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Decision 2018: Klobuchar vs Newberger in Senate race

The biggest name in Minnesota politics seeks six more years in US Senate

MINNEAPOLIS -- It's a race that's been largely overshadowed by other intensely competitive battles playing out in Minnesota's political landscape, but no matter where you live in Minnesota you'll see it on your ballot.

Democrat Amy Klobuchar's wrapping up her second term in the US Senate and is asking for another six-year term. She's running against Rep. Jim Newberger, a Republican state lawmaker from Becker.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar

In her first 12 years in the Beltway, Sen. Klobuchar has gained a reputation for cutting through the gridlock to pass bills with members from across the aisle. She cites the Stillwater Bridge as a vivid example of one of the bipartisan deals she helped engineer.

"People thought that was never going to happen because it had been sitting around trying to get done for decades, basically. And we were able to get everyone in the Senate to agree to an exemption to the law that allowed us to build that bridge, with both Republicans and Democrats on board," Klobuchar told KARE.

Even in the first two years of the Trump era, Klobuchar has gotten 11 bills signed into law as the main author, and another nine bills as the leading Democratic co-author.

The former Hennepin County Attorney has used her Senate post to advocate for people who made headlines, often due to tragedies. For example, she championed pool drain safety reform after a Minnesota girl, Abigail Taylor, died from injuries she suffered months earlier in pool. She tackled the issue of veterans sickened by toxic burn pits overseas, after hearing from widows and widowers.

She has also pressured drug companies to solve shortages in both rare chemotherapy drugs and much more common medications such as insulin and epi-pens.

Klobuchar hopes Congress can pass pharmaceutical cost reform, which could include authorizing Medicare to negotiate prices.

"This has been the most frustrating thing because I really think Pharma thinks they own Washington, but they don't own me!"

The former prosecutor made the national spotlight as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the confirmation hearings for then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh. She asked him he had ever blacked out while drinking, and he replied, "No, have you?"

Kavanaugh later apologized, and Klobuchar accepted that apology. The questioning came the day the committee hear testimony from both Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who had accused him of attempted sexual assault during high school in the early 1980s

Klobuchar had already announced she'd vote against Kavanaugh, due to his views on expansive presidential powers and previous rulings.

"I have a job to do. I had a job in the first set of hearing with Judge Kavanaugh, which was to get to the bottom of what I consider a major issue, his expansive view on Presidential power and some of the anti-consumer cases he has written, including getting rid of net neutrality rules," Klobuchar explained.

"I asked those questions in a respectful way, just as I did during the follow-up hearing after we heard from Dr. Ford."

Rep. Jim Newberger

Republican challenger Jim Newberger has been a conservative voice in the legislature since 2013 and has spent 30 years working as a paramedic for North Memorial Hospital.

He concedes he's the underdog in the race but draws inspiration from the late Paul Wellstone's 1990 upset of heavily-favored incumbent Rudy Boschwitz.

"Wellstone was outspent six to one, but he had two things going for him. He had that fire in his belly, and I've got that fire. And the other thing he had? He had a message at the time more people agreed with," Newberger told KARE.

The accident scenes he's witnessed, both on and off the job, led him to throw his weight behind the hands-free cell phone bill at the State Capitol.

"I've seen over 30 years the amount of motor vehicle trauma and needless injuries and senseless death caused by distracted driving," Newberger explained.

The most recent version of the bill had widespread bipartisan support, but House and Senate leaders wouldn't allow a final floor vote.

Newberger's ambulance crew has worked the north side of Minneapolis, where he has encountered many shooting scenes over the years. But he doesn't believe stricter gun laws are the solution to gun violence.

"This issue is not about guns. The issue is about what’s going on in the human heart. If you look at other nations, or look right here in our own nation, there have been mass killings with vehicles."

Newberger supports immigration reform, and a path to legal residency for those immigrants who entered the US without permission or overstayed their visas, saying that it's not practical to deport tens of millions of people.

But he does advocate for tougher border security and favors a moratorium on the federal government's refugee resettlement program. Newberger asserts that smaller communities have been strained by an influx of new immigrants and the services they use.

"I want to be very clear. Some, not all, some refugees do not intend to live under American law. They want to live under a different form of law, a form of law that says women are property."

On the health care front, Newberger has bashed Klobuchar for voting for the Affordable Care Act. He favors repeal of the ACA, and a return to private companies selling a variety of insurance companies.

Klobuchar said she has always called the Affordable Care Act just the starting point, and favors shoring up the ACA with new features that would bolster the private insurance market and lead to lower costs.

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