Candidate Profiles: U.S. Senate

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Kurt Bills

Republican

Age: 42

Personal: Wife, Cindy. Four children, Kyla, Cassandra, Hayden and Olivia. Grew up in Wisconsin. Graduated from Winona (Minn.) State University.

Occupation: Rosemount High School social studies teacher. Former wrestling coach. Couple runs a home-based day care center.

Political experience: Elected to Rosemount City Council in 2008, Minnesota House 2010.

Amy Klobuchar

Democrat, incumbent

Age: 52

Personal: Husband, John Bessler. Daughter, Abigail. She is daughter of well-known Minnesota sports columnist Jim Klobuchar. Raised in Wayzata. Graduated from Yale University and University of Chicago Law School.

Occupation: Lawyer in private practice 14 years.

Political experience: Two terms as Hennepin County attorney. In first U.S. Senate term.

ST. PAUL – Kurt Bills dumped several books on a table in his U.S. Senate campaign office, declaring they were his plan to fix the federal budget.

He said those documents provided a “starting point,” admitting that key provisions such as eliminating the Education Department likely would be dropped in negotiations.

Amy Klobuchar touted her vote on the Budget Control Act that would chop $2.2 trillion in federal spending over 10 years as her starting point.

She insisted that Congress work on the issue after the Nov. 6 election all the way through the holidays “if that is what it takes to come up with the best solution for our economy.”

As Minnesota’s two major U.S. Senate candidates offer different starting points for the federal budget, they spell out some of their major differences. Both acknowledge the end result will be somewhere in the middle after negotiations.

The federal budget usually is a key issue in congressional races, but this year it takes on a new urgency.

As Bills campaigns, he talks about the “fiscal cliff” America faces on Dec. 31, when the Budget Control Act kicks in and automatic spending cuts begin.

Bills backs the Platform to Revitalize America, a budget proposal by fellow Republican U.S. Rep. Rand Paul. The Kentucky congressman is the son of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, a presidential candidate whose delegates dominated the Minnesota state GOP convention and endorsed Bills.

For Bills, the Paul plan’s key is eliminating 15 percent of the federal work force. Bills said that would occur over years, with most jobs ending after retirements.

The plan also would eliminate the federal Education, Energy, Commerce and Housing and Urban Development departments.

Paul claims his plan would balance the budget in five years.

Bills said the Klobuchar-backed Budget Control Act does not cut the budget, it only “pulls down the trend line.”

Klobuchar said the act she supported is a good place to start.

“I believe the way to reduce our debt without setting our country back or causing a sharp contraction to our economy is to take a balanced approach, which means both spending cuts and revenue increases,” she said.

Klobuchar said she supports cutting $2.2 trillion over 10 years, as the Budget Control Act would do. She favors negotiations this year to target those cuts before they become automatic.

She calls for extending tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush on the middle class, but eliminating cuts for those earning more than $250,000 annually.

Klobuchar ties tax reform to fixing the debt problem, and both need to be done in the next year, she said. “We have to find a path where we really send a message to the country and the world that we are serious.”

For Bills, what to do about taxes is simple: a flat tax. He favors a solution that would tax every person and business 17.1 percent of their income, with just one or two deductions. That would allow tax returns to shrink to postcard size, and he said it may force some wealthy Americans to pay more.

Klobuchar said she joined with Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., in refusing to raise the federal debt without creating the commission to recommend spending and tax changes.

She called the Budget Control Act “one of the major debt reductions in the past decades.”

Bills, however, said the act is not a budget. His campaign hammers home the point that Congress has not enacted what is supposed to be an annual budget since April 29, 2009.

Congress has three choices to reduce the debt, Bills said: grow the economy, reduce government or raise taxes. He said that cutting government would help the economy grow and could end up bringing in more taxes, even without a tax rate increase.

He said Americans need “to elect people who are willing to compromise,” adding that he would do just that.

As an example, he said that the federal Education Department has made no improvements he has seen in his 16 years as a high school teacher and he would abolish it. However, he said he realizes the department probably would survive negotiations, which he could accept.

The department is bloated, he said, including operating more than 200 programs encouraging students to get involved in science, technology, engineering and math education. He blamed the large number of programs on federal lawmakers, each of whom wants to look like he supports education.

Bills blamed an overgrown bureaucracy for problems. He said many federal workers have nothing else to do but sit around and think of new regulations.

He said he does not think Congress needs to take action to reduce regulations because cutting the bureaucracy would give federal workers less time to dream up new ones.

Klobuchar said regulations need to be examined on an industry-by-industry basis. Regulations should be crafted to allow businesses to grow “while keeping strong safety and health regulations,” she said.

The incumbent’s first television commercial this year promoted her work in saving Minnesota car dealer jobs. She said that as a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, car dealer representatives approached her for help after big car makers began ordering some local dealers to close.

“They were unilaterally shutting down these dealerships that were profitable,” Klobuchar said, taking credit for saving 28 Minnesota dealerships.

Don Davis reports for Forum Communications Co., which owns the Pine Journal.

Being salesperson is part of Klobuchar’s job

Don Davis

Forum Communications

STACY, Minn. – Amy Klobuchar’s voice rose as she delivered an impassioned plea – especially to high school girls – to get involved in science, technology, engineering and math.

“We have to invent things again,” she declared. “We have to make things again.”

As an example of Minnesota’s needs, Agco in Jackson cannot find enough welders to build Massey Ferguson and Challenger farm tractors, she told a group gathered to celebrate National Manufacturers’ Day at Wyoming Machine, just north of the Twin Cities.

After her speech, Minnesota’s senior U.S. senator chatted with high school girls, and a few boys, about prospects in what normally are not jobs girls investigate.

