On September 18, 2006 the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy hosted the latest installment of its 'Marketplace of Ideas' series featuring Senator John Hottinger of Minnesota.

Senator Hottinger sponsored Minnesota’s groundbreaking law instituting new standards of transparency and accountability for state and local economic development subsidies. The 1995 law and its subsequent enhancements required that companies who receive public subsidies but fail to reach job creation goals repay the subsidy with interest. The legislation also mandated increased corporate disclosure, wage standards for the jobs created, and public hearings before large subsidies could be granted. The law is credited with recouping millions of dollars in state funds and increasing civic engagement around issues of economic development. After serving sixteen years in the Minnesota State Senate, including a stint as Majority Leader, John Hottinger retired in 2006.

A panel discussion on the implications of Senator Hottinger’s work to New York featured:

Errol Louis, Columnist, New York Daily News

Hon. Richard Brodsky, New York State Assembly

Adrianne Shropshire, DMI Fellow and Executive Director, New York Jobs with Justice.

Introduction by Hon. H. Carl McCall, Principal, Convent Capital, LLC.

Moderated by Andrea Batista Schlesinger, Executive Director of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy

Senator John Hottinger sponsored Minnesota’s groundbreaking law instituting new standards of transparency and accountability for state and local economic development subsidies. The 1995 law and its subsequent enhancements required that companies who receive public subsidies but fail to reach job creation goals repay the subsidy with interest. The legislation also mandated increased corporate disclosure, wage standards for the jobs created, and public hearings before large subsidies could be granted. The law is credited with recouping millions of dollars in state funds and increasing civic engagement around issues of economic development. After serving sixteen years in the Minnesota State Senate, including a stint as Majority Leader, John Hottinger retired in 2006.

Errol Louis was born in Harlem, raised in New Rochelle and lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn with his wife, Juanita Scarlett. He is the son of a retired NYPD inspector and formerly served as associate editor of The New York Sun. He has taught college, co-founded an inner-city community credit union, run for City Council and was once named by New York Magazine as one of 10 New Yorkers making a difference "with energy, vision and independent thinking." He holds degrees from Harvard, Yale and Brooklyn Law School.

Richard L. Brodsky represents the 92nd Assembly District. He serves as Chairman of the Standing Committee on Corporations, Authorities, and Commissions, which oversees the state’s public and private corporations. This includes jurisdiction over business corporation law and telecommunications, as well as all public authorities, such as the MTA, the Thruway Authority, the Public Service Commission, the Port Authority, and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.

From 1993 to 2002, Assemblyman Brodsky served as Chairman of the Committee on Environmental Conservation, where he structured the most dramatic legislative advances in environmental conservation in over two decades. His accomplishments include authoring the legislation that created the Environmental Protection Fund, the first dedicated fund for environmental protection in the history of New York State, and the Clean Air/Clean Water Bond Act, a $1.75 billion bond act passed by voters across New York to provide a funding mechanism for unfunded clean air and clean water projects throughout the State. Prior to that, Assemblyman Brodsky served as Chairman of the Committee on Oversight, Analysis and Investigation. In that capacity Assemblyman Brodsky successfully engineered improved legislative oversight of the Executive Branch of government, passed laws to reform proprietary business schools, and took on the daunting task of investigating and exposing the involvement of organized crime in the waste hauling and management business communities. He also met with representatives of legislative bodies in emerging democracies in the former Soviet Union, China, and with the new democratic government of Chile to help them develop independent oversight and investigative capacities as a check on executive power.

In addition to his Committee Chairmanship, Assemblyman Brodsky has also been a leader in the successful efforts to increase funding for education, and to create alternatives to the Regents high-stakes standardized testing regime while maintaining high standards. Assemblyman Brodsky was a co-creator of the STAR (School Tax Relief) Program, enacted in 1996, which has saved homeowners and senior citizens thousands of dollars each year.

He formerly served as Adjunct Professor at St. John’s University School of Law, where he taught entertainment and municipal law, and Adjunct Professor at Pace University Law School, where he taught advanced constitutional law. He is married to the former Paige Massman, and they have two daughters, Emily and Julianne Willie.

Adrianne Shropshire is the Executive Director of New York Jobs with Justice, a community, labor and faith-based coalition fighting for health care reform, accountable economic development, voter education and worker solidarity. NY JWJ recently won passage of the NYC Health Care Security Act, guaranteeing health coverage for thousands of grocery workers.

Adrianne worked for 10 years at AGENDA (Action for Grassroots Empowerment and Neighborhood Development Alternatives), a multi-issue, grassroots community organization based in South Los Angeles. As one of the founding staff members of AGENDA, Adrianne's work focused on building sustainable multi-ethnic grassroots organizations; developing community leadership; building long-term strategic alliances; building and strengthening relationships between labor unions and community organizations; and directing issue-based public policy campaigns.

AGENDA successfully lobbied the Los Angeles Workforce Investment Board to shift its strategy of placing low-income residents into dead-end jobs and refocusing on developing jobs in growth areas. She ran a landmark campaign to make major companies accountable to the community through investing in the job training and placement of community members when these companies receive public money for private projects.

AGENDA developed neighborhood-based networks in communities of color that significantly increased voter turnout in every election cycle since 1996. NY Jobs with Justice is working to implement a similar model in New York with an additional focus on progressive reform.

Adrianne graduated from the University of Southern California where she began her organizing experience as a student organizer.