Al Franken's Blog, page 55
April 3, 2014
Why Asma’s on Team Franken
Meet Asma Mohammed. She’s a senior at Macalester College who had the honor of introducing St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman at a special grassroots event with Al and Senator Elizabeth Warren last week because of her work on our grassroots campaign. She’s committed to making sure Al can keep fighting for Minnesota students like her—but it wasn’t always that way. She explains:
There was a time in my life when I didn’t think my vote mattered. I didn’t think my voice mattered.
Maybe you’re familiar with this feeling—I had become disheartened by the politics of Washington. I didn’t believe anything I did could really make a difference. I was simply jaded.
A few summers ago, I taught at an inner city public school in Minneapolis. At one point, my class started discussing major events in our country’s history. The room was transformed. These kids who weren’t even in high school yet were invigorated by our past and the possibility of our mutual futures.
They still believed that they could make a difference. They still believed that their voice mattered—and it changed me. Our government, politics—it all became the art of the possible again for me.
And so I got involved. I got on the phones and started talking to voters. I spoke with my friends, my classmates and my peers about the importance of making sure our voice was heard and voting. Yes, VOTING—which isn’t always considered to be the most exciting activity for my peers.
For me, Al symbolizes the change I can create. In his short time in the Senate, he has been an effective voice for student loan reform, and has delivered concrete results on health care reform that make a difference in peoples’ lives. In OUR lives. Al has had our back in the Senate, and now it’s our turn to have his back in this election.
I once said to a professor that a woman like me could never be President. And he looked at me and said, ‘Asma, you’ve already made it further than you thought you could. The more you let your voice be heard, the more power you gain for yourself and for young people like you.”
Look at what happens when WE show up. Look at what WE did in 2008. WE elected Al Franken.
So let’s speak up. I’m not just pledging to vote for Al in November, I’m pledging to knock doors, make calls and drag friends to the polls. And I’m asking all of you to do the same.
Asma told us why she’s on Team Franken. Now it’s your turn. Share your story now.
The post Why Asma’s on Team Franken appeared first on U.S. Senator Al Franken, Minnesota -- Official Campaign Website.
April 1, 2014
Only 90 days until the deadline!!!
AL FRANKEN – We only have 90 days until the next quarterly deadline, and we still have to raise ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of our grassroots fundraising goal!!!!!!!
Okay. Maybe, just this once, we can ease up on the urgency. I know you get a lot of email from us, especially in the final days leading up to a deadline like the one we had last night. And I know a lot of it can be a little intense, especially if you happen to check your email or Facebook before you’ve had your first cup of coffee.
But I hope you know that we don’t do it just to raise your blood pressure. It really matters when you read those emails or tweets, and click on those links, and make those contributions.
Our online community is one of the biggest advantages I have in this campaign. Thanks to you, we’ve hit every single grassroots fundraising goal we’ve set so far. And if this election is anywhere near as close as my last one was, odds are you’re the ones who are going to make the difference.
But after all you’ve done already, you’ve earned a day off. So this is just a nice, calm note to say thank you for everything you’ve done so far, and everything you’ll do between now and Election Day—including reading a lot of emails and Facebook posts about urgent deadlines. Or, as you’re used to seeing it, URGENT DEADLINES!!!
Really, though: Thank you.
(If you want to make a contribution, you can do so right here. But, really, no pressure. At least, not today.)
The post Only 90 days until the deadline!!! appeared first on U.S. Senator Al Franken, Minnesota -- Official Campaign Website.
March 29, 2014
Is Kochtopus really a word?
I suppose “Kochtopus” is as good a name as any for the huge, secretive network of interest groups the Koch brothers masterminded to funnel dark money all over the country in the 2010 and 2012 elections.
And now, their Kochtopus money man is heading up another group – and coming straight after me.
The group is American Encore, and they just launched a pretty nasty attack against me on Minnesota TV.
I’m used to being attacked by groups like this one — we weathered a ton of smears like this in 2008. Special interests came after me then, and they will this time around, because I stand firmly against their agenda.
