Discover Politics

Politicians often lament that they are perceived strictly on superficial grounds, by their appearance or demeanor. But in regards to David Hann, State Senator from Eden Prairie, perception is reality. As Hann promotes his candidacy for Governor, the straight-laced Republican cannot help his serious affectation from pervading every aspect of his persona.

Hann pulls no punches, and there is no question that he is serious about his candidacy and determined to achieve his goals. The question looming in the minds of his supporters: will voters take his approach just as seriously?

What would you say is unique about your candidacy or you as a candidate?

(Hann) My sense is that one of the differences is the motivation to do this. I’m kind of focused on accomplishing something. And I’ve come to the conclusion that the way you accomplish that is you have to have a Governor who will do it. And we haven’t had a Governor who will do these things yet, and so until we do, these things wont get done. I think our education structure is unsound; it has changed over the past thirty-fourty years. It’s now in a place where I don’t think it can possibly do what it’s supposed to do, and because it is so political in nature it will only change if there is a very focused effort to get it changed.

I want to see it done. If that had been done, if Governor Pawlenty had done it or someone had done it, I wouldn’t be running for Governor. I’m not running for Governor because I want to be Governor, any more than I ran for State Senate because I wanted to be a State Senator, or ran for the school board because I wanted to be on a school board. I did all those things because I’m trying to get a particular thing accomplished.

Most of the other candidates, at least as far as I can tell, when asked why they want to be Governor, they say “well I’m  a great leader,” or “I’m the most passionate guy, or um, it’s my turn.” It all comes down to the fact that it’s ego-driven. They want to be the Governor, and I don’t care about that. To me it’s a means to an end.

So judging from your response, it seems that education is that one issue that you would most like to focus on. Is that correct?

(Hann) Sure, well, what do Governors accomplish? What did Governor Carlson accomplish? What did Governor Perpich or Governor Ventura accomplish? You ask most people and they couldn’t tell you. In most cases it is really hard to determine what changed or what got done. My goal would be to reform education. This is something people have talked about for what – thirty years? Has anybody done anything about it? No. Has anybody focused on it? No. It’s half the cost of our state budget. So if you were able to get the education system to work more efficiently, more effectively it would have ramifications for the budget.

There has been some speculation that the delay of the $1.2 billion in State aid to public schools will not be repaid, that the shift will in fact, become permanent. Is there any credence to this worry?

(Hann) Oh, that will get paid. We’ve done this before; this is not new. Now it does have an effect on school districts as they might run into cash-flow problems or might have to do short-term borrowing to make ends-meet, so it’s not that it doesn’t have an effect at all. But if you talk to school districts, these problems are not unmanageable, and they’ve been dealt with in the past.

As Governor, how would you expect to combat a DFL legislature? Do you expect that it will come down to the wire every year and you will be forced to use the veto?

(Hann) Well my hope is that we have, for the first time in my lifetime, a Republican legislature. We had a Republican House on occasion, but there hasn’t been a Republican Senate in anyone’s memory, so the State Senate has been in DFL hands forever, for all practical purposes – which is a bad thing. I don’t think any party should control a legislature for forty years. People become entrenched, people become arrogant, people become abusive of their power. And we have that.

Let’s assume that you get elected as a Republican and the legislature is still a majority of Democrats. I think that’s where if you have focused on one or two things… let’s say education in my case. And you go out and campaign and talk to the people of Minnesota and say you do not want these decisions to be made anymore by politicians and employees that will benefit from them. And you go out and campaign, and you talk about that and you win the election.

I think then as Governor you go to the legislature and say look “I was elected for many reasons, but one of the biggest reasons was this. And I will not accept any education bill that doesn’t make progress toward accomplishing these goals.” And so you set up that dynamic of saying, “ are you going to go against the will of the people? Each one of you legislators was elected by 15,000 people, but I was elected by 5,000,000 people, and the majority of them said they want this.

What would you say is the single greatest threat to Minnesota from a legislative standpoint or executive perspective?

(Hann) I think it is the expectation that has grown over the past several decades that things that used to be done by families and individuals, many people now expect government to do. That’s a huge, huge problem. And it’s growing.

Alright, we would have also accepted “Killer Bees.” Recently Minnesota has posted significant improvement in employment numbers, and our state now leads the national average of employment by several percent. What is Minnesota doing right?

(Hann) I don’t know precisely why that has happened, there may be a number of reasons for it… I think that generally, we are not a very attractive place to do business, in lots of dimensions. But we do have some things that are pretty good about Minnesota. We have a very strong work ethic still in Minnesota; we have people who want to work, people who are industrious, people who are independent and innovative.

What’s one state program that you would like to see eliminated?

(Hann) The state lottery. I’d love to see that.

Earlier this year, Democratic hopeful Mark Dayton announced that he would raise taxes on the wealthiest ten percent of Minnesotans. Do you see a problem with this proposal?

(Hann) Absolutely, that’s just crazy, idiot stuff.  I mean, that’s just nonsense to me. I think people who advocate for that are so out of touch with economics that it’s foolish. Our goal should be, to, first of all create a tax structure that is based on the assumption that everyone has a stake in government. But instead, we have this situation where we’re trying to tell a bunch of people that things the government does have no cost. All that does is create an incentive for people to demand that government does more things. And Democrats are notorious for this, I think they built their political base on the idea that they’re going to have a whole group pay little or nothing, and a smaller group pay everything. And they cater their votes to the larger group. I think there is something fundamentally immoral about that.

Do you think on a state level, the Republican Party tent is too small or too large? Do you have a problem with those that are arguing for more inclusion in the Republican Party?

(Hann) Well I think that every political party, and certainly Republicans, you have to grow. You have to attract more people to be on “your team,” if you will. Now that being said, you also have to stand on something, you have to be clear about what you want to do. Political parties are not just social clubs, political parties are formed because people have differences of view on important, philosophical issues.

The question is, can you persuade enough people to generally agree. There’s not going to ever be 100% agreement. So you’re going to have broad differences. The question is how do you find a way to talk to each other, … how do you find a way to invite people into participate in the conversation of how we become a better society and state.

Should an ID be required to vote in Minnesota?

(Hann) Absolutely. There is only one reason to say no, and that’s if people want to encourage fraud at the polls. I think that voting is important, and everybody’s vote counts, and when you allow people who shouldn’t vote to vote, then you have denied someone else their vote. If you want to rent a movie at a movie store, you have to show a picture id, so it can’t be that much of a burden.

Is this race, as some are suggesting, a two-man race between Tom Emmer and Marty Seifert?

(Hann) No, I think it’s clearly not a two-man race. I think that at the end of the day I’ll be the candidate, and we will win the election. Because I think that people are looking for substance, they are looking for honesty, they are looking for thoughtful-ness, and they are looking for a demeanor that is willing to engage with people, even with people who disagree. I think the biggest challenge that I have is that I don’t have broad name recognition and so we have to work harder at getting to know the delegate base.