Good morning, and welcome to Thursday. Let’s take a look at the Digest.
1.What if there were a campaign between two opponents who knew and respected each other, spoke well of one another and focused on the issues? What if the voters said they liked both candidates? Believe it or not, it’s happening in the far northwest corner of Minnesota whereDemocrat Kip Fontaine and Republican Mark Johnson are competing for the seat that was held for a long time by DFL state Sen. LeRoy Stumpf, who is also one of the nicest people you could ever have the chance to meet. (MPR News)
2.Efforts to help some Minnesotans avoid a looming spike in their health insurance costs were stymied again Wednesday by another round of pre-election finger pointing. DFL Gov. Mark Dayton said it's up to legislative leaders to set politics aside and find a short-term fix. But Republican House Speaker Kurt Daudt accused the governor of a "dereliction of leadership" on the issue and said Dayton should resign if his administration doesn’t fix the problems. Dayton and Daudt have now held competing news conferences and exchanged letters on the issue, but neither has yet picked up the phone to try to work out a deal. (MPR News)
3. The Twin Cities suburbs are ground zero in the battle for control of the Minnesota House. Here’s a look at the campaign for the seat held byRep. Sarah Anderson, R-Plymouth, who is running for a sixth term.Ginny Klevorn, is the DFL candidate hoping to unseat her. (Star Tribune)
4. A lawsuit challenging teacher tenure laws was dismissed Wednesday by a Ramsey County judge. The suit argued that teacher tenure protects bad teachers at the expense of low income students and students of color. The suit, which was opposed by the teachers’ union Education Minnesota and by the state, was similar to two others filed in other states, including one that succeeded in California. (MPR News)
5. Utah Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz says if Hillary Clinton is elected president and he still chairs the House Oversight Committee, he’s going to be spending a lot of time investigating Clinton. "It's a target-rich environment," he said. "Even before we get to Day One, we've got two years' worth of material already lined up. She has four years of history at the State Department, and it ain't good." (Washington Post)
6. One of the hacked documents released by WikiLeaksrefers to the money-making part of former President Clinton's life as "Bill Clinton Inc." and says that the global education firm Laureate International Universities began paying Clinton personally after first being a donor to the Clinton Foundation. The memo was written by an aide trying to defend himself as Chelsea Clinton was pushing for changes in how the Clinton Foundation was governed. (Politico)
