John Lesch was born on January 15,1973 and is a Minnesota politician and former member of the Minnesota House of Representatives.
19 Facts About John Lesch
1.
2.
John Lesch worked on several campaigns and chaired the Senate District 66 DFL Party from 2000 to 2002.
3.
John Lesch was first elected in 2002 and has been reelected every two years since.
4.
In June 2007, John Lesch proposed legislation to ban five breeds of dogs identified as especially aggressive by the Center for Disease Control: Rottweilers, pit bulls, Akitas, Chow Chows, and wolf hybrids.
5.
Opponents to John Lesch's proposal argued that bite statistics are a consequence more of the popularity of certain breeds than of any predisposition to aggression.
6.
John Lesch's proposed legislation did not make it out of committee.
7.
In 2015, John Lesch began pursuing a overhaul of Minnesota's criminal defamation laws in the wake of the Minnesota Court of Appeals' striking down of that statute, thereby depleting protections from online harassment, including so-called "revenge porn", which John Lesch claims he had been motivated to address in policy since reading about the 2013 death of Rhetea Parsons.
8.
The law was immediately challenged and brought to the court of appeals, which struck it down on free speech grounds, but John Lesch prevailed upon Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to appeal the ruling to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which unanimously ruled the law constitutional.
9.
In February 2006, John Lesch made a personal trip to Iraq at his own expense with the stated intention to learn as much as possible about the war there in as little time as possible.
10.
John Lesch received some praise, in the local press for making the trip, but mostly sharp criticism.
11.
John Lesch said he had wanted to see firsthand what conditions were like there, and that the trip was the most rewarding he had ever taken.
12.
The board concluded that John Lesch transferred $11,000 in campaign contributions from his campaign account to his personal account at times when there otherwise would have been "insufficient funds".
13.
On January 3,2018, John Lesch sent recently inaugurated Saint Paul mayor Melvin Carter a letter, written on his Minnesota House of Representatives letterhead, in which he wrote that Carter's recently appointed City Attorney, Lyndsey Olson, had a "track record of integrity questions and management problems".
14.
The Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed the decisions of the lower courts holding that John Lesch was not acting in his official capacity at the time, and that legislative immunity did not attach, denying his motion to dismiss the suit.
15.
In February 2007, John Lesch said he was considering running for the United States Senate seat held by Norm Coleman.
16.
John Lesch said the Campaign Finance Board allegations had nothing to do with his withdrawal, but that the time was not right for him personally or politically to run for higher office, especially since it was unknown whether Swanson would run for reelection.
17.
John Lesch was married previously and has a child by that marriage.
18.
On October 8,2009, it was reported that John Lesch had joined the Minnesota National Guard as an infantry officer.
19.
John Lesch maintains a rank of 2nd Lieutenant and leads a platoon of light infantry soldiers with the 34th Infantry Division.