Ventura, Pressler to Help Bush Transition

Minnesota governor on trade panel
Argus Leader
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
December 31. 2000

By Leigh Strope

Washington - President-elect Bush is calling on 474 people, from Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura to former Sen. Larry Pressler of South Dakota to the president of the Urban League, to help him restructure the federal government to meet the needs of the new administration.

Spokesman John Wodele said Ventura, elected on the Reform Party line in 1998, accepted the appointment to Bush's transition advisory committee on trade relations Thursday, a day after he was approached.

Ventura testified before Congress last fall to help out President Clinton's push to establish permanent normal trade relations with China. He also has been outspoken about lifting the trade embargo on Cuba.

"I kind of probably became a free trader when I was a wrestler," Ventura said last year. "You yourself were the commodity. In the early days of wrestling, you had 26 different entities you could trade your wares with, 26 regionalized territories of wrestling. It was a very free lifestyle of being able to do that at that time."

"And it was always a case that the free market worked because if you got in a beef with one promoter, it didn't necessarily carry through to another one."

Former Republican Sen. Larry Pressler will serve on Bush's advisory panel on commerce. Other appointees include former GOP Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee (Energy), former Main Gov. John McKernan (Education), former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander (Education), Florida Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan (Education) and former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese (Justice).