Minnesota House candidates take far-right stances on birth control and vaccines

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz enacted a slate of progressive policies with the help of Democrats in the state legislature. Now, Republicans are hoping to blunt that progress with a roster of far-right candidates.

Every seat in the Minnesota House of Representatives is up for election this year. Democrats currently hold 70 of the House’s 134 seats.

Republican Tom Dippel is the candidate in District 41B, which includes Hastings and portions of Cottage Grove. Dippel ran unsuccessfully for the state senate in 2022.

In his first campaign, Dippel’s website featured anti-abortion language and described supporters of reproductive rights as “opponents of life.”

“I am 100% pro-life,” the website said. “The issue of human life is paramount in our society … As a Christian, I deeply believe each person is made in God’s image. We hear daily of babies being born extremely premature yet growing up to be thriving boys and girls. Opponents of life may be misguided or even worse. Every day science catches up with what we know in our hearts. And I will fight tooth and nail for our most vulnerable.”

The same website featured pro-gun language that claimed every Minnesotan must own a gun to protect themselves from car jackings. Violent crime in Minnesota decreased by 6.9% from 2022 to 2023.

In both campaigns, Dipel filled out a candidate questionnaire for the conservative Minnesota Family Council. The questionnaire asks candidates if they support a policy and then provides a space for them to elaborate.

In 2022, Dipel said he supported school choice policies and described public schools as “social, communist, marxist indoctrination camps.” This year, Dippel reaffirmed his support for school choice but did not include an explanation.

Dippel also described homosexuality as an “abomination” in his 2022 questionnaire and said that athletes competing in sports that do not match their assigned birth sex is “evil.”

Dippel’s Democratic opponent is brewery owner Jen Fox.

Sue Ek, the Republican candidate in District 14B, has also expressed far-right views on abortion and women’s health care more broadly.

In 2019, according to Heartland Signal, Ek falsely claimed that birth control pills were designed to abort fetuses and were potentially dangerous for women to take. In September, Ek refused to answer a question from the Minnesota Star Tribune on if she would support a law banning contraception. Ek said she was focused on other priorities.

Ek was executive director of the Billings Ovulation Method Association prior to running for office. The organization promotes natural solutions for fertility issues and contraception and generally opposes medical interventions, such as IUDs and in vitro fertilization. 

In 2010, Ek organized a Billings Ovulation Method Association conference in Oklahoma City. The event featured speakers from the Catholic Medical Association, a group that has compared contraception to eugenics.

Ek is challenging incumbent Democratic Rep. Dan Wolgamott. 

Incumbent Republicans in the Michigan House have also pushed for far-right policies. Rep. Natalie Zeleznikar in District 3B, Rep. Roger Skraba in District 3A, and Rep. Bernie Perryman in District 14A all voted against a 2023 bill that codified abortion rights into the state constitution. 

“Because of this bill, Minnesota’s abortion policy will be more closely aligned with countries like North Korea and China than France, the United Kingdom, and the rest of the western world,” Skraba said in a statement.

These same incumbents opposed a 2023 bill that provided free lunches to all Minnesota public school students.

In office, Zeleznikar has been accused of using her platform to spread anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. In March, she introduced a bill that sought to allow child care providers to make their own rules about accepting vaccine exemptions. In a speech defending the legislation, she said vaccines were poisonous and compared vaccines to cannabis.

“Last year we passed a cannabis bill,” Zeleznikar said. “There’s many people that want to do that because it grows from the ground. It’s natural,’ she said during Tuesday’s hearing. ‘And yet now we’re saying to families, by the way, you don’t have a choice for a poison that could kill you.’

Zeleznikar’s bill did not pass. Her Democratic opponent this year is former judge Mark Munger.