Take Action MN "organized" numerous community meetings in swing districts in the metro and St. Cloud on Thursday July 7th for their union membership to meet with their legislator.  I use the word organized loosely as we know of at least two of the meetings where legislators, including our own Keith Downey, were not notified of the meetings until AFTER they had been promoted to union members.  In several instances, Keith and other legislators, who were not invited until a week or so before the meeting date, could not attend due to conflicts in their schedule.  Take Action MN did not amend the flyers, emails and phone calls that they placed to the local constituents of these legislators to better inform them that their legislator would indeed not be in attendance. 

With the proliferation of the events scheduled in districts that had close elections in 2010 and the focus on Keith Downey as the proponent of government workforce reform, it would seem that Take Action MN's intent was to embarrass these legislators rather than have a true community discussion about the government shutdown.  In the case of SD41, Downey had already met several weeks prior with union constituents.  The invitation to Keith also came after a state capitol rally was planned by union members deemed "Downeyville", a simulation of what would happen to government workers if attrition and hiring freezes allowed the size of state government to shrink 15% by 2015, as proposed by Downey.  These tactics by MN state government workers only highlights the desperation of the union machine to hold onto their power and their fear that they are indeed loosing their grip.