Both have "About" web pages. Niska, here. O'Berry, here.
Both are acomplished professionals, Niska a lawyer, O'Berry a CPA.
Niska
has represented financial interests in federal trial and appellate
situations - a big business lawyer and presently general counsel for a quite large multi-state construction venture. His Linkedin history shows he has done well in the private sector as a talented sought-after lawyer.
O'Berry has represented small business, and with husband Jeff is owner of a family small business.
Niska is very Republican, O'Berry has been a steady DFL backer and voice.
Niska has litigated about the Republican Party in an admirable way and has been co-author of an Amicus brief with Kim Crockett, the Republican Secretary of State candidate this cycle who caught heat over portraying opponent-incumbent Steve Simon, a Jew, as a puppet of George Soros, also a Jew, with the puppet-master meme gaining widespread criticism. That does not in any way reflect upon Niska. In 2017 they briefed together for Center of the American Experiment as amicus in a most interesting separation of powers - line item veto case, with the online outcome unclear over what position they co-advocated.
I tried signing up for the Niska online campaign newsletter but was blocked, which I find unusual.
I rely then upon campaign websites in both instances while knowing both candidates personally. In effect, what do they say they stand for?
Certainly
were Niska to win, and enter Republican legislative leadership, he'd be
far better than the likes of Kurt Daudt, who appears aggressive while
less than Niska intellectually. He'd unquestioningly be an upgrade to
his caucus.
If O'Berry were to win, it would be an upgrade to the overall DFL present House majority, where O'Berry also would fit in well with the present quite capable leadership.
To the campaign sites. The O'Berry spouses each had a career, each now retired. The Niska spouses each have a career, Jen Niska not fitting into Matt Birk's view of women having careers being an overtouted thing leading to motherhood being less valued. Both families have children, the Niska children being in a private religious setting not in public k-12 schools, one daughter a soccer goalie; Jen Niska presently is serving on the board of the children's private school (School Board Treasurer). O'Berry's son finished college and his career goal is to become a teacher.
I know Betsy O'Berry would advocate for privacy freedoms and sound health policy. And I simply have to respect the strong union endorsements she has earned, where one of the brightest developments promising the young will be responsible citizens is the nationwide efforts of young workers to organize Starbucks cafes and Amazon warehouses. Labor, when in solidarity, has given us the weekend, the eight hour day, the workweek of forty hours and not more grinding servitude where organized labor is a needed balance to the greater power and wealth of large business and finance interests which seem over represented in setting national policy.
However, what weighs the balance most in favor of O'Berry is her simple policy outlook on her About page,
Why I’m running for State Representative
It is time for us to have a government that is on our side-one that can take action to level the playing field for all of us, rather than having everything tilted toward huge corporations and those who already have wealth and privilege.
Dream it
I believe in The American Dream.
Build it
I believe we can build a better Minnesota.
Three bell ringing statements, and she will work as she says and we shall have a better legislature with her doing so.
Niska is a good man, but he says what he'd do. His Issues page -
Public Safety: We should support and rebuild law enforcement, not defund it. Minnesota has a law enforcement crisis, etc.
Ramsey is peaceful and well policed and it simply is not a true issue in district. The County Sheriff's office is sound. Harry is jumping the Party talking points on that.
Then -
Education: Parental involvement should be celebrated, not demonized. I will fight for school choice, educational options including charter schools, and curriculum transparency.
Again, Dr. Jensen's talking points. Clearly in favor of vouchers taking money out of the public schools which are tasked to leave no child behind, including spending intensive special education.
Taking money from that public good, for indoctrination into Christian teachings seems unwise and unfair, where private schools can pick and choose their student bodies leaving higher cost students a responsibility of public education.
A Voucher would benefit the Niskas personally, much like Matt Birk favoring vouchers while having founded a private religious high school.
There is an inherent conflict of interest. With two sound careers and Niska's professional advancement the couple can afford to pay for private schooling if they elect that. Paying their own way, without vouchers, is how a private school choice can work without public education thrown to the funding vagaries of abandonment and underfunding via voucher money-bleeding everyone's tax money into private, even for profit, hands operating unaccountable and not responsible to an electorate.
