Emmer and Seifert: Candidates For The Taxpayer

There are a lot of measures when looking at candidates, especially when we consider that in the gubernatorial race on the Republican side that we have 2 strong conservatives fighting for every possible delegate vote. Below are the endorsements listed to date for the candidates for the Republican governor’s race. I thought I’d apply the lifetime Taxpayers League ratings of these endorsers of each candidate and see how they stack up.

Thankfully, the Taxpayers League has been doing the hard work of their annual Legislative Scorecard for years rating all legislators each session based on the votes they consider the most important to you the taxpayer. Below is the simple math for the 2 candidates (including their scores) and their endorsers lifetime TLM 2009 ratings.

Marty Seifert 85%
Sen. David Hann 94%
Sen. Joe Gimse 54%
Sen. Bill Ingebritsen 65%
Sen. Julie Rosen 59%
Sen. Dennis Frederickson 56%
Sen. Dave Senjem 71%
Rep. Pat Garofalo 71%
Rep. Larry Howes 59%
Rep. Denny McNamara 62%
Rep. Joyce Peppin 92%
Rep. Paul Anderson 67%
Rep. Bob Dettmer 84%
Rep. Steve Gottwalt 74%
Rep. Bob Gunther 67%
Rep. Mark Murdock 67%
Rep. Bud Nornes 71%
Rep. Torrey Westrom 74%
Rep. Paul Torkelson 80%
Rep. Doug Magnus 71%

1423 / 20 = Team Seifert = 71.1%


Tom Emmer  92%
Sen. Amy Koch 88%
Sen. Warren Limmer 93%
Sen. Mike Jungbauer 78%
Sen. Debbie Johnson 80%
Sen. Pat Pariseau   85%
Sen. Claire Robling 76%
Rep. Mary Liz Holberg 88%
Rep. Tim Kelly 87%
Rep. Bruce Anderson 96%
Rep. Laura Brod 81%
Rep. Matt Dean 85%
Rep. Mark Buesgens 95%
Rep. Joe Hoppe 85%
Rep. Tom Hackbarth 77%
Rep. Steve Drazkowski 85%
Rep. Peggy Scott 93%
Rep. Tim Sanders 87%
Rep. Dean Urdahl 58%
Rep. Rod Hamilton 60%
Rep. Tara Mack 64%
Rep. Mary Kiffmeyer 93%
Rep. Tony Cornish 67%

1893 / 23* = Team Emmer = 82.3%

*Sen. Mike Parry —Special Election No data yet

First, I want to thank all of the people on this list for the daily grind of fighting the progressive assault of increasing taxes. As of today Emmer has 4* more legislators, which gives him more room for error on his club, which actually makes their rating better than Seiferts. Another measure of this would be to drop Emmer’s lowest 3 and do it again, but you get the picture. Team Emmer is more than10 points higher on the side of the taxpayer. Something to consider when sizing up the candidates over the next 2 months.