Growing Up Then and Now

Ellen Anderson

        Ellen in Amsterdam on our honeymoon:

After losing the Mayor’s race in 1993, I proposed to my best volunteer, Ellen Anderson. Jokingly, I told friends: “Pretty good runner-up prize,” but this was only payback for her telling her friends while she was running for the State Senate in 1992: “If he can do it, I can do it.”  Seriously, we were in love with each other and it was now or never for starting a family – she was 34 and me 43.  First marriage for both of us.

Ellen won that race in 1992 in classic Ellen fashion – great values, massive courage and sheer determination.  The 1990 legislative re-districting plan put her home in Saint Anthony Park in the same district as the leading pro-life Senator’s.  “No way do I want to be represented by a pro-lifer!” she said and announced her candidacy while others stayed on the sidelines, not wishing to tangle with a 15-year incumbent.  That courage enamored her with the more liberal and pro-choice portion of the newly created legislative district.  The incumbent, Gene Waldorf, saw the writing on the wall and announced he wasn’t going to seek re-election.  That opened the floodgates for a whole host of better-known aspirants, but the Democratic Party regulars who convened for making an endorsement stayed with the one with demonstrated courage.

Ellen went on to become the leading environmental champion in the legislature, starting the 100% carbon-free initiative – her sheer determination and political smarts often evident.  My favorite was watching her last-day-of-session filibuster of a tire burning bill that was bad for the environment.  The author of the bill had the votes to pass it, but time was running out.  It needed to get voted on before midnight or, by law, the Senate would adjourn sine die – that is, without life.  Ellen rises and makes a motion to set the time for adjournment.  The Senate President rules it a debatable motion and Ellen keeps the floor until the stroke of midnight despite the screams of the bill’s author to call the question.

                                                  caption:  Ellen on the Senate Floor

I could go on-and-on about Ellen’s values and courage leading the fight against pro-gun legislation (conceal and carry), being the first woman to wear pants on the Senate floor, becoming Gov. Mark Dayton’s Chair of the Public Utilities Commission …. on-and-on.

We had a blast being a husband-wife team in the legislature.  But first we spent two wonderful years planning a 1995 wedding and honeymoon.  (1995 would be a short legislative session and non-election year.)  We also planned a family around short sessions and non-election years (sons Jack in 1997 and Nick in 1999).

caption:  Andy, Nick & Jack at Rockefeller Center Skating Rink

Ellen was a great Mom as well as a fun companion.  We took family vacations to the Boundary Waters, the Jersey Shore, to Gold Hill, Colorado, even Hawaii and Puerto Rico.  There are many, many stories about her and our kids.  Go to Archives and read “Getting Married in a Baseball Stadium,” and all the daily doses in “Third Time’s the Charm” and “Pleasures of Being a Father.”  I hope – after you finish reading these 20 Tributes – that you do so because it hardly suffices to reduce our 23-year marriage to these snippets:

1.) On September 17, 1995, we got married in a baseball stadium, got an Amtrak sleeping car to NYC, found a Village Voice ad for cheap plane tickets to Europe, landed in Madrid and bought a month-long Eurail pass.

2.) In 1997 Jesse Ventura was just a talk radio host.  He had Ellen on asking, “Why are you spending time on such a silly little bill as not allowing men in women’s marathons when there are so many important things to work on?”  She answers, “Well Jesse, I tried to get on your show to talk about what I was doing about climate change, public safety, and education policy, but you wouldn’t have me.”  Dead silence – a cardinal sin on the radio.  (“Go Ace!’ my nickname for her.)                                             caption:  Jesse speechless as a radio host

3.) In 2002 we chose the near-by French Immersion school for kindergarten for Jack, and two years later for Nick.  They could, and did, canoe to school from Ellen’s Como Lake home.

4.) Also in 2002, we decided that one of us needed to resign from the legislature – not just because one of us needed to start making enough money to support a family – but also because we wanted to live together as a family.  (Up until then I had kept my apartment in Frogtown because we had two different legislative districts.)

5.) When Jack was 6 and Nick 4, Jack would climb the apple tree to get on the garage roof and Nick would follow him.  “Don’t let them do that!” Ellen says, “the neighbor lady said she’d call child protection the next time!”  My response: “Let her!  The kids you don’t let find their own limits are the kids who end up falling out of trees and breaking their legs.”

