Congratulations, Steve Sviggum

The former GOP speaker of the House, now Commissioner of the Department Labor & Industry, Steve Sviggum
received the nation’s top legislative honor: The 2008 Excellence in
State Legislative Leadership Award. Sviggum accepted the award from the
National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) last week in New
Orleans. The award honors two legislators each year "whose careers
embody the highest principles of leadership and who have shown a
commitment to protecting and strengthening the institution of the
Legislature."

Your publisher, who attended the caught up with Sviggum in the Big Easy
after he won the award. In typical Sviggum self-effacing fashion, the
first thing he wanted to talk about was the fact that former DFL Sen. Roger Moe
received the same award five years ago. "That speaks to the quality of
people serving Minnesota," said Sviggum. He’s right. That’s rare for
two top legislative leaders from one state to receive the award in such
a short period of time. However, our readers know it also speaks to Moe
and Sviggum, individually, and about a different time in our state’s
politics when legislative leaders from different political parties were
each other’s biggest fan clubs.

At the podium after receiving the award, Sviggum talked mostly about balance, repeating his mantra about living life and "governing to the balance." Besides serving in the Pawlenty Administration, Sviggum is also a senior fellow at the HHH Institute of Public Affairs. He’ll be teaching a class that he wanted to title, "From John Adams to Jesse Ventura
and Property Tax Reform to Medical Marijuana." [Sviggum surprised many
when he became a staunch advocate for the use of marijuana for medical
purposes legislation.] The school rejected that title, but it is surely
fitting forSviggum’s career, in which he evolved from a rote, staunch conservative to a conservative progressive pragmatist.

I’m a huge fan of Sviggum’s and I will always maintain
that he is singularly responsible for the Republicans achieving the
House Majority in the 1998 election. That victory was the result of
years of work in the trenches all over the state. And, his tenure as
Speaker…was about governing to the balance.