Blog Archives

On The Issue of Student Debt & Hunger in Southern MN

7/25/2019

About 20 constituents came together on July 25, 2019 to share our concerns about student debt and hunger here in CD-1. When Rep. Hagedorn and his staff close themselves off from voices in the district, they remain under-informed about the issues facing constituents and are, therefore, incapable of addressing them. Jim Hagedorn, HEAR OUR VOICES!

In 2018, a MSU survey found that almost one third of its students had trouble affording food. Rep. Jim Hagedorn caused quite a stir a few months ago when I claimed that people don't go hungry in southern Minnesota. Since then, he has doubled down on these claims saying it was praise for the productivity of Minnesota farmers. No word about the fact that many people can not afford to buy that food. And at our last meeting with his staff, they did not seem to have any knowledge that student hunger was even a problem.

On the debilitating student debt, Hagedorn has said, in essence, it's their own fault. They chose poorly. And during a visit to a group of low-income high school students, he said that they should not expect the government to help them shoulder the cost of college.

As state legislatures cut support for higher education, tuition is rising at astronomical rates at the same time that a college degree is increasingly mandatory for stable wages and participation in the workforce. Sky-high student loans and interest rates are crippling workers just starting out who, instead of investing in homes and businesses and starting families, are drowning in debt.

People cannot be free if they can’t afford the lives they want to lead. And a democracy like ours cannot function without an informed, educated citizenry.

And now, Trump is threatening to kick $3 million people of food stamps. “The new proposal says that if your gross income is 130 percent above the federal poverty line — for a single person, that's a little more than $16,000 — and if you have more than $2,250 in assets, you will no longer be able to receive benefits.”

We call on Rep. Hagedorn to make a statement acknowledging the problem of student poverty and hunger in our district and pledge to vote against any proposal that would deny your constituents access to life-supporting programs like SNAP.

Congressman Hagedorn Makes-up False Accusation to Ban Constituents

7/16/2019

First District Congressman Jim Hagedorn sent out an email to multiple constituents on Monday July 15th, 2019 barring them from coming to his official Congressional office in Mankato or meeting with his staff.

Indivisible St. Peter/Greater Mankato has been visiting Congressman Hagedorn’s office once a week for an average of 15-20 minutes to inquire about town halls and to enable constituents to share their concerns with the Congressman about his votes and public statements. Two recent visits - to address the telephone town hall for Nicollet County (June 18) and to address the humanitarian crisis at the border (June 27) - attracted more concerned constituents and took longer because the office only allows 6-7 constituents in at a time. We have remained respectful in all of our visits to Congressman Hagedorn’s office and have been grateful to his staff for listening to our concerns. We have the utmost respect for the work of a Congressional office.

That is why we wanted to specifically address the unequivocally false allegation that Congressman Hagedorn made that a member of our group stated that we were trying to ‘keep staff from attending to other work’. This is absolutely not our intention.

In fact, we have stated many times that if office staff have pressing matters to attend to, we would be happy to wait or come back another time. Indeed, we have offered to set up a private meeting to discuss productive ways going forward that would meet the needs of constituents while being sensitive to the apparent staffing challenges in Rep. Hagedorn’s office and have been ignored.

For this reason, we were shocked to see our visits being characterized in this way and, especially, to see this accusation made against us. We do not expect Rep. Hagedorn to vote in line with our positions all of the time but we do expect, at the very least, to be able to convey our concerns about how he is representing us in the First District.

Hundreds Come Together in St. Peter for "Lights for Liberty" Vigil

7/13/2019

What a beautiful and moving event tonight. About 150 people came out to St. Peter for the Lights for Liberty Vigil against the concentration camps at the border. This vigil was part of a nationwide event - 13 in Minnesota and more than 800 all across the country. Keri Johnson, Rev. Rita Capezzi, Rev. Dana Mann, Mohamed Ibrahim, Marian Broida, and Dan Feehan all shared powerful remarks, which will be posted in the comments below.

The crowd sang the children’s song ‘De Colores’ in honor of the children and the childhood they deserve. There were t-shirts printed with the names of the children who have died in US custody through our own government’s intentional abuse and shocking neglect. Attendees marched with candles and flashlights down to the courthouse, where we listened to their names and ages and shared a moment of silence.

So many thanks to Keri Johnson and Marian Broida for their hard work on this. What’s happening at the border is cruel, unnecessary, and destructive - of individual lives, our country’s moral standing, and our own humanity as a people. It has to stop.

Here's a few pictures from the event:

On The Issue of Student Debt & Hunger in Southern MN

Congressman Hagedorn Makes-up False Accusation to Ban Constituents

Hundreds Come Together in St. Peter for "Lights for Liberty" Vigil

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