REGIONAL- A pair of Republicans are squaring off in the Aug. 9 state primary for the chance to unseat Minnesota House District 3A incumbent Representative Rob Ecklund in November, and while the two share many views in common, each has his own unique perspective on issues of concern to North Country voters.
Blain Johnson, of Balsam Township, is a native North Dakotan who relocated his public safety and government consulting business, Paramount Planning, to Grand Rapids in 2016. Among his consulting contracts is one to provide emergency management services for Lac qui Parle County and he also serves as vice president of the Association of Minnesota Emergency Managers.
Johnson’s interest in politics was sparked while he was working on a master’s degree in biodefense and homeland security at George Mason University in Fairfax County, Va., near Washington, D.C.
“When I was out there, I had the opportunity to work with (North Dakota) Senator John Hoeven, and working in the Capitol building really got my juices flowing politically in terms of what constituents came into the office for and trying to manipulate that into bill language.”
Running against him is Ely Mayor Roger Skraba, who ran against Ecklund and lost in a 2015 special election to fill the District 3A seat left vacant by the death of David Dill. That setback aside, Skraba has been in public service for about 15 years. He’s currently on his third term as Ely mayor, has served on the Ely City Council, and also serves as chair of the St. Louis County Planning Commission. He also works as a fishing guide and carpenter.
“What motivated me to run (for the House) was when Rob (Ecklund) was voting Democratic straight across the board,” Skraba said. “Those aren’t our values and I felt like we weren’t getting representation, so I said, You know what, I think I’m going to run.”
Both men have been on the campaign trail since March, and the feedback they’ve been getting is the same. People are concerned about the economy, jobs, and inflation, undue government influence in issues like mining, and are ready for a change in representation in St. Paul. From his consulting work, Johnson has also picked up on anxiety over what he called an “anti-law enforcement agenda” on the capital and concerns that increased training requirements could make it more difficult to come up with volunteers to staff local fire departments and ambulance services.
The Timberjay talked with the candidates this week and asked them to respond to questions about issues that affect District 3A and, in some cases, the state as a whole.

Budget surplus
In June, state officials estimated that $7.2 billion of a projected $9.25 billion state budget surplus remains to be spent, and as the likelihood of a special legislative session fades, it will fall to the next Legislature to decide what to do with it.
Johnson wants to see the bulk of that surplus go back to the taxpayers.
“I truly believe we need to keep our taxes lower,” he said. “We need to make income tax and all the other sorts of taxes more reasonable. I would put a lot of that money back into investing in the people of the state and allow them to dictate what they want to use that money for.”
Skraba has a similar position, but that wasn’t uppermost in his mind when he began answering the question.
“Can we take a billion dollars of that and put it into mental health?” he said. “It’s a lot of money, and yes, the taxpayers all paid for it. But I want to see a billion dollars go towards mental health so we can responsibly start to solve this mental health issue we’re having in America.”
For the balance, Skraba wants to give money back to the taxpayers proportional to what they paid in. The tax on Social Security needs to be eliminated, he said. Passing a bonding bill is a priority. And Skraba said he believes people are paying too much in taxes and he wants to figure out why.

Mining
The candidates were asked how they would try to balance the interests of mining against those of the environment, and both were in accord that the issue isn’t an either/or proposition.
“Rules and regulations that are in place were put in place for a reason,” Skraba said. “If you can meet or exceed the standards, then you should be allowed to do this. We have groups of people saying no, we don’t even want it, the risk isn’t worth it. In this world, risk is part of what we do every day. The minerals in the ground can be mined safely, they will be mined safely, and we will have people working to make sure it’s done that way.”
“The mining question comes up probably more than any other one that I’ve talked to constituents about,” Johnson said. “It just boggles my mind because we’ve got one of the most intensely scrutinized processes to get a mine approved in the whole United States. We do have to protect nature; that’s a huge industry up here, so I think we have to be very careful. But I think there’s a balance to strike in allowing some of these existing taconite companies that are mining now and the potential ones for copper and nickel.”

Timber
The candidates were less certain about how the Legislature could support the ailing logging and timber products industry in the region, although both agreed it’s a pressing problem that should be addressed.
Johnson said that a dialogue should be initiated with companies to pinpoint their future plans.
“Some of the constituents I’ve talked to are afraid their jobs are going to go away and they’re going to have to move,” he said. “We need to sit everybody down and say what are your future plans? How do we in the Legislature make sure the environment is right for you to exploit timber itself and how do we make it as easy as possible on you to get your products developed and shipped?”
Skraba said he believes there’s a role for government in supporting the timber industry, but that solutions that may appear feasible might not be.
“It’s not like you can say ‘Let’s give the loggers free stumpage, that’ll help them,’” he said. “If there’s no one buying the wood, that doesn’t help them. If the price of fuel is $6 a gallon and it costs $1,200 to move the wood from Ely to Duluth and $1,200 is what you’re getting paid for that load, it doesn’t take long before people start asking why they’re doing it.”
Skraba advocated for better forest management, suggesting that there’s more timber to cut than is being allowed at present.
“We need to do something, we’re obligated to do something,” he said. “It’s part of our economy, natural resource extraction. Somehow there’s got to be a solution, but how much we incentivize it, is up for debate.”
Both candidates said they would support an incentive package similar to the one the Legislature used to lure an oriented strand board (OSB) manufacturing plant to Cohasset to encourage redevelopment of the long-shuttered OSB plant at Cook to produce siding products.

