Mar 16 King Makes It Official

This morning, King Banaian announced that he will run for the Minnesota legislature. If King is elected, King would represent me in the legislature as the representative from HD-15B.

House GOP Leader Kurt Zellers and Rep. Steve Gottwalt attended the announcement, with Leader Zellers introducing King. During his introduction, Leader Zellers said that Minnesota's economy isn't performing the way Minnesotans have come to expect. He then said that you take your car to a mechanic when it isn't performing properly, that you didn't take it "to a florist."

It was clear that Leader Zellers was referring to the fact that Rep. Haws, the man currently representing 15B, isn't doing enough to get Minnesota's economy creating jobs again. Leader Zellers said that King Banaian has stayed in touch with St. Cloud's business leaders and with the people of St. Cloud.

Zellers made clear that he was excited at the possibility of having someone with King's credentials and talent as part of the House GOP Caucus. He said that he was confident that King would hit the ground running if elected. Considering King's experience with public policy, that's a reasonable expectation.

During his announcement, King said that he had this message for St. Paul:

"The ATM is closed. You've taken enough."

When King was asked about the bonding bill, he said that, while the construction jobs are important, he said we also have to look at the value of something after it's been built. He said that he was sad that Gov. Pawlenty had line-itemed out the science lab funding for the SCSU campus because of the great value it would've created for Minnesota and for SCSU's students.

Steve Gottwalt made it clear that Larry Haws's public image in St. Cloud didn't match his voting record in St. Paul, citing the fact that Rep. Haws has voted for too many major tax increases in his time in St. Paul. Rep. Gottwalt said that too frequently, Rep. Haws had voted with the DFL against common sense GOP amendments.

King announced that, if elected, the first bill he'd submit is for using zero-based budgeting in putting together Minnesota's budget. King said that zero-based budgeting forces the legislature to justify every dollar of spending "instead of quibbling over" "the last dollars spent."

King made clear that setting the right priorities is the way to solve Minnesota's budget problems and for building a flourishing economy that's creating jobs.

Comments welcome at LFR.