Campaign for the Capitol 2010

Rep. Marty Seifert, R-Marshall, worked for everything he has.
As a 2010 governor hopeful, he advocates for state government conditions that would allow Minnesotans to do the same.
The youngest of six brothers, Seifert grew up on a small family farm in Springfield, Minn. He said his parents taught him the value of hard work and education. His mother is a former teacher and his father is a farmer and a Korean War veteran with an eighth-grade education.
He worked his way through college and graduated from Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall in 1995 with a bachelor’s degree in political science and a secondary teaching license. He taught at Marshall Senior High School for four years before becoming an admissions counselor at his alma mater.
Seifert said he thinks his practical experience in education has been useful during his 13-year career in the Minnesota House of Representatives. He said he ran for office in 1996 because a piece of legislation called the “Profile of Learning” — a set of graduation standards — was hurting education. The Legislature fought over the measure for six years and repealed it in 2003.
Seifert has come to believe that education is the “ticket to the American dream.” He said he wants to get Minnesota colleges and universities out of the top 10 in tuition.
“You can’t price students out of the market,” he said.
Seifert, 37, represents Lyon, Redwood and Yellow Medicine counties, an area that also elected Democratic Congressman Collin Peterson. Two of the three counties voted to elect Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the 2008 presidential race. Seifert boasted his ability to garner votes from Democrats and Independents.
Rep. Phyllis Kahn, DFL-Minneapolis, served on the House State Government Finance Committee when Seifert was chairman. Though they disagreed constantly, she said Seifert always sought everyone’s opinions and did not react vindictively toward DFLers.
“I don’t know if the conservative party is capable of winning a state election this year,” Kahn said. But she thinks Seifert has an incredible knowledge of government and is smarter than most of the candidates.
Seifert joined the 2010 gubernatorial race last July, soon after Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced he would not seek a third term. At the time, he was the Republican Minority Leader in the House of Representatives, selected for the position in 2006. He remains in the Legislature but resigned from his post in June of this year because he knew a bid for governor would split his attention and cause a conflict between seeking support for his nomination and for the party.
“It’s difficult to serve two masters,” Seifert said.
A November poll conducted by Minnesota’s Farmers Union Political Action Committee placed Seifert first among Republican candidates for governor with 61 percent. Seventeen percent of votes in the poll were undecided.
Seifert said his campaign is “focused like a laser beam on growing the economy.”
He said he thinks the most effective way to help the state’s economy is to reduce the time and money it takes for businesses to obtain permits and licenses. He said such factors keep businesses from making a home in Minnesota.
Ultimately, Seifert wants to get rid of the unnecessary bureaucracy he said people have to trudge through to get things done.
“Government bureaucracy is holding up the ability of our economy to perform,” he said.
Jim Knoblach, a former Republican state representative from St. Cloud, is helping Seifert with his campaign. He worked with Seifert in the Legislature for 10 years and characterizes him as an independent conservative who does what he thinks is right whether he’s on the same page as the party or not.
And as a member of the private sector, Knoblach trusts Seifert’s ideas will get the economy moving. As a fiscally conservative politician, those ideas do not include raising taxes, Seifert said.
“If you raise taxes, you’ll be like other states that drive out capital, drive out businesses [and] drive out people of means,” Seifert said.