Tourism
Among the issues confronting resort owners and the seasonal tourism industry is the problem of finding employees in an increasingly scarce labor market.
Skraba said that he’s encountered multiple instances where existing zoning regulations, whether city or county, have stood in the way of property owners building living spaces to house seasonal employees who come from afar.
“You used to count on local people to come to work for you,” he said. “They’re not coming anymore because they’re not there. They don’t want to work in this type of tourism. They want to work toward the degree they want when they graduate. We need to figure out this labor shortage. If it means creating our own (foreign worker) program for the state, I’m all for it.”
“I think there’s a broader discussion to have on why that’s occurring, whether it’s from people just living on unemployment or people aren’t even in the community to begin with,” Johnson said.
Johnson suggested establishing some sort of incentive plan for younger workers who may still have their education to pay for.
“When summers are prime for them to come back, we could maybe come up with a package to help offset tuition costs or something like that because those jobs don’t pay a ton anyway,” he said.

Health care workers
The shortage of health care workers in Minnesota is serious and likely to grow worse, particularly in rural areas where an increasing number of health care professionals indicate they plan to leave their professions within the next five years. Long-term care staffing is already critical, with more than 23,000 job vacancies reported statewide in April.
Johnson noted that the issue isn’t isolated to Minnesota, that the shortage is nationwide.
“If it was just a Minnesota issue, I would be more primed to offer some legislative services like packages for nursing, relocation assistance, things like that,” Johnson said. “It’s really a national issue. I don’t know how much we can do locally on that, to be completely honest.”
He did support incentives for health care students to remain in-state, but said he would take more of a hands-off approach on the issue.
Skraba took the opportunity to voice his concerns about the overall health care system.
“My frustration lies with how much money we have in our lives that we dedicate toward health care and yet health care says it still doesn’t have enough money,” he said. “We’re paying people to take care of our elderly in assisted living $15 an hour and yet we’re paying someone to work in the food industry $15 an hour. Where’s the parity here? That bothers me.”
Skraba said that one of the primary limiting factors in attracting health care workers to small towns is a lack of childcare.
“Potential employees come here and like it and then they ask ‘Where can I put my kids when I’m working?’” he said. “The Legislature keeps kicking this can down the road. Maybe it’s not a legislative issue, maybe it’s a community issue. But it is an issue, one that bleeds into health care and leaks into other industries.”

Education funding
Many public school systems, including ISD 696 in Ely and ISD 2142 St. Louis County Schools are facing a double budget whammy this year with decreased state aid due to decreased enrollments and skyrocketing expenses due to inflation. The Timberjay asked if the Legislature should re-evaluate how schools are funded for the future.
“Nothing bothers me more than seeing a meme on Facebook where a school teacher says they have to buy their students stuff to do these learning activities,” Skraba said. “It’s our job to figure out how we’re going to pay for it. That needs to be fixed.”
Skraba said that in addition to looking at the funding formula, he would also look into how almost $500 million he claimed was put into schools last year was spent. He also spoke in favor of re-evaluating curriculum for older students to give them more alternatives and keep them engaged with school through graduation.
“We need to make sure that our K-12 system is fully funded,” Johnson said.
He pointed out that over the past decade schools have added more specialized support staff, and he questioned if they were all needed. While he’s an ardent advocate of public schooling and wants to look at the funding system, he also suggested that “a year or two of firming up the budget and cutting things isn’t necessarily a bad deal.”

Abortion
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling voiding the Roe v. Wade constitutional guarantee of a right to abortion, over half of the states in the country have raced to impose strict restrictions or outright bans on the procedure. But in Minnesota, the right to an abortion is still protected under the state constitution.
Neither candidate supports a total ban on abortions, and both are in agreement that abortion shouldn’t be an alternative to responsible birth control.
“We need to provide women an opportunity in cases of incest or rape or if her health is in danger or if the baby’s not medically going to make it,” Johnson said. “I’m not advocating for an elimination of all abortion clinics in the state because I think there’s still a medical need for women to have those in those circumstances I mentioned.”
“It’s up to the people that were involved ,” Skraba said. “As a legislator I hope that I could craft legislation to help a woman make a decision to keep the child. Instead of saying I have to do this, there’s no other solution, how can I craft language that gives you another solution that you win and the child wins. When it comes to the whole argument about a woman’s health, that’s between the doctor and the woman making that decision. That’s a decision between them. I don’t know why we’re even hung up on this.”