Raymond Joseph Vandeveer (July 8, 1953 – May 11, 2024) was a

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

politician and member of the

Minnesota Senate The Minnesota Senate is the upper house of the Minnesota Legislature, Legislature of the U.S. state of Minnesota. At 67 members, half as many as the Minnesota House of Representatives, it is the largest upper house of any State legislature (Unite ...

representing District 52, which included portions of Anoka and

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counties in the northeastern

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metropolitan area. A Republican, he was first elected to the Senate in 2006, and was reelected in 2010. Before being elected to the Senate, Vandeveer was a member of the

Minnesota House of Representatives The Minnesota House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the U.S. state of Minnesota's Minnesota Legislature, legislature. It operates in conjunction with the Minnesota Senate, the state's upper chamber, to write and pass legislation, whic ...

, representing District 52A and, before the 2002

redistricting Redistricting in the United States is the process of drawing electoral district boundaries. For the United States House of Representatives, and state legislatures, redistricting occurs after each ten-year census. The U.S. Constitution in Art ...

, the old District 51B. He was first elected to the House in a January 1998 special election after Representative Doug Swenson was appointed a district judge by Governor Arne Carlson. He was reelected that November and again in 2000, 2002 and 2004. He chaired the House Taxes Subcommittee for the Property and Local Tax Division during the 2005-06 legislative session. Vandeveer was chair of the Senate Local Government and Elections Committee, and was also a member of the Senate Commerce and Consumer Protection and the Senate Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications committees. His special legislative concerns included taxes, education, transportation, and crime prevention. Vandeveer was a

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by profession. He graduated from Columbia Heights High School in Columbia Heights, then went on to

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in St. Cloud, where he earned a B.S. in

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in 1975. He was a former member of the Forest Lake Planning Commission and of the Mounds View Charter Commission. He was a member of the Greater Minneapolis Area Board of Realtors. He died on May 11, 2024.

References

External links

Senator Vandeveer Web PageMinnesota Public Radio Votetracker: Senator Ray VandeveerProject Vote Smart - Senator Ray Vandeveer Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vandeveer, Ray 1953 births 2024 deaths Republican Party Minnesota state senators People from Forest Lake, Minnesota 21st-century members of the Minnesota Legislature