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It reminded her of workplaces in the small town where she grew up, steeped in inequality: workers on the line with low wages and good ideas, bosses who didn’t always listen.
So she spent several days the next year working different jobs in the district, meeting employees and learning their tasks. She washed dishes in the high school lunch room, cleaned toilets with janitors, helped kids cross the street in the rain.
“I knew them, I knew their jobs. When something came up, like food policy, I could go back and visit. Everyone affected by a decision has to be a part of the decision.”
The DFL candidate for the District 31 Senate seat hopes to bring the same mentality to the state Legislature. She is one of three candidates hoping to replace Sen. Bob Kierlin, who is retiring.
Ropes had a head start on both name recognition and experience — she ran against Kierlin in 2002, losing to the Republican with 47 percent of the vote.
“Nobody expected me to win,” she said. “But I think we surprised a lot of people. I had Bob by the coattails.”
This year, Ropes faces a pair of strong opponents in Republican Brenda Johnson and independent Kevin Kelleher, though she believes her expertise on her two key platform issues — health care and education — will convince voters to send her to St. Paul.
An active, diehard Democrat
Ropes, 52, grew up in Two Harbors, Minn., the daughter of a truck driver and an elementary school teacher. She attended the College of St. Teresa in Winona and then joined the Navy as a nurse, traveling around the world with her husband, Dr. Milton Ropes, who she met in the service. They returned to Winona permanently about 20 years ago.
Since then, Ropes has gathered experience from a broad array of local and state advocacy groups, advisory committees and other organizations. She is the current president of the Minnesota Parent Teacher Association, has served on a state Attorney General’s task force on health care and consumer rights, and is an AMVETS member.
She has also been active within the Winona community, working with the Red Cross, the Great River Shakespeare Festival, and the League of Women Voters.
Ropes is a diehard Democrat, but for those who tell her — and there have been a few — that she’s a liberal out of touch with a moderate district, a candidate who will only add to the partisan bickering at the Capitol, she has a quick answer:
Her husband of 27 years is a Republican.
“I tell people I live in a mixed marriage,” she joked, adding that the marriage has been successful because of respect. “My husband knows I’m not stupid, and I know he’s not evil.”
She said she’ll bring the same sense of respect to the Senate, with a desire to bridge parties in search for bipartisan support on main issues.
“We go to church together, to the grocery store together, we raise our children together,” she said. “We have to find a way to get along.”
Health care and education
In 2002, Ropes ran primarily on an education platform, which she said was the pressing issue at the time.
But when she was out campaigning, she discovered that people were fighting rising health care costs, but rarely discussing them in public.
That was then, and this is now: Health care and education are talking points nationwide, and Ropes has made the two issues the centerpiece of her campaign. She says she’s the candidate with the experience and expertise to best deal with them at the Capitol.
Ropes is an advocate for single-payer, or universal health care, and has a plan to promote a single statewide pool that she says will help lower costs and risks for state residents at all economic levels.
“I can tell you story after story after story about people who are struggling,” she said.
She related one she heard along the campaign trail: A woman has two teenage sons, one with chronic asthma. She makes too much money for government-subsidized health care, not enough to afford the family plan from her employer. Her mother’s death recently brought a silver lining — her mother also had chronic asthma, meaning there were leftover medications she could give her son.
On education, Ropes has advocated for increased student aid and curbing rising tuition costs at state universities; she would also like to see more money funneled into K-12 schools.
A whole-system approach
Ropes, a long-time nurse, makes frequent body analogies to describe the “whole system” approach she intends to bring to the Legislature. Like this: If your heart and every other part of you is healthy, but your endocrine system is out of whack, you’re still sick.
Put another way, a thriving town with, say, a robust economy, great school system and hospital can’t be very successful without good roads.
Ropes said she plans to be an advocate not just for health care (body) and education (mind), but for all issues that affect the district.
“My whole campaign is just about people,” she said. “Advocating, protecting, doing what’s best for the families of our district and our state.”
Reporter Brian Voerding can be reached at (507) 453-3514 or at bvoerding@winonadailynews.com.
