my writings////I really like this guy,
I think he will run for prez in next election~ and jesse Ventura for vice///

Timothy James "Tim" Pawlenty (born November 27, 1960) is the 39th and current Governor of Minnesota and a Republican. In the Minnesota gubernatorial election of 2002 he was elected governor and was inaugurated on January 6, 2003. He was re-elected in 2006. On June 2, 2009, Pawlenty announced he will not seek re-election for a third term.

Early years, education, and early career

Pawlenty was born on November 27, 1960, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and raised in nearby South St. Paul, one of five children of Eugene and Virginia (nee' Oldenburg) Pawlenty, a milk truck driver and a housewife.[2] When he was 16, his mother died of cancer at the age of 50. Pawlenty took to ice hockey and played on his high school's junior varsity squad.[3]

In 1983, Pawlenty received a B.A. degree in Political Science at the University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts.[4] In 1986, he graduated with a law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School.[5] In law school, he met fellow student Mary Anderson and one year later they married, settling in Eagan, Minnesota.

As a practicing attorney, Pawlenty's first job was as a labor law attorney at the firm Rider Bennett, where he had interned during school.[6] Later he was Vice President for a software-as-a-service company Wizmo Inc.[7][8]

[edit] Political career

[edit] City and state legislative positions

While living in Eagan, Pawlenty was appointed to the city's Planning Commission by then Mayor Vic Ellison.[8][9] One year later in 1989, at the age of 28, he was elected to a term on the City Council.[10]

Pawlenty's start in state politics began as a campaign advisor for Jon Grunseth's 1990 losing bid for Minnesota governor.[11] His connections to Grunseth's former wife, Vicky Tigwell, would later involve him in an ethics and accountability call with his private employment in 2003.[12][13]

Pawlenty was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 1992, winning 49 percent of the vote in District 38B (suburban Dakota County). He was re-elected five times and was chosen House Majority Leader when the Republicans became the majority party in the State Legislature in 1998.[14] Independent Governor Jesse Ventura's tax cuts were a priority of Pawlenty's agenda.

[edit] 2002 gubernatorial campaign

Pawlenty initially wanted to run for governor in 2002, but party leaders made it clear that they favored businessman Brian Sullivan for that spot.[10][15] Pawlenty shifted his sights to the U.S. Senate but he abandoned those plans when Vice President Dick Cheney asked him to step aside to allow former St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman to challenge Senator Paul Wellstone without Republican primary opposition.[16] Pawlenty returned to his original gubernatorial ambitions and won a hard-fought and very narrow victory over Sullivan for the party endorsement.[17]

In the general election, Pawlenty faced two strong opponents. His main rival was veteran Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) state senator Roger Moe. Complicating matters, former Democratic Congressman Tim Penny ran on the Independence Party ticket, with polls at times suggesting a very tight three-man race. In September 2002, the three were essentially tied. Pawlenty campaigned on a pledge not to raise taxes to balance the state's budget deficit, requiring visa expiration dates on driver's licenses, a 24-hour waiting period on abortions, implementing a conceal-carry gun law, and changing the state's education requirements. Pawlenty prevailed over both challengers at the polls. His largest gains since a poll conducted that September were among voters in the suburbs of Minneapolis-St. Paul.

[edit] 2006 re-election campaign
Main article: Minnesota gubernatorial election, 2006

Pawlenty ran for re-election in 2006. He ran on conservative issues, though he was criticized by conservatives on funding issues including two stadium bills for the Gophers and Minnesota Twins, and transportation bonding which included the Northstar commuter rail line.[18]

The 2006 gubernatorial race included Pawlenty's own DFL Attorney General Mike Hatch, Peter Hutchinson of the Independence Party, and Ken Pentel of the Green Party in the November 7 general election. Pawlenty won, defeating Hatch by a margin of 1%, though both the state House and Senate gained DFL majority.[19]

[edit] Future
See also: Politics of Minnesota

Pawlenty has decided to not seek a third term in 2010. Beginning in 2005, he was informally suggested by the press as a potential candidate for president.[20][21][22] When formally announcing his candidacy for a second term as Governor of Minnesota on May 31, 2006, Pawlenty said, "As to my future, if I run for governor and win, I will serve out my term for four years as governor."[23][24][25] On January 15, 2007, after being re-elected, Pawlenty said, "I am committed to serving out my term as governor. That's what I am going to do."[26]

In January 2008 the Minneapolis Star Tribune suggested Pawlenty's renewed focus on his proposed immigration reform plans might be politically motivated as counter-balance to McCain's less favorable guest worker program.[27] That month it was announced that Pawlenty would be serving in a lead role for McCain as a national co-chair of his presidential exploratory committee[28] which led to Pawlenty becoming co-chairman of McCain's campaign (along with Phil Gramm and Tom Loeffler).[29]

