Good morning, and welcome to another Monday — the first one of April.
Minnesota lawmakers will take a brief break later this week before launching into the final sprint of the legislative session. MPR’s Dana Ferguson reports debates over taxes, recreational cannabis, paid family and medical leave — as well as the bulk of a $72 billion budget proposal — are ahead. And details about what will make it through the DFL-controlled Capitol this year will become clearer in the next couple weeks. Ahead of the Easter/Passover recess, House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, said that the last few weeks of session would center on spending bills and that policy proposals might have to wait another year. “If we can get other things done, as we go with implementing the budget, then we'll get other things done. But anything that's not related to the budget is not essential and could time out this session,” Hortman said. And while the DFL majorities are talking about tax relief, they are also proposing raising some taxes and fees. Democrats say that because much of the budget surplus is one-time, the state needs to consider additional taxes and fees for areas that they expect will need ongoing spending. Republicans have opposed any new taxes and fees and said that with the current budget outlook in Minnesota, lawmakers shouldn’t have to go back to taxpayers for any new money.
Those proposed tax and fee increases could total about $2 billion, the Star Tribune reports: A metro area sales tax could fund housing assistance statewide. Fishing licenses and state park permit fees could climb. Workers and employers would foot the bill for paid family leave, starting in 2025. A slate of tax and fee increases would subsidize the transportation system, including an added delivery cost on everything from Amazon packages to pizza. The proposed costs for taxpayers come as the state has a massive projected $17.5 billion budget surplus. But Democrats who control the Legislature stressed that most of that is one-time money. "We're not going to solve our housing crisis with one-time resources," Rep. Mike Howard, DFL-Richfield, said as he proposed a quarter-percent metro sales tax. "We are also bringing in the new revenue that is desperately needed to address this challenge in the long term."
As noted here last week, President Joe Biden will be in Fridley this afternoon at the Cummins Power Generation Facility. He’s trying to convince Americans his party's efforts to pass major domestic spending initiatives are good investments in the nation's future. Cummins makes equipment used to produce hydrogen with minimal polluting carbon emissions. Last year's Inflation Reduction Act included billions of dollars for clean energy initiatives, including research to reduce the cost of producing clean hydrogen. Minnesota Republican Party Chair David Hann said Biden owes the nation an apology for his economic policies. “President Biden and the Democrats’ economic and fiscal policies have been a disaster for our state and country,” Hann said. “Their wasteful and reckless tax-and-spending sprees have driven inflation over four percent and real wages are down for almost two years running.”
A federal judge on Friday invalidated a Minnesota law that excludes adults under age 21 from obtaining permits to carry guns in public. MPR’s Brian Bakst reports: With the help of gun-rights groups, three people who were under 21 years old sued the state and some county sheriffs over a clause in a 2003 Minnesota law disqualifying them from getting a permit to have a gun in public. The case was filed in 2021. U.S. District Court Judge Katherine M. Menendez ruled that their constitutional rights had been violated. The judge barred the state from enforcing the law. “Based on a careful review of the record, the court finds that defendants have failed to identify analogous regulations that show a historical tradition in America of depriving 18 to 20-year-olds the right to publicly carry a handgun for self-defense,” Menendez wrote in a 50-page order. “As a result, the age requirement prohibiting persons between the ages of 18 and 20 from obtaining such a permit to carry violates the Second Amendment.” She suggested her hands were tied by a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2022 known as the Bruen decision. That, she said, elevates the constitutional protection over restrictions designed around a social or public safety purpose.
The Minneapolis City Council unanimously approved an extensive agreement Friday between the state and city requiring changes to the Minneapolis Police Department. MPR’s Jon Collins reports changes laid out in the 140-page pact include limits on the use of Tasers and other nonlethal weapons, restrictions on when officers can conduct traffic stops and changes to how officer use of force is defined and categorized. Police won’t be able to stop cars for minor infractions, such as a burned-out headlight. When they do make a stop, officers will have to give drivers a business card with their name and badge number. They’ll also be required to state the grounds for the traffic stop into their body camera before pulling a driver over and collect the demographic information of the driver. “We all know that we need to change the culture. We're also going to be insisting on accountability for everyone, for our officers, for our neighbors,” Mayor Jacob Frey told reporters following the council vote on the four year agreement. He conceded mistakes will happen going forward but said the agreement “takes the sting of politics” out of the discussion. “Change and improvement is going to take time and it's going to take resources.”
And a big election is coming up in Wisconsin tomorrow. NPR reports: It could change the political trajectory of Wisconsin, a perennial swing state by flipping the ideological balance of the state Supreme Court for the first time in 15 years. The race comes at a critical time for Wisconsin, with a challenge to the state's pre-Civil War abortion ban already working its way to the court and legal fights ahead of the next presidential election right around the corner. The stakes of the race go beyond a single issue. Should liberals win control of the court for the first time since 2008, they're almost certain to hear a challenge to Wisconsin's Republican-drawn redistricting maps, which have helped cement conservative priorities for more than a decade. The Democratic favorite County Judge Janet Protasiewicz is running against former state Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly, the Republican favorite. (Races for Supreme Court in Wisconsin are officially nonpartisan, but that's not how it works in practice.)
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