Tom Berg and Rep. Martin Sabo discuss a Minnesota Miracle

Tom Berg

Saturday, December 8

8:00 AM – 9:30 AM

Gardens of Salonica 19 5th St NE, Minneapolis (map)

This month it’s a discussion of Tom Berg’s new book, Minnesota Miracle, by two people at the center of “a state that worked” in the 1970s, Tom Berg and former U.S. Rep. Martin Sabo.

This is part of our monthly series of informal “Stone Arch” conversations at Gardens of Salonica.  As usual, invite anyone interested–free and open to the public. Come, buy your coffee (the law is you can’t bring food or drinks into a restaurant), learn a lot and have your questions ready.

Book Review: For the Good of the Order, Nick Coleman and the High Tide of Liberal Politics in Minnesota; 1971-1981

From Minnpost, by Iric Nathanson:

The year was 1973.

A new crop of Republicans had just been elected to the Minnesota State Senate, 13 of them in all.

Across the aisle, Majority Leader Nick Coleman was eyeing the Republican newcomers to determine which of them might be potential partners during the upcoming legislative session. Several of the thirteen held some promise for Coleman. They included Otto Bang, an insurance agent from Edina; John Keefe, an attorney from Hopkins; Doug Sillers, a farmer from Moorhead; and Bob Dunn, a lumber dealer from Princeton. At one point or another during their legislative careers, each would collaborate with the majority leader, who added the term “DFL” to his title when party designation took effect in the Senate, later in the 1970s.

“Knowing there were several key issues that needed bipartisan support … Coleman wanted to reach out across the aisle,” recalls John Milton, who served in the Minnesota Legislature during those years. Milton’s recollections from that era are collected in his new book “For the Good of the Order, Nick Coleman and the High Tide of Liberal Politics in Minnesota;  1971-1981.”

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