Though Pawlenty was widely considered to be a leading candidate for the vice-presidential nomination on the Republican ticket with John McCain in the 2008 presidential election,[30] Alaska Governor Sarah Palin secured the position.[31]

Pawlenty is considered a potential candidate in the 2012 presidential election.[32] In a poll taken only a day after the 2008 election, Pawlenty garnered only 1% support among five other political heavyweights (which included Sarah Palin, who captured 64%, Mike Huckabee with 12%, and Mitt Romney close behind with 11%).[33]

[ Governorship
State budget

Pawlenty was elected in 2002 on a platform of balancing the state's budget without raising taxes. He emphasized his campaign and first term with the Taxpayers League of Minnesota slogan "no new taxes."[34]

During his first year as governor, Pawlenty balanced a deficit of $4.3 billion without raising taxes, primarily by reducing the rate of funding increases for state services, including funding for transportation, social services, and welfare. The local government aid (LGA) program was further reduced to city governments only and program reform dollars were eliminated.[35] In 2004, Attorney General Mike Hatch voiced dissent over the cuts and suggested that sex offenders found in some Minnesota nursing homes were the result of budget cuts to social services programs.[36] Later in his first term, disagreement among parties led to a government shutdown in 2005 from a deadlock between the governor's office and the split-party legislature on the state budget. Transportation, state parks, and other key infrastructures were threatened with the shutdown, dampening the tourism industry. In 2006, the State announced its financial health had improved with a more than $2 billion budget surplus over the next three years.[37] The Finance Commissioner cautioned the forecast does not include inflation.

the rest on pawlenty

In his first term, his plan to hold the line on taxes was not consistent with his raising State fees. State school tuition was largely impacted and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities board members complained, noting students' share of the cost of tuition increased by double-digit percentages in 2003 and the years following. The increase was defended by citing increasing tuition at universities nationwide while some called to maintain affordable higher education at its public universities as part of Minnesota education tradition. Another publicized but minor fee was the "health impact fee" which was a fee on cigarette sales.[38] Pawlenty ran into obstacles between his pledge not to raise taxes and the need he acknowledged for the state to take in more money in a budget deficit. He acknowledged in his first budget that it relied on $300 to $500 million in increased fees that did not include tuition increases at public colleges and universities.[39] The reaction of skeptics, including some at the Taxpayers League, was that Pawlenty had reneged on his campaign promise, arguing that the proposal was simply a tax increase by another name. The measure carried, but since the terms of the 1996 Minnesota Tobacco Settlement stipulated that the state reserved a right to raise taxes, but not fees, on cigarettes, cigarette wholesalers sued, and on December 21, 2005, a District Court judge struck down the fee. However, the Minnesota Supreme Court later reversed that decision, upholding the fee.

Funding projects

Since the Minnesota Constitution prohibits state-run gambling outside of Native territory, Pawlenty proposed negotiating with Minnesota's 11 tribes over profit sharing of their casinos.[40] Legislators also pushed a proposal to turn Canterbury Park horse track into a racino.[41] The plan was poorly received by Northern Tribes who would operate part of the racino, citing reluctance to compete with other tribes.[42] Tribes with casinos opposed the expanded gambling and some legislators objected on moral grounds that the state shouldn't exploit problem gamblers. Politicians in heavy tribal areas feared losing campaign-finance sources if they supported the plan.[43][44] Delays by the Legislature ended with the bill being pulled from committee.[45] Tribes had spent millions lobbying legislatures in 2004.[46]

Pawlenty worked throughout 2006 to fund a Minnesota Twins baseball stadium in Minneapolis.[47] The resulting Minnesota Twins-Hennepin County ballpark bill called for an increased county sales tax which passed the state legislature and was symbolically signed in at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.[48][49] The majority of Hennepin County commissioners did not feel a referendum was necessary to approve the sales tax because of the delay it would cause. Pawlenty and the Legislature agreed, citing 10 years already of the project's debate and exempted the county from state law requiring one in the bill$999.9 million public works bill that included funding for additional work on the Northstar Commuter rail line (a change in position from reservations about the idea he initially expressed), an expanded Faribault prison, a bioscience building at the University of Minnesota, and science facilities at Minnesota State University Mankato. The bill also funded a $26 million expansion of the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management.[52]