They fight with TV ads filled with ridiculous distortions and — let’s call them what they are — lies. We fight differently — by organizing, working together, and hitting goals. We don’t need to out-raise the Koch’s money man, but we need to hit our goals to run the campaign we need to win.
Thanks.
Al
P.S.: This group isn’t the only one coming after me. A new super PAC sprang up not long ago, and their reason for existing is to take me down. I need you on my side. Contribute $5 or more to make it happen.
The post Is Kochtopus really a word? appeared first on U.S. Senator Al Franken, Minnesota -- Official Campaign Website.
March 27, 2014
MSNBC: Franken re-introduces privacy protection bill
Sen. Al Franken explains the importance of this bill and why the safety of some many are at stake with Andrea Mitchell. Franken says the bill is about the “abuse” of location finding technology and would make stalking apps illegal.
The post MSNBC: Franken re-introduces privacy protection bill appeared first on U.S. Senator Al Franken, Minnesota -- Official Campaign Website.
March 26, 2014
Franken pushes bill aimed at ‘stalking’ apps
Sen. Al Franken is going to “try again” to pass an anti-stalking law that focuses specifically on what our mobile devices know about us — and who can access the information.
He’ll introduce a bill this week that would make it harder for companies to collect and sell location information from our cell phones and other mobile devices.
A similar bill, the Location Protection Privacy Act, got approval from the Senate judiciary committee in 2012, but died after running into opposition from business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Franken said the data created by users can be misused. He cited an example of a woman in northern Minnesota who sought help from a domestic violence program.
“When she was there, on her smartphone came a text message from her abuser, asking her why she was in a county building. She was scared, so they took her to a local courthouse to get a restraining order. And while she was there, she got a text message asking, ‘Why are you in the court house. Are you getting a restraining order against me?’ Now, these are called stalking apps, and they advertise themselves as such.”
MPR’s Cathy Wurzer spoke about the bill with Franken. Click on the audio link above to hear the full conversation.
The post Franken pushes bill aimed at ‘stalking’ apps appeared first on U.S. Senator Al Franken, Minnesota -- Official Campaign Website.
March 23, 2014
Stories of the #ACA: “I can now sleep at night.”
Four years ago this month marks the passage of the Affordable Care Act, and millions of Americans are already seeing the benefits. Al knows we can’t go back to the days when half the bankruptcies in this country were linked to medical bills, people with pre-existing conditions couldn’t get covered, and insurance companies could charge women more than men for insurance coverage. That’s why he is working hard to make sure the law works for the people of Minnesota.
The provisions Al authored are already helping Minnesotans, including the 80/20 rule which requires the insurance companies to spend at least 80% of people’s premiums on actual medical care, not their own profits or perks—and a diabetes prevention program, which works to prevent prediabetes from turning into diabetes through physical education and a nutrition lifestyle program. The Value Index, which Al worked on with his Minnesota colleague Senator Amy Klobuchar, rewards providers who deliver better care based on the quality and value of care they provide—not the quantity—which will help bring down costs and improve outcomes for all consumers.
Team Franken heard from Minnesotans young and old on their personal experiences with the Affordable Care Act—here’s what they had to say:
“I changed jobs in 2011, and lost my insurance. My new employer was much smaller and did not offer health insurance. I checked into getting insurance on my own and found that I would have to pay a nearly $575/month premium and a high deductible because of my age and pre-existing conditions. With MNSure, I found a health care plan that fits my needs, and the premium is only $311 each month and has a reasonable deductible and I’m two years older than I was when I searched for insurance before. I am so grateful for the Affordable Care Act—I can now sleep at night.”
- Tom V, Minneapolis
“My 50 year-old brother Paul is somebody who works hard and doesn’t want a handout. When he was a teenager, he suffered a brain injury that makes it difficult to maintain a full-time job. Despite only earning $18,000/year, he paid for his medical insurance out of pocket—upwards to $500/month, with a $2,000 deductible. When he sat down with a health care navigator, he found out that he was eligible for Medical Assistance with a 100% subsidy that covered his premium. That extra money will be a huge help. He can save money for retirement; he can buy his own clothing and pay for his own car. He’s very excited. And he’s not somebody who will take it for granted.”
