Eighth District seat

For decades, Minnesota’s Eighth District was represented in Congress by leaders who went to Washington with real purpose and delivered in major ways for our region. Representatives like John Blatnik and Jim Oberstar, who represented the Eighth District from 1947-2010, a combined 63 years, were engaged, intelligent members of Congress who understood they were there to serve the interests of the people they represented, rather than serve as mere cogs in a rudderless political party.
That is not the kind of leadership our region has experienced with Rep. Pete Stauber, a virtual non-entity in Congress with almost nothing to show for his seven years in Washington. Unilke his predecessors, who spearheaded major infrastructure projects that created jobs and helped the economy grow, Stauber has served mostly as a No vote, even for projects that directly benefit our district.
Unlike his predecessors, who were always willing to use the resources of government to help lift Americans up, Stauber has focused almost exclusively on helping the rich get richer. Just this past summer, he voted for the One Big “Ugly” Bill that lavished permanent tax cuts on the wealthy while placing restrictions on Medicaid benefits that most analysts expect will harm health care facilities here in the Eighth District, not to mention harming the millions of Americans who will lose health care coverage when these changes take effect in just over a year.
Rather than acting in the interests of his constituents, Stauber has sat by silently as tens of thousands of residents in his district are slated to see enormous increases in their health care premiums beginning next month. Pete Stauber has made it clear he’s in Washington to do the bidding of an out-of-control congressional leadership focused on the interests of the billionaire class rather than his actual constituents.
As a MAGA minion, Stauber has done nothing to raise questions or in any way challenge a president who flaunts his corruption on an almost daily basis. Just this past weekend, we saw President Trump, Stauber’s master, announce he plans to issue a full pardon for Juan Orlando Hernåndez, a former Honduran president who, in league with El Chapo, was paid millions to facilitate the drug trade into the U.S. for years.
“We’re going to stuff drugs up the noses of the gringos, and they won’t even know it,” Hernandez reportedly boasted at one point, a quote that came out at his trial.
So, where is Stauber, the former cop? Is he raising concerns about a president who pardons drug kingpins, and did it, almost certainly, for yet another big cash payout?
Crickets … because Pete Stauber is more interested in keeping his head down and staying out of Trump’s line of fire than he is in standing up for the law, much less basic morality. If the president of the United States is selling pardons or clemency to drug lords, con men, and grifters of all kinds, Pete Stauber certainly isn’t going to say anything about it. Is that really the person we want representing us in Congress?
So, what are we going to do about it? We’ve talked to many residents of the Eighth District who share our disgust with our member of Congress. We know that the growing national disgust with President Trump is likely to lead to big gains for those willing to challenge the grotesque pay-for-play politics currently dominating Washington and present a vision of the future that begins to contain the economic and political power of the billionaire class.
We hear all the time that residents of our district are increasingly aware that our economic system is working only for those at the top, who have converted their bottomless wealth into a degree of political control over Washington that far exceeds that of even the Gilded Age. Even then, men like J.P. Morgan and John Rockefeller weren’t given unaccountable government portfolios and free range to fire federal workers, eliminate grants, or overturn congressionally approved spending at will. That would have been beyond the pale even in those days.
As bad as Stauber has been, it’s still going to take a strong candidate to send him packing. What we don’t need is a typical, poll-tested Democrat, one who will simply tow the party line in Washington.
We need a candidate who isn’t going to go along to get along. One who isn’t focused on raising money, but on disrupting the all-too-comfortable way that things have worked in Washington for far too long. We know that Pete Stauber is not that kind of congressman. Surely, somewhere in the vastness of the Eighth District is a candidate with the fire in the belly to take him on.
Consider this an open call. Any takers out there?