Jim Hagedorn

Hagedorn greeting President Ronald Reagan in 1982

Hagedorn served as a legislative aide to Minnesota Congressman Arlan Stangeland, 1984-1991.[6] He then worked in the United States Department of the Treasury as Director for Legislative and Public Affairs for the Financial Management Service from 1991 to 1998, and later as Congressional Affairs Officer for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing until 2009.[6][9]

Between 2002 and 2008, Hagedorn authored a now-deleted blog entitled Mr. Conservative. Blog posts included sexist comments, Islamophobic comments, complaints about Barack Obama, remarks against Native Americans, homophobic statements, and anti-Mormon and antisemitic comments.[10] Hagedorn said the blog was intended to be humorous and satirical.[11]

Hagedorn's blogging history led the conservative Washington Examiner to run an editorial labeling him "the worst midterm candidate in America" in 2018.[12][13]

Hagedorn lost the Republican nomination for Minnesota's 1st congressional district in the 2010 election.[6][14][15]

Returning to Minnesota in 2013, he won the Republican nomination for Minnesota's 1st congressional district in 2014, but lost in the general election to Democratic incumbent Tim Walz.[16][6]

Hagedorn won the Republican nomination for Minnesota's 1st congressional district in the 2016 elections, but lost in the general election to Democratic incumbent Tim Walz.[6]

In the 2018 elections, Hagedorn received the Republican nomination, despite the National Rifle Association endorsing another candidate (Carla Nelson), who also received funds from Rep. Elise Stefanik, Richard Uihlein and Paul Singer. Hagedorn described himself as the most conservative candidate who is loyal to Trump.[17]

After Hagedorn won the 2018 primary, then-head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Representative Steve Stivers, said "that is news to me" about the viewpoints expressed on Hagedorn's blog. The spokeswoman for NRCC said the posts were inappropriate and were not condoned by the group.[18]

In the general election, with Walz giving up the seat to make a successful run for Governor of Minnesota, Hagedorn bested Democratic nominee Daniel Feehan.[1]

Hagedorn won re-election in 2020.

According to the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, Hagedorn held a Bipartisan Index Score of -0.0 in the 116th United States Congress for 2019, which placed him 190th out of 435 members.[19] Based on FiveThirtyEight's congressional vote tracker at ABC News, Hagedorn voted with Donald Trump's stated public policy positions 94.4% of the time,[20] which ranked him average in the 116th United States Congress when predictive scoring (district partisanship and voting record) is used.[21]

In 2020, in response to activist Shaun King saying that depictions of Jesus as white should be destroyed, Hagedorn wrote that the Democratic Party and Black Lives Matter movement "are at war with our country, our beliefs and western culture." In response to critiques that the term "Western culture" has been used to promote white nationalism, Hagedorn said "The notion that statues and images of Jesus Christ somehow represent white supremacy and should be destroyed is ludicrous and represent a growing intolerant movement on the left to silence any voices that do not align with their radical secular views."[22] Hagedorn's comments led several corporate donors, including Intel and UnitedHealth Group, to ask for Hagedorn to return their donations.[23][24]

In 2020, Hagedorn's high volume of publicly funded constituent mail came under scrutiny. LegiStorm reported that Hagedorn spent more than one-fifth of his $1.4 million annual office budget on mailings. He also spent around 40% of his office's annual budget in the first quarter of 2020, surpassing any other member of Congress during the same time frame, with 19 percent being spent on printing costs and mailings when the average representative spent about .8 percent of their budgets on mass mailings.[25] Expenses included for Hagedorn's mailings went to a firm that is partially owned by a part-time Hagedorn staffer. Hagedorn dismissed his chief of staff and said "While these relatively routine duties were fully delegated to my former Chief of Staff and our finance officer, I acknowledge responsibility for the oversight of my office and will continue to make any necessary management improvements."[26][27] In emails obtained by the Star Tribune, a former staffer alleged that Hagedorn, in both 2019 and early 2020,[28] had managed some aspects of the constituent mailings and was aware of the volumes. Hagedorn holds a financial relationship with radio station host Al Travis Thielfoldt, whose company, Innovative Marketing Techniques, was paid $64,450 for the 2020 election cycle from Hagedorn's campaign and "half a million dollars during the 2018" campaign, according to FEC records.[29][30]

In October 2020, Politico reported that Hagedorn "appears to have enjoyed rent-free use of a campaign office supplied by a political donor," which they called "at best, highly irregular or sloppy spending practices" and at worst, "a breach of campaign finance law."[31]

In December 2020, Hagedorn was one of 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives who signed an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden prevailed[32] over incumbent Donald Trump. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case on the basis that Texas lacked standing under Article III of the Constitution to challenge the results of the election held by another state.[33][34][35]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement that called signing the amicus brief an act of "election subversion." Additionally, Pelosi reprimanded Hagedorn and the other House members who supported the lawsuit: "The 126 Republican Members that signed onto this lawsuit brought dishonor to the House. Instead of upholding their oath to support and defend the Constitution, they chose to subvert the Constitution and undermine public trust in our sacred democratic institutions."[36][37] New Jersey Representative Bill Pascrell, citing section three of the 14th Amendment, called for Pelosi to not seat Hagedorn and the other Republicans who signed the brief supporting the suit. Pascrell argued that "the text of the 14th Amendment expressly forbids Members of Congress from engaging in rebellion against the United States. Trying to overturn a democratic election and install a dictator seems like a pretty clear example of that."[38]

On January 7, 2021, Hagedorn objected to the certification of the 2020 US presidential election results in Congress based on spurious allegations of widespread voter fraud.[39]

• Committee on Agriculture
  • Subcommittee on Livestock and Foreign Agriculture
  • Subcommittee on Nutrition, Oversight, and Department Operations
• Committee on Small Business
  • Subcommittee on Rural Development, Agriculture, Trade and Entrepreneurship
  • Subcommittee on Contracting and Workforce