Sheila Kiscaden (born April 21, 1946)[1] is an American politician, community volunteer, and organizational development consultant. She was elected in 2012 to be one of the 7 Olmsted County Board of Commissioners and represents a district within Rochester, Minnesota. Olmsted County, Minnesota Commissioners serve on a non-partisan board: there are no party designations or endorsements.
Kiscaden is a former Minnesota State Senator from District 30, which includes much of Rochester and nearby rural areas. She was first elected to the Senate in 1992 as a Republican. In 2002, after being denied the Republican endorsement at the senate district convention, she ran as a member of the Independence Party of Minnesota. That fall she defeated the Republican candidate and a Democratic challenger in a three-way race.
Despite being elected as a member of the Independence Party, Kiscaden still caucused with the Republicans until they publicly separated from her. She was invited to join the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) caucus, which she did, though she did not formally join that party until January 2006.
In January 2006, Kiscaden became a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota with DFLer Kelly Doran in his bid for governor. He dropped out of the race after only a couple of months. Kiscaden had endorsed another member of the DFL to succeed her in the legislature. Her most recent term in the State Senate ended in January 2007. Although recruited to run for Congress and to return to the Minnesota State Senate, Kiscaden chose to run for County Commissioner.
In that role she has served on the State Community Health Advisory Council, chairing a Health Equity Task Force in 2015, and serving on the Future of Public Health Task Force in 2017. As a State Senator she had a lead role in health care and human services policy. That policy interest and expertise has led to serving on a variety of state commissions and task forces since being elected to the County Board. This includes serving on the State Community Health Advisory Council, for which she chaired a work group on Health Equity, and serving on the Future of Public Health Task Force. She created a task force that is examining the consequences of parental incarceration on children and considering state and local policies to reduce the long-term negative developmental impacts on children.
Her expertise in health, human services, and corrections was developed from her years as human services planner and program manager at the county level as well as her 25 years of experience as and organizational development consultant for government and non-profit organizations.
A graduate of the University of Minnesota in Education where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, she also earned a master's degree in Public Administration from the University of Southern California. She used a Bush Leadership Fellowship to earn a second master's degree in Participation, Development and Social Change from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, Brighton, England.
She has extensive experience as an engaged community volunteer and has been the founder of several local initiatives, including the Beat the Odds Scholarship Program, Rochester Issues Forum, SE MN Together, and More Women on the Move. Her long history of service on local boards and commissions continues. She is currently an Advisory Board Member of the Future Services Institute, participating in the Government Alliance for Racial Equity, and on the board of Seasons Hospice.
The Minnesota Legislature is the bicameral legislature of the U.S. state of Minnesota consisting of two houses: the Senate and the House of Representatives. Senators are elected from 67 single-member districts. In order to account for decennial redistricting, members run for one two-year term and two four-year terms each decade. They are elected for four-year terms in years ending in 2 and 6, and for two-year terms in years ending in 0. Representatives are elected for two-year terms from 134 single-member districts formed by dividing the 67 senate districts in half.
Tina Liebling is a Minnesota attorney and politician who is a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), she represents District 24B, which consists almost entirely of the city of Rochester in Olmsted County, in southeastern Minnesota. She was a candidate for the Governor of Minnesota in 2018, but withdrew from the race in mid-March.
The 2006 Minnesota gubernatorial election took place on November 7, 2006. Incumbent Tim Pawlenty was endorsed by the state Republican convention on June 2, 2006, while the state Democratic–Farmer–Labor convention endorsed Mike Hatch on June 10, 2006. The party primaries took place on September 12, 2006, with Hatch defeating DFL challengers Becky Lourey and Ole Savior and incumbent Pawlenty defeating Sue Jeffers. In the November 7 general election, Pawlenty received a plurality of the votes, defeating Hatch by a margin of 1%. As a result, this election was the closest race of the 2006 gubernatorial election cycle.
David Howard Senjem is an American politician currently serving on the Olmsted County Board of Commissioners. He is a former member of the Minnesota Senate, serving in that body from 2003 to 2023. He led the Republican caucus as majority leader from 2011 to 2013. A moderate Republican, Senjem has crossed party lines on many occasions, notably environmental policy and women's issues. He represented District 25, which at the time included portions of Dodge and Olmsted counties in the southeastern part of the state. Much of the northern half of Rochester was in his district.
Julie A. Rosen is an American politician serving as a member of the Minnesota Senate. A member of the Republican Party of Minnesota, she represents District 23, which includes all or portions of Blue Earth, Faribault, Jackson, Le Sueur, Martin, Waseca, and Watonwan counties in the southern part of the state.
Richard Day in American politician and a former member of the Minnesota Senate who represented District 26, which includes portions of Dodge, Freeborn, Goodhue, Mower, Olmsted, Rice, Steele and Waseca counties in the southeastern part of the state. A Republican, he was first elected in 1990, and was re-elected in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2002 and 2006. Prior to redistricting in 1992 and 2002, he represented the old districts 30 and 28.