[edit] Education

After the failure and repeal of the Profiles of Learning Kindergarten through 12th grade graduation requirements in a previous session, Pawlenty sought to reinstate them during his governorship. Renamed the Minnesota Academic Standards, they were guided by Department of Education commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke. The bill's first draft raised several concerns by the education review boards including the amount of content, age-appropriateness, and a European-centric view of the social sciences portion.[53] Yecke revised and expanded material based on the response.[54] Even as both Legislative houses passed the Academic Standards bill, her confirmation as commissioner was rejected by the DFL majority Minnesota Senate.[55] She was seen as an outsider coming from Virginia and became unpopular having pushed the academic reforms during a tight budget session as well as her critical look of Minnesota schools.[56] In her confirmation hearing DFLers also noted concern over her conservative viewpoints.[56]

In June 2006, Pawlenty proposed the ACHIEVE program for the top 25% of high school graduates.[57] The program would pay for tuition for the first 2 years (4 years for selected fields such as science, technology, engineering and math) and would cost the state and estimated $112 million per 2-year cycle. However the program was not included in the 2007 higher education bill.[58]

[edit] Transportation
U.S. Representative Keith Ellison speaking at the site of the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge collapse in Minneapolis. He is flanked by Governor Pawlenty on the picture's left. To right: Mayor R. T. Rybak, Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters behind Ellison, Betty McCollum, and Senator Norm Coleman

During Pawlenty's term, urban traffic congestion was a significant concern of voters. He appointed his lieutenant governor, Carol Molnau, as transportation commissioner. Molnau attempted to reform the transportation department, (Mn/DOT), using concepts such as "design-build". Molnau has said she did not read bridge inspection reports and has been blamed by some for the I-35W bridge collapse. Legislators criticized Molnau's performance as transportation commissioner, citing ineffective leadership and management, and removed her from that role in February 2008, a decision Pawlenty said was motivated by partisanship.[59][60]

Pawlenty favored raising fees and imposing toll lanes on roads as the primary means of discouraging excessive traffic. During his term, the carpool lanes of Interstate 394 leading into downtown Minneapolis were converted into high-occupancy toll lanes. Pawlenty used or threatened vetoes in 2005, 2007 and 2008 on legislation funding proposed highway expansion, infrastructure repairs, road maintenance, and mass transit.[61] The 2008 veto was in spite of Pawlenty's announcement that he would consider reversing his opposition to a state gas tax increase for funding road and bridge repairs, in the wake of the collapse of the I-35W Mississippi River bridge.[62] |title=A conflict at the helm of MnDOT?|publisher=Star Tribune |date=2007-09-14 |url=http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/11150061.html
Pawlenty had opposed the Northstar Commuter Rail as a legislator but changed his position in 2004, announcing a funding plan to jump start the project, when the Bush administration determined the rail line was deemed cost-effective and time-saving for
In April 2008 during the budget bonding bill signing, Pawlenty used his line-item veto on $70 million pledged toward the building of the Central Corridor light-rail project, intended to connect Minneapolis and Saint Paul. In vetoing the expenditure, Pawlenty did not consult Peter Bell, head of the Metro Council and project leader.[64] Pawlenty stated that he vetoed the bill in order to send a message to the Legislature, which had exceeded his initial budget request, that they needed to "stay focused, be fiscally disciplined, set priorities and solve this budget crisis in a fiscally disciplined way."[65] Pawlenty however was supportive of the project and had requested the money in the bonding bill he submitted to the Minnesota State Legislature.[65] The veto disappointed some of Minnesota's congressional representatives in Washington, including Minnesota's Republican Senator Norm Coleman, who pledged to "raise my voice as strong as I can, as loud as I can. The federal commitment is there."[66] Though Pawlenty's veto might have delayed the ability of the state to receive federal matching funds for the project, Bell said the project was not derailed.[67] The Central Corridor funding issue was resolved on May 19, 2008 with the state pledging its original amount towards the project after legislators compromised with Pawlenty's budget requests.[68]

There were Republican state legislators who supported other cuts of the bonding bill, including Doug Magnus, the ranking Republican on the House Transportation Finance Division, who praised Pawlenty's "fiscal responsibility."[69] Critics, including Chris Coleman, Mayor of Saint Paul, called Pawlenty's veto "political gamesmanship," seeing the move as retribution for the Legislature's successful override of Pawlenty's veto of a transportation bonding bill.[65] They noted cuts overwhelmingly targeted Democratic districts, and Democratic stronghold Saint Paul most heavily.[70][71]

Ethanol
A United States Postal Service vehicle advertising its use of E85 fuel during the Saint Paul Winter Carnival parade in January 2007.

Minnesota has mandated a 10% mixture of gasoline and ethanol (gasohol) since 1997, while most cars are designed to safely handle 15%. Pawlenty signed into law in May 2005 a bill that will raise the minimum mandated mixture to 20% in 2013. Pawlenty has also lobbied the Governors' Ethanol Coalition to mandate higher ethanol use nationwide.

