Minnesota
What Minnesota did in its legislature can inform NM’s work
In November 2022, when Minnesota Democrats elected a governor, gained narrow majorities in both state legislative offices, and had a Democratic attorney-general, they became a laboratory for how to effectively use that power to achieve progressive policy priorities.
Our imminent legislative session, plus the return from Minnesota of a friend who’s a seasonal Las Crucen, prompts this look at all that Minnesota has done – including things we did before them and others where we lag.
As soon as the 2023 legislative session started, Minnesota protected abortion rights by encoding Roe v. Wade, expanded background checks on gun purchasers and passed a “red flag” measure through which officials can take guns away from people deemed to be threats to themselves or others, legalized recreational marijuana, and enacted major protections of voting rights. (They instituted automatic registration, pre-registering 16- and 17-year-olds, and cut the use of “dark money” in state and local races).
Minnesota has also increased school funding (including providing universal breakfast and lunch for every student in the state); expanded public child care support; increased paid family and sick leave to 12 weeks; provided legal refuge to trans youths from states that restrict gender-affirming and other medical care; set minimum wages for Uber and Lyft drivers; enacted “green” energy goals such as requiring utility companies to offer carbon-free electricity by 2040; and expanded public child care support programs. Governor Tim Walz says he wants Minnesota to be the best state in the union to raise a child in.
As U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said, these policies “have a direct and clear impact on improving people’s lives;” but Minnesota enacted them with a slim majority and while also maintaining a robust economy and keeping crime rates low, the criteria by which conservatives judge progressive local governments. The narrow majorities might have suggested caution; but Minnesotans, deciding that doing good beats doing nothing, took massive steps to improve the lives of real people and protect citizens’ rights. Some say there’s a lesson here for the national Democratic Party.
People call Minnesota a laboratory for progressive policy and a model for what the states can accomplish. Such a laboratory reassures other states that enacting laws to protect people and the environment can be done; and that such pro-people steps can succeed in a state that’s relatively moderate, socially.
I recall a very different episode in Kansas, where Republican Governor Sam Brownback and his Republican-controlled Legislature abused their unhindered power so extensively and created such a huge deficit that people wondered if the state could keep funding basic needs like public education. That seared the conservative state (where Republicans outnumber Democrats nearly two to one) so badly that Democrats have held the governorship ever since.
It’s essential to maintain basic services and help the state’s economy; but let’s also compare Minnesota and New Mexico with neighboring states where close-mindedness, intolerance, and hatred of folks who are different rule the day. States that try to erase slavery and racism from history, minimize assistance to poor folks, suppress minority voting, beat gay kids into submission with cruel “therapies,” and jail not only pregnant women seeking abortion but the bus driver who takes them to the Minnesota or New Mexico border to get medical care. Abortion-rights advocates note that Minnesota’s new law is especially crucial for pregnant women in neighboring states, where abortion remains illegal since the Supreme Court vaporized Roe v. Wade. That sounds quite familiar.
Minnesota
Minnesota investigators say child care centers captured in viral video were operating as expected
Minnesota
Game Recap: Kings 5, Wild 4 (S/O) | Minnesota Wild
Matt Boldy scored late in the third to tie it and ultimately send the game to overtime, helping the Wild (25-10-8) extend their point streak to six games (3-0-3). Brock Faber had a goal and an assist, Jake Middleton and Joel Eriksson Ek also scored, and Jesper Wallstedt made 34 saves.
It was the second game of a back-to-back for Minnesota, which is coming off a 5-2 win at the Anaheim Ducks on Friday. The Wild and Kings will play again in Los Angeles on Monday.
“It was far from perfect of a game from us,” Faber said. “I thought we could have played better. With that quick turnaround, we’ll take the point. Now we need two in the next.”
Kempe put the Kings up 1-0 at 6:08 of the first period, scoring on a wrist shot from close range off Anze Kopitar’s cross-slot pass from below the goal line.
Middleton tied it up 1-1 at 8:28, getting his first goal of the season in 36 games on a snap shot from the left circle set up by Mats Zuccarello.
“I think he thought I was Kirill (Kaprizov) in the slot there, so it was nice to get one,” Middleton joked. “I normally have a few goals before I take 35 games off from scoring, so this one was getting a little stressful but we got it out of the way.”
Perry gave Los Angeles a 2-1 lead at 16:57 of the second period when Byfield’s shot struck him in the wrist and redirected in for the power-play goal.
Eriksson Ek tied it 2-2 at 18:23 on the power play, taking Quinn Hughes’ stretch pass at the offensive blue line for a short breakaway, fending off defenseman Joel Edmundson and scoring on a wrist shot from the left circle.
Byfield put Los Angeles back in front 3-2 at 4:54 of the third period. He shot the puck caroming off the boards back into the crease, where Wallstedt lost it in his skates and it was eventually knocked in by a Wild stick during the ensuing scramble in front.
“Shouldn’t be, that was terrible,” Byfield joked when asked if he knew it was his goal. “No, it’s good. I think it’s two now that were liked that, so I’ll take them how they come.”
Minnesota
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on the defensive as fraud allegations mount after viral video uncovered Somali aid scheme
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz pushed back against the ever-growing fraud allegations levied against him in the disastrous aftermath of a viral video where an independent journalist cracked open a crucial part of the alleged Somali aid scheme.
A spokesperson for Walz, a Democrat who frequently provokes President Trump’s ire, addressed a bombshell video posted by conservative YouTuber Nick Shirley.
“The governor has worked for years to crack down on fraud and ask the state legislature for more authority to take aggressive action. He has strengthened oversight — including launching investigations into these specific facilities, one of which was already closed,” the spokesperson told Fox News.
The spokesperson added that Walz has “hired an outside firm to audit payments to high-risk programs, shut down the Housing Stabilization Services program entirely, announced a new statewide program integrity director, and supported criminal prosecutions.”
In the 43-minute video published on Friday, Shirley and a Minnesotan named David travel around Minneapolis and visit multiple childcare and learning centers allegedly owned by Somali immigrants.
Many were either shuttered entirely, despite signage indicating they were open, or helmed by staff who refused to participate in the video.
One of the buildings they visited displayed a misspelled sign reading “Quality Learing Center.” The ‘learning’ center is supposed to account for at least 99 children and funneled roughly $4 million in state funds, according to the video.
Shirley appeared on Fox News’ “The Big Weekend Show” on Sunday evening and boasted about his findings. He joked that the alleged scheme was “so obvious” that a “kindergartener could figure out there is fraud going on.”
“Fraud is fraud, and we work too hard simply just to be paying taxes and enabling fraud to be happening,” Shirley said.
“There better be change. People are demanding it. The investigation have been launched just from that video alone. So there better be change, like I said we work way too hard to be paying taxes and not knowing where our money’s going,” he added.
Many officials have echoed Shirley’s calls for change, with FBI Director Kash Patel even announcing that the agency surged extra personnel to investigate the resources doled out to Minnesota. He said this is one of the first steps in a wide-reaching effort to “dismantle large-scale fraud schemes exploiting federal programs.”
Federal investigators say half of the $18 billion granted to Minnesota since 2018 could have been stolen by fraudulent schemes — amounting to up to $9 billion in theft.
As of Saturday evening, 86 people have been charged in relation to these fraud scams, with 59 convicted so far.
Most of those accused of fraud come from Minnesota’s Somali community.
Shirley’s mega-viral video cracked 100 million views Sunday night.
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