Minnesota State Senator Quits GOP Over President’s Policies

ST. PAUL, Minn. —  A state senator--deploring President Reagan’s policies and complaining of bad treatment when he went to Washington this week with a delegation of legislators--announced Thursday that he is leaving the Republican Party to return to independent status.

“I rise to express my anger, my disappointment and my frustration with the national Administration,” Sen. Charles Berg told colleagues in a state Senate speech. “I believe they are totally out of touch with reality.”

Reagan’s veto Wednesday of emergency farm relief legislation and Agriculture Secretary John R. Block’s “waffling” on important farm issues contributed to the decision to “temporarily suspend” affiliation with the Republicans, Berg said.

Berg, who went to Washington on Wednesday with Democratic Gov. Rudy Perpich and a delegation of Minnesota legislators, said that the group had been treated shamefully.

“I felt like a civil rights activist,” Berg said. “I think the farmers of this country are almost coming to that point in their lives.”

Berg, who has a reputation as a political maverick, was chief author of a one-year farm mortgage moratorium bill recently passed by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Senate Republican leader Glen Taylor described Berg’s action as “a temporary separation, not a divorce.”

With the defection, the Minnesota Senate comprises 42 Democrats, 24 Republicans and the unaligned Berg.