(lively music) (upbeat music) - [Interviewer] Welcome to Meet the Candidates, the local election forum from Pioneer PBS.

This season, we ask every candidate the same list of questions to learn more about what type of legislator they will be if elected.

In this episode, we will meet candidates from Minnesota House District 12A.

District lines have changed since the 2020 census.

District 12A is made up of Big Stone, Stevens and Swift counties, and portions of Pope and Stearns counties.

Major cities include Ortonville, Morris, Benson, and Glenwood.

To find out which district you live in, visit MNVotes.org.

And now let's meet the candidates.

We will start with the DFL candidate, Becky Parker.

(lively music) Becky declined our invitation for an interview, but you can learn more about her by contacting your local DFL office.

Next, the Republican candidate, Paul Anderson.

- Good evening, I'm Representative Paul Anderson, and I am currently in my eighth term in the Minnesota House of Representatives.

My wife Faith and I live on our fourth generation family farm in the Pope County just south of Lake Minnewaska.

And we raise corn, soybeans, and a little bit of wheat and used to raise cattle, but when our kids left home, the cattle were kind of right behind them.

We have three grown kids and five grandkids, and we like to spend as much time with them as we can when time permits us to do that for family occasions.

Over the years, I've been in public service for a number of years, both at the state and local levels.

I served as a a township clerk for around 20 years.

I was on the local school board, and also served as a county commissioner in Pope County before being elected to the state legislature.

In St. Paul, I've been chairman of the House Ag Committee back when Republicans were in control and stand to chair of that committee again if we get the majority back in the Minnesota House.

Other things I've done, I've served on the MEAL C Board for a number of years.

MEAL C stands for Minnesota Ag Education Leadership Council, and they focus on getting more Ag teachers in the classroom, both at the high school and college levels and also in the farm business management level as well.

I also served as a co-chairman a couple of years back on the regional states committee, the Ag Natural Resources Committee of what's called the Midwest Council of State Governments.

Currently in St. Paul, I serve as a lead Republican on the House Agriculture Finance and Policy Committee in addition to being on the property tax division, and the Sustainable Infrastructure Committee in the Minnesota House in the last current biennium.

(lively music) - [Interviewer] Why do you wanna be the representative for your district?

- I think the short answer to that is I like to help people.

In our positions in St. Paul we have access to a lot of staff and the liaison people from the various departments of state government, and we can be a good way to help people navigate the bureaucracy of St. Paul, whether it be having to help expedite permits or talk about health insurance or just how they could get along with state government without being on hold for a half an hour.

And so I think we can be a good source and offer assistance in that area.

I'm also a lifetime resident of this area, a graduate of the University of Minnesota in Morris, and have a background in agriculture and small business.

And I think that along with my experience in the government public service allows me to be a pretty good source of knowledge and advice for folks who are trying to work within the system and have their problems and stuff looked at and how they can work through that system, and to do well working with state government.

My last comment on that subject is I'd like to help restore balance to the state government.

It's well known that the last couple of years has been the DFL trifecta with total control of the House and the Senate and the governor's office.

And they've rushed through a lot of legislation without a lot of input from Republicans.

And I think the best way people would agree to pass good legislation is to have compromise from both sides of the political aisle, and do that in a way that you come back to the middle, and pass the legislation that works for all the people in Minnesota.

You know, they didn't have very big majorities, just one vote in the Senate and four votes in the house, but they pushed through legislation including one of the most liberal abortion laws in the world early in the session and other things they did seemed to put us on a path to more progressive liberal policies in the state as we worked with them in the legislature, this past biennium.

- [Interviewer] What are your priorities for the next legislative session?

- My top priority in the coming session would be to restore some common sense and balance to our state, government state budget.

In the last biennium a well publicized $18 billion surplus, and that money has all been spent and the programs put into place gave us a 40%, nearly 40% increase in the state budget.

A lot of that was one-time money.

And to do that continuously, it doesn't work using one-time money.

And we are seeing the results of that in the latest forecast put out by the state of Minnesota.

We still have a slight surplus, but the projections show that by the fiscal years 26 and 27, we will have a about a $1.5 billion structural deficit.

And since the state cannot operate with a negative budget, we have to balance that budget every two years.

And there's really only two ways to do that or a combination thereof.

You either cut spending or you raise taxes to make our state come into balance.

And this past year, despite having that huge surplus, the Democrats actually raised taxes as well.

Now they will say that they reduced taxes and they did to a certain extent about $3 billion in tax reductions by the Democrats, but they also raised taxes by close to 10 billion.

So the net is about a $7 billion increase in taxes for the residents, the hardworking folks of Minnesota.

So again, also working on a daycare situation where a Department of Human Services came out with a 97 page list of onerous regulations that a lot of folks say could put our daycare providers out of business.

So we have pushed back daycare, folks have pushed back and DHS recently announced a one year postponement of those regulations in which time we hope to work on putting some more common sense into those regulations and keeping our daycare providers in business, which we need so badly here in greater Minnesota.

