Republican and Democrat Legislators voted in another bail out of health insurance companies, including gubernatorial candidates Michelle Benson and Paul Gazelka, while also transferring tax money to MNsure, the state ObamaCare exchange. SF3472, also known as the Reinsurance Bill, is a non-free market approach attempt to lower insurance premiums. It takes our taxpayer dollars, funnels it through government, which then gives it to insurance companies to play claims over $50,000. When all is said and done, politicians cheer that they reduced insurance rates - when all they did was take our money to bail out the health insurance companies.

Here's how the hustle works...

For six years now, the Republican Establishment has boasted about the merits of this government intrusion in the health care market. Instead of getting money out of the gov't health coffers, their grand solution is to put more money into government. And we're paying for it!

If the Reinsurance Bill is so great, why aren't they implementing this with other types of insurance like auto insurance? Premiums certainly would come down on our auto insurance rates if government just gave money to insurance companies to pay for car collision claims. Of course, they don't have some magic tool at play there. It's would just be one big hustle of taking money from us, funneling it through the backend, then pretending like they solved something. And that's what the Reinsurance Bill does.

On top of running the Reinsurance Hustle, the bill also funded MNsure, the state ObamaCare exchange. It wasn't long ago when Republicans were against funding the ObamaCare state exchanges. Now they are doubling down on it.

ObamaCare was a massive government expansion of the health insurance markets. One of its tenets was that it create more regulations on what health insurance plans could and could not offer. SF3472 expands the government regulations on health care plans by mandating they provide coverage for "postnatal care." The bill also requires that at least one silver and one gold plan offered by health insurance companies "apply a predeductible, flat-dollar amount co-payment structure to the entire drug benefit."

More regulations. More government intrusion. And we're the ones footing the bill! 

All Senate Republicans voted for the bill. A handful of Democrats opposed it because they don't think it went far enough. Here's the vote:

In the Minnesota House, there were seven Republicans who voted against the bill including Bahr, Drazkowski, Lucero, Mekeland, Miller, Mortensen and Munson. Here's the vote:

(Photo: Convention chair Rep Albright and Parliamentarian Sen Mathews confer with Chief Teller and MNGOP State Executive Committeemember Keri Heintzman)

The saga of the Morrison County controversy continues, leaving many first time delegates questioning the integrity of their local party.  Hundreds of delegates, many of them first timers, gave up their Friday night last weekend to attend an endorsing convention for the newly created Senate District 10. But they later found out, a four and a half hour convention would abruptly shut down without even a single vote count being tallied and announced to the delegate body.

A little backstory...Senate District 10 covers a geographical area with seven different counties. By Republican rule, that requires the counties to come together and make a convention call. Morrison County GOP, along with the 6 other county GOP units, announced two weeks ago that the endorsements for senate and two house seats would take place on the opposite side of the Senate District from the population center of Little Falls. And despite having three contested races, the seven counties decided to hold the convention on a Friday night.

Morrison County GOP is run by Mandy Heffron, a paid staffer for the Gazelka for Governor campaign. In February we exposed cheating by the Morrison County GOP that ended up removing duly elected delegates from the delegate voter rolls, replacing one with the wife of a legislator. Things were so bad in Morrison County that Congressional District 8 ended up running the Morrison County GOP Convention in March. Despite all of that, Heffron had an active role in the planning and running of the SD10 Endorsing Convention on Friday night.

The convention from the start lacked transparency. Convention rules were not made available to campaigns prior to Friday evening. Even at the convention, printed rules and agendas were scarce, leaving most delegates without the ability to see what was going to happen that night (this is rare). One campaign requested to see the credentialed delegate voter rolls for Morrison County and was denied access - meaning they could not validate that only duly elected delegates were credentialed. On top of that, paid guests and campaign volunteers were not allowed in the gymnasium, where the convention was being held (we've never seen that before). 

