Michele Marie Bachmann (born on April 6, 1956)[1] is the Republican Representative of Minnesota's 6th congressional district. She is the third woman and first Republican woman to represent Minnesota in Congress. She defeated her Democratic challenger, Elwyn Tinklenberg, in the 2008 election in a race that had gained national attention following her televised call for the media to investigate members of Congress for perceived anti-American bias, including President-Elect Barack Obama.[2] The 6th congressional district includes the northern far suburbs of the Twin Cities along with St. Cloud. She won 50 percent of the votes in the 2006 election, defeating Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate and child safety advocate Patty Wetterling and the Independence Party's John Binkowski. Bachmann served in the Minnesota State Senate from 2001 to 2007.
Bachmann's positions include:
Favors privatization of Social Security along the lines suggested by the Cato Institute.[62][63]
Supports both a Federal and State constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and legal equivalent, and is a critic of any type of gay rights or civil unions for gay couples.
Supports President Bush's policies in Iraq and believes the military must "stay the course" there[64][65][66]
Favors leaving the nuclear attack option on the table in dealing with Iran[67]
Opposes minimum wage increases[68]
Favors an investigation of "anti-American" sentiment among members of Congress.
Some of Bachmann's local critics say she could be more accurately described as a Christian fundamentalist politician.[11] Appearing on the radio program Prophetic View In The News to promote her 2004 state capitol rally against same-sex marriage, Bachmann said that "God calls us to fall on our faces and our knees and cry out to Him and confess our sins. And I would just ask your listeners to do that now. Cry out to a Holy God."[69]
In support of a constitutional amendment she proposed to ban same-sex marriage,[70] Bachmann said that the gay community was specifically targeting children and that "our children...are the prize for this community."[69] Bachmann has said that people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender suffer from "sexual dysfunction" and "sexual identity disorders."[71]
Bachmann supports the teaching of intelligent design in public school science classes.[72] During a 2003 interview on KKMS Christian radio program "Talk The Walk", Bachmann said that evolution is a theory that has never been proven, one way or the other.[73] She co-authored a bill that would require public schools to include alternative explanations for the origin of life as part of the state's public school science curricula.[74] In October 2006, Bachmann told a debate audience in St. Cloud, Minnesota, that “there is a controversy among scientists about whether evolution is a fact or not...There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design.”[75]
Bachmann has been a longtime opponent of legal abortion. In 2006, Bachmann stated that she would vote to permit abortion in cases of rape and incest.[76] In the Senate, Bachmann introduced a bill proposing a constitutional amendment restricting state funds for abortion. The bill died in committee.[77]
Bachmann is a staunch advocate of a federal prohibition of online poker. In 2008, she opposed H.R. 5767, the Payment Systems Protection Act (a bill that sought to place a moratorium on enforcement of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act while the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve defined "unlawful Internet gambling").
In a 2001 article, Bachmann wrote extensively of her belief that the current governments of the United States and Minnesota State had plans to end the American "free market economy" and impose a centralized, state-controlled economy in its place. She wrote that education laws passed by Congress in 2001, including "School To Work" and "Goals 2000", created a new national school curriculum that embraced "a socialist, globalist worldview; loyalty to all government and not America."[78] In 2003, Bachmann said that the "Tax Free Zones" economic initiatives of Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty were based on the Marxist principle of "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."[79] She also said that the administration was attempting to govern and run centrally-planned economies through an organization called the Minnesota Economic Leadership Team (MELT), an advisory board on economic and workforce policy chaired by Pawlenty.[79]
Prior to her election to the State Senate and again in 2005, Bachmann signed a “no new taxes” pledge sponsored by the Taxpayers League of Minnesota.[80][81] As Senator, Bachmann introduced two bills that would have severely limited state taxation. In 2003 she proposed amending the Minnesota state constitution to adopt the so-called “Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights” (TABOR).[82] In 2006 Bachmann proposed repealing Minnesota's alternative minimum tax. Bachmann refused opportunities to have TABOR heard when these were offered to her by Tax committee chair, Larry Pogemiller.[83] Repeal of the alternative minimum tax died in committee.[82]
In 2005 Bachmann opposed Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty’s proposal for a state surcharge of 75 cents per pack on the wholesale cost of cigarettes. Bachmann said that she opposed the state surcharge “100 percent—it's a tax increase.”[84] She later came under fire from the Taxpayers' League for reversing her position and voting in favor of the cigarette surcharge.[85]
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