Minnesota State Senate District 66 candidate surveys, 2022

Elections in Minnesota, 2022

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This article shows responses from candidates in the 2022 election for Minnesota State Senate District 66 who completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey.

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Candidates and election results

General election

General election for Minnesota State Senate District 66

Clare Oumou Verbeten defeated Mikki Murray and Jeremy Peichel in the general election for Minnesota State Senate District 66 on November 8, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Clare Oumou Verbeten (D)	78.4	23,987
	Submit photo	Mikki Murray (R)	18.0	5,522
		Jeremy Peichel (L)	3.5	1,061
		Other/Write-in votes	0.1	23

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	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 30,593
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey responses

Ballotpedia asks all federal, state, and local candidates to complete a survey and share what motivates them on political and personal levels. The section below shows responses from candidates in this race who completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Survey responses from candidates in this race

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Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

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Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

Clare Oumou Verbeten (D)

Public Servant

Political and Labor Organizer

Fighter for Justice

Jeremy Peichel (L)

Reform ballot access to expand choices on election day and enact ranked-choice voting to add to our vote vocabulary.

Reform the police state by ending slavery, ending arming police for war, decriminalizing victimless crimes, ending public servant immunity, and much more.

Free the housing market to densify and diversify, adding housing capacity and affordability classes to meet the growing demand, end slumlord management, contain rent and house costs.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

Clare Oumou Verbeten (D)

I am running to build a community that is safe for all. I will bring bold leadership in the Minnesota Senate that puts the fight for racial justice and human dignity at the center of everything we do. Three areas that I want to ensure we fight for in the legislature are:

Community Safety - In the legislature, I will fight for policies that take a holistic approach to public safety, hold police accountable for misconduct, and ensure solutions are community-centered.

Healthcare- State legislatures across the country are taking steps to pass laws that roll back our reproductive rights. I will fight hard in the Minnesota Senate to ensure that healthcare is accessible to all.

Education- As the daughter of a retired public school teacher, I saw how much my dad loved being an educator and helping mold the next generation of leaders. I will fight to ensure that our public schools are fully funded and work to close the gaps that are a disservice to the success of our state.

Jeremy Peichel (L)

I am passionate about environmental and transportation policy, with particular interests in parks, trails, and natural resource conservation. I serve on two commissions: Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources and the Metropolitan Parks and Open Space Commission. Those commissions provide me the opportunity to engage my interest in regional conservation activity and shaping the open space for our future residents. I also enjoying working on education policy and every economic problem. Where there are data, I am likely to be passionate about that.

Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow, and why?

Jeremy Peichel (L)

I look up to incredible people who have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. I served, and I am pretty sure I couldn't imagine being even remotely as courageous as someone like Roy Benavidez. The stories of their courage, grit, and selfless service are unbelievable. Ordinary people can be driven to achieve extraordinary feats, and I would love to have a fraction of his, and other American Heroes commitment to each other. I started reading Medal of Honor citations in basic training and have tried to keep checking in to learn more about the soldiers who came before me and the proud legacy of service to my state and my country.

Is there a book, essay, film, or something else you would recommend to someone who wants to understand your political philosophy?

Jeremy Peichel (L)

Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher and Ecological Economics by Herman Daly.

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

Jeremy Peichel (L)

Candor, empathy, and a deep commitment to selfless service. Recognizing that people are capable decision makers, we should trust them to make their best life choices. To the greatest extent possible, seek to solve problems at the lowest level, without automatically seeking to legislate a government solution to a civil or private problem.

What is the first historical event that happened in your lifetime that you remember? How old were you at the time?

Jeremy Peichel (L)

I think I remember the Challenger explosion, which seems nuts since I was not even 2. Memory is funny like that because I have heard the stories of where we were (living in Florida while my dad was doing Navy stuff out of Cape Canaveral). Maybe it is just those stories that have made a memory. The next big historical event was the Gulf War in 1991, because we were living in Charleston and my dad was out to sea. I remember being 6, watching Peter Jennings on World News Tonight and asking my mom if that was where dad was, it wasn't where he was...probably. Submariners never really tell you where they are/go when they are underwater, sort of generic theater level directions like, I was in the Atlantic.

What was your very first job? How long did you have it?

