I’m distracted by the wildfires, air quality, etc., so I’m taking a break from the serious posts to bring you the Republican primary for Secretary of State. Incumbent Secretary of State Steve Simon is unopposed on the DFL side of the primary race, and he’s great, I will absolutely be voting for him in the fall (and also in August because I like that sense of having filled out my whole ballot). The Republicans are choosing between the following two candidates:

Tad Jude
Wendy Phillips

Both of these people are so terrible.

Tad Jude’s name may ring a bell because he ran for Hennepin County Attorney four years ago. From my post at the time: “His website features an ad (I guess) in which he wanders around in a trench coat looking aloofly into the distance with a dramatic soundtrack that mostly made me think, ‘this looks like the worst Batman movie of all time.'” In the intervening time he also ran for US House in the third congressional, losing to Kelly Morrison, and I’ll note he ran for HCA in 2022 after trying and failing to get the GOP endorsement to run for Attorney General. Prior to all of these failed elections he was a District Judge for a decade, retiring in 2021. Minnesota has a mandatory retirement age for judges — you have to quit when you’re 70. (I increasingly think this is a good idea and we should extend the idea of mandatory retirement to a lot more offices.)

Of course, as a Republican running for office, he wants to make voting much more difficult. He supports the SAVE Act and also the “SAVE Minnesota Act,” which died in committee but was a Minnesota-specific version of the SAVE act with all its many problems, like that if you don’t have a passport, your proof of citizenship is your birth certificate, and you’ve changed your name, you’re fucked.

He’s the one who was endorsed by the State GOP at their convention, and if you browse his social media you’ll see that he has worked hard to project an air of “normal, respectable sort of Republican” as opposed to “welcome to the batshit wing of the clown party.” I have e-mailed him to ask him who he thinks won the 2020 election; I will let you know if I hear back. ETA: He responded! “As a district court Judge I heard several election related cases, but no cases involving that contest. I recognize that Joseph P. Biden was certified as the winner of the 2020 presidential election.” I feel like “I recognize that Joseph P. Biden was certified as the winner” is a way to avoid saying “Joe Biden won in 2020, obviously,” but that is, sadly, at least a small step up from most of his party.

I don’t need to ask Wendy Phillips that question, as she’s endorsed by Mike Lindell of MyPillow / full-time-election-denier fame. (Mike Lindell just got endorsed for governor by Donald Trump.) Her website looks like a thinner and less detailed version of Tad’s website but her Facebook page has a post from June about an event where you can learn more about “Constitutional Sheriffs.” What’s a Constitutional Sheriff? That would be a sheriff who’s convinced he’s the supreme law of the land, answerable to no one, and empowered to interfere in election administration (more info here). Wendy is the sort of candidate who makes me think I need a ranking system for fringe beliefs because this is the sort of wackadoodle stuff that even a lot of extremely right-wing weirdos will edge away from.

I’m not sure what Wendy does for a living because I couldn’t find her LinkedIn and her website doesn’t tell you much about her background, just her political/civic experience (she was a Planning and Zoning Commissioner for Oronoco, MN, and her Senate District Republican Party chair — the GOP calls your Senate District your BPOU, “Base Political Operating Unit”).

Anyway. Don’t vote for either of these people! They’re both awful! Vote for Steve Simon!

This seems like a good year to fundraise for a trans nonprofit, so I’m fundraising this year for TIGERRS. I don’t have a Patreon, and a fundraiser lets me see in a tangible way that people value my work, which is really helpful as a motivator. (This project is a lot of work.)

I also have a new book! Obstetrix is about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on hand to deliver their babies; it’s a story about enduring, surviving, and not giving up. You can buy it anywhere fine books are sold, and I’ve been doing my best to keep Uncle Hugo’s, Moon Palace, and Dreamhaven in signed copies.