6.) Jack went on to win a math scholarship at Hamline Univ. and Nick pitched for the baseball team at Oberlin College.

Once the kids were both out of the house, we mutually agreed to call it quits on the marriage.  No animosity, just time-to-move-on, with the many great memories.

caption:  My mom and Ellen, two beauties

Jane Prince, Theresa Charles and my 1993 Campaign Volunteers

caption:  Jane, Theresa and Rick Cardenas

Jane Prince and Theresa Charles became my 1993 Mayoral campaign co-managers, one white, one Black, and together they built the most diverse political campaign ever seen in Saint Paul, up to and including the present.  Wow You Guys!  Thanks for believing in me and all the hours you devoted.  To this day I run into people saying they loved being part of that campaign.

It’s a long story about why we didn’t win.  If you want that story, click <Here> and read “First Comes Love . . . Then Comes Marriage,” the 8^th Daily Dose of “Third Times the Charm” in the Archives.  Suffice for here, that glass ceiling I mentioned, all I did was reinforce it by admitting to being a marijuana smoker (before its time) and having my mother tell me, “I told you so!”

In several places now I’ve mentioned the “Bluebird Nation – their big Tribute is coming up.  Jane Prince has been a Bluebird since 1983.  Being a member simply means playing on the Bluebirds softball team or being a fan.  Jane took a leave of absence from her job at SPA (Saint Paul Academy) to work on the campaign and got hooked on politics, eventually running for office herself and becoming the 7th Ward City Councilmember- and a good one, respected by all.

caption: Creative ad by Jane with a hint of Bluebirds

Theresa Charles had been my State Rep campaign manager in 1992 and continued in that role for my ’94 and ’96 campaigns.  We weren’t “going-out-for-drinks” friends, but we were tight.  Theresa was hard-scrabble Black – no sugar coating it – a lot of things sucked and a lot of things needed changing.  With regards to what she saw in me, I believe it was all about authenticity and getting things done, not whether I was white or Black.   Thank you for that, Theresa.  Because of you, a lot of people believed in me.

Unfortunately, that adage about “the hardest thing in politics is choosing between friends” reared its ugly head.   After the ’96 campaign I was named the Chair of the Civil Law Committee and, for the first time as a legislator, could hire a staffer to work just for me.  I chose Chris Crutchfield instead of Theresa Charles.

That was tough, and I sure wish I could have hired both.  If it was just based on loyalty – a most important hiring factor – it would have been Theresa.  But I thought Chris had the best chance of succeeding me in office someday, would be somebody I could mentor, and would do the best job as Committee Administrator.  The word on the street was that I thought Theresa was “too Black.”  That doesn’t ring true with me, but it is true I thought Chris (who is also Black) would be better at schmoozing legislators.  Trying to make up for it, I got Theresa a position working in Paul Wellstone’s office, but to this day she won’t speak to me.  Nevertheless Theresa, you have my gratitude.

photo below:  Chris Crutchfield working as my Committee Administrator.  Chris did a great job, but alas, Cy Thao succeeded me in office, not Chris.  That’s Chris and I working on legislation in the photo.

I can’t just leave the ’93 campaign as one “gone up in smoke.”  We had to raise lots of money – and we did – $267,000 mostly from friends asking friends for small donations and having fun fundraisers.  We had competition in the left-wing community – Marcia Avner was Wellstone’s candidate.  We had competition in the moderate Democrats community – both Bob Long (a City Councilmember) and Ray Faricy (a former legislator).  The business community thought I was a “Marxist.”  The hometown newspaper was a big fan of Norm Coleman’s.

In photo to the right the Candidates: me, John Mannillo, Ray Faricy, Norm Coleman, Jerry Isaacs and Marlene Johnson

I’ll never forgive Pioneer Press Editor Ron Clark for intentionally mischaracterizing my remarks in the interview for the paper’s endorsement.  I explained my frugal lifestyle and said, “Every item in the City’s budget will get my scrutiny.”  He turned that into “Dawkins will be a big spender for everything needed.”  I’ll never forgive Norm Coleman for putting-out a campaign brochure – with a black-looking crack head huddled on a sidewalk smoking a pipe and a white-looking elderly woman walking nearby – saying he’d be tough on crime.

