Give the Northland’s congressional leadership some credit. While the rest of us were giving at church, mailing checks or even texting money to help Haiti and the victims and survivors of last week’s earthquake, U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar and Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, all of Minnesota, were finding more tangible and more direct ways to assist.

Franken joined 22 of his colleagues Thursday in a letter urging Senate leadership to support “robust emergency funds.”

“The thoughts and prayers of Minnesotans are with the Haitian people,” Franken said in a statement. “It is nearly impossible to comprehend the scope of this disaster.”

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Constituent service isn’t always the coolest part of a politician’s job. A lawmaker intervening to solve a constituent’s specific problem rarely has the glamor of a heated floor debate or visit abroad.

But this is just what helped Harry Brown’s retain its General Motors franchise after GM tried to remove the Faribault business from its network.

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This month, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., surpassed what should have been his one-year anniversary in the Senate. Instead, his swearing-in was delayed six months while the state sorted out an achingly close election that resulted in a 312-vote victory for Franken and a late arrival in Washington, D.C., that made him the 100th senator.

The Pioneer Press spoke to Franken recently about his first six months on the job. The interview has been edited for length:

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WASHINGTON – Speaking directly to 20,000 unemployed Americans, including an estimated 3,000 from his home state, U.S. Senator Al Franken pledged Friday to make job creation “our first priority and our second priority and our third priority” in the Senate this year.

The Minnesota Democrat joined AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Karen Nussbaum, executive director of Working America, on a nationwide conference call to address the jobs crisis. Franken and Trumka answered questions from unemployed workers, and members of the media were allowed to listen in.

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Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said Friday he will pressure his colleagues in the upper chamber to get behind a jobs bill when they return for session.

“Our first priority, our second priority and our third priority this year will be creating jobs,” Franken said. “I am going to make sure 2010 is the year of job creation.”

The Minnesota Democrat was speaking during a tele-town hall being hosted by Working America, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO. The AFL has begun gathering signatures for a petition to the Senate to pass a jobs bill, which the House did in December. They and other labor unions are pushing for a new jobs bill in order to boost employment during the recession.

Franken would like to see increased infrastructure spending and incentives for “green jobs” — jobs in the fields of renewable energy and weatherization — in legislation to be considered by the Senate. Senate aides have already been working through recommendations for their jobs bill this month and hope to bring it to the floor once healthcare reform is finished.

The senator said the idea of a jobless recovery is “absurd” and Washington needs to work hard to reverse the unemployment rate. “My biggest fear is we don’t go far enough,” he said.

Franken also said another key plank of the Democrats’ job-creation agenda is reform of regulations governing the financial sector. He said the Senate needs to approve a consumer financial protection agency like the House did in its own financial regulatory reform package.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sen. Al Franken today called for federal wage subsidies to help cover the cost of hiring new workers as part of his jobs plan, saying America needs “not paycheck-to-paycheck jobs, barely sufficient to pay bills, but jobs that will provide real security and protection for working families.”

His proposal is based on the Minnesota Emergency Employment Development, a program that paid for part of new workers’ salaries. Franken said the MEED program, which is credited with creating 42,000 over three years, “created incentives and gave businesses the jump-start they needed to start hiring people.”

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Washington, D.C. — Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) today (Friday, Jan. 15) called on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) to eliminate the practice of placing lifetime caps on insurance plans for both existing and new plans in the final health care reform bill.

Sen. Franken was joined by six of his Senate colleagues to urge leadership to adopt the House provision with respect to lifetime limits on insurance coverage.

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WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s troop buildup in Afghanistan began having an impact even before the first group of additional soldiers were deployed, Sen. Al Franken said Wednesday.

Franken, D-Minn., said Obama’s Dec. 1 announcement that he would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and begin withdrawal in July 2011 spurred the Afghan government to accelerate recruiting for its army and police to provide security once U.S. forces leave.

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Washington, D.C. — Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) yesterday (Wednesday, Jan. 13) joined 22 of his colleagues in urging Senate leadership of both parties to support emergency funding for Haiti.

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), and the Senate Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), the Senators ask that “robust emergency funds” be attached to the next legislative vehicle.

The letter points out that Haiti is already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and that the “relief and reconstruction needs of the Haitian people be substantial and long term.”

“The thoughts and prayers of Minnesotans are with the Haitian people right now,” said Sen. Franken. “It is nearly impossible to comprehend the scope of this disaster. We need to act swiftly and decisively to get supplies and resources to Port-au-Prince and do whatever we can to help in the wake of this catastrophe.”

President Obama promised $100 million in relief aid to Haiti. It is impossible to confirm the number of casualties, but the lack of clean drinking water and the insufficient number of medical personnel to treat the sick and wounded means that the crisis is far from over.

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Washington, D.C. — Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) today (Thursday, Jan. 14) joined 4 of his colleagues to call for an extension of the increased Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP), which would result in $430 million in additional funding to support Medical Assistance, the state’s Medicaid program.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided $87 billion in fiscal relief to states through an increase in FMAP funds. This relief helped stabilize state and local economies and protected against deep job losses during the recession. It is set to terminate Dec. 31, 2010, when the recession adjustment period ends.

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