Talk:Gordon Rosenmeier/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Usernameunique (talk · contribs) 19:54, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Lead

• Did he have a middle name?
• "He represented the 53rd district, which at the time consisted of Morrison and Crow Wing counties." — Mentioned only in lead.
• "He was also a founding member of the Metropolitan Council." — He wasn't a founding member, was he? He was instead someone who helped found the council, right?

Early life

• I'd lead off with his full name.
• "as Morrison county attorney" — "as the Morrison county attorney"?
• "a bank" — Is the name known?
• "Rosenmeier attended and graduated from Little Falls Community High School." — What year did he graduate?
• "in the process" — Afterwards, surely?
• Probably worth introducing his siblings earlier in the section.
• "though at one point he had met governor Floyd B. Olson" — This feels a bit thrown in. Worth adding earlier, in chronological order?

Early law career and first Senate campaign

• "Prior to his father's death, Rosenmeier had joined his law practice" — When?
• This section needs dates to place the various events.
• "One of his opponents filed a lawsuit against him during his campaign, falsely arguing that Rosenmeier was not a citizen of Minnesota because he recently took the California Bar exam." — What was his name? What was the outcome of the lawsuit?
• Any information, besides the later remarks, about what type of law he practiced?
• "Following his loss, Rosenmeier resumed his law practice." — Dod he ever stop? I would think many state legislators had other jobs.
• Was he running for the seat of a particular district?

Early legislation

• Same question re: running for the seat of a particular district
• Any word on why he fared so much better the second time around?
• Any more information about his military service?
• "throughout the union" — "throughout the United States"?
• "Rosenmeier also sponsored legislation" — When?
• This section covers two decades, but only three bills realted to Rosenmeier are mentioned. Are there any more details of his work during this time?
• Was Rosenmeier working at his law firm during this time?

Rise to power

• "Rosenmeier had become" — By when?
• "He was widely considered the leader of the Conservatives." — By when? Generally speaking, the "Senate Career" section contains a lot of mentions of bills that Rosenmeier sponsored, but very little about his overall politics, his relationships with other members, and the type of work that he did as a senator (besides sponsoring bills).
• As a general matter, you use the word "had" way too much and out of place.
• "The Rosenmeier Act sparked additional legislation for environmental protection in the state. It also led to the formation of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in 1967." — Was it really the Rosenmeier Act that did this? Especially given the next sentence ("Rosenmeier found that the commission was inefficient") it sounds like the subsequent legislation was an attempt by legislators to improve on the Rosenmeier Act.
• "The state planning agency" — Should this be capitalized?
• "Rosenmeier was also a key figure in the establishment of the Metropolitan Council" — And the Metropolitan Council was...?
• "Bill Frenzel and Harmon Ogdahl" — Who?
• "prevailed in both houses" — What's the other house? You haven't introduced the Minnesota House of Representatives yet.
• "It is likely..." — What source supports this sentence? Generally speaking, the cites regarding the Charles A. Lindbergh State Park aren't great. The first one lists two newspaper articles that would be good to track down.
• This section feels like a continuation of the first, and doesn't really focus on Rosenmeier's "rise to power" beyond the first two sentences. What else can you say about the role he played besides sponsoring various bills?

Later legislation and defeat

• "Rosenmeier, as chair of the judiciary committee" — Since when? More of this type of information would be helpful. What was his role as chair of the judiciary committee? What other committees did he serve on?
• "he claimed that it was so it could reach the Senate floor so it could be debated further" — When did he claim this? Was it when he was running against Win Borden?
• "The bill was later passed" — When?
• "The first saw Rosenmeier defeat future House representative Howard E. Smith by a relatively wide margin." — This is way out of place. It should be introduced in chronological order, and given more detail. And this is another important event where the date is conspicuously absent.
• "had planned on running against him for years" — How do we know this? Why didn't he run earlier?
• "Rosenmeier was noted" — By whom?
• "his campaign could not compete with Borden's" — How so?
• "a 14-point margin" — How many votes to how many votes?
• "Upon his defeat, Rosenmeier ranked seventh in terms of all state Senators in terms of service length. As of January 2021, he was tied for twelfth all-time." — Suggest "With ##,### days in office at the time of his defeat, Rosenmeier ranked seventh..." Also, you might add who was in first place (and how many days).

Later life and death

• "John E. Simonett, a future Minnesota Supreme Court justice, joined the firm after graduating from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1951." — This jumps back 19 years from the previous section. Somewhere it needs to be mentioned that Rosenmeier was still working at his law firm while a senator.
• "the pair were perhaps the most talented firm" — Then why is the firm mentioned so sparingly in this article?

Overall

• The article is in okay shape, although it feels underdeveloped in two important areas. First, Rosenmeier's legislative career is largely dealt with by listing a series of bills that he worked on—the forest is lost for all the trees, as the expression goes. His overall influence is barely mentioned, and it really takes looking at the sources to fully appreciate his stamp on the Minnesota legislature. In particular, the "Little Giant" article does a better job of describing Rosenmeier's influence, while weaving in some of the details of his work. Second, if Rosenmeier was "a prominent lawyer who led his firm from 1932 until his death in 1989", and a member of "perhaps the most talented firm in all of Outstate Minnesota", it's surprising that his legal career is barely mentioned. Indeed, only one line in the entire article confirms that Rosenmeier still worked at his firm from 1940 to 1970. --Usernameunique (talk) 05:34, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

• It's been three weeks with no activity by the nominator (on Wikipedia generally, not just with regards to this review), so I'm closing the nomination as a fail. Jordano53, you should feel free to renominate the article if and when you address the comments above. I would note that I believe the two comments under "Overall" should require significant work. --Usernameunique (talk) 07:56, 2 August 2021 (UTC)