Consultant Jim Hagedorn, a second-term Minnesota Republican who was a staunch ally of former President Donald J. Trump and who joined with different members of his get together in searching for to overturn the election of Joseph R. Biden Jr., died on Thursday. He was 59.
His spouse, Jennifer Carnahan Hagedorn, the previous chair of the Minnesota Republican Social gathering, introduced the loss of life on Fb. She didn’t specify the trigger or say the place he died. He had lengthy been public about his three-year battle with most cancers and introduced in January that he had examined optimistic for Covid-19.
Mr. Hagedorn was identified with stage IV kidney most cancers in 2019, shortly after he was sworn in as a first-term member of the Home of Representatives. He underwent immunotherapy remedy on the Mayo Clinic, and docs eliminated the affected kidney in December 2020. He mentioned on the time that 99 p.c of the most cancers was gone, however he introduced in July that it had returned.
Mr. Hagedorn had run for a Home seat thrice with out success, in 2010, 2014 and 2016, when he misplaced by a hair to the incumbent, the Democrat Tim Walz. In 2018, after Mr. Walz left to run efficiently for governor, Mr. Hagedorn narrowly received his seat in a race in opposition to the Democrat Dan Feehan.
In a rematch in opposition to Mr. Feehan in 2020, Mr. Hagedorn received by a barely bigger margin, regardless of his well being points, and was elevating cash in anticipation of a re-election marketing campaign in November.
“He’ll endlessly be generally known as a standard sense conservative who championed truthful tax coverage, American power independence, peace by way of energy overseas coverage and southern Minnesota’s lifestyle and values,” his marketing campaign mentioned in a press release.
All through his brief tenure in workplace, Republicans have been within the minority within the Home. All of the whereas, Mr. Hagedorn remained a powerful conservative, labored on behalf of small companies and rural entrepreneurs, and stood as an ally of Mr. Trump, who received Mr. Hagedorn’s district in 2016 by 15 share factors.
“I’ve mentioned repeatedly since 2016 that in fact I assist Donald Trump,” Mr. Hagedorn advised the Minnesota newspaper The Star Tribune in 2019, “as a result of I felt like if he’d misplaced, we’d have misplaced the nation.”
In December 2020, Mr. Hagedorn was considered one of 126 Republican members of the Home who filed an amicus transient urging the Supreme Courtroom to overturn the election of Mr. Biden as president, a short based mostly on spurious and disproved allegations of widespread voter fraud. The court docket rejected the swimsuit, which had sought to throw out the election leads to 4 battleground states.
Simply hours after the lethal revolt on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by a mob of Trump supporters, Mr. Hagedorn was amongst 147 Republicans who objected to certifying Mr. Biden’s election.
“There was no stronger conservative in our state than my husband,” his spouse wrote in her assertion, “and it confirmed in how he voted, led and fought for our nation.”
James Lee Hagedorn was born on Aug. 4, 1962, in Blue Earth, Minn., close to the Iowa border. His father, Tom Hagedorn, was a U.S. Home member and represented a few of the similar southern Minnesota territory as his son later did. His mom, Kathleen (Mittlestadt) Hagedorn, was a homemaker.
Jim was raised on the household farm close to Truman, Minn., and in McLean, Va., whereas his father served in Congress, from 1975 to 1983.
He graduated from George Mason College in Virginia with a bachelor’s diploma in authorities and political science in 1993. Whereas a pupil, he labored as a legislative aide to Consultant Arlan Stangeland, one other Minnesota Republican. He later labored as a congressional liaison on the Treasury Division and because the congressional affairs officer for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing till 2009.
In the course of the early 2000s, Mr. Hagedorn wrote a weblog known as “Mr. Conservative,” which has since been deleted. His posts took goal at Native Individuals, homosexual individuals and girls, amongst others.
In 2005, when President George W. Bush nominated a girl, the White Home counsel Harriet Miers, to the Supreme Courtroom (she in the end withdrew her title), Mr. Hagedorn described her nomination as an effort “to fill the bra of Supreme Courtroom Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.”
The weblog posts resurfaced throughout Mr. Hagedorn’s unsuccessful run for the Home in 2014; he advised The Star Tribune that they have been outdated and had been satirical in nature. They surfaced once more in 2018, when he received the seat mainly by proclaiming his loyalty to Mr. Trump.
Full data on his survivors was not accessible.
The ultimate piece of laws that Mr. Hagedorn launched, on Feb. 9, was a decision to position a nationwide debt clock within the Home chamber.
“The American individuals deserve full transparency about this nation’s fiscal affairs,” he mentioned, “and this decision will probably be a powerful reminder to lawmakers as they vote on proposals that might put our nation additional in debt.”
