ELY— Area voters and DFL candidates Grant Hauschild and Aaron Kania sounded a note of unity during a town hall event held here on Monday. About 60 mostly older residents gathered at the Grand Ely Lodge to ask questions and offer comments to Hauschild, who is seeking re-election to Senate District 3, and Kania, who is challenging GOP Rep. Roger Skraba in House District 3A.
The event came in the wake of a controversial executive order issued by Gov. Tim Walz last week, which paused any state agency involvement in advancing the Twin Metals copper-nickel mine proposal near Ely until at least next April. The order has left DFLers in the region divided, but those divisions were mostly sidestepped at Monday’s event, as Hauschild laid out the stakes, noting that his narrow election, by a margin of just one percent, had given the DFL a governing trifecta with a one seat majority in the Senate ahead of the historic 2023 legislative session.
“I think of the historic record that we have on things like climate,” he said. “We were able to pass the strongest climate goals in the country, making Minnesota carbon neutral by 2040. We were able to protect women’s right to choose and enshrine that into state law… We were able to pass a historic paid family and medical leave program that’s allowing young mothers to be with the babies and kids to be with their parents at the end of life in our state. We were able to pass the most historic labor organizing rights in the country.”
Hauschild contrasted that record with the current GOP trifecta in Washington. “When Republicans take control, they cut Medicaid. They try to destroy our rural hospitals. They denigrate our environmental laws,” he said.
Kania touted his campaign’s energy, giving him hope in a House district that has become increasingly Republican leaning. Kania said his campaign has knocked on 4,500 doors to date and he’s participated in more than 20 parades and 30 meet and greets all around the sprawling district, and he’s optimistic that work, along with high voter enthusiasm among Democrats, will pay off with a victory on Nov. 3.
“I bring that up because I think that’s what it takes to win a race like this,” he said, adding that it took some time for DFLers at the state level to even get on board with a serious bid in 3A. “They told me, ‘don’t waste your time.’ And I said ‘do me a favor, here’s my resumé. Vet me, take a look at me.’”
Then party leaders saw big Democratic wins the following Tuesday in Virginia and New Jersey. “That Wednesday morning, the DFL couldn’t get ahold of me soon enough and they said they thought candidate quality will put us over the top.” Kania contrasted his record, which includes years in federal law enforcement in the West, with Skraba’s record of prosecution for federal offenses in the Boundary Waters.
On copper-nickel mining
Hauschild has taken heat in some circles for his criticism of Gov. Walz’s recent executive order. But in a crowd that largely favored Walz’s action, Hauschild defended his long-standing position that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle should allow “the process” to work. “When it comes to the [copper-nickel] mining debate, but I firmly believe that as Democrats we have to stand by the processes we created.” He said that includes allowing state regulators to assess the environmental implications of mine proposals before politicians take a position on their merits. And he reminded those in the audience that Republican candidates have already taken positions in support of the Twin Metals mine, long before any examination of the environmental impacts.
“I don’t support a mine. I don’t oppose a mine. I support the process,” Hauschild said.
Kania said the skepticism that many DFLers feel towards state regulators comes down to the breakdown in trust that many Americans feel toward their government. “We’ve lost trust in our elected officials, in our agencies, and in our processes. How do we get that trust back?”
Questioner Josh Lambert, an environmental consultant who lives in Ely, noted that regulators have repeatedly failed to take a hard look at the science surrounding sulfide-based mining, particularly in a water-rich environment. “The science already supports that it would be completely foolish to even entertain,” he said.
While Walz’s executive order was controversial, questioner Becky Rom, of Ely, argued “it was driven by the corrupt and unlawful act by Congress, in cahoots with the White House, to revoke Boundary Waters’ protections that were based on exhaustive environmental studies, extensive pubic input and public comments.” Rom said she likes process as well, noting that it was a federal process that led to the 20-year mining ban in the upper Rainy River watershed, which was overturned earlier this year in Congress by a questionable use of the Congressional Review Act. “We had a federal process. We had science. We had tribes who bought into it. It was ignored,” she added.