- Allison, Brooklyn Park
“$301.24. That’s how much I got back from my insurer in costs that were of no benefit to me. What’s more? The birth control I can now pick up without a co-pay. Now I know that the people I love no longer have to choose between utility bills or a visit to the doctor.”
- Nora A, Eden Prarie
Want to make sure we can keep health care advocates like Al in the Senate fighting for us? Sign up to volunteer today.
The post Stories of the #ACA: “I can now sleep at night.” appeared first on U.S. Senator Al Franken, Minnesota -- Official Campaign Website.
March 20, 2014
Washington Post: No jokes. He’ll woo voters by ‘just doing his job.’
Richard Leiby, St. Paul, Minn. — For the next 90 minutes, we’re going to hear all about propane gas. How it warms the rural poor, keeps chickens from freezing in barns and dries soybean crops. And how a severe shortage here in Minnesota, during the worst winter in 30 years, is causing much alarm.
About 20 fuel transporters, processing experts, state bureaucrats and farmers are gathered in a conference room outside the commerce commissioner’s office, occupying a long, gleaming table. Ready to brainstorm — but first, introductions.
“I’ll start with me,” says the familiar bespectacled man at the head of the table. “I’m Al Franken, junior senator from the state of Minnesota, clothed in immensepower.”
A beat. Franken grins.
Nobody clutches his gut or seal-barks laughter, but the line — a reconstituted quote from the biopic “Lincoln” — shows that Franken can still bring the funny. Although at this sensitive point in his remade career, he just can’t be too funny.
The Democrat is seeking a second term while tethered to President Obama, whom he has staunchly supported — not necessarily a plus here. Recent polls put the senator’s approval rating between 48 and 55 percent. And he has not by any means forgotten that he won the seat in 2008 by just 312 votes after a hard-fought recount.
Franken spent four decades building a comedic franchise across the popular culture — “Saturday Night Live” writer and actor; best-selling political satirist; partisan radio blowhard. He has spent the past five years shedding his clown costume, realizing, practically from Day One, that it was a liability for a senator. Since taking his seat in the summer of 2009, he has tamped down his scorn for Republicans, dialed back the irony and hyperbole, and strived to fit in with his fellow gentlemen and ladies in the august chamber.
There, Franken, his hair going pewter at 62, has seemed all business; that’s true in this conference room in St. Paul, too. Soon he’s talking about propane “flaring” and “additional fractionation” and a key Canadian pipeline. He habitually props his jaw on his fist and leans forward, listening — and, his staffers say — fully absorbing the most granular details so he can talk knowledgably about complex matters.
“We had a lot of people hit — a lot of people hit hard,” Franken says of the propane shortage. “A lot of businesses, a lot of families, a lot of people in agriculture. And we don’t want it to happen again.”
Then, like all good politicians, he makes a promise. “I want to take back to Washington what I’m hearing from all of you.”
Later, outside the room, an official from the Salvation Army, which supplied emergency relief to thousands of households without heat this winter, lauds Franken.
“It isn’t grandstanding,” says Mike McGlone, who has met with him a few times. “He’s working all the time.?He is a mature adult who takes his job seriously.”
The lawmaker in question strolls over. “You cannot not have heat in Minnesota,” McGlone is saying.
How does McGlone’s praise sit with Franken?
“Eh, one of those bleeding hearts,” the senator deadpans.
You can’t take the Al Franken entirely out of Al Franken.
Adding credibility
Lie low. Be a workhorse, Al, not a showhorse. That was the advice the new senator received from two Washington sages: Tamera Luzzatto, a former chief of staff in Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Senate office, and the pundit Norm Ornstein, a good friend of Franken’s.
