Minnesota’s SD 60 Sets Record for Largest DFL Special State Senate Primary Field
More DFL hopefuls will be on the special State Senate primary ballot in January than in any such election in party history
When the filing deadline closed for Minnesota’s 60th Senate District seat on Tuesday, 10 DFL candidates had entered the race as well as three Republicans.
The seat became vacant following the death of five-term DFL Senator Kari Dziedzic who passed away from ovarian cancer last week.
Following the candidate withdrawal deadline of 5 p.m. on Thursday, the final field is comprised of eight DFLers and two Republicans vying for each party’s nomination in primaries to be held on January 14th.
The eight DFL hopefuls is the largest field ever to seek the party’s nomination in a special State Senate election since the end of non-partisan legislative races in 1973.
Inclusive of SD 60 in January, a total of 91 special elections for the Minnesota State Senate have been conducted during the primary era (1902-present).
Eighty-one of these required a special primary – in which more than two candidates filed for the seat.
A total of 52 special elections were held during periods in which candidates ran with partisan affiliation (1902-1912 and 1973-present).
The previous high water mark of DFL (or Democratic) candidates on a State Senate special primary ballot was seven – set in September 1999 in SD 18 (Chisago, Isanti, Kanabec, Pine counties) following the death of DFL Senator Janet Johnson a month prior.
That race also had two Republicans and five Reform Party candidates vie for their party’s nomination for a total of 14 candidates seeking the seat – the largest number of special election hopefuls during the partisan era and second most in state history.
[In 1949’s nonpartisan special primary for St. Paul’s 42nd Senate District, a record 20 candidates appeared on the January 31st ballot. The winner of that race was future governor Elmer L. Andersen].
The eight DFLers in SD 60 is one shy of the all-time state record set in September 1994 when nine Independent-Republicans vied for the GOP nomination to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Independent-Republican Senator Duane Benson on September 19, 1994 to become Director of the Minnesota Business Partnership.
Preston farmer Kenric Scheevel won that race and would serve eight years in the chamber.
The 10 hopefuls vying for SD 60 this month is tied for the sixth most in the primary era for a vacant State Senate seat:
- January 31, 1949 (SD 49, Ramsey County): 20 candidates
- September 28, 1999 (SD 18, Chisago, Isanti, Kanabec, Pine counties): 14 candidates
- January 17, 1927 (SD 40, Ramsey County): 13 candidates
- September 13, 1994 (SD 31, Dodge, Fillmore, Mower, Olmsted, Winona counties): 13 candidates
- January 10, 1939 (SD 55, Kanabec, Mille Lacs, Sherburne counties): 11 candidates
- December 13, 1932 (SD 29, Hennepin County): 10 candidates
Since 1973, an average of 2.2 DFLers have run for their party’s nomination in special State Senate elections compared to an average of 1.8 Republicans.
The vacancy in SD 60 leaves the state’s upper legislative chamber deadlocked with 33 Republicans and 33 DFLers.
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– Regardless of his possible ’28 bid, will Governor Walz stand for a third 4-year term, even with a divided legislature? (The DFL seems likely to retain SD-60, given its partisan lean as well as the typical swing against the party in presidential power.)
– Whatever the merits in favor of the institution (unlike the federal government, the States are UNITARY), the *Senates* in the 49 or 50 States have served as (indirect) stepping stones to the presidency, with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and James Earl “Jimmy” Carter (RIP), the longest-served president and longest-tenured former president, respectively, as some of the alumni.
And more recently, Barack Obama (IL state senator 1997-2005).
Interestingly, no presidential nominee from either party between Carter and Obama had served in a state senate. [Also, Joe Lieberman was the only vice-presidential nominee during this period who had such a line on their résumé.]
—
(unrelated) With the nomination of RFK Jr. to be secretary of HHS, we will in all likelihood see the first father-son duo of U.S. cabinet members in decades. [RFK served as attorney-general from 1961 to 1964.] As far as I can tell, the most recent example is Ramsey Clark (attorney-general, 1967-69), son of then-Supreme Court justice Tom C. Clark (attorney-general, 1945-49). Before that, there were John W. Weeks (war, 1921-25) and Sinclair Weeks (commerce, 1953-58), and Henry C. Wallace (agriculture, 1921-24) and Henry A. Wallace (agriculture, 1933-40; commerce, 1945-46).
Luther H. Hodges (commerce, 1961-65) and Luther H. Hodges, Jr. (commerce, 1979-80) also fulfill this criterion, but the latter served only as acting secretary.
Historically, one famous duo was Alphonso Taft (war, 1876; attorney-general, 1876-77) and president William Howard Taft (war, 1904-08). The latter’s great-grandson William Howard Taft IV was acting secretary of defense in 1989. Their distant relative (from a different branch of the Taft family) was LDS apostle Ezra Taft Benson (agriculture, 1953-61).
From yet another presidential family was Charles Francis Adams III (navy, 1929-33), great-grandson of president John Quincy Adams (state, 1817-25).
John Kerry (state, 2013-17) and Cameron Kerry (commerce, 2013) were brothers who held cabinet roles simultaneously, albeit Cameron served in an acting capacity for less than a month. Similarly, William Tecumseh Sherman (war, 1869) – of “march to the sea” fame – and John Sherman (treasury, 1877-81; state, 1897-98) – of “antitrust” fame – were brothers. There is also John Foster Dulles (state, 1953-59), whose brother Allen Dulles was concurrently director of central intelligence, 1953-61 [a post which was not of cabinet rank at the time, however].
It is somewhat surprising that we have gone so long without seeing a cabinet nominee whose parent had served in the cabinet, given that there has been no shortage of potential appointees who fit that description — Mitt Romney, Tom Udall, Mitch/Mary Landrieu, etc.
Here are two more Cabinet “brother acts”:
Wayne MacVeagh, Attorney General, March-October 1881, was the brother of Franklin MacVeagh, Treasury secretary 1909-13.
Curtis D. Wilbur, Navy Secretary 1924-29, was the brother of Ray Lyman Wilbur, Interior Secretary, 1929-33. (Curtis’ last day was March 4; Ray’s first day was March 5.)
The Grangers were a notable father-son combo: Gideon Granger was Postmaster General under three presidents, 1801-14; his son Francis held the same office under Harrison and Tyler, March-September 1841. However, the P.G. apparently wasn’t considered a cabinet-level office until 1829, so I guess the Grangers don’t really count.
Oops — Gideon Granger was P.G. under *two* presidents.
(Unrelated) History was made today, when a former president and a president-elect has been formally convicted (in Empire State and perhaps some others, a person is deemed convicted upon sentencing by a judge) of even a single count of felony. As well, when Grover Cleveland returned to the presidency after an involuntary hiatus, it had not been known beforehand that he would not stand for election in 1896, thus he was not encumbered with the ‘lame duck’ status upon resuming the post. *Terra Incognita* indeed, come Monday th 20th!