Why hasn't the GOP won a statewide race in a dozen years? DFL Chairman Ken Martin knows

Apr. 7—ROCHESTER — Since becoming DFL Party chairman in 2011, Ken Martin has the distinction for never having lost a statewide race on his watch in that dozen years, the longest such stretch in party history.

Now with the

Minnesota legislative session

in recess, Martin stopped in Rochester as part of a tour to offer his take on the legislative session as well as the state of politics nationwide?

It was an opportunity to ask: Why has the GOP statewide electoral drought lasted so long? The DFL is on a roll legislatively, but is it coming at the cost of growing partisan rancor with the GOP largely relegated to the sidelines?

Was the repeal of Roe v. Wade a political gift to Democrats? What does liberal candidate Janet Protasiewicz's resounding victory in the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court election portend nationally and for the 2024 election? Are Democrats happy that Donald Trump is likely to be the GOP presidential nominee? And is President Joe Biden too old to run for re-election?

PB: It appears that the state is in a progressive moment. The DFL Party is passing a lot of legislation in St. Paul despite having a one-vote margin in the Senate. How do you see the session shaking out?

Martin: Let me just say that power is fleeting. We don't know when we'll be in power again. So we have to use the power that we have while we have it to make the biggest difference for as many people as we can. I think the biggest difference between this trifecta (when the DFL under Gov. Tim Walz won majorities in both legislative chambers) and the last trifecta ( in 2012 under Mark Dayton) is that people in the last trifecta looked through the lens of how do we hold on to power? And that made them a little bit more cautious. This session people are saying, "How do we use the power that we have now?" What I'm most buoyed by in this session is the fact that people are using the power we have right now to make the differences that Minnesotans want and expect.

What do you think has been accomplished so far in the session?

You can talk about the Clean Energy Standard passed by the DFL, moving Minnesota by 2040 so that all public utilities are carbon free. This is one of the hallmarks of the legislative session so far.

Restoring the vote

to (felons who have served their prison terms but are still on probation). This is really an important part of democracy, and reducing recidivism is making sure that people can be reintegrated into society. The codification of abortion, which was one of the first bills passed, means Minnesotans can make decisions over their reproductive health.

There's a lot of things on the docket right now that haven't been passed yet but that we expect to be passed. That includes legalizing recreational cannabis use, which is long overdue in the state; paid family and medical leave, which would be just instrumental for working families; and the budget itself, the biggest debate over the next two and half months left. What to do with a $17.5 billion surplus?

I wanted to ask you about the Wisconsin Supreme Court election in which the liberal candidate, Janet Protasiewicz, won a resounding double-digit victory in a swing state. What does the election say about the politics nationwide?

This is one of the things that Republicans really didn't understand ( in terms of the consequences) of the Dobb's decision (which repealed Roe v. Wade and ended the constitutional right to an abortion). It really has awakened a whole group of voters that really haven't participated in some time. We saw that in the midterm elections. There were really two issues that rose to the top in the Wisconsin election. One was abortion and the other was democracy.

Do you think the GOP will have to make an accommodation to abortion to be successful?

It doesn't seem like Republicans have learned their lessons in any way or taken the right lessons from the last election cycle. They keep doubling down on not only attacks on women's reproductive health but also on democracy. The number of election deniers that continue to file for office on the Republican side and the attacks on our election system continue. None of that has gone away since the 2022 elections.

Was the

repeal of Wade

a gift to Democrats politically?

I suppose you can see it in that way, but it's not a gift when millions of women around the country have the right to make those decisions over their own health care taken away.

A couple of weeks ago, a local legislator,

GOP Rep. Duane Quam,

erupted in anger in committee after not being allowed to ask questions about an election bill. His point was that the DFL is freezing out the GOP from participating in the process of passing laws? Does he have a point?

I know that's probably how Duane feels. I'm not hearing that a lot, to be honest with you. But I will say this: We spent the last 10 years in divided government, and we asked the Republicans to come to the table in a meaningful way to address the issues facing Minnesota. And when they had power in the Senate, they decided not to vote. They just became the party of "no" instead of putting ideas on the table. I'll just say, "Go cry me a river." You don't like the DFL plan, then put your own plan on the table. But they never did.

If you were GOP chairman, how would you do things differently?

I think back to 1994 when the GOP House came out with its Contract with America under Newt Gingrich? Remember, they were in the minority, and the way they won is they didn't just go out and hammer the crap out of the Democrats nationwide. They went out with their own idea of if you elect us, here's what we're going to do, right? If you don't like what the Democrats are doing, look at what we would do for you. Here's our plan of how we're going to rebuild this country. I think people are disillusioned with folks who just stand up and say, "Hey, vote for me because we're not them."

It looks like Donald Trump is going to be the GOP presidential nominee for 2024. Does that make you happy?

I was in Philadelphia a couple of months ago, and we were out there with the president, and some of the national reporters were asking me about what I was hearing. And I said, surprisingly, there's a lot of people even in that room, DNC members, who are gleeful about a Trump nomination. And I can't for the life of me understand it.

It wasn't that long ago in 2016, when all of us thought, myself included, when Trump was nominated and we're like, "This is great. Hillary Clinton is going to be the President of the United States." No, Donald Trump is one of the most resilient politicians I've ever seen. All the scandal and controversy and lawsuit — none of it seems to impact him. And, in fact, if anything, it helps Donald Trump become the nominee. For folks to say, "Oh, he's a wounded duck." Well, it's never impacted him in the past. And I don't think it will again. This will be a tough race.

Is President Biden too old to run for re-election?

I don't think so. From my perspective, it's less about age and more about what you've done while you've had the ability to do it. The last two and half years, he's done a great job. We've never seen more legislation passed to benefit different people than what President Biden's put forward.

This Q&A has been edited for length.