- [Interviewer] What unique perspective do you bring to the Minnesota House?

- I think as a farmer, I bring that perspective to St. Paul.

Now, there's not a lot of farmers left in the legislature.

I can think of five or six in the Minnesota House, and I can't recall any members of the Senate being farmers currently.

So it's an area where we need to do more study and work on, and work on Ag issues and such, and I can be a good advocate for production agriculture here in this state as we work on things that impact agriculture and do a lot of things that work in that area.

Such things as permitting.

We all want clean air and water, but yet we can accomplish that and still allow our farmers to do what they do best.

That's raise crops for our state, the nation and the world, and yet do that in a friendly, environmental way.

And there's an impact that the things we do in St. Paul has on all the people in District 12A.

And a lot of things that we hear from folks, especially in city government, county government and the township government, is that we put mandates on folks and yet don't provide the funding to carry those mandates through.

And that's a big issue in terms of education, for example, where they got a lot of increased funding, this passed to biennium, but the mandates attached to that have put a lot of schools in worse shape today than they were two years ago.

For example, we have the redact, which takes a lot of time and additional funding, we have unemployment for part-time employees, paid family leave, another one coming down that's gonna affect our schools and everybody in the state that has at least one employee, even a part-time employee.

So we have to work on putting some common sense back in state government.

And I wanna do that as a member of the Minnesota House this coming biennium.

(lively music) - [Interviewer] What is your vision for the future of Minnesota?

- My vision for our great state of Minnesota is to make us and give us a more tax competitive rates and a situation with our neighboring states.

You know, we've been long known as a high tax state, but we are now approaching, and in some cases even eclipsing the tax rates in states such as New York and California.

We are have the fifth highest personal income tax rate in the nation.

We have the fourth highest corporate tax income rate state in the nation, and we have the highest estate and inheritance taxes in the entire nation.

And yet we still tax certain levels of income for Social Security.

We have a pretty robust sales tax, which is approaching up to 10% in the metro area.

And we had rebates promised to us in the thousands of dollars.

They were really scaled back when their surplus was used.

And most of that went to increased spending, not to the rebates sent back to the people of Minnesota.

We need to improve our schools and our outcomes in our schools, and we have seen Minnesota slip from one of the highest rated states in the nation in educational proficiency.

Now we are down anywhere, as I've heard, 18th to 19th in our reading and math skills.

And a lot of kids not reading at grade level in some of our schools.

So we have to get back to the basics of education, let our local school boards do what they do best, because they know their schools at areas better, and work on those types of things.

Also, our nursing homes are gonna need help.

We had some funding last year that the Republicans pushed, but that's gonna be ending at the end of this year, so they're gonna need some additional help as well.

Also, our EMS folks, those folks that operate our ambulances and give us all the service and the comfort we need to live out here in case an emergency would happen.

Those folks need additional help as well with long travel times and such reimbursement rates with the state of Minnesota.

(lively music) - [Interviewer] And now a closing statement?

(lively music) - Well, as I mentioned earlier throughout this broadcast, Minnesota is really on a spending spree.

An increase in our state budget of 38% over a two year period is simply not acceptable.

We have gone from an $18 billion surplus to a projected $1.5 billion shortfall in fiscal years 26 and 27.

And that surplus, much of it one time money has been used, and won't be available again for programs that in some cases are ongoing and it'll require additional state funding here in Minnesota.

But, you know, we live in a great district and I'm proud to represent District 12A.

We have a strong agricultural base with corn, soybeans, sugar beets, and edible beans being our main crops.

We're strong in livestock, we have dairy, we have beef, chickens and turkeys and hogs as well.

We have more than that as well.

We have a branch of the University of Minnesota right here in our district.

We have two ethanol plants in District 12A, one Benson and the other in Morris.

We have world class manufacturing in our district and some of the products made by these manufacturers are literally shipped worldwide in terms of sprayers of fertilizer spreaders, conveyors and such for shipping equipment, that also equipment used by our major carriers such as FedEx and UPS as well here in the United States.

We have outstanding recreation and tourism.

Two of Minnesota's premier fishing lakes, are Big Stone in Minnewaska, we also have several state parks in our region and district.

It's a great place to live and work.

And we also have, and we, I'm proud to say we support law enforcement here in District 12A, and throughout greater Minnesota.

And we thank them for their outstanding and sometimes dangerous service in keeping us safe in our way of life here in West Central Minnesota and in District 12A.

So again, thanks to public television for the opportunity and thanks to the residents of District 12A for your continued support in the Minnesota House of Representatives.

(lively music) - [Interviewer] You can find more information online about Paul Anderson at his Facebook page, facebook.com/RepPaulAnderson.

(lively music) Learn more about voting, how to register, and what district you live in by visiting the Minnesota Secretary of State website, at MNVotes.org.

Remember, election day is Tuesday, November 5th.

Thank you for watching Meet the Candidates on Pioneer PBS.

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