Jeremy Peichel (L)

I worked at Menards in Burnsville on the Building Materials desk. I was there for almost two years, but fell short because I was heading out to basic training. It was a fun job that had me moving bags of water softener salt one minute to helping someone design and build their own deck or gazebo the next. I had to carry a box cutter in a belt holster to restock on a moment's notice, and a dust rag because if you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean.

What do you believe is the ideal relationship between the governor and state legislature?

Jeremy Peichel (L)

The ideal relationship is one of continuous checks, where the two are frequently discussing the institutional roles and how they are making our State the best place to live, work, and play. There should necessarily be some difference of opinion since our legislators are all working to better the state, but are tied to a sub-geography of their district. The Governor is representative of the whole state.

What do you perceive to be your state's greatest challenges over the next decade?

Jeremy Peichel (L)

Climate change. As a place of refuge from the worst impacts of climate change, our bountiful resources, including water, productive farmland, and moderate temperatures will be coveted by people living elsewhere. We should be prepared to welcome them to our slice of paradise and ensure we are ready for the increased diversity and system demands that climate change, and especially climate refugees will place on our environment and build infrastructure.

What are the benefits and drawbacks of a unicameral state legislature, in your opinion?

Jeremy Peichel (L)

It would be great to reduce the size and scope of our legislature. Our representatives are just half of the senate geography. We should just pick one size standard and make that the only chamber, whether senate or house.

Do you believe that it’s beneficial for state legislators to have previous experience in government or politics?

Jeremy Peichel (L)

No more beneficial than any other experience, and maybe even a slight hindrance. Our state would be best served by the highest diversity in legislator life experience to maximize our access to new and excellent ways of doing things. The more people have worked in the system, the less familiar they are with how the non-system world works. It just makes good problem solving sense to stack the deck in our favor by having the greatest diversity of experience at the top of our representative government.

Do you believe it’s beneficial to build relationships with other legislators? Please explain your answer.

Jeremy Peichel (L)

Yes, you should build relationships with everyone you can at all times. Kindness and empathy are how we build our best society, and that is especially important when the other people are your coworkers. All legislators are on the same team to do their best work for the people of Minnesota, in accordance with the oath of office they take. If they fail to build relationships because they find it better to fundraise and stay elected through adversarial relations, they will fail to achieve their goals, and we will all be worse off for it.

What process do you favor for redistricting?

Jeremy Peichel (L)

I like compactness as a geographic measure. Ideally we would be able to just draw circles, but we should aim to keep districts as cohesive of neighborhoods and cities, and as small a perimeter as possible to maintain geographic districts that are fair. I would actually prefer that we use approval or ranked choice voting to select all representatives and senators as a single race, every two years, elected at-large. Then there are no artificial geographic boundaries that can be used to break up the state into advantageous or disadvantageous subregions. Math suggests this makes the most resilient system that is not prone to packing and cracking and cannot be gamed for privilege or advantage not already established in the drawing of state-level boundaries.

If you are not a current legislator, are there certain committees that you would want to be a part of?

Jeremy Peichel (L)

I would do well on environment and natural resources, transportation, energy, and veterans/military affairs. Those are what I know best, so my service would be most effective there.

Is there a particular legislator, past or present, whom you want to model yourself after?

Jeremy Peichel (L)

I knew a little about Jim Ramstad and Paul Wellstone growing up, they seemed to get along well and understand what it means to lead with kindness and place service before self.

Are you interested in running for a different political office (for example, the U.S. Congress or governor) in the future?

Jeremy Peichel (L)

Not really. I want to be as helpful as possible, so if I think I could be effective in those offices I could serve. My preference would be to act for a term then move aside for another person to bring their ideas to the legislature. Politics is not a career or a calling, it is temporary volunteer service.

Should the legislature oversee or grant the use of emergency powers?

Jeremy Peichel (L)

The legislature should not be deferring their legislative authority to make the laws to any other government body. I have seen school house rock, I know how this works.

Do you believe that compromise is necessary or desirable for policymaking?

Jeremy Peichel (L)

Yes, I have practiced this as a citizen Commissioner appointed by the Governor for LCCMR and I would continue to do so as a Senator bringing a third-party perspective to a divided chamber. I would necessary become a representative of the politically moderate who just want to see some functionality, dignity, and respect.

See also

More about these elections:

• Minnesota State Senate elections, 2022

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