{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://paulsen.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=105&itemid=1362", "Minnesota Republicans saw little choice on fiscal compromise", "2013-10-17", "2013", "2013-10", "Republican", "House", "MN", "Erik Paulsen", "P000594", "paulsen.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "MN Republicans saw little choice on fiscal compromise \r\n\r\n\tArticle by: Kevin Diaz\u00a0\r\n\r\n\tStar Tribune\u00a0\r\n\r\n\tOctober 17, 2013 - 10:36 AM\r\n\r\n\tWASHINGTON \u2013 From Congress, a pair of Minnesota Republicans send their regrets.\r\n\r\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s not where we wanted to be, there\u2019s no question about that,\u201d said Rep. John Kline, a close ally of House Speaker John Boehner. \u201cWe had hoped to make more progress toward getting more fairness in Obamacare. We didn\u2019t get that.\u201d\r\n\r\n\tBut Kline, along with Minnesota Republican Erik Paulsen, felt he had no choice but to take the deal that emerged Wednesday from frenzied negotiations between Republican and Democratic leaders in the Senate.\r\n\r\n\t\u201cI think the Republican brand has suffered under what has taken place,\u201d said Paulsen, who, like Kline, represents a district that went to President Obama in the 2012 election.\r\n\r\n\tBoth took flak from the right and left, particularly from Democrats, who portrayed the two swing-district Republicans as hostages to the GOP\u2019s Tea Party wing, which sought to make the government spending resolution a referendum on blocking the new health care law.\r\n\r\n\tThe only other Minnesota Republican in Congress, Tea Party stalwart Michele Bachmann, voted against the 11th-hour agreement that ended the government shutdown and averted Thursday\u2019s deadline to begin defaulting on the national debt.\r\n\r\n\tBachmann, however, has long since announced she is not running for re-election. It will be up to Kline and Paulsen \u2014 and much of the House GOP leadership \u2014 to pick up the pieces of what some Tea Party groups are calling \u201cunconditional surrender.\u201d\r\n\r\n\tBoth men, who were among 87 Republicans voting for the deal, vowed to fight on in the next round of debt and deficit negotiations that will follow what has been a 16-day impasse. The deal passed the House on a 285-144 vote; no Democrats voted against the deal.\r\n\r\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s fair to say virtually none of us like this deal,\u201d Kline said after coming out of a sobering GOP caucus meeting. \u201cBut it\u2019s a question of tactics now. Do we move forward? We have upcoming events where we will try to push for the things that we think are important.\u201d\r\n\r\n\tKline faces what could be a spirited rematch with former DFL state Rep. Mike Obermueller, who lost to Kline by 8 percentage points last year. Obermueller released a statement Wednesday accusing Kline of \u201creckless partisanship\u201d that risked the nation\u2019s credit rating. \u201cJust another reminder that Congressman Kline is part of the problem in Washington,\u201d Obermueller said.\r\n\r\n\tKline, in his sixth term, also faces another GOP primary challenge by \u201cgrass roots\u201d candidate David Gerson, who faults Kline for his New Year\u2019s Eve fiscal cliff vote that averted another financial crisis by letting tax rates rise on the wealthiest taxpayers.\r\n\r\n\tGOP activists in Kline\u2019s Second Congressional District south of the Twin Cities say he has little to worry about. \u201cHe\u2019s considered to be a very reasonable congressman,\u201d said Jeff Lorsung, the district\u2019s deputy GOP chairman. \u201cSome on the far right would call that squishy. But as it relates to electability, that puts him where people want him to be.\u201d\r\n\r\n\tPaulsen, who voted against the fiscal cliff deal last January, has no declared Democratic opponent in the Third District. But party operatives in Washington have been trying to recruit one, pushing out internal polling in recent days purporting to show him vulnerable on the shutdown issue.\r\n\r\n\tPaulsen, however, was able to use the crisis to push for the repeal of a new tax under the health care law that is opposed by Medtronic and other large medical device companies in Minnesota. \u201cI can absolutely tell my constituents that I\u2019ve been working on finding solutions to break the logjam,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\n\tThe repeal of the medical device tax, which is unpopular with many Democrats as well as Republicans, was seen for a while as a potential linchpin for compromise. In the end, however, it was dropped.\r\n\r\n\tStill, the issue allowed Paulsen to distance himself from the conservative hard-liners who pressed for what turned out to be a futile shutdown strategy.\r\n\r\n\tWith the benefit of hindsight, both Kline and Paulsen acknowledge the flaws in the House GOP strategy of forcing a series of votes tying continued funding of the government to ending or delaying Obama\u2019s health care overhaul. \u201cI don\u2019t think it was the best way to start,\u201d Kline said. \u201cThere were some in my conference who were persuaded by, frankly, the junior senator from Texas [Ted Cruz] \u2026 so we are where we are.\u201d\r\n\r\n\tBoth Kline and Paulsen went along with those votes, one of which tied continued government funding to repealing the medical device tax.\r\n\r\n\tBoth emphasize they were votes to keep the government open \u2014 albeit with conditions the Democrats would not accept.\r\n\r\n\t\u201cI never had any option,\u201d said Paulsen, noting that House leaders did not bring a so-called clean funding resolution that would have allowed members to vote to reopen government without conditions.\r\n\r\n\tAmid the angst and recrimination, Democrats and Republicans in Congress pointed to the near-economic cataclysm as an object lesson.\r\n\r\n\tThat was particularly true for the two Minnesota Republicans most on the bubble because of the political dynamics of their districts and the growing sense of public frustration on both sides.\r\n\r\n\t\u201cAs a Republican, I think it\u2019s important for our party to understand that we need to be for positive solutions, and not just always saying no,\u201d Paulsen said.\r\n\r\n\tSaid Kline: \u201cThis is a time for all of us for reflection.\u201d\r\n\r\n\tRead entire article online here.\u00a0\r\n\r\n\t###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://paulsen.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=105&itemid=1362"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8796588517725468, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}