Chairing the Convention was Rep Tony Albright (from Scott County), who was joined by Senator Andrew Mathews as parliamentarian. The evening began with some rules fights, mostly over allowing a candidate, Chuck Parins (30 year Army veteran), to compete against RINO Rep Ron Kresha that evening for the endorsement. Party leaders and Ron Kresha himself spoke against allowing it, citing a technicality in the rules - the same rules that were not made available until the night of the convention. So much for competition.

After the rules fight, the convention began the endorsement process for state senator. Three candidates (Nathan Wesenberg, Jim Newberger, Brent Lindgren) gave their speeches to the seated delegates. Balloting quickly followed and the votes were sent to a corner of the gym.

(Photo: Wesenberg campaign's speech before balloting)

Meanwhile, Chair Albright moved on to endorsement of House District 10A, asking delegates if they wanted to endorse Ron Kresha by voice acclimation. The measure failed and things got interesting. A delegate rose to a point of order, in an attempt to confirm with the chair that ballots with the name "Chuck Parins" would be counted according to the MNGOP Constitution, Article V, Section 3, A3. But Rep Albright and Sen Mathews ruled that ballots with Parins name would not be counted - a ruling that was clearly in violation of the state party constitution. 

Regardless, votes were cast and ballots were collected. A pile of ballots had Chuck Parins name on them according to an observer of the vote counting. The Political Class looked to be in trouble that evening. 

And then slowly, disarray started clouding the convention. Questions were raised about the correct number of ballots being cast in certain counties. Morrison County appeared to have filled out 11 ballots by unseated alternates, which would not be counted as legitimate votes. The organizers allowed delegates, seated alternates and unseated alternates to commingle during the convention. Confusion spread amongst the organizers and people were told Morrison County needed to revote.

Over two hours in, roughly 250 ballots for the senate endorsement remained uncounted. I don't know how that's possible unless someone didn't like how it was going to turn out. As 11 pm approached, it became evident that the "mission" of the endorsing convention was going to fail. Chair Albright announced that the convention was in recess and everyone went home. 

(Photo: Delegates discussing the MNGOP Constitution's authority over convention rules with Chair Albright)

What happened on Friday night was a huge mess. Perhaps it was sheer incompetence on the part of the organizers. I'm not sure why Morrison County GOP is still in charge of organizing things. They cheated delegates on election night and their corruption led to Congressional District 8 hosting the Morrison County convention last month. 

But there's speculation that things were more nefarious, than incompetence. Why were rules not published ahead of time, printed out in mass and distributed? Why were campaign staff not allowed in the gymnasium? Why did the Chair and parliamentarian violate the state party constitution to not allow Chuck Parins' votes to be counted? And why were non-GOP officials, like Joyce Heffron, mother of Morrison County GOP Chairwoman Mandy Heffron, in possession of ballots at one point in the night? Where did the 11 unseated alternate votes come from?

We may never know the answer to this question. But what is certain, the saga of Morrison County GOP controversy continues and the people who are most harmed are the new conservative activists who got involved in the Party to take back power from the Political Class. The Republican Party should be doing everything in its power to welcome these new activists into the ranks, instead of trying to protect the Swamp.

Summary of the Failed Senate District 10 Convention

1) Rules and agenda were not available in advance

2) Printed rules and agenda were not available at convention to most delegates

3) Guests and campaigns were blocked from entering convention

4) Campaigns were blocked from inspecting the delegate voter rolls in Morrison County (largest pool of delegates)

5) Chair Albright ruled that the MNGOP Constitution would not be respected

6) Ineligible votes were collected

7) Delegates, seated alternates, and unseated alternates commingled on floor

8) Vote totals were not completed and announced at the convention - No endorsements were made

9) Disgraced Morrison County GOP chair Mandy Heffron was able to run important parts of the convention

Hot Take

If you've followed this saga from the beginning, one may conclude that when you out organize the Political Class, they'll cheat. When you catch them at cheating, they'll use their power to put you at a disadvantage. When you overcome the disadvantage, they'll create rules against you. When you challenge their rules with the Constitution, they'll just shut down the convention. 

