Andreasen: 1st District has diverse issues

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- National security, Social Security, economic security -- are all issues to Steve Andreasen.

They are also the issues he says he's going to fight for if he wins the seat for Minnesota's 1st Congressional District now held by Republican incumbent Gil Gutknecht.

The Richfield native recently made a pair of stops in the area on his campaign trek across the newly-redrawn 1st District.

Parade-goers at the Sytennde Mai festival in Hanska saw him riding in a convertible, and Brown County's DFL faithful met him in person in New Ulm later that night.

Until recently, Andreasen was living and working in Washington D.C., chiefly as the director for defense policy and arms control on the National Security Council under President Clinton. He previously worked in the U.S. State Department under presidents Reagan and Bush.

Andreasen, who now lives in Rochester, decided to run Congress after having a conversation with Donald Ostrom, a political science professor at Gustavus Adolphus College, who served as one of Andreasen's mentors. It is Ostrom that Andreasen credits in his speeches for steering him down a path that took him from college to the State Department, Congress and the White House. That path recently brought him back to Minnesota.

"I decided it was a good time to come back to Minnesota," Andreasen said.

Andreasen won the DFL endorsement in late April on the same day Republicans gave their backing to Gutknecht, who is in his fourth term in Congress.

Andreasen plans to run an "issues-based" campaign. He said the new 1st District has a very diverse set of issues from education and the environment to campaign finance reforms.

"One thing that is consistently raised on campaigns is rural development in southern Minnesota -- rural infrastructure, agriculture," he said. "It's also an excellent time to be in public politics because people are aware of world issues and that creates a whole new set of challenges."

Andreasen said he favors making a broad set of priorities for the 1st District, which will stretch from Winona to the end of Brown County. He thinks lawmakers should determine which issues are the most urgent.

"Issues differ across the district," Andreasen said. "We need to establish a broad set of priorities."

In the days since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, national security issues have come to the forefront, and the "page has turned to terroristic threats," Andreasen said.

"It's not a question if we should strengthen our defense -- it's a question of how to strengthen our defense," he said. "It's a question of where national security defense should go. We're looking at the threat of additional terrorist attacks. We're also looking at non-traditional threats (like attacks on sea ports). We need to reassign funding and programs to non-traditional threats."

Andreasen said restoring and strengthening the national economy is another issue he's behind.

"A year ago, the (U.S.) government projected a $5.6 trillion surplus. Promises were made not to spend Social Security. There were going to be drug benefits. There were going to be tax cuts," Andreasen said. "One year later, what we got was a 40 percent cut of benefits. The federal government is not paying its share."

Another area where the federal government isn't paying its share is in education. Andreasen said the federal share of special education spending hasn't been paid yet, and that affects every community in southern Minnesota.

"It forces school districts to take money out of revenues," he explained. He said other educational priorities are a new federal testing policy and class sizes.