I guess we’ll find out for sure once the new legislature convenes in January. In the meantime, we search for signs and portents. As for trends, I’ve been pointing to…
Notes from the day after the night before. Election 2024 saw the end of Democratic party (DFL) monopoly control at the state capitol. Trump did not prevail in Minnesota, but…
Steve Sviggum was first elected to the Minnesota House in 1978, arriving in St. Paul as a wide-eyed farmer and teacher from Kenyon, Minnesota. The blatant abuse of power he…
It wasn’t enough for the 2023 legislature to spend the entire surplus, raise taxes and add thousands of new government bureaucrats. They had to do one more thing: change the…
County caught illegally staffing ballot boards. The headline from KSTP-TV: Supreme Court rules Hennepin County Absentee Ballot Board must comply with state law in choosing election judges by Nov. 1…
Each year, Education Minnesota charges member teachers and education support professionals (ESPs) $25 to fund its political action committee, or PAC. PAC money is spent on supporting political parties, candidates,…
The Cato Institute opens its 2024 Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors with the words: State government budgets have grown substantially in recent years with the influx of federal…
There is one constitutional amendment on the ballot this November that seeks to renew and extend an amendment passed originally in 1988 directing proceeds from the Minnesota Lottery into a…
Allowing people to buy health insurance across state lines has been a key policy in Republican health reform proposals over the past 20 years. The policy goal has always been…
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon has a problem. Too many Minnesotans don’t trust the election system he manages. According to the latest Thinking Minnesota Poll, nearly one in four…
Palo Alto’s Emerson Collective LLC appears to have done exactly that in the case of an Assistant Commissioner slot at the state Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). In…
Last week’s vice-presidential debate once again elevated the very controversial abortion law that Gov. Tim Walz signed in 2023, which many pro-life advocates claim now allows a doctor to let…
While the media focused on Pres. Joe Biden’s disastrous CNN debate performance on June 27, it ignored the administration’s glaring contradictions in its climate policy. The day after the debate,…
In response to COVID, the federal government sent Minnesota $1.3 billion for E-12 education. Those dollars were meant to help schools return to, and maintain, safe in-person learning for all…
Democrats try to pass Tim Walz off as a small-town moderate, “America’s coach.” The reality is entirely different, as Minnesotans know: he is a hard-core left-winger. Walz is in the…
It’s no secret that the state teachers’ union and its affiliates are big spenders on politics. During 2022, Education Minnesota’s Political Action Committee (PAC) spent $5.4 million on statewide general…
Unlike the assassination attempt of former President Trump in Butler Pennsylvania in July, authorities have released very few details on the assassination attempt against President Trump this past Sunday in…
In June last year, I wrote that data show that families with children are fleeing the Twin Cities. Sadly, that is not all. Writing for the Institute for Family Studies,…
The U.S. needs to produce more critical minerals domestically, rather than sourcing them from overseas. A pair of House bills introduced last week recognizes the problem. S.5039 and S.5030 would…
Drilling down into local politics, we find an interesting story in the south Metro, illustrating a number of trends in state politics. The seven members of the Dakota County Board…
Last year’s legislative session in Minnesota, which concluded in May 2023, has been described as “historic.” And it was. For the first time in eight years, the state’s Democratic party…
Abdullahe Nur Jesow showed up more than 20 minutes late to court today, and when he finally arrived, he was in no mood to plead guilty. Jesow claimed to have…
As if Minnesota politics couldn’t get any weirder, a candidate for the state House of Representatives has been charged with two felony counts related to the theft of lawn signs…
It’s been gratifying watching the national media hold Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz accountable for his actions and polices. I say that as a former political operative who spent years trying…