Political newcomer, Bret Bussman, beat current State Senator Paul Utke (Lifetime Rating: 34%) for the GOP endorsement in the new Senate District 5. Bussman ran on a platform of shrinking government, passing the Never Again Bill and adhering to the Constitution. He's an Army veteran who got motivated to run when he saw that the Political Class was doing nothing to stop the gross infringements of our rights. 

Utke joins the growing list of RINOs who are getting beat in GOP endorsement battles this year. In Senate District 20, the conservative voting Rep Steve Drazkowski (Lifetime Rating: 95%) defeated RINO Rep Barb Haley (Lifetime Rating: 40%) for the Senate endorsement.

Rep Ron Kresha (Lifetime Rating: 39%) failed to get an endorsement at the Senate District 10 convention on Friday night. The convention chair shut down the convention before any ballot totals were counted - but it appears Kresha was poised to lose to political newcomer and 30 year Army veteran, Chuck Parins. 

There are more battles taking place in the coming weeks. Stay tuned to action4liberty.com for more information.

Rep Julie Sandstede (DFL-Hibbing) is trying to save face after ruining Minnesota businesses last year by protecting Governor Walz' illegal shutdowns. Sandstede was one of six con artist legislators who switched their vote of Ending Walz' Emergency Powers in January of 2021 once their vote was critical to stopping the damage of their Democrat Governor, Tim Walz.

The "Save Face" Bill (HF4522) would take $100 Million of the state's enormous $12 Billion surplus and give grants to businesses up to $25,000. It will likely be included in the massive omnibus bill that gets put together in May at the end of the legislative session.

Specified in the bill are "restaurants, bars, cafés, salons, escape rooms, trampoline parks, yoga studios, health clubs, recreation centers and other small businesses" who were crushed due to Sandstede's terrible votes. She is now hoping to put a bandaid on the damage - and use it as a campaign issue for this November. 

Rep Erik Mortensen introduced a bill (HF4642) on Monday that would give Minnesota taxpayers a one year tax holiday, funded by the state's record $12 Billion surplus. If passed, the bill would allow tax filers to be refunded for their 2021 taxes or opt out of paying taxes for the remainder of the year (and refunded taxes paid already in 2022). Since the surplus comes from a biennial budget, this allows taxpayers who had a drastic shift in tax liability between years to capture the larger amount back.

"I wanted to find the best way to give back the surplus money to the people who paid it" stated Rep Erik Mortensen. "Unlike Governor Walz' plan that only gives back a small fraction of the surplus to us, while also distributing the money to people who didn't pay in, the Income Tax Holiday Bill would ensure the maximum amount of money goes back to the people who paid the taxes."

Is the surplus really large enough to allow a one year tax holiday? According to Minnesota Management and Budget, the state takes in $15 Billion in revenue from the state income tax per year (based on the recent biennium's numbers). Mortensen is the only state legislator calling to give back every penny of the surplus.

"If we could pass this thing, the amount of economic activity that would come to Minnesota would more than make up for the $3 Billion gap" said Mortensen. "On top of that, we keep learning that the surplus is growing every couple months. Let's make Minnesota an attractive place to do business and finally give back the surplus to its rightful owners - the taxpayers."

Here's the language of the bill:

Two liberal voting Republican legislators in Minnesota, also known as RINOs (Republican In Name Only), lost endorsements to newcomer, pro-liberty candidates on Saturday. Rep Tony Jurgens (Lifetime Rating 37%) was beaten by Tom Dippel in Senate District 41 (Lake Elmo, Cottage Grove, Hastings). He earned 67% on the first ballot, while Jurgens received only 28%; 4% went to a third candidate. Dippel ran on championing the Never Again Bill once elected and how thousand page omnibus bills are unconstitutional and need to end.