“If you big-foot your colleagues to get publicity, they will not think very highly of you,” says Ornstein, who has known Franken for 25 years. “If you’ve got the talent, put your nose to the grindstone and demonstrate you are smart, they will respect you.”
By the time he arrived in the Senate, Franken already enjoyed enormous celebrity — Stuart Smalley, anyone? — but now he needed credibility. In some quarters, he seems to have gained it.
“He has shown discipline,” says Larry Jacobs, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota. “He looks like one of the better senators at this point in terms of diligence and hard work.”
Franken moved from New York back to Minnesota in 2005 to explore a Senate run, and he now divides his time between residences in D.C. and Minneapolis. He and his wife, Franni, have been married for 38 years, have two adult children, and last year welcomed their first grandchild. They mix with fellow senators but keep private.
“He stays home and studies for the next day,” a staffer says. Franken is known for actually reading committee witness testimony and even digging into the footnotes, looking for holes or contradictions.
After the new senator arrived in Washington, he consistently shunned the national news media — no interest in holding forth on the Sunday chat shows — instead favoring Minnesota reporters and broadcast outlets.
The weird thing is, being low-key became a sort of liability. Some liberals began to wonder: What’s up with our old friend Al? Where is he?
Now the Republicans are bashing Franken for his lack of a high profile — and saying he cannot point to any substantive legislative victories.
“All he has done is kept his head down,” says Keith Downey, head of the Minnesota Republican Party. “He hasn’t made any gaffes .?.?. but I don’t know that not making gaffes can be counted as an accomplishment.”
The party has yet to choose a candidate to run against Franken. Downey acknowledges, though, that the Republican challenger will “absolutely” face a tough race. Franken has millions stashed away in his campaign chest, fattened by fundraising events with the likes of Conan O’Brien and Jon Hamm.
And what is the senator’s reelection strategy?
“The best thing I think I can do is my job,” he says evenly.
Among other legislation, he points to a drug safety bill he co-sponsored with Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), his work on the recently passed five-year farm bill with fellow Democrat Tom Harkin (Iowa) and a rebate provision he was able to attach to the 2010 Affordable Care Act. It requires insurers to spend 80 percent of the premiums they collect on actual health care and cut checks to consumers when they don’t.
“There’s a little confusion between the low profile and not doing stuff,” Franken says in an interview, one of the few he has granted to a national outlet. “Keeping a low profile does not mean not doing the work.”
Here it comes again. That laugh — with its unmistakable timbre, and usually loud. (“I went into comedy because I like to laugh,” he will later note.)
But there is none of the old bombast, no overbroad performer.
“I’ve been working,” he says. “I think I have a pretty good record of achievement.”
Franken is proud of putting money in consumers’ pockets through the health-care law, but did people even realize they had him to thank for their insurance rebate checks? “Some people did,” he says, then tells a story.
A couple of years ago, he was awaiting a flight back to Minnesota from Washington when a young woman approached him.
“I can’t believe I’m seeing you!” she said. “I got this check from my insurance company and my friend told me, ‘You should thank Al Franken.’ ”
“Well, uh, you’re welcome,” he replied.
On the plane, he ended up seated next to her. “So I said to her, ‘You don’t happen to have the check, do you?’ And she said, “ ‘I do!’ ”
He cracks up. “It was like a check for 260 bucks. It was really funny.”
Well, not funny in any outlandish way, like, say, “Julia Child Bleeding to Death,” a classic “SNL” sketch by Franken and his late writing partner Tom Davis.
But interesting and amusing in that now-Al’s-a-politician way. Good enough funny.
Across the aisle
Franken has been lampooning politicians since he and Davis performed sketches in high school in the Minneapolis suburbs. “We loved having Nixon as president,” he says. “We’d switch off doing Nixon.”
At the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta in 1988, Franken was providing commentary for CNN when he met Ornstein. They forged a wonkish bond. Four years later, at both party conventions, “I ended up as Al’s pollster and sidekick,” Ornstein says, when Franken helmed the young Comedy Central network’s “Indecision 1992” coverage.
