Good morning, and welcome to another Monday. 

The Legislature is on a break this week for Easter and Passover.  DFL House Speaker Melissa Hortman told me Friday that the time off is important and provides an opportunity for legislators to recharge before the final stretch of the 2022 session. Hortman said members have been meeting constantly in committees in recent weeks. “They’ve been working very, very long days,” Hortman said. “Very stressful conversations and debates to put bills together. So, I think the break will be good. It will allow everybody to kind of hit the reset button, get recharged.” 

Hortman also said she thinks DFL chances to keep control of the House in this year’s election are good, despite the headwinds facing Democrats such as the president’s low approval ratings, inflation and high gas prices. Hortman said her side can benefit from a geographic realignment and growing support in the suburbs. “There are a lot of suburban seats and there are places that are solid blue and getting more blue,” she said. Rep. Anne Neu Brindley, R- North Branch, said in a separate interview that Republicans are in a good position to flip the House and that they could take 80 of the House’s 134 seats. “Republicans are currently running about 10 points better than we were in 2016 when we came out with that historic majority,” Neu Brindley said.

Rep. Angie Craig said Monday she raised more than $1 million in the first quarter of the year for her 2nd District reelection campaign and has nearly $3.7 million on hand. “I continue to be blown away by the incredible levels of enthusiasm and excitement that are the driving force behind our campaign,” Craig said in a news release. Over the weekend 2nd District Republicans unanimously endorsed Tyler Kistner to run against Craig. “I am honored to be unanimously endorsed by the grassroots leaders in Minnesota’s Second District! Let’s defeat Angie Craig, retire Pelosi as Speaker, and restore proper representation to Minnesota’s Second District,” Kistner tweeted on Saturday.

DFL Rep. Betty McCollum is leading a delegation to Europe to get an update on the war in Ukraine. In a statement this morning the 4th District Democrat said, “I am leading my colleagues on a trip to Germany and Poland to assess the status of Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine and to hear directly from U.S. military officials on what more Congress can do to help the Ukrainian people defend themselves from Russia’s next offensive.” McCollum chairs the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. “Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was unprovoked, unjustified, and has led to countless horrific scenes of civilian casualties. When our delegation is in Poland, we will meet and discuss with Ukrainians about how the U.S. and the European Union can continue to support refugees fleeing the violence. We must remain united with our allies in our commitment to protect our shared democratic values that are under threat from this deadly Russian aggression,” McCollum said.

The Star Tribune reports Sen. Lindsey Port, DFL-Burnsville is struggling with long COVID. The 39-year-old mother of two originally came down with COVID-19 early in the pandemic, in March of 2020. Since then she has had a variety of lingering symptoms and even needed a short stint on dialysis. “It felt temporary after the initial infection. Maybe this will take a little while to figure out, but we'll figure it out," Port told reporter Briana Bierschbach. "Now it feels like it's time for me to also accept that this is, at least for now, my new normal."

MinnPost looked at why the proposed Page Amendment to the Minnesota Constitution isn’t likely to appear on the ballot this year. The amendment would make education a “fundamental right” of all children in Minnesota. Chief among the opponents is Education Minnesota, the statewide teachers’ union. From the piece: But it turns out the conservatives and liberals who oppose the idea are more powerful in the state Legislature than the conservatives and liberals who favor it. Neither the conservative chair of the Senate Education Committee nor the liberal chair of the House Education Policy Committee plan to hear the amendment this session.