Four rural Minnesota senators have different plans for the future: One wants to stick around two more years, two are leaving the Legislature and the fourth is thinking about his future.
Keith Langseth, DFL-Glyndon, wants two more years as committee chairman and wants to keep fighting for flood prevention money.
Sen. Steve Dille, R-Dassel, is leaving when the session concludes but the 24-year legislator isn't coasting.
Sen. Jim Vickerman, DFL-Tracy, said as the legislative session opened that he has not decided if another campaign is in the offing.
Sen. Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, opted out of a new campaign days before the legislative session began on Thursday.
ADVERTISEMENT
Rumors begin every two years about what legislators will run for re-election and what ones will decide to end their days under the dome. Usually, lawmakers wait until the end of the legislative session to reveal their decisions.
Langseth had said this term would be his last in the Minnesota Senate, but two factors changed his mind. First, Senate chairmen are allowed to keep their committees for the next two-year term (half the normal term due to upcoming redistricting) and he wants to continue leading the public works funding panel. Second, last year's Red River Valley flood convinced him he again needs to find money to prevent future floods.
But, Langseth said, he means it this time when he says he will not run again.
"For the first time I realize, somewhat reluctantly, that time is marching on," the 72-year-old senator said. "You want some time between this responsibility and death."
In other words, it will be time for him to relax after first being elected to the House in 1974.
Langseth is a Senate DFL leader as chairman of the committee that funds public works projects.
Dille said that he will do nothing different this year than in his previous years, even though it is his last in the Capitol.
Vickerman hasn't decided whether he will retire after the session, but he sounded like a man who still has fight left.
ADVERTISEMENT
The 24-year legislator was infuriated by news that 2,500 members of the Minnesota National Guard's "Red Bull" 34th Infantry Brigade are waiting for bonus pay nearly three years after returning from Iraq.
"They gave enough already," he said. "I'll protect them."
Murphy, first elected in 1992, said before the session began that he would not run again.
Tellijohn and Davis report for Forum Communications Co., which also owns DL Newspapers.