Franken’s string of provocatively titled political books was sauced with profanity and ad hominem attacks on, for example, “the psychotic Ann Coulter, the sex-addicted Bill O’Reilly, the drug-addicted Rush Limbaugh,” as he wrote in his 2006 “The Truth — With Jokes.” He left no patch of conservative Washington unscorched.
But friends say Franken drilled deeply into public policy and used meticulous sourcing in his books; it’s unwise to get your facts wrong when you’re calling everyone else a liar.
Whenever the satirist visited Washington to do interviews and research, he was welcome to take a restorative pause in Ornstein’s office at the American Enterprise Institute. “He would lie down on my couch,” Ornstein recalls.
It’s a wonder that the flaming liberal did not set off fire alarms at the conservative think tank, but today Franken makes a point of name-dropping and speaking admiringly of Republicans who have supported his bills.
Comedy in bits
“.?.?. clothed in immense power .?.?.”
Franken has just done his junior senator/Lincoln joke for the first time of the day, stirring chuckles from parents, teachers, mental-health experts and guidance counselors sitting in a middle school library brightened by green and yellow walls. He’ll deploy it at all three listening sessions with constituents on his schedule. This morning Franken is hearing about ways to help students with psychological problems, one of his legislative issues. A major concern: the 750-to-1 ratio of students to counselors statewide.
Next comes a lunch of subs and chips at E.J. Ajax manufacturing, a metal-forming company. Franken does the standard mingle on the factory floor with workers — combat vets and ex-convicts among them. They are students and grads of two-year colleges and technical schools now making good wages; high-skill manufacturing jobs offer a “way to the middle class” without a huge investment in a four-year educations, Franken likes to point out.
Invited to use a massive metal press, the senator stamps out a 2-by-1-foot piece of sheet metal that will end up as an access panel on a tractor trailer. You can almost see him thinking, There’s got to be a joke in here somewhere.
“Put ‘Inspected by Al Franken’ on that one,” he quips.
He also warmly greets Altheha DrePaul, who worked her way up from machine operator to account manager. He recently called her after she was honored by the Manufacturing Institute.
She’s impressed that the senator took time to talk with her for 10 minutes. “I was at a loss for words,” DrePaul says.
Franken hugs her. “You look way better in person,” she says.
“How’d I look on the phone?” Franken says. Laughing, of course.
Feeling Minnesota
Back in St. Paul, the capital, office workers are knocking off early in the afternoon to avoid a blizzard that’s bearing down on the state. It’s starting to snow harder, and we’d like to get a picture of Franken in a typical Minnesota scene. There’s already a substantial snow cover, so he could stand anywhere in the downtown tableau to convey the message that he represents a state where, you know, it snows a lot.
But he likes the idea of standing in the falling snow. He even suggests what kind of lens might be used to best catch the flakes in a more “artistic, timeless look.”
It’s a bit odd to be standing out there, but he doesn’t mind. A little longer? Of course. He’ll stay as long as we want. Whatever you need to get the shot.
“I used to be in show business,” he says.
The post Washington Post: No jokes. He’ll woo voters by ‘just doing his job.’ appeared first on U.S. Senator Al Franken, Minnesota -- Official Campaign Website.
March 18, 2014
CBS News: Sen. Al Franken seeks more assistance for school lunches
Congress this year has been reticent to extend social safety net programs — in fact, last month it passed a bill that cuts food assistance funding — but Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., is nevertheless trying to extend federal funding for students to receive hot school lunches.
Franken on Monday ate lunch with the kindergartners at Meadow Lake Elementary School in Brooklyn Park, Minn., to bring attention to the significance of subsidized lunches. Nearly eight in 10 students at Meadow Lake come from lower-income families who qualify for free or reduced lunches, CBS Minnesota reported.
“Kids who haven’t eaten at lunch, who don’t have a full stomach… don’t do as well in school. This is wrong,” Franken said.