Tom Dippel runs a dental manufacturing company in Newport. He's a husband and father of six children. 

LEARN MORE ABOUT TOM DIPPEL

In Prior Lake, Sen Eric Pratt (Lifetime Rating 24%) was beaten by a pro-health freedom nurse, Natalie Barnes. Nurse Natalie won the endorsement by 62% on the first ballot. Pratt, who authored the federal ID system called "Real ID, has been at odds with the grassroots conservative movement for years. During COVID, he refused to stand up and force votes on the Never Again Bill or firing Jan Malcolm. Delegates preferred the message of health freedom from Nurse Natalie Barns and selected her as their endorsed candidate.

There are still more endorsement battles ahead. Thousands of Action 4 Liberty supporters went to precinct caucuses on February 1st and became delegates. This poses a real threat to the Political Class, which is why they are attacking Action 4 Liberty with lies and false information. And their allies in the Phony News Media are teaming up with them to try to derail this big pro-liberty movement. But they will fail - the good guys are already prevailing!

Jeff Bezos' ex-wife, Mackenzie Scott, is dumping millions of dollars from her Amazon fortune into left-wing Minnesota non-profits like Planned Parenthood and United States of Care. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, donations to 6 different organizations total $48 Million. Nearly half of it went to fund operations at Planned Parenthood.

Aside from being the largest provider of abortions, Planned Parenthood is solidly in the tank for Democrats in election years. They spend an extraordinary amount of funds each election year on supporting Democrat candidates, like Governor Tim Walz and his cronies. 

United States of Care is run by Andy Slavitt, who is Biden's former Senior Advisor for COVID. He also served in the Obama Administration as a key figure in implementing ObamaCare. The organization's mission is to advance government control in the health care industry. 

The Minnesota state government is running an enormous $12 Billion budget surplus. That means individual taxpayers in this state have been overtaxed to the tune of over $4,000 each. Which is why many Republicans have called for "Giving it Back." 

However, politicians on both sides of the aisle are already busy spending your surplus money. Remember - they passed a two-year budget last June - the government does not need to spend a dime more. 

Only one legislator in the state has stood up for the taxpayers and refused to spend the surplus. Freshman legislator, Erik Mortensen is honoring his pledge to give it all back.

HF3035 uses surplus money to fund a bogus audit of the Southwest Lightrail project - a complete, government funded boondoggle. The audit doesn't accomplish anything since it won't wrap up before the expensive rail project is completed. But that didn't stop every Senator and Representative, except Erik Mortensen, from voting to waste your surplus money.

Here's the appropriation:

Think there's merit to the wasteful audit, here's House Minority Leader and Lobbyist Legislator Kurt Daudt speaking out against it on the House floor...before he voted for it.

Here's the Senate vote:

Here's the House vote:

Mark Bishofsky, founder of the health freedom organization "Stop The Mandates", won a commanding 82% of the vote during the Senate District 33 convention on Saturday, March 19th. The GOP Convention took place at Stillwater Middle School.

Bishofsky put in the hard work of reaching out to grassroots conservatives across House District 33B, organizing an impressive team of volunteers and winning their support. His district covers Stillwater, Marine on St Croix and parts of Forest Lake.

Background - Mark Bishofsky was forced out of his workplace and profession as a respiratory therapist due to his refusal to comply with the vaccine mandates and decided to make it his mission to restore freedom in our great state. He is well on his way to accomplishing this now with the GOP endorsement.

Candidates like Mark Bishofsky are working tirelessly across Minnesota to take back the State House for the GOP and push through an agenda based on Liberty and the Constitution! 

After Bishofsky’s endorsement, convention observers witnessed a fascinating spectacle.  Conservative activist, Monti Moreno, almost upset incumbent Senator Karin Housley! Monti received 46% of the vote on the first ballot against the incumbent senator. It took 3 rounds of balloting before Housley could muster up 60% of the support need to win an endorsement. This goes to show that the Establishment has a very tough time explaining their record when challenged by an anti-Status Quo figure, even from an unprepared opponent.

