Defeated GOP 'Override Six' legislator Erhardt switching parties for comeback try

Source: Minnesota Post

By Doug Grow | Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010
Longtime Republican state legislator Ron Erhardt is gearing up for a comeback, this time as a DFLer.

Erhardt, who for 18 years represented Edina as a moderate Republican in the Minnesota House, wrote to DFL activists over the weekend to say that he intends to seek DFL endorsement at the party's March district convention.

The move means that Erhardt, a man in the middle, has moved across the party spectrum. For years, he was an automatic winner as a Republican. But when the party moved to the right, he was ousted within his own party, which bestowed endorsement on Keith Downey in 2008.

The final straw within Republican ranks also came in 2008, when Erhardt joined five other Republicans (the "Gang of Six") in overriding Gov. Tim Pawlenty's veto of a transportation bill that increased the state's gasoline tax.

So, in an attempt to keep his office, Erhardt ran as an independent in the 2008 election. Downey won the three-way race with 36.7 percent of the vote (Erhardt had amassed 60 percent when winning in 2006). Erhardt finished second with 31.9 percent of the vote, and the DFL's endorsed candidate, Kevin Staunton, came in third with 31.3 percent.

Read more: http://www.minnpost.com/stories/2010/01/19/15115/defeated_gop_override_six_legislator_erhardt_switching_parties_for_comeback_try

legislators were threatened with loss of committee assignments etc. Of course then the bridge fell down and people realized we needed the add'l gas tax.

but they don't hold as much sway in the MN Congress as they do at the Federal level.