The National School Lunch Program provided low-cost or free lunches to more than 31 million children each school day in 2012, but Franken contends the government could do more for those students who are only offered low-cost lunches. If a student can’t pay for those low-cost lunches, which are typically 40 cents each, they’re offered some alternative like a cheese sandwich.
Under the current rules, children from families with incomes at or below 130 percent of the poverty level (or $30,615 for a family of four) are eligible for free meals. Those with incomes between 130 percent and 185 percent of the poverty level are eligible for reduced?price meals. (185 percent of the poverty level comes to $43,568 for a family of four).
Franken is re-introducing legislation, the Expand School Meals Act, to pay the rest of the cost for those students who only qualify for the reduced-price meals. The senator introduced the legislation in 2009 and 2010, but it went nowhere.
It’s unclear if the bill would have any more success this year. Last month, Congress sent President Obama a farm bill that cuts $8.6 billion from the food stamp program over the next decade. Meanwhile, lawmakers are still squabbling over extending emergency unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed — Republicans are asking for a satisfactory way to pay for the program.
The Minnesota senator is up for re-election this year, and his legislation fits into the Democrats’ election-year push to fight income inequality with measures like a minimum wage increase. A couple of recent polls out of Minnesota show Franken in a good position over his potential Republican challengers.
At least one of his GOP challengers, businessman Mike McFadden, said the matter of paying for school lunches should be left to the states to handle, the Minnesota Star Tribune reports. The Minnesota House did, in fact, vote last week to set aside $3.5 million a year to cover the cost of reduced-price lunches.
The post CBS News: Sen. Al Franken seeks more assistance for school lunches appeared first on U.S. Senator Al Franken, Minnesota -- Official Campaign Website.
March 17, 2014
Star Tribune: Franken wants free school lunch for more low-income students
Democratic U.S. Sen. Al Franken is resurrecting his proposal to pay for hot school lunches for students who get reduced-priced meals. “We should really be committed to making sure kids don’t go hungry at school,” Franken said in an interview with the Star Tribune. “It’s just wrong.”
Franken had lunch Monday with students at Meadow Lake Elementary School in New Hope, saying research is clear that students learn better when they are well nourished.
A member of the Senate Education Committee, Franken introduced the proposal in 2009 and again in 2010, but the measures never became law.
Right now, students whose parents make between 130 percent and 185 percent of the federal poverty lines qualify for reduced-priced lunches of 40 cents per meal. Under the proposal, the taxpayers would pick up the tab for those lunches.
It is not clear how much the proposal would cost or how many students would be affected.
One of Franken’s GOP challengers, Mike McFadden, said the issue highlights the differences between the two.
Franken, he said, looks for a federal solution to something that state leaders are already about to tackle. “We should really look to the state or local government,” McFadden said.
State Sen. Julianne Ortman, Franken’s other GOP challenger, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
DFL Gov. Mark Dayton and legislators are rushing passage of a proposal to have the state pick up the tab for students whose parents can’t pay for reduced-price lunches.
Recent news stories outlined how some Minnesota school districts only offered low-income students cheese sandwiches when their meal accounts ran dry.
Dayton and legislators from both parties said that is completely unacceptable.
The Minnesota House voted overwhelmingly to set aside $3.5 million to pay for those lunches. The Senate is expected to follow suit.
Franken said if his measure becomes law, the federal government would take over the state’s share of the lunches.
“Kids don’t do as well when they are hungry,” he said.
The post Star Tribune: Franken wants free school lunch for more low-income students appeared first on U.S. Senator Al Franken, Minnesota -- Official Campaign Website.
WCCO: Franken Talks Minimum Wage, School Lunch, Hotdish
Senator Al Franken sat down Sunday morning to talk with WCCO’s Esme Murphy.
Click here to watch the video.
The post WCCO: Franken Talks Minimum Wage, School Lunch, Hotdish appeared first on U.S. Senator Al Franken, Minnesota -- Official Campaign Website.
Al Franken's Blog
- Al Franken's profile
- 651 followers
