Jim Schultz, keynote speaker at the Lyon County Republican Fall Dinner, met and spoke with area residents on Monday evening. Schultz, the 2022 Republican nominee for Minnesota Attorney General, said he is now building an organization called the Minnesota Private Business Council, which will advocate for policies to lower taxes and regulatory burdens in Minnesota.

MARSHALL — Discussion topics at the Lyon County Republicans’ annual fall dinner covered a lot of ground, from the economy to new laws passed this year. But the speeches all came back to one thing: winning back a majority in the Minnesota House of Representatives.

“We can win in Minnesota, and we have to win in Minnesota,” said keynote speaker Jim Schultz. “We’ve got to turn it around.”

Schultz, the 2022 Republican candidate for state attorney general, said getting a Republican majority back would be a step toward changing the effects of having a DFL trifecta in state government.

At Monday’s dinner, Schultz, state Rep. Chris Swedzinski, R-Ghent, and Sen. Gary Dahms, R-Redwood Falls, all spoke about the impact that last year’s elections and the 2023 legislative session had on Minnesota.

While Schultz lost the state attorney general race to Keith Ellison in 2022, he has still been working for political action. He said he is now building an organization called the Minnesota Private Business Council. The group, Schultz said, “Will bring businesses and other leaders throughout the state together to fight for common-sense policies that will grow jobs, lower taxes, and have less regulatory burden on our state.”

However, Schultz and area legislators said the main priority for Republicans will be winning back a House majority.

“That’s the most important thing we have on the agenda right now in Minnesota,” Dahms said.

“The 2022 election in Minnesota was a huge disappointment. In Minnesota, we got the trifecta of a Democrat House, a Democrat Senate, and most fatefully four more painful years of Tim Walz,” Schultz said. “We got tax hikes despite a $19 billion surplus, a 40% increase in spending meant to fund every far-left fad imaginable, ‘get out of jail free’ cards for criminals, and much else.”

“This administration, both at the state and federal level, is putting families between a rock and a hard place,” Swedzinski said. “The economic opportunities that families have are dwindling.”

One concern Swedzinski and Dahms brought up was spending by the Democrat-controlled legislature this year. Dahms said Republican lawmakers had hoped part of the state’s $19 billion surplus would go back to taxpayers. “That didn’t happen,” he said.

Schultz said Minnesota needed to address dysfunctions in state government. He said some of the examples of dysfunction in recent years included the Southwest Light Rail transit project, which is slated to cost $2.77 billion; the Feeding Our Future fraud scandal; and the Minnesota Licensing and Registration System, which had problems like delays and fee inaccuracies after it was launched in 2017.

“I think we have to say that we’re living through the worst period of financial mismanagement in the entire state’s history,” Schultz said.

Schultz said a state House majority was the first step in setting up the possibility of a Republican trifecta in 2026.

“The Minnesota Senate’s not up until 2026, the governorship’s not up until 2026. So what we can do in the interim is win the Minnesota House, and that will put a brake on the Tim Walz crazy train,” Schultz said.

“We have to net just four seats statewide, and we can do that,” Schultz told the audience. “There’s a seat in Mankato, not too far from here, that Democrats have that’s very winnable. You can win a seat over in Northfield, a seat in St. Cloud, a seat up on the Iron Range that’s very winnable, so we can do that. We have to get it done.”

Swedzinski urged area Republicans to work for the next election, “Because in the last election, Democrats outspent us six to one.” He also acknowledged area residents who stepped forward to run for local offices. “Truly, that is where this state is going to be won and lost, not just at the state level, not at the federal level, but the day in, day out work on school boards, on city councils, county commissions, soil and water boards – those things all matter.”

“At the end of the day, there is no certainty that we will be successful in our efforts, but we need to do all we can do to try and change our state,” Schultz said. “Let’s not lose hope. Let’s keep fighting, and let’s keep working together.”