Members of the joint Minnesota House and Senate committee on higher education voted Tuesday night on the four people they'd like to see fill the four open seats on the University of Minnesota Board of Regents.
The full House and Senate has the final say at a joint session later this month. Additional candidates could be nominated at that session.
The Regent Candidate Advisory Council received 36 applications for the four open seats. Of those, 17 candidates were selected to undergo a 45-minute interview in January. The council then referred 12 candidates to the joint committee.
Two additional candidates were nominated on the floor of the joint committee meeting. Steve Sviggum, one of those additional candidates, became the finalist for the open seat in the 2nd District.
Sviggum, of Kenyon, Minn., served in the state Legislature from 1979 to 2007 and was Republican Speaker of the state House from 1999 through 2006 and is a legislative fellow at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Tom Devine is the incumbent in the Second District; redistricting moved him to the Third District.
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Sviggum served on the university’s governing body for about a year but resigned in 2012 after accepting a job with the Senate Republican Caucus. Sviggum wanted to serve both roles but others viewed that as a conflict of interest.
Sviggum’s nomination Tuesday seemed to surprise Democrats.
When Sviggum was asked to introduce himself, he indicated that he, too, hadn’t expected to be a candidate.
“I had a plan to be at a high school basketball game about three hours ago,” he said.
Democrats took issue with the addition of Sviggum, who was not vetted by the advisory council.
Sen. Jason Isaacson, DFL-Shoreview, said it’s “really disgusting” that the appointment process has been politicized.
“I’m not even sure why this (advisory) committee still exists if we’re going to keep appointing people off the floor who weren’t even vetted,” he said.
However, the three other candidates who won the joint committee’s recommendations Tuesday were among the finalists identified by the council.
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Darrin Rosha, of Independence, the incumbent, was the finalist in the 3rd District. He is general manager and corporate counsel for Crutchfield Dermatology in Eagan and a lieutenant colonel in the Minnesota Army National Guard. He served on the regents from 1989 to 1995 and again since 2015.
Incumbent David McMillan of Duluth was the finalist in the 8th District. He is executive vice president at Minnesota Power. Becky Hall of Duluth was the nominee from the committee floor who did not move forward.
The at-large finalist after three rounds of voting was Devine, of Chanhassen. He has served on the Board of Regents for the past five years and is an executive vice president at the Horizon Agency, an Eden Prairie-based insurance agency. Tammy Lee Stanoch was nominated from the floor for the seat as well; she also was a candidate in the Third District. The at-large incumbent, Laura Brod, did not seek another term.
Regents serve six-year unpaid terms on the 12-member governing board.
The St. Paul Pioneer Press contributed to this report.
