Union Member Win Shifts Minnesota Legislature to Working Families

Kevin Dahle

Barb Kucera, editor of Workday Minnesota, sends us the following, which also appeared on that great website.

While the Iowa caucuses are getting all the media attention, a special election Thursday in Minnesota Senate District 25 has shifted the balance of power in the state government.

The victory by Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party member Kevin Dahle also adds another labor leader to the ranks of union members serving in the Legislature.

Dahle garnered 6,802 votes—55 percent, compared with 5,225 (42 percent) for Republican Ray Cox. Dahle fills the seat vacated when Republican Tom Neuville resigned to become a judge.

His election means the DFL Party now has a “supermajority”—enough votes in the state Senate to override any legislative vetoes by Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Last session, Pawlenty vetoed major bills, including transportation funding and local government aid.

Dahle, president of the Northfield Education Association, becomes the 36th union member in the Minnesota Legislature. One of every six legislators is now represented by a union. His election means Education Minnesota, the 70,000-member educators’ union, now has an astounding 21 members serving in the Legislature.

Unions hope the Dahle victory is a harbinger for the 2008 elections, when Minnesotans will go to the polls to elect a U.S. president, a U.S. senator, eight members of the U.S. House of Representatives and many state and local officeholders.

In the weeks before the Jan. 3 special election, union members made thousands of phone calls and knocked on hundreds of doors to turn out the vote to support Dahle.

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