Congratulations to Mark Bishofsky on his commanding Victory! A4L looks forward to seeing pro-liberty legislation be advanced in Minnesota! 

You can learn more about Mark Bishofsky at his website markformnhouse.com.

Many new activists, including ones that Action 4 Liberty drove to attend precinct caucuses, are experiencing an unwelcoming environment at their local conventions. Which is absurd considering the Republican Party hasn’t won a statewide election in 16 years – they should be welcoming new activists with open arms!

I get emails daily about this problem, and for the most part, chalk it up to the old guard protecting their little “fiefdoms”. 

But a more egregious problem occurred in the Morrison County Republican Party starting on caucus night. Several new delegates were taken off the list by the Party executives after being duly elected on caucus night (in accordance with state law). In some cases, names were added as delegates after the fact, including the wife of the local state representative, Ron Kresha. This not only violated the state party rules, but also was illegal. 

The Dr. Neil Shah gubernatorial campaign immediately noticed the problem when the state party provided delegate lists to them. They had an extensive ground game in Morrison County and their activists were missing from the delegate lists.

Shah, who is a proponent of election integrity, realized that a unit of the Republican Party was disenfranchising the voice of new conservative activists. That’s a big deal!

A conservative, outsider senate candidate named Nathan Wesenberg (Little Falls) also had an impressive ground game in Morrison County. When he learned of the issues with Morrison County, he demanded delegate lists and was not provided with them for nearly a month.

Candidates are entitled to the delegate lists since the delegates are the ones who decide who the Republican Party endorses as its candidates. 

The motivation to disenfranchise the new activists, which would directly hurt the Dr. Neil Shah campaign, Nathan Wesenberg for Senate and, from my research, even the Mike Murphy campaign, is unknown. But the Chairwoman of Morrison County GOP is a paid staffer for Paul Gazelka’s gubernatorial campaign. The cheating certainly put things in favor of Gazelka’s campaign since new, conservative activists are a big threat to his prospects of winning the Republican nomination. 

We dug into the Campaign Finance Records of Morrison County GOP and found that their bank account acts as a slush fund for Gazelka and friends. 97% of money raised in the rural party unit comes from lobbyists and Special Interests outside of the district. In fact, a $1,500 donation came from a DFL-aligned law firm that was used to file an erroneous complaint against Action 4 Liberty (which we beat). And 91% of expenditures went to golf expenses in 2021.

More importantly, Morrison County GOP bundled the money from lobbyists and Special Interests and donated $10,000 to Paul Gazelka’s Senate account, which was then terminated and transferred to his gubernatorial campaign.

We exposed this corruption in an article we wrote on February 21^st entitled Corruption in Morrison County GOP. Evidence showing that Morrison County disenfranchised conservative activists was also provided in the article through signed affidavits and images of delegate rosters from caucus night. 

Trying to disguise the blatant corruption, the Republican Party decided to have Congressional District 8 GOP run the Morrison County convention on March 12^th. And Paul Gazelka released an email excusing the behavior of the party leaders in Morrison County – an area he represents as state senator. 

Instead of fixing the errors caused by Heffron on delegate lists before the convention, the Republican Party decided to use the convention as the means to settle the score. So they sent out convention calls two weeks ago to the list of delegates they had – which means the disenfranchised new activists did not receive the call. So much for growing the Party!

Fortunately, the Wesenberg campaign stood up for these new activists and alerted them to the date/location of the Convention. They showed up and dedicated volunteers worked with the credentials committee to restore their delegate status. In fact, most of the delegates who were added by Heffron after caucus, like the wife of Ron Kresha, were removed as delegates. Huge success.

