Posts by Dr. Eric Ostermeier
Sen. Rest and Rep. Emmer to Speak on U.S. Senate Recount and MN Election Reform
Two leaders from the State Capitol will be speaking at a forum hosted by the Humphrey Institute on Friday morning to pinpoint reforms that could be made in the Minnesota election system to avoid recount pitfalls in the future. DFL…
Read MoreBachmann Voting Record Is 2nd Least Supportive of Obama in U.S. House
Last month a Smart Politics analysis of the most conservative members of the U.S. House (as determined by National Journal’s annual rankings) found Representative Michele Bachmann to have received the smallest margin of victory of the 44 most conservative Republicans…
Read MoreHow Blue Are the Blue Dog Democrats?
Congressional Quarterly’s vote study for the first half of 2009 is in the books, and finds that House Democrats overall supported Barack Obama 91.1 percent of the time in which the President stated his clear policy preference on legislation that…
Read MoreMinnesota’s ‘Youthful’ U.S. House Delegation
A recent article at CQ Politics profiled the potential competitiveness of Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District race in 2010. That district’s Representative, freshman GOPer Erik Paulsen, is one of several dozen new faces elected to D.C. during the past two election…
Read MoreMinnesota Delegation Has 2nd Lowest Collective Seniority Ranking in U.S. Senate
The soon-to-be seated DFL U.S. Senator Al Franken will now be able to assist Senior Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar with the state’s constituency caseload, but will not enhance the state’s collective seniority ranking in Capitol Hill’s upper chamber. Minnesota has…
Read MoreIt’s the Snowball Fights: Minnesota Has Lowest Rate of Overweight Children in America
While Minnesota recently lost its #1 ranking to Wisconsin for the state with the best quality of health care nationwide, a new study released Tuesday by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reveals the Gopher…
Read MorePutting a Bow on the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate Contest (A Historical Analysis)
With Governor Tim Pawlenty and Secretary of State Mark Ritchie signing the election certificate for the U.S. Senate seat on Tuesday evening, the 2008 Election is, after a 238-day wait, at last in the books. The 2008 U.S. Senate Election…
Read MoreWho Defected on the US House Climate Change Legislation?
The U.S. House of Representative’s 219-212 vote last week in favor of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (HR 2454) passed in part due to the defection of a handful of Republicans, while more than half of the Blue…
Read MoreNorm Coleman Ends 2008 Election Legal Fight
Speaking outside his house in St. Paul on Tuesday afternoon, former Republican Senator Norm Coleman congratulated DFLer Al Franken as the new Senator from the Gopher State. Earlier this afternoon the Minnesota Supreme Court decided Franken was “entitled” to a…
Read MoreWisconsin Overtakes Minnesota as #1 State in Health Care Quality Rankings
The newly released 2008 state rankings by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ) finds the State of Wisconsin has passed Minnesota for overall health care quality in the United States….
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