to be proactive. We have to be positive in trying to engage the public once again. We're going to be going into the new century where technology is going to become an option. And technology I would like to promote only if we make sure that there is complete security that no one can tamper with it and that there is no voter fraud. But you're talking perhaps email votes a vote on a Web site somehow. Yes just voting through technology. OK Computer Let's stop you right there I would have some of the other candidates think about that. Well I'm a software engineer and I know that that's very possible we can do that. I have experience on the World Wide Web. Geographic Information Systems and I know that we can make it easier for the voters we do so much for in the in the way of high technology these days that you know almost anything is possible and that in fact they actually vote system which is an

onsite type of precinct casting a ballot is a really excellent example of good technology that is available right now and is used here in Minnesota in several counties where you put your ballot in and whether you especially in this primary where we had a lot of problem with the crossovers and people had a lot of spoiled ballots because of doing that because they voted for both a Democrat in one race and then a Republican in the US. And the technology now with the IQ vote system allows your or that that type of any other company does it as well. When you put your ballot in take it out and say no you over voted or you cross or you did something to give the voter a chance to say hey I made a mistake and correct and you do that before the ballots thrown in the box. I'm a software developer and I don't think though that throwing technology at this problem solves it. I think we have to look at why voters are not voting. And when I ask people they're not voting because they don't think it's worth the effort. I'm proposing some electoral reforms changes in the way we make our ballots that would make people have more incentive to vote. Such as. Well something I call the instant runoff ballot or ranking

ballot which would let voters rank their choices for an office first second third. That way when you have a race where there's three or four more candidates like the governor's race voters are able to send a clear message about their preferences. And they're also able to vote for a third party candidate like for instance a Ken Pentel and not worry that their vote won't count. Isn't there also the chance that then everyone's second choice would get picked for you. What do you think about that. Well I don't think that that is likely to happen. I think we're going to have technology before we have this to be quite honest. But you know we don't have to. Why should people vote. We have to make sure that we talk to the nonvoters and find out why are they not voting. There's an interesting thing happening in New Mexico. The Greens have been very successful in running a candidate in a special election back in February and that candidate got 11 percent and that 11 percent made the difference between a Democrat or Republican winning that was in a

congressional race a congressional special election and now they're going to have another election coming up and the Democrats have been trying to get the Greens to pull out. I think if the Democrats and Republicans start feeling the pain of losing votes to a third party then they're going to maybe start seeing that in a runoff ballot makes sense or are some other type of thing but that's going to take some legislative action and I think what I want to do is start right now with the current laws that we have in the meantime. Those kinds of ideas going through the legislative process. But right now increasing the voter participation. I found that statewide. We actually in Minnesota are one of the leaders in voter turnout nationally so we really do well. My concern is with you as well. My concern is this you may have that going on right now because we have a very active older generation who has a very strong commitment to citizenship and participating. Our problem is that that's going to happen for a little while and we're going to have trouble because the youth coming up do not have that. And so my goal is to reach out in particular to the youth of my background working with the youth since my

early 20s and engaging them in the process and going to where they are they're not going to come to us we need to go to them. Why should I join registration drives now mostly mostly You got to start before that when I met with a group of college students a few weeks ago. They said if you don't get us interested in the process by ninth grade you've lost us and the next chance that you have is when they're 25 26 they buy a house they get a family then they have another interest but we've got to reach out to them and I've gone to those ninth grade classes and they're a great group of kids and that is a time when they are interested and they do respond very well. Well I I we are the Libertarian Party is going after the young vote and they're they're coming straight to us they. They want what we have to offer and it's liberty is what we offer and no other party is substantially in in that ballpark me ask you about the secretary of state's office it's not as if it's the governor or even a state representative or state senator you're not involved that much in policy that deals with many libertarian issues I believe that.

Liberty should be applied to the secretary of state's office just as any other office. And there's three ways for that. First of all when we go to vote we want to make sure that we have a fair open and inclusive and honest elections without fraud. That's very very liberty depends upon it. And secondly we've got it. Let me start stop you there at the fraud I know that that's a concern in America from ours. And when I heard that I thought what fraud. Well it's interesting. I went out around and I've heard a lot about mail ballot and which is not the same as absentee ballot but when I was out campaigning group of people and I said any of you have any experience here with a mail in ballot and I've been an election judge myself this year earlier for a mail in ballot. Gentleman in the back of the room raised his hand and said that he was a single guy lived in an apartment and that seven ballots came to his apartment he cast them all and sent him

