Tom Kuster

1.) What is your background and why are you running for House 15B?

I’m a retired college teacher offering you my skills and experience to serve you by talking with you, and together finding ways that your government can partner with you to make your life better. I’ve taught and practiced advocacy, problem solving, and conflict resolution – valued skills for representing you – and I have a reputation for getting things done, both in my profession and the community – like helping win a referendum for our public school, and raising funds for Vogel Arena and the Flandrau swimming pool.

Sadly that’s not the case for your current representative. His promotional material highlights he is a person you can trust. Certainly he is a good friend to many. But the questions we’re considering here, as every two years we conduct this performance review we call an election, are – First, can we trust him to look out for your interests and get things done for you in the legislature? A search through the record raises serious doubts about that, turning up little or nothing he has done that helps you live a better life..

Second and more important: if I’m crossing the street and don’t notice a huge semi bearing down on me, could I trust Rep. Torkelson to warn me? Well, there is a huge semi, the disaster of Project 2025, bearing down on all of us, and it seems we can’t trust Rep. Torkelson to warn us about it. He claims to know nothing about it and is not concerned. Is he pretending not to know, or is he really unaware of what’s happening at the top of his party that threatens the livelihood of the people he is supposed to represent? That’s not trustworthy representation or leadership. If former President Trump wins the presidency, Project 2025 WILL be coming. The people who wrote it would fill a Trump administration. His VP choice Vance wrote the Foreword for its chief author’s book. It calls for unlimited presidential power, which he would surely love. One thing everyone agrees on: it’s so terrible no politician of any party wants to be associated with it before the election. But as the coach says, why write the playbook if you’re not going to run the plays. It would be coming. Only we can stop it with our vote.

2.) What is the top issue facing the district?

It’s the same top issue in every district in the country – what kind of country do we want the United States of America to be? Someone asked me, you are running for a state office – why are your ads so focused on the national race? Simple answer: that’s where the danger is. Having an ineffective state legislator representing us is not a threat, but only a disappointment, a sad lost opportunity for bringing good things to our district. But the national candidate for his party, former President Trump, is a real threat – a person his former Chair of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Milley called “fascist to the core” and added, “No one has ever been as dangerous to this country.” And now, as if to prove him right, Trump has started calling anyone who disagrees with him “the enemy within” and threatens to use the U.S. Army to round them up. Milley is only one of dozens of Republicans who worked for the former president who publicly agree, calling him not only unfit to serve, but an actual danger to our national security. Many of these Republicans have endorsed Harris/Walz, and some of those have lost their positions, considering service to their country more important than staying in office. Those are the kind of people who SHOULD be in office. Unfortunately, Paul Torkelson is not among them.

There is no more important issue in this election than this: what kind of country do we want to be? Cruel or kind? Full of rage or full of joy? Driven by fear or lifted by hope? Hateful toward strangers or welcoming them? Looking backward for retribution or planning ahead for prosperity? Admiring dictators or standing with allies? Whining or solving? It’s significant that you know without my telling you which side of these pairs each party represents. This election will not only show what kind of country we want to be, it will show for each of us what kind of person we want to be. And I care deeply about that, for all of you.

3.) Day care shortage is a statewide problem. Is there anything the legislature can do to improve access?

There are four legs to the table called “rural economic development” (and maybe a fifth); without attention to all of these we can’t reach our full potential. The four are day care, housing, job training for specific needs, and broadband. The fifth is a level playing field for farmers.

Statewide we are short more than 40,000 daycare slots. That’s a significant barrier to economic growth. Employers consider availability of child care a major factor in deciding where to locate or expand, and families look for it when deciding where to live and work. Communities are working hard to find innovative solutions and there are some in our district – but they need government support. Providers find it nearly impossible to generate the revenue needed to cover both capital and operating expenses, and at the same time keep costs affordable for families. Support from local businesses and residents has been helping this problem, as have a number of government grants and initiatives. But there are still those tens of thousands of needed places. Continuing government support of local innovation and initiatives is essential to solve this problem. Money spent here is truly an investment that will pay off in expanded local opportunities and economic growth benefiting the entire community.

4.) Minnesota has seen many long-term care and skilled nursing homes close in the last year, what can the state do to provide and protect senior care.

Rep. Torkelson and I will probably agree on how essential these homes are in their communities, not only for the services they provide but for the jobs they make available – often as the largest employer in a small town, and often employing recent arrivals to our country. It’s so important to families that their aging family members are close by, to maintain support and relationships, rather than hours of driving away. Yet the challenges remain, and the analysis is similar to that for day care: the capital and operational costs are more than revenues that come mainly through Social Security and Medicare – thank Goodness for those and let’s not cut them! The government has to be involved in additional ways to support the rising cost of facilities and care, assisting with the training of skilled workers, and assuring that those workers are paid a living wage. Fortunately under the Biden/Harris administration in Washington and the Walz administration in Minnesota the state is prospering and funds have been available, but still careful planning is needed to make sure programs will remain sustainable even if times become bad and inflation shoots up again, as is likely if a Trump administration in Washington carries out promised plans for tariffs and disruption of industries by round-ups of millions of tax-paying workers.

Government support for day care (discussed above) is an investment that will pay off in wider economic development. Government investment in elder care is just something we do for those we love.

5.) If elected, what will be your top goal be for this term?

This answer will depend on the outcome of the presidential election.

If Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are elected, I will prioritize building on the recent achievements of the DFL-led legislature. While consulting in Brown and Redwood counties with farm and community leaders who know best what they need, I expect my focus will be on making living more affordable for families, and on economic development which means attention to day care, housing, job training and broadband. It will mean, on the farm, continuing to work with farmers on financial challenges from forces like consolidation of suppliers and buyers, management of risk from weather and disease, and long-term profitability.

If however, Trump wins the White House, we shift to damage-control, fighting the inflation caused by his tariffs, and helping our farmers deal with the market-destroying effects of those tariffs and the setbacks from Project 2025. We’ll have to help farmers manage with a shrunken and politicized USDA, a gutted Farm Bill, the loss of foreign markets, the loss of federal environmental and climate support, the loss of crop insurance protections, the loss of the Weather Service, and much more. That would need to be a very different set of priorities.

I invite you to learn more at tomforhouse.com.