Governorship of Jesse Ventura

In November 1998 Jesse Ventura, a former professional wrestler and sometime movie actor, was elected governor of Minnesota after defeating the much better-known and better-financed candidates of the two traditional major parties. He won with the lowest plurality of any Minnesota governor, 37 percent of the vote, on the ticket of the Reform Party, a tiny organization with no track record of victory. His single term was one of controversy, and media reports focused more on his pursuits of money and celebrity than on his policies, which were mostly mainstream.

Jesse Ventura was born James George Janos in south Minneapolis in 1951. He graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1969, then served in the US Navy as a SEAL until 1975. Afterward, he built a career as a professional wrestler (for which he adopted the name Jesse Ventura), television wrestling commentator, and movie actor that brought him national fame. Upon returning to Minnesota in 1987 he worked as a talk radio personality. He got his first political experience as nonpartisan mayor of Brooklyn Park, 1991–1995.

In 1997 Ventura joined the Minnesota chapter of Ross Perot’s national Reform Party. There he met Dean Barkley, a two-time US Senate candidate on a Reform ticket who had gained enough votes to elevate Reform to a major party under Minnesota law. Ventura and Barkley formed a personal and political friendship and alliance.

Upset by the Minnesota legislature’s decision to spend a large budget surplus in 1997, Ventura announced his intention to run for governor in 1998 and secured the Reform Party’s nomination, with no realistic expectation of winning. But his celebrity, outspoken manner, and appeal to first-time voters, plus the establishment ties of his two major-party opponents—DFL attorney general Skip Humphrey and Republican mayor of St. Paul Norm Coleman—propelled him to a surprising victory, with 37 percent of the vote. This made him Minnesota’s first third-party governor since Floyd B. Olson of the Farmer–Labor Party, elected in 1934.

Ventura took office in 1999 with Republicans in control of the Minnesota House, the DFL in control of the Senate, and no other Reform Party officeholders anywhere in state government. He had no allies. His first legislative session was nevertheless fairly successful; taxpayers got income tax cuts and sales tax rebates, while public schools got a big funding increase. He enjoyed high public approval ratings.

Ventura, however, repeatedly undermined his support through controversial interviews and by lucrative outside employment as a wrestling referee and professional football commentator. On the Late Show With David Letterman he said that St. Paul’s streets had been laid out by drunken Irishmen. In a Playboy magazine interview he said that organized religion was for the weak minded. In a single pay-per-view wrestling event, he made a reported one million dollars. He was often absent from the state for television appearances and incurred high security costs, paid for by Minnesota taxpayers. Because the local press reported these activities, often critically, Ventura took to calling Minnesota reporters and newspapers “media jackals.”

His frustration with the workings of the legislature led him to propose a constitutional change to a unicameral legislature. This proposal went nowhere, but in his second and third legislative sessions, Ventura continued to have some successes: in tax reductions, reform of the property tax system, and more participation by the state in basic funding of the K-12 school system. He also prevailed in keeping planning for light rail transit alive, over Republican hostility. In 2000, he left the Minnesota Reform Party to lead the state’s new Independence Party.

Ventura had campaigned on a pledge of no tax increases, under any circumstances. But when the 9/11 terror attacks brought on a recession and created a projected deficit of nearly two billion dollars, Ventura insisted that tax increases be part of the plan to balance the budget. In his final legislative session the two major parties ignored Ventura and passed a budget without tax increases. He vetoed that budget and called a special session in the summer of 2002; a compromise was reached. Two weeks later he announced that he would not run for a second term.

Ventura had campaigned in 1998 on the importance of creating a third-party alternative to Republicans and Democrats. During his term, however, the Minnesota Reform Party failed to elect any other candidate to statewide office. It lost major-party status in 2014.