in. There is no way for myself as an election judge. That day when they come in and the process and the system and I think integrity is a big disincentive and a discouragement to people they need to have a confidence in the voting process so you dont because I have heard it happen. And when I say everybody one thing right now theres about a hundred and seventy precincts that use mail in ballot. And the reason they do that its because its not cost effective to open up a polling place because they are just dispersed in a in a big geographical area thats one of the reasons why they dont do that in the second place you know the one we one thing we have now is we have a pretty paper trail system that catches any kind of potential voter fraud. And if you look at the definition the legal definition of voter fraud that organized fraud. We don't have that in this state. We have we have I think to trust and have faith in the people in Minnesota I think what. And if there is any kind of fraud the person that

knows about the fraud has got to report it. Its no fraud is one of those things that just like a nut like a shoplifter you dont go in and say Here I am you know you have to catch it. Well I would worry that there hasn't been enough attention paid to this by some of the county attorneys. I started hearing stories the anecdotes the anecdotes about it and it's very hard to pin down people who'd come up to us at our Reform Party State Fair booth and they'd tell me about an incident here or there and I'd ask for documentation I went to newspaper for paper or paper files and couldn't find anything. But those anecdotes are in a way a reflection of people's feeling about the system which is why they're not turning out to vote to begin life. I do worry that there has not been enough attention paid by county attorneys I remember one situation I was in that had to do with being objected from a secure building while we were campaigning with a candidate that the county attorney didn't pick up on

it. We've just had a situation in the Reform Party in one county where we felt the Republicans were unfairly using our name in advertising the county attorney just blew it off. I have a feeling that maybe there should be a little more seriousness applied to it I know if I were. Secretary of State I would be looking out for that so we can find out if there is stuff going on we would definitely make sure it gets investigated 20 years there's been four cases maybe of voter fraud and some of that has not been intentional fraud. Like I say there is so there is a paper trail that's left when that happens. And number two you know if a person also voter fraud and doesn't report it they're guilty of a misdemeanor. And number three if they don't commit voter fraud then that's a felony. OK so that you know we have safeguards in place. OK I'd like to move on to some of the other responsibilities of the office one of them the secretary of state's that's on the State Investment Board recently the board made headlines when it voted to divest all this pension money from

tobacco stocks. Do you think that's a good idea. The that the tobacco. And there's there's something. It doesn't seem quite. It doesn't seem like the judicial process really worked in the back of a trial but should you use your role to say I don't like this industry I don't like and therefore we're going to not invest state dollars and that we're going to invest it elsewhere. The board did the right thing but for the wrong reason they said that well it may not be prudent to be investing in tobacco so we should pull state money out of it in fact their own investment advisor then contradicted them and said maybe you shouldn't be thinking about what's prudent investments that's what you're paying me to do. They should have said look this is an industry we should not be involved in as a state one which does what it does to help people. And what we have to do is in some obvious cases like that I would also add gambling say that state money shouldn't be in that. Now

I'm not saying we have to get into every single industry but there are a few obvious cases. And I think that the investment board those people should be showing your moral spunk. OK I cut you off. As a libertarian I I believe that well if we're overtaxed or if there's a windfall of sorts into the state coffers that that gives us a great opportunity to eliminate our income tax and or our sales tax and create a very. Promising business environment and people prospering that's what we all want in Minnesota. Would tobacco vote was not the right vote do you think. Well I would have voted the same way but I want to say that on the state board of investments the first responsibility that's pension money people are counting on that that should be a relatively conservative investing to a mechanism it is not a place to be being out there risky because people are really counting on this for their future so that's the first responsibility. And so that vote was I feel a correct vote because I feel that was a financially responsible decision

to make. I don't know that that's I think the first responsibility of the state board of investments is to watch out for that pension money and be sure that it is there for them. And you know right now though many times those that taxpayer has to make up the deficiency especially in defined benefit plan. So that makes it really important over the last 13 years we have had to cough up an extra 240 million dollars because those investments have not brought in enough money. So it shouldn't be so conservative that the taxpayer has to add to it. Thirty seconds to go in the first place. We have a professional staff in place and they're the ones that give the advice to the to the state board of investments. We have to make sure that we maximize every opportunity we can for our taxpayers and generally we don't do that by making risky or. Investments that are not policy good policy wise type and the investments we have to be prudent in the way we invest it and the money that's going to and the 12 minutes went very fast like you already have.

Good luck in getting the attention of voters. Thanks a lot for watching. If you have had enough of politics yet no candidates tomorrow but we do have Swedish jazz Don't ask me. Just tune in. Say a. NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is made possible in part with support from the Blendon Foundation working to strengthen rural communities throughout Minnesota and by the McKnight foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life for Minnesota families.