Longtime Iowa radio host Steve Deace will speak at the awards banquet for the Legislative Evaluation Assembly (LEA) of Minnesota. Honoring Minnesota state legislators, the LEA of Minnesota exists to “inform the citizens of Minnesota of both important legislation and the voting performance of each Minnesota state legislator.”
A non-partisan organization, LEA publishes an annual report on some of the most important votes that took place in the Minnesota Legislature. Furthermore, the LEA makes recommendations on how state lawmakers should vote on key bills. The organization supports “constitutionally limited government established to sustain life, liberty, justice, property rights and free enterprise.”
Every year, the LEA publishes a scorecard, or grade, for all 201 members of Minnesota’s legislature. That scorecard is based on whether legislators voted in support of the LEA’s priorities.
On March 7, 2024, the LEA will honor 10 legislators who received scores of 96% or higher. The 10 legislators are Bruce Anderson, Cal Bahr, Steve Drazkowski, Justin Eichorn, Steve Green, Eric Lucero, Jordan Rasmusson, Josh Heintzeman, Harry Niska, and Isaac Schultz.
The awards banquet will start at 6:00 p.m. in the Mermaid Entertainment Center in Mounds View, Minn. The keynote speaker of the event is Iowa radio host Steve Deace.
A member of Glenn Beck’s BlazeTV, Steve Deace has covered politics throughout his career on various media platforms.
John Augustine, an LEA board member and former president of the organization, said Deace’s show “is unlike anything we have in Minnesota. Our audience has much we can learn from his political experiences and his analysis of changes happening in conservative media.”
Additionally, Deace has been a participant and up-close observer of the dramatic political shift that has occurred in Iowa in recent years.
From 2007 to 2011, Democrats in Iowa had control of nearly every part of state government, including the governorship, the state senate, and the state house of representatives. Iowa voted for Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012.
Today, Republicans in Iowa have control of every state office except one, state auditor. Furthermore, Republicans have a majority in the Iowa Senate and Iowa House of Representatives. The Hawkeye State voted for Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020.
Speaking about the progress Iowa has made in advancing right-wing priorities, Augustine said the state “has passed constitutional-carry, election-integrity, and fetal heartbeat protection legislation. Iowa also pushed back early in 2021 against COVID restrictions, banning COVID vaccine passports and mandatory masking for schools and local governments. They have also done well in replacing the activist liberals that were on their Supreme Court.”
Deace will be speaking about how Iowa accomplished this dramatic political shift, and how he thinks Minnesota can do the same.
“There is a way to follow the blueprint of how we were able to turn Iowa red and in a state that has been pretty purple. Similar demographics are in Minnesota,” Deace said, acknowledging that Minnesota’s urban areas are much larger than places lake Des Moines.
But “some of the fundamentals are the same and can be emulated, so we’re going to talk about that,” he said. “It is very difficult for people in the Midwest — there is the Iowa nice, the Minnesota nice thing. The level of aggression it will take is not natural for people in the Midwest.”
Highlighting this point, Deace said he was once denied a drive-time radio position in New York City because he was “too nice,” but back in Iowa “I am Darth Vader,” he said.
“If you keep doing the same things you’ve done before, you’re going to keep losing,” he commented.
Minnesotans can register for the event here.
Luke Sprinkel
Luke Sprinkel previously worked as a Legislative Assistant at the Minnesota House of Representatives. He grew up as a Missionary Kid (MK) living in England, Thailand, Tanzania, and the Middle East. Luke graduated from Regent University in 2018.