Nevertheless we persisted.  It was a winning campaign until …. until the 36-hour news cycle preceding the voting became “Andy Dawkins is a pot smoker.”  Sorry about that you guys, I should have dropped the sign.*

*Barbara Carlson (known as “Babs”) hosted a Channel 5 live TV debate on the Sunday before Tuesday’s election.  To answer her questions, she gave each candidate a placard, red on one side said “No,” green on the other side said “Yes.”  Fifth rapid fire question in: “Have you smoked marijuana in the past two years?”  I was the only one who answered ‘Yes.”  I should have dropped the sign and said, “Dumb question –  let’s move on.”

–

Steve Cooper to the Rescue

Walking the corridors the next morning, devastated at losing the million dollars for my neighborhood idea (see Tribute before), I ran into old friend Steve Cooper.  Steve was another person Spencer Blaw had introduced me to, back when Steve was the Director of the Neighborhood Justice Center (mentioned above in Spencer Tribute).  I always talked about Steve as being famous for having secured the most recent murder one acquittals in each of the seven metropolitan counties – i.e., a really good attorney!  (And still is – The Cooper Law Firm is now in downtown Minneapolis doing Civil Rights cases.)  At the time I ran into him at the State Capitol, he was Gov. Rudy Perpich’s Commissioner of the Human Rights Dept.

Steve may be surprised to read this tribute to him.  Although he and others in his law office were mentors to me, he probably barely remembers this story of coming to my rescue.

As I explained in the previous Tribute, somehow, miraculously, as a brand-new legislator, I had secured a million dollars for my neighborhood’s housing idea – only to lose it in a midnight raid by Roger Moe, the Senate Majority Leader.  And that’s not all I tell Steve:

“Just yesterday, on the House floor, I successfully beat back fellow Democrat Linda Scheid’s bill to eliminate the usury law for loans under one thousand dollars, but just minutes ago the lobbyist for the bill, Jim Erickson, was in my office saying he had gotten Wally Sparby to offer a motion to reconsider, and lined-up the votes to get the damn bill passed on reconsideration.  F***ing two victories to two defeats in the last 24 hours!”

Some background for readers:  A “motion to reconsider” is in order when someone on the prevailing side wishes to change their vote, but it has to be within 24 hours.  The day before, Rep. Wally Sparby had voted with me to defeat the Scheid bill, but had changed his mind after lobbyist Erickson explained to him the loan industry needed the bill because so many poor people default on their loans, the industry will quit making loans to poor people unless they can make more money on interest, over and above the usury law.

“Sparby is making his motion this very afternoon!” I angrily tell Steve.  Well, Steve hears all this and says to me:

“You know that lobbyist, Jim Erickson, happens to be really good friends with Majority Leader Moe.  Think about it this way:  Will the poor folks in your district be better off with a new housing program even if some are paying higher interest on their loans?  Go tell lobbyist Erickson that you won’t fight the motion to reconsider if he can get Roger to give your million back.”

Thank you forever, Steve, for that great advice.  Sure enough, I get lobbyist Jim Erickson back in my office and tell him if he gets my million back from Moe, I will walk off the floor when Sparby makes his motion (i.e., not fight it).   Erickson comes back a half hour later saying I got you your million back.   What I didn’t tell Erickson is that while he was gone getting me my million, I had enlisted Reps. Paul Ogren and Jim Rice, both oratory giants, to fight the motion in my place.

photo below: Paul Ogren on the left – more about Paul:  Another mentor, another life-long friend.  Paul retired to Hawaii.  We catch-up every New Year’s Eve on the phone – regaling each other with life’s adventures.  Paul, a strong progressive, was popular enough to be our next Governor after Arne Carlson, but – like I learned later, see upcoming Jane Prince Tribute – it was still too early to elect former hippies to high office.  

And the Scheid bill went down to an even worse defeat that afternoon!  Two victories – to two defeats – to two victories in less than 24 hours – Thanks a Million, Steve!

caption:  Planting a tree for the new homeowners at one of the fixed-up houses