Talking straight in 24B

Tony Cornish defends House seat against Jim Peterson

By Mark Fischenich

Looking for a straight shooter with the right experience to be an effective representative for the people of rural Blue Earth, Waseca and Faribault counties?

If you take the candidates’ word for it, voters in District 24B can’t go wrong.

“I’m known for looking somebody in the eye and telling them what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear,” Rep. Tony Cornish said.

A Republican from rural Vernon Center, Cornish is seeking his third term in the House.

He’s being opposed by Waseca County Commissioner Jim Peterson, a Democrat from rural Hartland.

“My reputation is ‘Don’t ask the question if you don’t want the answer,’” Peterson said. “I’m going to give it to you even though it might not be what you want to hear.”

Hard work, results

Now retired, Cornish was a police officer, sheriff’s deputy, conservation officer and state Capitol lobbyist for his fellow conservation officers.

An unabashed conservative, Cornish said he offers voters honesty, hard work and a record of success in getting legislation passed.

“You can’t find anybody more honest,” he said. “... You can’t outwork me.”

In the 2005 legislative session, only one other member of the House — a committee chairman — got more bills passed, Cornish said. And back in the district, he said, people can barely go to a church dinner, school band concert or a coffee shop without running into him.

Cornish has brought state dollars and special legislation to District 24B for everything from the Rapidan Dam to Farmamerica.

After attending several candidate forums where he and Peterson discussed a variety of issues, Cornish said he hasn’t seen enough disagreement to explain why Peterson wants to replace him. He’d like to ask Peterson a question.

“If you agree with me on every point, why the hell are you running against me?”

Nonpartisan experience

Peterson said he offers a very different approach than Cornish.

“My values and bipartisan thinking leads my decision-making, and I think that’s important to the voters of this district,” Peterson said.

Cornish is too focused on being a loyal Republican to be a strong representative, Peterson said.

“I don’t believe that he takes a bipartisan approach at all,” he said. “There are some issues. But when it comes to the straight and narrow, he’ll go party line 100 percent.”

Peterson talks about his experience as a major asset. Six years on a school board. Nine years on a township board. Ten years on a county board.

“I’ve got a lot of background on a lot of issues we should talk about,” he said.

As for Cornish’s pride in his work in St. Paul, Peterson said he was taught at a young age that the people performing the best don’t need to talk about it.

“That should be something that should be there for people to see,” Peterson said.

Challenges ahead

Looking ahead to the upcoming session of the Legislature, Cornish doesn’t so much lay out a list of proposals as he does identify serious problems that need to be addressed.

“I’m just running completely and totally on my record rather than promises,” he said.

The state needs to solve the ongoing dilemma of who should pay for schools — both operating costs and building construction, Cornish said.

“From the Minnesota Miracle on, it’s been passed back and forth,” he said of the yo-yo course of school funding from locally levied property taxes to state funding and back.

The state also needs to figure out a better way to fund school construction in rural Minnesota, Cornish said. Construction costs are simply more than property owners in rural districts — especially farmers — can bear.

“The only way you’re really going to fix it is you have to look at what schools are going to survive at the state level and then put some money into it,” he said.

He doesn’t expect to push for a gas-tax increase to pay for more transportation funding. He predicts voters will approve on Nov. 7 a constitutional amendment to dedicate motor vehicle sales taxes to transportation and expects that will have to suffice for now.

One area where he is willing to inject substantially more state dollars is nursing homes.

“On nursing homes, we just plain have to give them more money,” he said. “... We just need a raise for health-care professionals in nursing homes.”

Investments needed

Lawmakers and other state officials are exaggerating what they’ve done to help Minnesota’s schools, according to Peterson, who says the funding increases have barely covered inflation.

He supports higher funding for K-12 and early childhood education, saying children are the state’s future.

“We need to keep our classroom size at a minimum,” Peterson said. “We don’t need 40 to 45 students to a room.”

State help for people struggling with rising health-care costs matches education as the top issues facing lawmakers, he said. The state needs to prioritize spending so that working Minnesotans without health-care coverage can get help through the MinnesotaCare program.

A gas-tax increase is necessary to catch up with a growing backlog of needed road repairs, Peterson said. He points to Highway 83, which he said is in terrible shape.

“And it’s not even on the (multi-year MnDOT) schedule to get done,” he said.

But he opposes the trend in the past four years of borrowing money to fix state highways.

“That’s actually mortgaging our future and hoping things get better,” Peterson said. “... We need a (revenue) source somewhere along the line to maintain our roads, or we might as well turn them back to gravel.”

A gas-tax increase of 10 cents a gallon, vetoed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty, would have brought needed revenue not just for state roads but also for county roads, Peterson said. That tax would have meant $21.8 million over 10 years for Blue Earth County roads, $8.4 million for Waseca County and $11.4 million for Faribault County.

November forecast

Cornish won a close race in 2002 to replace retiring Rep. Henry Kalis, DFL-Walters. In 2004, he picked up 60 percent of the vote in convincing re-election victory. He goes into the 2006 election confident the voters are behind him.

“I’m hoping to increase my percentage,” Cornish said.

Although Peterson is making his first run for a legislative office, he’s had plenty of success at the ballot box in local races. But he’s not making any predictions, saying only that he’s knocked on close to 8,000 doors.

“Nov. 7 will tell the truth,” Peterson said.