O'Berry is church active, a Lutheran, but not a private school advocate. Ongoing quality public education in the District would continue under O'Berry's representation, with most parents utilizing public schools and not private prep schools or indoctrination centers. Ramsey has recently benefited from the Anoka Hennepin district building a new public middle school on Nowthen Blvd. near Trot Brook. Done without draining money from public schools but rather using the taxing power to facilitate top notch public education.
More bang for the buck for most people is hard to argue against.
Continuing to look at Harry Niska on the issues -
Medical Freedom: You should control the medical treatments you put in your body and your childrens’ bodies.
That sounds as anti-vax (indirectly phrased), as we hear from Dr. Jensen. While not as in-your-face as Dr. Jensen. What else could it mean? Moreover, medical affordable care has to be available for all, and the bet here is O'Berry is better on seeing clinics being full service clinics, for all or at least most.
A related Niska minority position, where he is fully upfront about his stance -
Protection of life: I am pro-life and will work to expand the legal protections for all human life, starting with the unborn.
That also means he applauds the judicial hand-waving killing and burial of Roe v. Wade, which is a generally highly unpopular step among the majority of voters.
Roe honored privacy and freedom as the basis for the judicial decision and guidance recognizing the benefit of individual decision making about child bearing. Niska without saying it directly seems to see government intrusion into lives and decisions of others based on his own belief system as okay, and would see an intrusive world view as somehow fair.
Waving the flag of "the unborn" is disrespecting other actual existing living, breathing, human beings, unless his words mean something less than what he is straightforward in saying. The unborn are not an equivalent of the living.
Intruding into private decision making of stressed actual families, cogent in making ends meet and gaining a life as good as they can reach, who want to put off child rearing despite a pregnancy happening is elevating the "unborn" above our actual living neighbors. Which is unwise if those neighbors turn out to vote. Free of interference of others in their private exercise of reasonable rights a family should be entitled to act on.
Last -
Second Amendment Rights: Each of us has the right to defend ourselves and others from violence.
It is a straddle to claim pro-cop policy when they will say they don't like all the handguns in circulation or being daily at risk of being shot at. Niska tries that straddle, which rings mores as if simply paying dues to the NRA's ownership of his party.
Niska downplays the straddle by separation of the two issues at each end of his "issues" blurbs but the NRA is all about a collective monopoly power of handgun manufactures out to gain max profits, so damn the risk to regular non-carrying citizens.
Recall the little league coach on Hwy 169 driving his son home who got shot dead by some armed crazyhead in another vehicle, for giving the finger in a traffic situation.
Yes, it was not a legally owned and carried handgun, but handguns are as widely available these days as cell phones, stolen, and traded among bad actors, and yet that Second Amendment worshipful nod to NRA orange mailing cards is not omitted by Niska.
It is there along with support your local sheriff.
Enough. Niska, again is a bright and talented lawyer. A decent human being. With a two-career family doing well. He has succeeded in a multi-firm multi-state law practice:
Admissions
- Minnesota
- Illinois
- S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
- S. Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
- S. Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
- S. District Court, Central District of Illinois
- S. District Court, Minnesota
- S. District Court, Northern District of Indiana
Unfortunately --- a Republican. A Republican who favors the Federalist Society, from which Leonard Leo names judges who as a group seem biased and wholly unnameable and opposed to the true public interest. Roe killers.
From a perspective that favors live and let live, O'Berry is the one who'd deliver.
She is of a clear voice. Her constituency would be those needing a level playing field. Benefiting from a level playing field for a change. Her constituency is small business. Her constituency is not big money calling the shots. Nothing can be clearer -
It is time for us to have a government that is on our side-one that can take action to level the playing field for all of us, rather than having everything tilted toward huge corporations and those who already have wealth and privilege.
Her constituency is not Leonard Leo's. Endorsed by workers. She represents a lifetime of helping small businesses. Being in small business. Her anchor is local, not multi-state.