The New House District 66B Republican Officers start their 2 year term that starts now and runs from 2025 to 2027.
Chair: Donna Liew
Deputy Chair: Tawn Johnson
Secretary: Mary O’Neal
Treasurer: Jeff Carnes
Deputy Treasurer: Paul Vlahutin
Vice Chairs: Micky Hart-Chavarria, Tom Polachek, Brian Yuh, Janan Sharpe
Delegate: Jeff Carnes
Numbered Alternates: Alternate 1 Tawn Johnson, Alternate 2 Janan Sharpe
The Republican Party of Minnesota (MNGOP) had a State Central Committee Convention; BPOU State Central Delegates and Alternates Converged on Saturday December 14th, 2024 and had State Party Leadership Elections.
The Elected Positions were State Party Chair, Deputy Chair, Secretary. The Candidates for each office ran separately and did not run as slates. The Treasurer is an appointed position.
Alex Plechash, won the Chair position over the last Chair, David Hann on 3 Ballots. chair@mngop.com
Alex Plechash was elected Chairman of the Republican Party of Minnesota in December 2024. He is a first generation American who was a multi-sport student-athlete before gaining an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy where he graduated with distinction, being the No. 1 Aerospace Engineer and Marine officer in his class after which he served out his military commitment as a Marine Corps fighter pilot.
After his military service, he built a successful career in business and finance while dedicating decades to veterans’ advocacy. He has held top leadership positions in a host of organizations including being Chapter President and a National Trustee of the U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association, President of the Twin Cities Council of the Navy League, Chairman of the USS Minnesota pre-commissioning task force, Governor-appointed Board Member and Finance Chair of the Perpich Center for the Arts, past President and Chairman of Tee it up for the Troops, and served as a church deacon, leading their largest outreach program.
He has served on the Wayzata City Council as well.
Alex has been involved at every level of the Minnesota Republican Party since attending his first precinct caucus in 2004. He has lived a life of service and continues to do so now for the Republican Party.
The State Party Deputy Chair Donna Bergstrom was elected in a very close race by 5 votes on two ballots. deputychair@mngop.com
Donna M. Bergstrom was appointed Deputy Chair by Chairman Hann in October of 2021 upon his election to the chair position. She was elected to the position in December of 2021 by the State Central Committee. She lives in Duluth with her husband and son.
Donna graduated from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in 1985 with a degree in Political Science. She obtained her Master of Jurisprudence degree from Loyola University Chicago-School of Law (Civitas Center) in Children’s Law and Policy. She also holds a degree in American and Anishinaabe Education from the Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College.
Donna is a 20 year Veteran of the United States Marine Corps, achieving the grade of Lieutenant Colonel. She was one of the first two American Indian women in the state of Minnesota to run in the general election for Lieutenant Governor on a major party endorsed ticket. Donna is an enrolled member of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians.
From the MNGOP.org Party Leadership page these are the remaining leaders of the party.
Joy Orvis was elected as the State Party Secretary. Her office email is secretary@mngop.com
Each Republican State Party Organization in all 50 States and the District of Columbia have a National Committeeman and Committeewoman. This year the Republican Party of Minnesota has 2 new Committee People. The last Committeeman was Alex Plechash who was edged out by the current Committeeman AK Kamara at the 2024 State Central Convention which was held separate from the State Convention. The last Committeewoman was Barbara Sutter. She did not seek another term. The new Committeewoman is Emily Novotny Chance.
AK Kamara
AK Kamara creates content in both written and video form discussing political, cultural, and social issues. He’s a regular weekly guest on the Jon Justice radio show heard on AM1130 Twin Cities News Talk. He has gained over 150,000 followers across various social media platforms creating overtly Conservative political content.
Professionally, AK owns and operates a small courier business in the Twin Cities metro area.
Politically, AK was elected State Chairman of the Minnesota College Republicans. He has worked and volunteered with several campaigns for Governor, Senate, Congress, and many local elected offices. He has held various positions with several local Republican basic organizational units and has also worked for several ideologically conservative organizations. He is also member of Project 21, a group of black Americans who advocate for right of center policies. Most recently, he was elected to serve as Minnesota’s National Committeeman, representing our state on a national level at the RNC. He enjoys connecting with Republicans nationally and learning about new ways to help Republicans succeed in Minnesota.
AK is an active member of his community, belonging to both philanthropic and fraternal organizations. He and his wife reside in Forest Lake MN.
Emily Novotny Chance
Emily Novotny Chance was elected Minnesota’s National Committeewoman in 2024 at 26.
She graduated from Augustana University in Sioux Falls, SD, majoring in political science and communications. As a lifelong Minnesotan, she has been an active volunteer in the MNGOP since the age of 14- creating deep connections and becoming a respected, tenacious worker. Emily’s first job in politics was as an intern on Congressman Tom Emmer’s first congressional campaign in 2014. She traveled the country as an Advance Staffer for President Trump in the 2020 campaign and continued to do events for him following his election.
Emily has been on her local republican board since 2015, served as the State Chair for the South Dakota College Republicans, worked in the Minnesota Legislature, campaigned for hundreds of candidates, and currently also serves as the Minnesota Young Republicans National Committeewoman.
Professionally, she currently works for a public affairs firm in Minneapolis and owns and operates Flamingo Events, her event-planning business. Emily, her husband Kent, and their cattle dog puppy reside in Elk River, MN, and are active church members.
