The Progressive Midwesterner

At a League of Women Voters (LWV) forum for Minnesota State House District 25A (district map here ), which includes northwestern Olmsted County and portions of Dodge County in southern Minnesota, Republican incumbent Duane Quam and Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) challenger Jamie Mahlberg were required to share a microphone. While that was a well-intentioned idea on the part of the local LWV chapter in that part of Minnesota (I assume they didn't want the candidates talking over each other, which is a common occurrence in political debates/forums where each candidate has a dedicated microphone), it didn't work out well. That's because Quam, at one point in the forum, ripped the microphone out of Mahlberg's hands, and, after giving a rebuttal to Mahlberg's response to a question about education funding in Minnesota in, threw the microphone down in front of Mahlberg: It's inherently clear that Representative Quam has zero respect for women. I seriously doubt th...

You may have come across a few headlines in the national media about a woman who accused Donald Trump of sexual misconduct running for a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives this year. She has a name. Her name is Rachel Crooks, and she is a fantastic candidate. Let me make it clear: Rachel did not decide to run for a state house seat in Ohio because of what Trump did to her, in fact, Rachel makes this point clear in her campaign website's biography page . Rachel is running for a state house seat in the 88th Ohio State House district ( includes all of Sandusky County and most of Seneca County ) because she wants to make her community and her state a better place to live. As someone with extensive experience working with international college students at Tiffin University and Heidelberg University, Rachel has helped do the hard work to make America a more inclusive country. As a state house candidate, Rachel has promised to support common-sense progressive ideals to make ...