Nolan’s record could work for, against him

No matter what happens between now and Election Day, Rick Nolan holds a card in the race for the 8th Congressional District that his opponents do not: a legislative record.
For the DFL incumbent, that can work for better and for worse. It gives his opponents a track record to critique. On the other hand, it gives him experience neither of his challengers can match.
Voters can suspect how Republican Stewart Mills or Green Party candidate Skip Sandman would legislate, but they can look up Nolan’s report card on a website such as govtrack.us.
When Congress was debating this week whether to arm Syrian rebels, millions of Americans got a look at Nolan performing in his duties - and going against party leadership. Nolan appeared in a CBS News report, repeating his opposition he addressed with the News Tribune in August.
“Make no mistake about it,” Nolan said from the House of Representatives, “we have given arms to every element in this conflict with the notion that somehow the enemy of our enemy is our friend. And at the end of the day, we have no friends in this conflict.”
The measure passed; the U.S. will arm Syrian rebels. Mills supported the action in a statement last week; in it, he called opposition “reckless” and “naïve.”
The only service veteran in the 8th District race, Sandman, has told the News Tribune, “The U.S. cannot and should not be a world policeman. The people that want to go to war and do all these things, I don’t believe they’ve ever seen war. I’ve seen the damage it does.”
Meanwhile, Nolan wonders if those arms will even make it to the Free Syrian Army.  
“I had an opportunity to have dinner with three Arab ambassadors who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Abu Dhabi,” Nolan said. “I asked them, ‘Are you concerned about arms being sent to the Free Syrian Army getting in the hands of the wrong people?’ All three said, ‘We’re concerned about them even getting to Syria.’ They’ve got to go through the Muslim Brotherhood, the Hezbollah, Hamas - all these groups.”
That’s the sort of anecdote an incumbent can share. It’s the sort of anecdote Nolan enjoys relaying. It’s the part of Washington, D.C., he enjoys. There is another side he said he deplores: daily fundraising. He described fundraising call-centers, both Republican and Democrat, across the street from the U.S. Capitol, where “the pros recommend you spend 30 hours a week,” he said. “And I refuse to do it, and I’ve been criticized for it. I haven’t hired a firm or proxy to do it for me either.”
Conversely, “fundraising events are great fun,” he said, describing his campaign kickoff earlier this year in Nisswa, Minn., where he charged $20 entry. “They got a bratwurst. It was a rally. Everybody was having fun and it was festive.”  
Then there is the legislating. In 2013, Nolan both wrote a bill that later became law and was an original co-sponsor of another bill that later became law. Neither law was of the sort likely to move the campaign needle one way or the other. One streamlined the regulatory requirements for the small aircraft industry, which had been beholden to some of the same regulations as large commercial aircraft. Nolan viewed it as a win for manufacturers such as Cirrus Aircraft in Duluth. The other law came from a bill Nolan introduced, allowing the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa to exchange land with the county as a way to iron out oddities in geographic boundaries.    
“I’ve got a good record,” Nolan said. “Of the 56 bills passed for the first half of Congress (in 2013), two of them were mine. I’ve got a lot of good amendments through, got funding for a lot of great projects - $10 million for the harbor.”
That last reference, to the Water Resources Reform and Development Act signed into law by President Obama this summer, is indicative of how Nolan has spent his time and energy. More recently, he played a role in advocating for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s $5 million grant for expansion and improvements given to the airport in Hibbing.
“As both a national and global transportation link, Range Regional Airport could not be more vital to our mining and manufacturing operations, as well as to tourism here in the Northland,” Nolan said in a release.
Like the revered Democrat Jim Oberstar before him, infrastructure is an issue close to Nolan’s heart. He’s a member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. He’s sat in on hearings that he said informed him of a deteriorating infrastructure that he believes “is hurting the economy and ability to grow jobs.” Restoring health to the federal Highway Trust Fund that has been recently rescued from insolvency remains one of his objectives.   
“It’s falling so far behind that, as the old saying goes, bridges are falling down,” Nolan said. “We’ve got several hundred here in Minnesota, in the 8th District, that have been certified in need of repair.”
The election on Nov. 4 will decide whether voters approve of Nolan’s governance. For his part, Mills is confident he’ll be able to build successes of his own.  
“Well, the first thing is I’m very realistic about it,” Mills said. “Congress is about building relations; there are 434 other members, and certainly it will be about building teams, building coalitions, building consensus.”
Sandman, too, says he’s up to replace Nolan.
“I will do everything in my power as a representative to make sure the voices of the people are heard,” Sandman said.
Nolan is seeking his second term, while also having served as a congressman for the 6th District previously from 1975-81. Mills is vice president of Mills Fleet Farm, a family-owned company with 35 retail stores throughout Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. Both candidates reside in the Brainerd lakes area. Sandman lives in Duluth and works as a cultural adviser in a treatment center.