The biographies are from the MNGOP.org/party-leadership page. There were a couple of edits for clarity. — admin
What: League of Women Voters Forum for HD 66A & 66B Candidates
When: Friday October 11th, 7pm (Live); rebroadcast on the MySPNN YouTube Channel. We will repost the video here.
Where: St Paul Neighborhood Network (SPNN) Studios, 550 Vandalia St #170, St Paul MN, 55114 Map
Submit Questions; To submit questions for consideration to be asked of all the candidates, they can’t be one candidate specific, uncivil in any manner (LWVSP Candidate Event Rules 2024). Send to lwvstpaul@lwvmn.org
This Forum was Originally scheduled for September 27th, but the League of Women Voters postponed it for no real reason. They did reschedule it for Friday October 11th live at SPNN Studios at 7 pm. We will post the video here after it is posted on the MySPNN YouTube Channel.
Fadil Jama, website: FadilJama.com
Known for:
Greg Copeland, Website: GregCopeland911.wordpress.com
Rep Athena Hollins
Known for:
If you watch any of these League of Liberal Women Voters Forums you’ll see what not to do if you run a debate.
There needs to be standards at the State Level that must be met in order for a host of a Debate to run them. The LWV is not nonpartisan as they claim. They get away with a lot of their schtick because there’s no competition. Look at our Public Schools, there is no competition to teach kids and therefore they can be slack in their efforts, same goes for having forums/debates.
The MN Gun Owners Caucus was invited to help St Paul Republican Candidates to understand what they may be up against in debate/forums and in town halls against DFL career politicians, concerning gun laws and regulations, which are unconstitutional due to the Supremacy of the US Constitution over State Constitutions.
The nonpartisan nature of the MN Gun Owners Caucus was such that if they called this meeting, instead of the HD 66B Republicans, they would be required to invite DFL Candidates to the event. Lawful Gun Ownership is a nonpartisan issue, yet too often DFL legislators and their party are hellbent on adding cumbersome regulations that pose to be “gotcha” laws that will make any law abiding gunowner into a criminal or go insane trying to follow all of them.
Many examples of “gotcha” laws are posed as “Reasonable” Gun laws. One such law that was proposed in a bill by Rep Kaohly Her HD 64A DFL was the Safe Gun Storage Bill where guns would need to be locked, unloaded, and separate from ammunition. Thankfully this “Gotcha” bill which was Insane & Unreasonable failed thanks to the MN Gun Owners Caucus. Rep Kaohly Her at the HD 64 A&B Forum on Sept 17th said she was a gun owner and stores her gun separate from her ammunition, unloaded and locked at her home. Hopefully her home isn’t located and invaded by armed criminals as she just stated her home doesn’t have an accessible firearm ready to thwart a crew of career criminals wanting to steal and possibly kill anyone who gets in their way. We pray that day never happens to her, or anyone else.
Nick Majerus explained about many gun laws that were put into an omnibus anti-2A bill and how the bill failed. It failed because gun ownership is nonpartisan and Rob Doar a full time lobbyist for the organization lobbied legislators to see the insanity of certain laws, and also worked to water down bills that looked like they were headed toward passage due to party line votes and Big Money organizations pushing for gun control.
Bryan Strawser is a co-founder and Chairman of the MN Gun Owners Caucus.
There are 2 main In-Session Events the MN Gun Owners Caucus invites Law Abiding Gun Owners to the Minnesota State Capitol Building. It is for Rally Day, as well as the Lobby Day. We posted both of those days this year.
May Lor Xiong talked about the importance of being safe and defending oneself and your family. She cited how despots and Communists will tell people who they want to protect you while they take some of your money, but after they take your guns away they might take you away and no one will ever see you again. All Communist regimes do this.
Nick Majerus answered questions from Candidates and from the audience at the event room at the American Legion Post 577.
One of the questions was about the most recent obscene MN Supreme Court Ruling in MN v Blevins. Mr Blevins had been threatened with a knife on the Light Rail Station near the US Bank Stadium. Blevins pulled a machete in self defense. He then gets charged with second degree assault-fear using a weapon. They said from the camera footage on the platform Blevins did not retreat. Yet there is no such law or requirement by anyone wishing to defend themselves. The Majority opinion was that Blevins didn’t retreat and he caused fear with his machete and thus guilty. The dissenting opinion by Justice Thissen and the case can be read here.
Each of the Endorsed Candidates that attended the event got up and addressed the audience. There were 7 candidates who were running, only Sharon Anderson who beat the endorsed Republican Candidate AJ Plehal, did not attend the event.
Those in attendance were HD 64A Dan Walsh, HD 64B Peter Donahue, HD 65B Mike Hilborn (there was no candidate filing for HD 65A), HD 66A Fadil Jama, HD 66B Greg Copeland, and HD 67A Scott Hesselgrave.
HD 66B Republicans would like to thank the American Legion Post 577, at 1129 Arcade St, Saint Paul MN 55106, for having a real nice establishment for us to hold our event at. They are having a Booya on Saturday October 19th. They have a beautiful building, and a great atmosphere inside.
This post was a write up about an event planned by HD 66B Republicans for the sole purpose of educating the public, candidates, and anyone interested in lawful gun ownership. We thank all the invited Republican Candidates of St Paul for the MN House. We are glad to bring attention to some really great candidates other than our own endorsed candidate Greg Copeland, and May Lor Xiong.
Thanks to the MN Gun Owners Caucus to help educate those who attended our event. We are not associated with them, though some of our BPOU delegates are members of their organization. — Admin
Minnesota House District 66B Republicans 