After 25 years working in the back of the Minnesota Senate as a researcher and counsel, Tom Bottern is stepping to the front next month as the new secretary of the Senate.
Bottern will be right below Senate President Bobby Joe Champion during floor sessions in a role he describes as running the Senate infrastructure.
"Members get elected to make policy," he said. "Members didn't get elected to come to St. Paul and run the administration of the Senate."
He spoke in an interview last week after the new Senate DFL leaders announced he would replace Republican Cal Ludeman as secretary. Ludeman is a former politician and gubernatorial candidate. Bottern stays out of politics, not even putting candidate signs in his St. Paul yard.
Bottern's position is the chief operating officer of the Senate, who serves as parliamentarian, oversees Senate operations and prepares bills. The secretary is chosen by the majority party and elected by the Senate at the beginning of each two-year legislative cycle. The secretary oversees some 200 employees.
Bottern said he hopes to do his job in such an evenhanded fashion that if and when the majority party changes, they won't want to replace him. "It's a worthwhile challenge," he said.
Champion, DFL-Minneapolis, said with Bottern, "the Senate will exhibit only the highest levels of professionalism and operate with dignity."
Bottern joined the Senate Counsel, Research and Fiscal Analysis office in 1997, rising to director in 2012.