Rom called for permanent protection of the upper Rainy watershed by the Legislature, along with an economic package that provides long-term assistance to the region. “That’s the road to success,” she said.
Hauschild said he supports having a debate on the merits of the permanent protections combined with an economic package. “I would love us to put together a package that addressed the wildfires… that would create iron air battery manufacturing, invest in helium and the processing that could happen here in this region. That gets into recycling of metals. That expands our lumber industry. All of the things that we can do up here.”
At the same time, Hauschild warned that achieving a broad economic assistance package for the region may be difficult, given the region’s loss of political clout in St. Paul.
Kania noted that long-term legislation has to have an element of compromise, and he cited the 1964 Wilderness Act, which took decades of work to achieve and ultimately achieved almost universal support in Congress, passing with just one dissenting vote. “Think about how, one, we’ve changed as a society, but two, think about how resilient our wilderness heritage is because of the compromise.” He said he’s challenged some of the current House members in St. Paul to consider how such a compromise might work when it comes to protecting the upper Rainy River watershed. “What does that look like with the unions supporting it?” he asked. “And the thing that keeps coming back over and over is we also need really strong economic development in northern Minnesota. That the whole state of Minnesota needs to be part of this solution.”
While copper-nickel mining has been a point of division within the DFL, most of those who had the opportunity to ask questions or comment on Monday stressed the need to look past a single issue.
“No Democrat is going to be elected up here if they are opposed to copper-nickel mining,” said Ely activist Carol Orban. “I think purity tests can get in the way of our pragmatism,” she added.
That was echoed by Leah Rogne, of Greaney, who noted what could happen if DFLers don’t prevail in November. “We can’t afford to lose the House and the Senate, and what, God forbid, if we lost the governorship. We have to be very careful about this. We would become Mississippi or Alabama. I’m talking losing the right to abortion, gay marriage, LGBT rights, public education, all the things that we’re seeing happening in this country.”
Education funding a major focus
Monday’s event wasn’t solely focused on copper-nickel mining. In fact, the future of education funding drew at least as much attention. In response to a question from long-time Ely educator Bill Tefft, both Hauschild and Kania talked about the challenges facing schools in the region, where districts are shifting to four-day weeks, facing statutory operating debt, and looking at enormous cuts, while schools elsewhere in the state have huge budgets thanks to local property wealth. Hauschild said past governors, like Ventura and Pawlenty, had degraded the so-called Minnesota Miracle, which had once helped to equalize education funding throughout the state. Hauschild said the state needs to take another look at the funding formula and how it gets calculated if the state is going to ever get back to the way it used to be. “Your zip code shouldn’t determine whether or not you child has access to AP history or AP algebra,” he said. He noted that changes in how property taxes are collected on seasonal recreational properties, which go to state rather than local coffers, is unfair to districts in places like northeastern Minnesota, which have a lot of property wealth tied up in seasonal rec. Hauschild said he’s working to change that approach, as well as have the state pay more to cover the cost of career and technical education to incentivize rural school districts to offer more such options for students.
He said the school formula, based solely on per-pupil aid, fails to account for some of the higher overhead costs, like buildings, that many smaller, rural school districts face. “How do we provide more upfront funding for schools that are losing population rather than just sort of this strict per pupil formula?” Hauschild asked.
Accountability
At the end, both Kania and Hauschild tried to draw a contrast between themselves and their GOP opponents. Kania said he regularly hears disappointment from Republicans over Skraba’s failure to get out and talk to his constituents. “They say they don’t know who he is, he won’t answer the phone, and if he does it’s a horrible experience. He won’t answer his emails, and he won’t have open houses. Think of the difference that we have in this room, that Grant and I will sit up here as humans, as fellow neighbors, and do this.”
Hauschild said he believed that both Skraba and his opponent, Andrea Zupancich, have good intentions and want our area communities to do well. “They’re just don’t do a really good job at it. I mean can you imagine Andrea standing up here doing a public forum and taking questions? My God, she’s been in office for over a decade and she’s never done anything like this. So, that’s the difference, right? We need elected officials who are going to listen to all sides.”