The 52-year-old Democrat sounded all the world like a saleswoman trying to recruit job candidates.

Being a saleswoman may not be what she expected when elected senator six years ago, after two terms as Hennepin County attorney, but she said that is part of the job.

“You have an obligation as a senator to point out where America has jobs,” she said.

“We’re trying to work with high schools all around the state,” Klobuchar said, with one goal of getting students interested in attending two-year colleges.

“Not every senator can say this,” Klobuchar said in an interview. “My dad went to a two-year college, Vermilion, and my sister went to a two-year college in Iowa.”

Both went on to four-year schools, and her father became a well-known Minnesota sports columnist.

Klobuchar went into her re-election race with polls showing her the state’s most popular politician and with plenty of money in the bank.

In campaign stops, she says little about Republican challenger Kurt Bills. Instead, she discusses things she has done in her tenure to help Minnesotans.

Bills criticizes her for not being a leader, but she counters by saying she works with senators from both parties and gets things done.

What some might consider minor issues -- like outlawing a dangerous type of swimming pool drain -- affect many Americans, she said.

For instance, a family adopted eight Filipino children from one family, but federal law did not allow adoption of a 16-year-old brother.

“We realized that was happening all over the place,” she said.

She helped change the law.

Bills complains that Klobuchar talks about working with Republicans for bipartisan solutions, but 94 percent of the time she votes with Democrats.

Longtime Democratic activist Wy Spano, director of the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Master of Advocacy and Political Leadership program, said most congressional votes are lopsided by party, so such a high percentage is common.

“My mission since I have gotten there is to find common ground,” Klobuchar said.

While Spano said “that’s just who she is,” it helps her in politics. Spano said no big-name Republican wanted to take her on this year.

Klobuchar is in demand as a speaker around the country and other Democrats ask her to campaign for them.

At a recent event for Senate hopeful U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin in Hudson, Wis., Klobuchar refused to say how many states she has visited during the campaign, but said she helps her friends.

Her travelling only stokes the flames of what some see as a possible future presidential campaign. Major political publications have tossed around her name, including calling her one of the women most likely to run for president.

Klobuchar will not directly talk about any presidential dreams, including in 2016, and left the door open a bit when asked if she would pledge to serve out her six-year Senate term if re-elected: “Yeah, that is what I am planning on doing.”

She said Minnesota has had a lot of senators in recent years and it is time for one to stay in office for a while.

Don Davis reports for Forum Communications Co., which owns the Pine Journal.

Bills’ experience with federal government forms his message

Don Davis

Forum Communications

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. – Federal government requirements on a home day care center his wife runs illustrate why Kurt Bills wants to be a U.S. senator.

Bills and his wife, Cindy, spend 80 hours preparing their income tax returns.

“Simply put, it takes too long,” Bills said. “You have to simplify the tax code so people can run small- and medium-sized businesses.”

The federal government mandates too much from small businesses and citizens, the Republican added, singling out one of those requirements: “We now have to throw away all of our cribs that were manufactured before June of 2011.”

That cost of more than $1,000 illustrates a bigger issue to Bills. “I know this sounds like a very simple, little thing, but this is indicative of what is happening all over the country.”

Such comments likely are heard in a lot of Minnesota homes, and supporters say they would be well accepted, but Bills is not well known in those homes.

Minnesota House Majority Leader Matt Dean, R-Dellwood, said he is confident Republicans will support Bills, who won the party’s endorsement thanks to the libertarian Ron Paul wing of the party. Others would support him, too, Dean said, if they could hear him.

But the underfunded Bills campaign has not been able to reach out.

The Republican served one term on the Rosemount City Council and is wrapping up his only term in the state House as he runs for the $174,000-a-year six-year Senate job against Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

Bills, 42, grew up in south-central Wisconsin and said as a boy on Friday nights would wait at home staring at the citizens’ band radio, waiting for his father to radio in that he was returning from working far away.

When he was in school, he said, the family heated the house with firewood.

Bills faced tough financial times growing up, and that has not changed as a statewide candidate.

Klobuchar, who polls show to be the most popular Minnesota politician, enjoyed a $4.8 million bank balance in the last pre-election financial report. Bills, who polls show as much as 30 points behind, reported $68,000 on hand.

“We have been climbing the ladder and that is what we will continue to do,” Bills said during an interview in his sparse Bloomington campaign office.

“Anyone who took on Amy Klobuchar this year took on an uphill battle,” Dean said.

Bills’ campaign has attacked the media for not asking Klobuchar tough questions. But, he said, voters should not rely on the media to decide on a candidate.

“Don’t you have to have some kind of faith that they will investigate?” he asked about voters. “Heaven forbid that people might actually have to go out and do some investigation about people who are running.”

Taking on both Democrats and Republicans, he said the government gridlock Americans see is not between spending more or spending less. “We seem to find ways to spend more.”

Talking to 14 Republicans at a Minnetonka senior citizens apartment complex recently, Bills opened with a common line about students in his Rosemount High School economics class: “They were seeing an incredible deficit of leadership.”

If he somehow can make it past the obstacles in a Democratic-leaning state, Bills said he would become an instant leader.

“I walk through the doors of the United States Senate from Minnesota and I’m a Republican who just came from 30 points down to beat somebody with all the political power, all the political infrastructure, all the money in a blue state,” Bills said. “I believe at that point, more Democrats will listen. Otherwise, in two years, I will be in your state campaigning.”

Republicans would pay attention, too, he said.

Such upset wins seldom happen, he admitted. “This would be a fairly unique election.”

Don Davis reports for Forum Communications Co., which owns the Pine Journal.

Tags: election 2012, house and senate, candidate profiles, news