Eagan Mayor Maguire Eyes Senate Seat

Eagan mayor Mike Maguire today filed the required forms to create a campaign committee in support of a 2012 run for the Minnesota State Senate.

Maguire plans to immediately begin exploring the financial and grassroots framework for a full-scale campaign next year. He anticipates officially announcing his candidacy in early-2012.

Maguire's main motivation for the Senate run stems from his disappointment with what he calls a lack of both leadership and courage in St. Paul.

"Last year current Senator Ted Daley (R-District 38) campaigned for his seat claiming he and fellow Republicans had 'the courage to lead' the state through its budget crisis and back to prosperity; in the past five months we’ve seen very little courage or leadership in St. Paul," Maguire said in a statement. 

Maguire is planning to bring to the State Senate some of the same principles he used to become a two-term mayor in Eagan.

"For the last year Ted Daley has talked about doing the things that, in Eagan, I’ve actually done for approaching a decade," Maguire said. "Citizens deserve a state senator that’s done more than talk about leadership, but instead one that’s actually shown it and provided it."

Maguire—like many Minnesotans—is disappointed in the legislative stonewalling that on May 24 resulted in Governor Mark Dayton forecasting a shutdown of state government. 

"Instead of working together to solve our state’s biggest challenges, Daley and his Republican majorities have played the politics of distraction and delay ending the legislative session with 'job one' undone. That doesn’t work for me in City Hall and it’s not acceptable in St. Paul," Maguire said in the statement.

While the filing today fulfills the first statutory requirement for candidacy, Maguire insists that his top priority in the weeks and months ahead will be to work with and for the city of Eagan and serve the needs of its residents.