State Rep. Brad Tabke, DFL-Shakopee, once described state workers as “idiots” and said he has no “need or want whatsoever” to be in state government, according to a recording obtained by Alpha News.
The comments were made during a June 2019 town hall in which Tabke was caught lying about the amount of money spent against him during his 2018 campaign.
“I had nearly half a million dollars spent against me for a local 55A race. Half a million dollars. It’s insane,” he said, Alpha News previously reported.
In reality, Tabke had about $14,000 spent against him in 2018 while his opponent, Erik Mortensen, had more than double that spent against him.
A new recording from the same event has Tabke describing state workers as “idiots” who have “no clue how their actions actually affect local government.”
“I was never, ever going to run for the state because I would go to the state and work on projects and … the people at the state were idiots about lots and lots of things, and it drove me crazy,” he said, referring to his time as mayor of Shakopee.
Tabke said he would talk to “a legislator” about projects in his community, but “they would just not, you could tell they had absolutely no clue how their actions actually affect local government and how what they do actually affects people.”
“So I was not going to run for this seat at all,” he continued.
Tabke explained that one of his friends was running for the seat but dropped out a few days before the filing deadline and asked Tabke to run in her place. Tabke initially declined, but eventually agreed to run because “we couldn’t find anybody else who had any ability to do that.”
“So that’s how I got here, not because I have — I don’t have any need or want whatsoever to be at the state level,” he said.
Tabke was recently fined by the Campaign Finance Board for violating state law and lost the endorsement of the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association because he refused to condemn John Thompson, a DFL candidate for House who was at the center of a controversial protest in Hugo, Minnesota.
Tabke is facing off against Mortensen again this year in a rematch of the 2018 contest. Alpha News reached out to Tabke for comment, but did not receive a response.
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Anthony Gockowski
Anthony Gockowski is Editor-in-Chief of Alpha News. He previously worked as an editor for The Minnesota Sun and Campus Reform, and wrote for the Daily Caller.
