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Heat but no light about school safety
The police are likely coming back to schools — without a special legislative session or a change in the law — revealing what many of us suspected: This “debate” was a lotta sound and fury, signifying nothing. A hackneyed Shakespearean phrase, but a true one regarding the past month of frequently phony arguments about whether […]
Minneapolis DFL vice chair resigns, hitting state party on the way out
The vice chair of the Minneapolis Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party resigned from his post Wednesday, attacking the DFL endorsement process and what he called voting irregularities around that process on his way out the door. Mike Norton criticized the caucus and convention process, which he called “highly problematic and exclusionary” and “complex and cumbersome.” The upshot, according […]
Minnesota Democrats passed their program — can they make it work?
Consider a scenario that could play out in early 2026 as Minnesota’s new paid family and medical leave law takes effect, 10 months before a midterm election when voters will choose a governor and all 201 legislators. Picture a major IT failure or breach, the wrong taxes imposed on the wrong people, or workers owed […]
Capitol briefs: New Blatnik Bridge, new paid leave director
Gov. Tim Walz and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers announced an effort Monday to get $1 billion in federal funding through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to rebuild the John A. Blatnik Bridge between Duluth and Superior, Wisconsin. In a statement, Walz called the bridge “a vital route for regional commerce, tourism, and emergency services.” […]
Emmer knows Biden won, which means he knows Trump committed a crime against democracy
U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, who represents the 6th District and has risen quickly in Congress to become the Republican majority whip, is all-in with the coup plotters. In the hours after former President Donald Trump was again indicted — this time charged by a grand jury for conspiring to overturn the Georgia election he lost […]
Democrats should listen to Dean Phillips, or catastrophe may await
Democrats have their eyes closed and are silently walking toward a cliff. President Joe Biden has accomplished more important progressive policy priorities than any president since Lyndon Johnson, but in a recent poll he’s running even with the thrice indicted would-be authoritarian Donald Trump. Given the Electoral College tilt toward Republicans, that translates into a […]
Why the DFL should care the most about fraud in government programs
The Reformer’s Deena Winter reports this week that about half of the people indicted in the Feeding Our Future scandal have ties to nonprofit groups that had other state contracts. It adds up to tens of millions of dollars in contracts granted to the nonprofits to provide services like child care, adult daycare and other […]
A close reading of the DOJ’s breathtaking report on the unlawful behavior of the MPD
Minnesota high school students are now required to pass a course in civics to graduate. “Investigation of the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Police Department” should be a canonical text in any Minnesota civics class, for it illustrates the tyrannical government the nation was ostensibly founded to prevent. Minneapolis may not exactly be ruled […]
The Easter eggs: The good stuff the Legislature passed you may not have heard about
For months in 2022, a few county boards were forced to deal with unruly crowds of right-wing activists who pressured the elected officials to switch to hand-counting paper ballots. Doing so would have been an unwieldy nightmare for the counties — hand counting is more expensive and less accurate than machine counts, and the grueling process […]
Is Tim Walz running for president? No, but he’s up to something with this national politicking.
Gov. Tim Walz will be in Indiana tonight, keynoting the state Democratic Party’s “Hoosier Hospitality Dinner.” I expect a joke about Big 10 basketball, before a speech hopped up on Diet Mountain Dew that will rally heartland Dems hoping to turn a red state purple. In March, he was at the Aspen Ideas Festival in […]
Democrats made a big bet on themselves
There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen. This insight has been attributed to figures as varied as Marx, Lenin and Steve Bannon, and I heard it from a shrewd lobbyist at the Capitol last week. Whatever the provenance, this is what we’ve experienced around the Minnesota Legislature this year. […]
A crazy idea worth considering: more school
The Legislature passed a bill that will fund schools for the next two years, and there’s a lot to like, primarily more money. The legislative session’s education discourse has included a lot about free meals, reading pedagogy, social studies content, unemployment benefits for school hourly workers and what’s known around the Capitol as the “cross-subsidy,” […]