Andy Dawkins

Andrew J. Dawkins (born July 29, 1950) is an American politician and attorney from Minnesota. Dawkins is a former member of the Minnesota House of Representatives from Saint Paul. Running as a Democrat, Dawkins was first elected in 1986 to represent District 65A, and was reelected every two years until opting not to seek reelection in 2002. In 1993, he ran an unsuccessful campaign for mayor of Saint Paul against Norm Coleman. He married Ellen Anderson, a Minnesota state senator from St. Paul, in 1995; they divorced in 2018. He was the Green Party of Minnesota nominee for Minnesota Attorney General in the 2014 election, earning 1.5% of the vote and restoring the party's minor-party status.

Biography Originally from Chicago, Dawkins came to Minnesota in the late 1960s to attend the Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul. While Dawkins' 1.49% of the vote in the November election re-qualified the Green Party for minor-party status, he failed to meet the 5% threshold to elevate it to the major-party status it once held in Minnesota.

Minnesota House of Representatives Dawkins served on several House committees during his time in the Minnesota House, including those governing capital investment, family and civil law, energy and regulated industries, environment and natural resources, financial institutions and insurance, housing, jobs and economic development, and taxes.

I had enough seniority as a democrat to be the tax chair in the Minnesota Legislature but I was told 'Dawkins you'll never be the tax chair 'cause you pissed off the real-estate industry, you pissed off the bankers, and you tried to do the tax stuff the right way for the little guys and they’re not going to let you be the tax chair'. I was told that I'm not going to be the tax chair unless I can get these big lobbyists to support me to be the tax chair. Minnesota's no different than Washington; big money runs our country on every level these days. Because of the threat of acid mine drainage to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and the short term nature of the jobs these mines will create, Dawkins had this to say:

I don't think we need to do any sort of sulfide mining, period ... the whole thing is about profit for foreign investors, and to then argue there's a few jobs in the mining industry, well, compare that to the amount of jobs we'd get if we keep doing renewables and sustainables. Until we have that debate, I'm totally against. Dawkins supported Saint Paul's instant-runoff voting ballot initiative. While running for Minnesota Attorney General, Dawkins endorsed ranked-choice voting.

Cannabis Legalization Dawkins supports legalizing "sensible" use of recreational marijuana.