Conservative Republican governors were not supportive of Pawlenty's presentation on clean energy to the governor's association, which he gave in cooperation with Ed Rendell, who is the governor of Pennsylvania and the NGA's Democratic vice-chairman. With Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, Pawlenty is co-chairman of the association's energy committee. The effort received "adamant opposition" from governors of oil producing states.[73]

Health

In 2004, the credibility of Pawlenty's commissioner of health, Dianne Mandernach, suffered when a website posting by the department suggested that abortion might have a role in breast cancer. She also angered many when it was learned she had delayed releasing government research on cancer in miners.[74] In 2007, Mandernach resigned.

In 2005, Pawlenty asked a U.S. Senate subcommittee to allow his MinnesotaCare health plan to expand and continue allowing state residents and employees to import cheaper Canadian prescription drugs.[75]

He has recently used health care funding cuts as a mechanism to balance the state budget. After years of assuring doctors that the state sick tax would only be used to fund health wellfare programs, in 2009 Pawlenty recommended a 3% cut in physician reimbursements from the state and asked that the sick tax be put instead into the state's general budget. [76] Pawlenty used a line-item veto to remove USD$381 million from health and human services funding, so that he could use the money to balance the budget.
Foreign relations
Tim Pawlenty meeting Minnesota National Guard troops in Kosovo (April 12th 2008)

Since the 1980s, Minnesota governors have increased their travel abroad with the goal of increasing Minnesota's visibility around the world.[citation needed] For example, Pawlenty took a delegation of nearly 200 Minnesotan business, government, academic and civic leaders on a voyage to China in mid-November 2005. The objectives of the weeklong trip were to provide a forum for companies to acquire market information, assess market potential, evaluate market entry strategies and identify potential business partners, as well as to promote Chinese investment in Minnesota. Pawlenty also led Minnesota trade delegations to the Czech Republic in 2004 and Canada in 2003, and went to India in October 2007. In December of 2008 the governor led a trade mission trip to Israel[78] Pawlenty's first term coincided with the deployment of National Guardsmen from numerous states, connected with the War on Terror and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pawlenty made trips to Bosnia (2003), Kosovo (2004) and (2008), Poland, Iraq and the Czech Republic visiting Minnesota troops.

He also welcomed Mexican President Vicente Fox in 2004 in an effort to strengthen trade. The president announced that his country would open a consulate in Minnesota the next year, removing the need for Mexican residents in the state to travel to Chicago for identification papers and other materials. Early in 2006, after issuing a study that estimated the cost of illegal immigration to the state as approximately $188 million, Pawlenty announced a program for changing the way the state dealt with persons who are in the United States illegally. Pawlenty noted the economic benefit does not justify the illegal behavior. By mid-year he sent Minnesota National Guardsmen to the U.S.-Mexico border at the request of the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

National involvement

Pawlenty was the chairman of the National Governors Association from 2007 to 2008.

In June 2007, Pawlenty dedicated the state's World War II Veterans Memorial

Pawlenty has a weekly one-hour radio show on WCCO-AM, a tradition he inherited from his predecessor as governor, Jesse Ventura.

In February 2008, columnist Robert Novak wrote that Pawlenty was the most conservative Minnesota governor since Governor Theodore Christianson in the 1920s.[73]

In 1994, Pawlenty's wife Mary was appointed as a judge of the Dakota County District Court in Hastings, Minnesota and the two began raising their two daughters, Anna and Mara. After he was elected in 2002, the family remained at their Eagan home instead of moving into the Governor's Residence because of Mary's requirement to stay in her judicial district.[80] In 2007, she left her judicial position to become General Counsel of the National Arbitration Forum, a dispute resolution company based in Minneapolis.[81] She stayed on only briefly before departing for another dispute resolution company, the Gilbert Mediation Center.[82]

Of Polish and German heritage, Pawlenty was raised a Roman Catholic Christian. His conversion to an Evangelical Christian faith is largely attributed to his wife Mary, who is a regular member of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.[83] The church is part of the Minnesota Baptist Conference, and the senior pastor, Leith Anderson, is the president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Never heard of him, but worth checking into, but Jesse Ventura ? wasn't he a wrestler ? But then again Reagan was an actor...

SSC wrote:Never heard of him, but worth checking into, but Jesse Ventura ? wasn't he a wrestler ? But then again Reagan was an actor...

jesse was a wrestler ,but since u did not say, i dont know if u know he was a govenor also, u probably know and did not say, lol, but i have seen jesse on the tv shows as of late,and he seems a bit off the wall now. i cant remember all he did, i think the ppl got tired of him but dont quote me on that , im not sure at all and probably should not have said it,.

Jesse is very blunt, and yes a bit off the wall LOL
I watched pawlenty on tv yesterday, ilike what i see/heard so far.