Greg Boll is a former American politician and member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. Boll was, somewhat unintentionally, one of the key players in the DFL Party's "firestorm" that swept through southwestern Minnesota in the mid-1980s at the height of the Midwestern Farm Crisis. The party's onslaught led to an unprecedented take-over of nearly all the legislative seats in southwestern Minnesota in the 1986 elections.
Tarryl Lynn Clark is an American activist, attorney, politician and a former member of the Minnesota Senate. A Democrat, she represented District 15, including portions of Benton, Sherburne, and Stearns counties, from 2006 to 2011. She was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party nominee for United States Congress in 2010, unsuccessfully challenging incumbent Republican Michele Bachmann.
Linda Higgins is a Minnesota politician who represented the second district of Hennepin County as county commissioner from late 2012 to January 2019. Higgins is a former member of the Minnesota Senate representing District 58, which included portions of the city of Minneapolis in Hennepin County, which is in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. A Democrat, she was first elected to the Senate in 1996, and was re-elected in 2000, 2002, 2006 and 2010. She served as a majority whip from 2001 to 2006. In the fall of 2011, she announced that she would not seek reelection after the current term ended in 2012. However, when Hennepin County District 2 Commissioner Mark Stenglein announced in June 2012 that he would resign, Higgins decided to run for that position. On May 20, 2012, she was endorsed by the DFL party for the position, and won the election in November. In 2014, she ran unopposed and was reelected. She served as the Vice-Chair of the County Board, and Chair of the Housing and Redevelopment Authority. She retired from the county board in January 2019.
Sharon L. Erickson Ropes is a Minnesota politician and a former member of the Minnesota Senate who represented District 31, which includes portions of Fillmore, Houston, and Winona counties in the southeastern part of the state. A Democrat, she was first elected to the Senate in 2006. She was subsequently unseated by Republican Jeremy Miller in the 2010 general election.
Ann Lynch is a Minnesota politician and a former member of the Minnesota Senate who represented District 30, which includes portions of Olmsted and Wabasha counties in the southeastern part of the state. As a Democrat, she was first elected to the Senate in 2006, but was unseated by Republican Carla Nelson in the 2010 general election.
Erin Murphy is an American politician serving as Majority Leader of the Minnesota Senate since 2024. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), she represents District 64, which includes the Highland Park, Macalester-Groveland, Merriam Park, Summit Hill, and St. Anthony Park, neighborhoods of the city of Saint Paul in Ramsey County in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. She is a former Majority Leader of the Minnesota House of Representatives, executive director of the Minnesota Nurses Association, and is also a registered nurse.
Beverly M. Scalze was an American politician who served as a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives and the Minnesota Senate. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), she represented District 42 in the Senate, which included portions of Ramsey County in the Twin Cities metropolitan area.
Sandra A. Masin is a Minnesota politician and member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), she represents District 51A, which includes portions of the city of Eagan in Dakota County, which is in the southeastern part of the Twin Cities metropolitan area. She is also a business woman, working in financial services, real estate sales and insurance.
Duane Robert Quam II is an American politician serving in the Minnesota House of Representatives since 2011. A member of the Republican Party of Minnesota, Quam represents District 24A in southeast Minnesota, including the cities of Kasson and Byron, parts of Rochester, and parts of Dodge and Olmsted Counties. He is an engineer.
Carla J. Nelson is an American politician from Minnesota who is a member of the Minnesota Senate. A member of the Republican Party of Minnesota, she represents District 24, which includes parts of Olmsted County and Dodge County in the southeastern part of the state. Much of the southern half of Rochester and parts of northwestern Rochester are in her district.
A general election was held in the U.S. state of Minnesota on November 6, 2018. All of Minnesota's executive officers were up for election as well as all the seats in the Minnesota House of Representatives, several judicial seats, two United States Senate seats, Minnesota's eight seats in the United States House of Representatives, and several seats for local offices. Special elections were also held for a Minnesota Senate seat and Minnesota's Class 2 U.S. Senate seat. A primary election to nominate Republican and Democratic–Farmer–Labor (DFL) candidates and several judicial and local primary elections were held on August 14, 2018.
Kelly Louise Morrison is an American physician and politician who is the U.S. Representative-elect for Minnesota's 3rd congressional district. Morrison was a member of the Minnesota Senate from 2023 to 2024. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, she represented District 45 in the western Twin Cities metropolitan area, which includes the cities of Minnetonka, Mound, Minnetrista, and Orono in Hennepin County. She served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2019 to 2023.
Heather Edelson is an American politician who is a member of the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), she served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2019 to 2024, representing District 50A in the western Twin Cities metropolitan area, which includes Edina and parts of Hennepin County. In 2024, she was elected to the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners from the 6th district.
The 2022 Minnesota Attorney General election was held on November 8, 2022, to elect the attorney general of the U.S. state of Minnesota. Incumbent DFLer Keith Ellison narrowly won reelection to a second term against Republican challenger Jim Schultz.
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