So Wesenberg supporters went to the convention floor to stop further corruption by the Party. They had a majority of the delegation at the convention. But the Congressional District 8 appointed chair, Justin Krych, from the start, wouldn't allow a new chair to be elected by the delegation floor. He later refused to acknowledge multiple motions and points of orders by the conservative activists. At one point he threatened to shut down the convention and remove delegates. When delegates called for a vote to appeal the ruling of the chair, Krych ignored the request.

Here's a snapshot of one of the battles...

In other words, Krych ruled the convention with an iron fist and removed the very important democratic function of conventions that both the Republican Party rules support and are embedded in Robert’s Rules of Order that govern these types of meetings. 

But this fight against corruption from the new activists, put the Party on high alert. Cheating was not going to be tolerated. Their voices matter. And as mentioned above, they had a majority. 

And thank God they had this mentality because a massive error happened later in the day when votes were being counted for State Delegate positions. A volunteer with the Shah Campaign insisted that he be present during the counting, but was initially told by the Head Teller that he was not allowed to observe. It’s the equivalent of throwing out a poll watcher on election day. The 22 delegates who were to be selected from Morrison County get to attend the Republican Party Convention in Rochester in May to decide who to endorse for Governor.

Luckily, the convention tellers, who came from Crow Wing County, were okay with the observer’s presence and it was determined he could be in the ballot counting room. I spoke to one of the tellers who stated that he and the others were big advocates for election integrity – thank God!

At the beginning of counting votes, 70 ballots were questioned because they contained the name of a new conservative activist, Dan Schilling, whose name was not on the official state delegation registration sheet provided to the tellers from the Party. A question was raised if the 70 ballots should be “spoiled” because once the votes for Schilling were removed from those ballots, they only had 21 names on it. Congressional District 8 GOP created a rule that required all ballots to have exactly 22 names on them.  

The Shah campaign volunteer noticed that this was not accurate and the tellers quickly agreed. The convention chair came into the room and determined that Schilling’s name was indeed on the roster on the convention floor and should be counted. Thanks to the tellers, Shah volunteer and the chair, the 70 ballots remained in effect. Here’s the kicker, Dan Schilling ended up being the top vote getter for state delegate in all of Morrison County. Had the tellers and observers not agreed on this omission error, Schilling would have been disenfranchised because some how his name wasn’t on list provided to the tellers. More importantly, all the votes of the other people on the 70 ballots would’ve been thrown out as well. 

New activists and Shah supporters ended up winning 17 of the 22 delegates positions. Gazelka delegates only won 5. If the 70 ballots would’ve been thrown out, Gazelka would have likely won all 22. Imagine Trump ballots being thrown out in a swing state and replaced with Biden ballots. These tactics change elections! And it’s why it’s vital that good people sign up to be election judges and poll watchers.

In the end, good prevailed because new activists were organized and knew the rules. They overcame corruption and a convention chair who ignored the democratic process. Disenfranchised new activists had their delegate statuses restored and the names of delegates added by Heffron were removed.

But I fear the cheating isn’t over. In the case of Nathan Wesenberg, the Insiders realize he has done an extraordinary job of organizing conservative activists. I wouldn’t be surprised if they refuse to hold an endorsing convention for Senate District 10 – a tactic that would force a primary where the Republican Party wouldn’t have an endorsed candidate to support, and thus welcome big, special interest money to help bolster the Political Class’ preferred candidate. 

Here's the deal. A lot of people have woken up in the last two years because of COVID tyranny and a crazy election that put a bumbling, moron in the Oval Office. Both the Republican and Democrat Establishment in this state are doing little to give back the massive $12 Billion surplus, stop vaccine mandates, and make sure unilateral emergency powers NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN - all issues that new conservative activists demand.  

The Political Class in Minnesota is threatened by all of us though. They know we are angry about how government has treated our liberties in the last two years. And they know we are organized. I remain optimistic that we will reclaim our liberties in this state because I see new conservative activists getting involved every day. If you recognize cheating, stand up against it and make your voice heard. We can turn things around in this state, but it requires good people to do something about it!

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