PoliGraph: ABM’s Johnson ad stretches truth

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That didn’t take long.

Two days after Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson won a four-way Republican primary to run against Gov. Mark Dayton this fall, a leading liberal group backing Dayton launched a statewide television ad painting Johnson has too conservative for Minnesota.

Here’s a line from the Alliance for a Better Minnesota’s latest spot, which starts running on Aug. 15.

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“Tea Party Republican Jeff Johnson voted to cut education so he could give millions in tax breaks to big corporations.”

The ad goes on to say that Johnson’s campaign is backed by corporate special interests.

There is truth in this ad. But it wanders into misleading territory by linking two unrelated votes Johnson cast while he was in the Legislature.

The evidence

The Alliance for a Better Minnesota is backed by wealthy liberal donors, unions and other left-leaning organizations. It played a critical role in helping Dayton get elected in 2010 and in helping Democrats win control of the Legislature in 2012.

This year, it will be focusing a lot of its resources on Dayton’s re-election campaign, largely through ads and mailers.

The ABM spot focuses on Johnson’s tenure in the Minnesota House from 2001 to 2006. Specifically, the group says Johnson voted for an education bill in 2003 that cut school funding when compared to projected spending in the coming fiscal year. (Johnson’s campaign argues that the bill actually increased funding from the prior biennium.)

ABM links Johnson’s vote on a 2003 education funding bill to a completely unrelated amendment Johnson voted against in 2005.

That amendment would have cut corporate tax loopholes and used the money for property tax relief. Eighty-one legislators, including a handful of Democrats, voted it down.

ABM’s ad goes on to use previous reporting by MPR News to claim that Johnson’s campaign is backed by corporate special interests. It’s true that Johnson’s campaign and an outside political group backing his campaign have received money from a handful of well-heeled and well-known business owners and two lobbyists.

But so far, the majority of Johnson’s contributions have come from relatively small-dollar donors.

And of course, Dayton has also benefited from donors who are lobbyists and high-profile businesses owners.

The verdict

The Alliance for a Better Minnesota’s ad is accurate in the sense that it correctly characterizes the positions Johnson took in 2003 and 2005 on an education bill and an amendment to rollback corporate tax breaks.

But the ad misses the mark is by linking the two votes. The ad makes it sound as if Johnson voted for a bill that trimmed education funding to expand or sustain corporate tax breaks.

In fact, the two votes are unrelated. As a result, the ad is misleading.

Additional sources

  • Emily Bisek, spokesperson, Alliance for a Better Minnesota

  • Gregg Peppin, spokesperson, Jeff Johnson for Governor