WINONA, Minn. – A candidate for Winona’s seat in the Minnesota House, Stephen Doerr, has a bizarre if not troubling past. At one time he encouraged people to fly the Confederate flag. In 2021 he bought into false online scuttlebutt that questioned President Obama’s U.S. birthplace. In 2019 he called Islam “a plague.” These revelations were reported in 2022 by the Minnesota Reformer, an independent, nonprofit news organization, but the Reformer’s report was not much noticed. In fact, Doerr, running at the time for the Minnesota House seat 26-A, won 45% of the vote. He’s back again for 2024 or an encore challenge to Democrat Gene Pelowski. For its report, the Minnesota Reformer tracked Doerr’s social media posts, which show far-right extremist political views. The Reformer also checked judicial records. What follows here is abbreviated from the Reformer’s 2022 investigative journalism:
Oblivious to Minnesota heritage?
In 2016 Doerr encouraged people to celebrate Confederate History and Heritage Month. Fly the Confederate flag, he said. As the Reformer noted, Minnesota historically was aligned with the Union values, not Confederacy values. Fact: Minnesota was first state to volunteer Union soldiers fight in the Civil War effort. This raises the question: How in touch is Doerr with Minnesota’s heritage and cultural values.
Suspicions about Obama birth
In 2019 Doerr questioned whether President Obama first arrived to the United States as a “foreign-born college student.” Apparently Doerr had bought into a Donald Trump assertion, a lie, that Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii. Fact: Obama was born in Honolulu in 1961 — 63 years after Hawaii became a U.S. territory and three years after becoming a full-fledged U.S. state. Remember Pearl Harbor.
White supremacy
In 2016 Doerr, a Catholic and white, said Islam was a plague and Satanic in origin. In 2021, he compared gun control to “how Nazis took over Germany.” For the same reason he opposed tearing down statues of white supremacists, separatists and extreme states rights advocates from the Civil War. He has supported multiple militia members who have been in armed standoffs with the U.S. government. Think Waco. Think Ruby Ridge. Think the Oregon separatists.
Arcadia incident
Doerr himself tangled with the law in the mid-1990s. He was arrested in 1996 for brandishing a pistol and threatening to kill people at a Wisconsin party while trying to get the mother of his child to leave with him. According to a police report in Arcadia, officers were called to a party early one morning in August 1996. Officers saw Doerr, 23 years old at the time, running toward a car in a parking lot. Witnesses told police that Doerr had pointed a gun at people at the party, including a woman who said Doerr confronted her and a friend — while pointing a pistol in their direction — and said, “I want to know where the bitch is before I hurt people.” Later the woman for whom Doerr was looking, who had a child with Doerr, told police that shortly after she arrived at the party, Doerr showed up and chased her. She told the officer that Doerr threatened her. When the police had arrived. Doerr ran to his car. An officer found a loaded gun in the passenger compartment of the car and ammunition in his pockets, according to the police report.
Criminal charge
Doerr was charged with felony false imprisonment, reckless endangerment and possessing a loaded, uncased gun in a vehicle. Togetherthee charges could have carried a $15,000 fine and three years i prison. Days later Doerr was charged also with trespassing and felony bail-jumping. Court records indicate he pleaded guilty to trespassing and the bail-jumping charges. The kidnap and other charges were dismissed by the prosecutor. Why? The woman who said Doerr pointed a gun at her changed her story, according to the Trempealeau County Times. A judge dismissed the false imprisonment and reckless endangerment charges, ruling there wasn’t probable cause to take those charges to trial. Doerr was convicted in 1997 on the lesser charge — transporting a loaded firearm in a vehicle.
Expungement petition denied
In 2003 Doerr tried to get the convictions expunged from his record,. He had been rejected for a job in Texas and claimed he needed a clean recrods for a new carer. . In a letter to a judge, Doerr said he “changed my way of living my daily life and sought to be a positive role model in my community.” Doerr wrote also that he had obtained full custody of his child, who was 11 by then. He also said he had trained as a firefighter; had gotten a bachelor’s and master’s degree; and had became a high school math teacher. EDITOR’S NOTE: These education claims recently have come under scrutiny as overstated if not untrue. To the judge, Doerr wrote also that the convictions were related to his separation from his daughter’s mother and that he was trying merely to get “the best care” for the child’s well-being. The judge denied Deorr’s request. The judge noted that Wisconsin law allows expungement only if a person was under age 21 at the time of the offense and if the original judge is willing sign off on a possible expungement.
Response to Minnesota Reformer
Doerr said in an email to the Reformer about its 2022 article t at the Arcadia incident was “a lifetime” ago and stemmed from “child-rearing differences with a partner not committed or valuing a life of marriage blessed by God.” He encouraged the Reformer to go lightly on him: “Jesus called for us to turn away and forgive.” He followed by saying his candidacy to represent Winona in the Legislature was based on “a firmly anti-government stance.” He said he has experienced corrupt systems, with “good ol’ boys who fight diversity and different beliefs by targeting, with law enforcement, what government members believe is the enemy: family.”
Doerr. Has announced his candidacy to represent District 26-A, which includes most of Winona County. He said he would file as a Republican, which could trigger a run-off with Winona Council at-large member Aaron Repinsky, also a Republican. The seat has been held since 1987 by Democrat Gene Pelowski, who has indicated he will seek re-election.
Incommunicado
The Winona Journal has attempted several times to contact Doerr to discuss his record and to expand on his views. He has not responded.
Minnesota Reformer profile
The Reformer, launched in 2020, focuses on covering state government from a nonpartisan perspective. The Reformer underscores its independence by noting ttyat not eveb a taint of advertising influences its coverage. The Reformer carries no advertising. Financing is through donations, much channeled from the States Newsroom network, a national nonprofit based dedicated to in-depth statehouse coverage. The Minnesota Reformer has small corps of St. Paul-based reporters. Their careers include experience with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Minnesota Public Radio and the suburban Minneapolis Southwest News. Their experience elsewhere includes the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, Denver Post, and Fargo Forum. The States Newsroom seeks to fill the void created by more than a decade of newspaper layoffs and buyouts that resulted jn shrinking State Capitol coverage nationwide. Newspaper newsroom employment declined 47% from 2008 to 2018. Only 30 %of newspapers have anyone assigned to statehouse coverage. The States Newsroom has staffs in 36 State Capitols, each covering state government news..