Did a couple of very rich and anonymous men from outside of this area buy last November's election in Minnesota Senate District 13? Based on the evidence from the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, the answer is probably yes. Numbers can be boring, but to understand what happened we need to follow the money.
Dean Johnson narrowly lost that election by about 500 votes out of the more than 30,000 votes cast. The most notable feature of the election was a blizzard of negative, distorted advertising directed against Johnson from some "moral issue" groups. Who was behind all of that?
Who was behind the hateful, fear-mongering ads on the gay marriage non-issue that blared from your radio, filled your mailbox, and plastered your windshield at church on Sunday morning? You might picture pious little old ladies fearful that their grandchildren will turn into homosexuals, but you would be wrong. Most of those ads came from Minnesota Citizens in Defense of Marriage. More than half of that organization's funding came from one wealthy man, Robert P. Cummins of Deephaven, who contributed $155,000. When his contribution is combined with the $45,000 from Rodney Huisken of Chandler, Minn., the two provided about 70 percent of MCDM's funding. MCDM targeted about two-thirds of its statewide independent expenditures against one candidate, Dean Johnson.
Minnesota for Marriage spent roughly $100,000 attempting to get the so-called marriage amendment on the ballot. Of that total, Robert Cummins gave more than $38,000 and Rodney Huisken provided $25,000, which when combined made up almost two-thirds of the budget. Huisken provided all of the funding for Minnesota for Life. Cummins kicked in $20,000 to MCCL as that organization attacked Johnson and sponsored Michael Cruz in the primary election.
What about Sportsmen for Change? They are just a bunch of dedicated outdoorsmen, right? As of Oct. 30, 2006, about 56 percent of their budget came from Cummins and the Republican Senate Victory fund.
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It appears to me that one, or possibly two, rich guys bought the election. Is that right?
John H. Burns
Willmar
