District 61B Candidate Profile: Nelson Inz

, while still in the Minnesota House of Representatives, phoned Nelson Inz in the run-up to the Senate District 61 DFL committee's endorsing convention, asking for his support.

The pair started talking about the then-hypothetial race to fill Hayden's house seat, when Hayden asked Inz if he was interested in running.

"I’ve got a great job, I love my job," said Inz, a social studies teacher at a St. Paul charter school. "I’ve been on the senate district central committee, I've been a delegate. Until then, I hadn't thought of running."

Inz, three other DFLers, and one independent candidate are vying to replace Hayden in his seat in District 61B, covering Kingfield and a large swath of South Minneapolis. 

"I want to push the party in the direction I want it to go," Inz explained. "I want to be a strong clear progressive voice."

Inz is no newcomer to party politics, though. He began his political involvement through the Jobs Now coalition, helping push through an increase in the state's minimum wage in 2004 when he was still a bartender. In 2010, he organized a coalition of service industry workers to protest then-gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer's proposal to count a tipped worker's tips against his minimum wage.

Despite a sense that some in Minnesota may be growing tired of partisan division—a trend that the independent candidate for 61B, Nathan Blumenshine, is trying to exploit—Inz said he believes this kind of forceful organizing is essential to further liberal causes. Still, he said he would want to build cooperative relationships with Republican colleagues in the House to get his priorities passed.

Like two of the other DFL candidates running—attorney Susan Allen and labor organizer Josh Bassais—Inz embraces strong liberal politics, supporting single-payer healthcare, fair wages and support for education and LGBT rights. He said he feels distinct from his competitors, though, because of what he calls a commitment to making voters feel like they "are government."

"I was at a forum for state senate when Jeff Hayden was running. There was a question asked: 'What would you cut from Health and Human Services if you were on the committee?'" Inz said. "The question that should be asked is 'Why are we cutting anything?' The question we need to be asking is 'How do we make Health and Human Services make (financial) sense? If they’re not going to hear it from us, who are they going to hear it from?"