Missing in Action: Republicans

From CityPages:
Last Saturday morning, Gambill's Forum on Homeless Veterans was held at the Minnesota Veterans Home in south Minneapolis. There was a certain irony in the selection of that particular veterans home, as its four top officials resigned earlier this month after inspections revealed multiple violations in the care of some of the home's most vulnerable residents.

Turnout for the forum was relatively light. There were about a dozen speakers and maybe 100 attendees. Still, Gambill deemed the program a success. After all, a good number of active military people, social workers, psychiatrists and politicians were all in the same room, where they could share perspectives on some seemingly intractable problems.

One group, however, was conspicuous in its absence: elected Republicans. According to Gambill, this was not by design. Invitations were issued to every member of the Minnesota legislature, most of the state's Congressional delegation and scads of other state and local pols.

Overall, just a fraction of these public servants could be bothered to spend their Saturday morning discussing the dreary realities of the homeless vet. In attendance, according to Gambill, were five DFLers (Senator Mark Dayton, State Senator Jane Ranum, Hennepin County Commissioner Gail Dorfman, Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin, and Minneapolis City Council member Paul Zerby) and one Green (Minneapolis City Council member Natalie Johnson-Lee). Of those six, all but Johnson-Lee and McLaughlin delivered prepared remarks.

Commenting on the partisan disparities of the forum participants, Gambill writes: "Again, we really tried hard to get a GOP speaker and, in the end, we were unsuccessful."