David Jennings, the former Republican speaker of the Minnesota House with a long public service résumé, is giving a helping hand to the DFL this spring.
Jennings, currently superintendent of the Chaska School District, will be the keynote speaker at an April 5 fundraiser held by the Lyon County DFL organization.
He said little should be read into the apparent switch. "I didn't think of myself as a member of a party -- I think of myself as fiercely independent," he said. "I'm one of those independent voters everyone is fighting over these days."
Jennings led Minnesota Republicans in several roles, first as speaker of the House for two years in the mid-1980s, then as chairman of the state party. When a bid for governor failed, he turned to business, as a vice president for the Schwan Food Co.
He then served for a few months as commerce commissioner under Gov. Jesse Ventura, headed the Greater Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce and served a controversial term as Minneapolis school superintendent before starting his current job in 2005.
"[A DFLer] who's a superintendent in Lyon County heard me on MPR one day and called me and asked me if I'd come talk," he said. "I gave it a couple of days and decided to."
It definitely doesn't signal a return to politics, Jennings said. "No, no, no, no, no," he said. "I've got a real life now and I'm not giving it up. No one's going to get me to run for anything."
BOB VON STERNBERG
