Brady Slater
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DULUTH—The leader in delegate voting throughout last weekend's 8th Congressional District DFL convention may not be moving to the primary this summer. Leah Phifer said on Monday she will take the next two weeks off from campaigning and fundraising to decide whether to file for the primary. "We're giving ourselves until the end of April," she said. "We want to do what's best for the district."
DULUTH — After a deadlocked convention on Saturday, April 14, in Duluth, the voters will decide a DFL candidate for the 8th Congressional District race. The stalemate at the Democratic-Farmer-Labor 8th District convention in Duluth saw the field whittled from five to two, but returned no endorsed candidate.
Inside the Men As Peacemakers headquarters in downtown Duluth, Sarah Curtiss offered an Ojibwe greeting. "Boozhoo," she said. It made for a warm invitation, and in no time Curtiss and a colleague on speakerphone were immersed in the topic at hand: the agency's latest endeavor, an online training exercise building on its popular anti-sex-trafficking project, "Don't Buy It."
AUTOMBA, Minn. — Against a backdrop of large pipes stacked like cordwood, Nicholle Ramsey stood alongside two dozen others on the trespassing-side of a long fence on Monday. Their arrival drew a small group of sheriff's deputies and the attention of Enbridge to the remote corner of Carlton County. But there were no arrests on this day — only songs and appeals for the energy company to reconsider its proposal to construct a new Line 3 oil pipeline across northern Minnesota.
CLOQUET, Minn.—Stephanie Lee had one hope for the 8th Congressional District DFL candidate forum at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College on Wednesday, April 4. "I hope we can see more delineation between the DFL candidates," said Lee, of Finlayson, Minn., and a one-time student at the host school in Cloquet. Members of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party who packed the school's rotunda didn't see Lee's wish come true — until the topic turned to copper mining.
DULUTH—Huntington's disease is a cruel and fatal condition. Genetic, it follows a person like a specter until presenting in adulthood when it slowly, across the years, erodes the brain and cripples the body. It can be characterized by constant straining and waves of twitching. For 50-year-old James Adams, who lives with advanced Huntington's, it was a fight to both transfer from wheelchair to recliner and say what it meant for him to be finally living with his wife, Mardell Columbus-Adams.
DULUTH—The estimated $205 million reconstruction of the "can of worms" section of Interstate 35 through Duluth isn't scheduled to begin until 2019. But that doesn't mean work isn't already happening.
DULUTH—It wasn't the only factor, but "a nudge" from the congressman Jason Metsa will vie to replace helped him decide to run for the 8th Congressional District's open seat. Metsa, a three-term state representative from Virginia, Minn., announced Thursday, March 1, that he will seek the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party endorsement for the 8th District seat. He joins four other DFL candidates trying to replace incumbent Rep. Rick Nolan, who announced his retirement in February.
DULUTH — The political pairing of Ray "Skip" Sandman and the state Independence Party came together over coffee at a roadside restaurant in Hinckley. What started as an introductory get-together yielded a match which will carry into the 8th Congressional District race. Sandman, 64, is making his second bid for the office after running as a Green Party candidate during the 2014 8th District race.
DULUTH—When Rep. Rick Nolan announced his upcoming retirement from Congress earlier this month, he ended a re-election campaign flush with cash — more than half-a-million dollars' worth. The situation was not unusual; politicians retire midstream all the time. What Nolan does with his unspent campaign money is basically up to him — but it includes some limits, said David Schultz, a Hamline University professor of political science.