LETTER to the Editor

To the Cottage Grove Journal, Last month, Democrat Judy Seeberger defeated Republican Tom Dippel inSenate District 41 by 250 votes. Additionally, outgoing Republican State Representative Tony Jurgens endorsed Seeberger for the state senate and right-wing activists are now blaming and attacking Jurgens for the loss. However, Dippel would be the “Marjorie Taylor Greene” of the state senate if he was elected. In 2008, Dippel ran for the Cottage Grove City Council alongside another far-right Republican in Derrick Lehrke. Neither won but Lehrke made the board in 2010 only to lose re-election in 2014 due in part to his antics and noted grandstanding.

In 2012, Dippel was a Republican National Convention delegate to support fringe anti-government zealot Ron Paul for the presidency. Moreover, Dippel’s bid was backed by the far-right group “Action4Liberty” who wanted more state legislators like state representative Erik Mortensen who joined a splinter far-right Republican caucus in the house after being elected in 2020 only to be kicked out of it and was later refused entry into the mainstream Republican caucus. Mortensen lost his re-election bid this year.

Finally, there were comments made by Dippel which included calling homosexuality “an abomination,” public schools “indoctrination camps” controlled by the far-left, and made an absurd connection between that families who accept their children as transgender are essentially child abusers. Thus, Jurgens put ethics over partisan politics by choosing to endorse the moderate Seeberger over Dippel and should be commended for his actions and not attacked for them. William Cory Labovitch South Saint Paul, Mn