On Tom Rukavina's retirement

I covered the State Capitol for the American Consolidated Newspaper chain in northeast Minnesota for two years. It was fascinating to cover the region, with its unique history and culture.

Rep. Tom Rukavina represented that political culture. His announcement that he's retiring from the State House of Representatives after 26 years had me thinking about his unique political roots. I did a story about his own history when he was running for Minnesota governor in 2010.

Here are some interesting snippets from the pre-published draft.

[SNIP]

Rukavina can trace his Iron Range pedigree back to his grandparents on both sides.  His grandfather on his father's side worked in the mines and his maternal grandfather homesteaded near Orr.  

"I was raised right on the north-side of Virginia, right on the last street in town, right on the edge of one of the mine pits," Rukavina says. "I played in the mine pits as a little kid and I worked in that same mine pit as a college student -- and my father worked in that mine."

His aunt lived next door and his grandmother lived across town. It was, Rukavina says, "a beautiful life" that he wants to preserve as an option for future generations through his candidacy.

[SNIP]

In his youth, it was the still the Iron Range where people of Croatian-descent worked in the mines next to Italians and lived next door to Finns, sometimes in houses owned by mining companies.

"There weren't very many places in other parts of the state where you had all of these different nationalities living next door to each other," Rukavina says. "Up there, it was mostly different ethnic groups living right amongst each other."  

Mines, and challenges to their authority, are central to the Iron Range character, he says.

"Our economy and our culture totally revolves around mining. I'm not ashamed of that, nor are most Iron Range people," he says. "We've produced for this country over a hundred years, we've won a couple of World Wars and we basically built this nation. I'm really proud of that."

It was as a part of this tight-knit community that Rukavina learned the personal approach he'd take into politics, where he's well-liked on both sides of aisle for his sharp wit.

"Where I come from people kind of say what's on their mind, don't pull any punches," he says of Iron Rangers. "They're very nice people, they're honest people, they're honest with you about their feelings."

[SNIP]

Raised in a union family
His father was an organizer for the United Steelworkers of America. His aunts, uncles and mother were also involved in unions.

"I learned early about strikes and standing up for what you believe in, and I've been involved in a number of them myself," he says. "I think it has a lot to do with the whole mentality of the Iron Range even to this day."

Sometimes just a few of the mines went on strike, but once in a while all the unions struck and the Iron Range shut down. It wasn't without hardship.

"I can remember my dad crying when I was a little kid. When I was five years old, I could overhear my dad telling my mother there wasn't going to be a Christmas," Rukavina says. "My ears were always open and my nose was always somewhere it shouldn't have been, even when I was a little kid. But I can remember thinking, 'What the hell is this union about that we're not going to have Santa Claus?'"

Rukavina's a well-known advocate for working people at the Capitol, against both private intrusion through labor violations and public intrusion through opposition to smoking ban and other "police state" measures.

In his calendar, Rukavina carries a letter his father wrote to a newspaper in 1963 challenging the chairman of U.S. Steel to a debate about the mining companies' control of the Iron Range.

"I've been around labor unions all my life and I have labor beliefs," he says. "I've been around relatives that have been involved in their union and never had a problem with speaking up in defense of their fellow workers, so that's why I speak up for the underdog."

The Farmer-Labor wing of DFL
Rukavina's been a milkman, a garbageman and miner. But he's also spent almost a quarter century in the state House of Representatives.

[SNIP]

"I've had a good life, I'm proud of my children, I'm proud of my legislative career," Rukavina says. "I don't need to be doing this for anything other than the fact that I think that I can really contribute to the well-being of a lot of people in this state who are either being left to the side or totally ignored."