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“Minnesota’s Least Productive Congressman” Tries to Rewrite History

09/14/2020

Over the weekend, Congressman Hagedorn released his first ad of the cycle where he touts himself as a workhorse despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary. In fact, a year after first being elected, Hagedorn ranked as Minnesota’s least productive congressman by an extremely wide margin.

As the Rochester Post Bulletin reported a year after Hagedorn was elected:

Hagedorn has authored only three pieces of legislation since taking the oath of office in January, ranking him near the bottom in terms of productivity for Congress. The average number of bills sponsored in the House is 13.35, according to an analysis provided by the Minnesota DFL Party.

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By comparison, Rep. Angie Craig, a first-term Democratic representative of the Second District, has sponsored 16 bills; Rep. Dean Phillips, a Democrat, 11; Rep. Betty McCollum, a Democrat, 11; Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat, 15; Rep. Tom Emmer, a Republican, 11; and Rep. Collin Peterson, a Democrat, 15.

Hagedorn remains Minnesota’s least productive Congressman and one of the least productive in all of America. While the average Congressperson has sponsored over 21 bills, Hagedorn has sponsored just 5, putting him in the bottom 7% of all of Congress.

When Hagedorn does finally get around to doing work, it typically consists of working to dodge accountability for a major ethics scandal involving his office’s misuse of taxpayer dollars or carry water for wealthy special interests by doing things like voting against legislation that would allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for all Minnesotans.

DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin issued the following statement: 

“Despite spending almost his entire life in Washington D.C., Congressman Hagedorn is utterly incapable of making Washington work for Minnesotans. Rather than deliver for the people he represents, Jim Hagedorn spends his time in Washington carrying water for big pharma and running from corruption scandals.

“Maybe Jim Hagedorn should actually spend some time legislating and less time directing his illegal, unethical congressional mail program. If Hagedorn, Minnesota’s least productive congressman, thinks a misleading ad campaign can rewrite his history of failure, he’s in for a rough election night.”