The new chair of the St. Paul DFL will play a key role in vetting candidates for the seats currently held by City Council Member Dave Thune, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and the St. Paul School Board.
That’s a lot of responsibility when you’re 25 years old.
Libby Kantner, a lifelong Frogtown resident and legislative aide to City Council Member Chris Tolbert, ran unopposed on Thursday night for the DFL chairmanship.
This dubious-looking man is also running for election, but to what office, no one knows…
The position had been held by Darren Tobolt, who chose not to run again. (Tobolt is a likely candidate for St. Paul City Council next year in Ward 2.)
“I’m really excited about it,” Kantner said. “I’ve been involved in St. Paul campaigns since 2008. I was first hired by Darren in 2009 to be the field organizer for the DFL-endorsed candidates — there was the mayor and three school board candidates that year.”
“I don’t think a lot of people would want this job — it’s a lot of work,” she continued, with a laugh. “I’m really glad the other people who are serving on the executive committee are really hard workers.”
She’ll have help on the five-member committee from her father, Steve Kantner, who serves as treasurer. (According to his LinkedIn profile, dad holds a PhD in organic chemistry, worked for 3M for 29 years and in 2010 chaired the Twin Cities chapter of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists. He’s also worked the box office at the Fringe Festival.) “It was a Kantner-Kantner ticket,” joked Libby Kantner.
The other members are Matt Freeman as associate chair, Noel Nix as outreach officer, and May Shoua Moua as secretary.
The party’s 10 directors are Lyn Burton, Beth Commers, Elizabeth Emerson, Jen Geurtin, Matt Hill, Katie Kramer, Rich Kramer, Roy Magnuson, Al Oertwig and Rick Varco.
Libby Kantner joined Tolbert’s office as a legislative aide at the end of February. She was previously political director for a labor union, SEIU Local 284, which represents school bus drivers, custodians and other school support staff.
On her Twitter page, Kantner describes herself as a beagle enthusiast and an “idealistic political organizer.”
She’ll have her hands full organizing caucuses and conventions, and vetting candidates for the Ward 2 seat currently held by longtime city council member Dave Thune. That seat will appear on the November 2015 ballot.
“We really just look at the mayor, school board and council,” she said. “Since Dave Thune has been pretty clear about not running again, that race is already kind of in full swing.”
While no candidates have officially declared in Ward 2, certain names pop up with regularity — Marit Brock, Darren Tobolt and Rebecca Noecker among them.
If they file, none of them will face a political primary, and they’ll all make it to the 2015 ballot as a result of the city’s move to instant run-off voting for city council and mayoral races. (School board elections are still bound by primaries).
“I don’t think any of them have actually announced yet, but they’ve all made their intentions clear,” Kantner said. “Especially with instant run-off voting for the council seats, there’s a lot more pressure to really run good campaigns next year.”
For now, Kantner is focused on making sure caucuses and conventions run smoothly, unlike the one that that resulted in her boss getting the DFL endorsement in 2011.
“There’s been a couple contentious conventions in the past couple years … and next year we want to make sure that’s not going to happen,” she said.