MPR News PM Update
Capitol View
By Mike Mulcahy

Good morning, and happy Tuesday. 


About 15,000 members of the Minnesota Nurses Association in the twin Cities and Duluth have voted to authorize a strike. MPR’s Michelle Wiley reports: The vote sets up another phase in negotiations that go back to last March, according to the union. The disagreements appear to be over staffing levels, working conditions and paid family leave. Union officials say one of the biggest issues is retention and that understaffing contributes to overwork. They say nurses are caring for twice as many patients as normal, they're having to skip breaks, are becoming burned out and leaving the profession altogether. While the conditions existed before the COVID-19 pandemic, they are worse now.


Republican Scott Jensen is accusing DFL Gov. Tim Walz of ducking debates after Walz declined an invitation from MPR News to debate at the State Fair. “Governor Walz is literally hiding from Minnesota voters and refusing to have a discussion of the issues,” Jensen said in a statement. “While I understand that he’s embarrassed of his record on runaway inflation and out of control crime, it is the right of Minnesotans to hear from their elected officials.” So far the only time Jensen and Walz have debated was at FarmFest two weeks ago. 


Walz said Monday that more Minnesota students will be eligible for school meals this coming academic year because the state has been accepted to a new federal pilot program. The program through the U.S. Department of Agriculture will automatically enroll more than 200,000 students who are on Medicaid to get free school meals — about 90,000 of them had not been enrolled in programs to get the meals up until now.  Walz said the new program is important because federal waivers that made all students eligible for school meals the past two years during the pandemic have expired. “This project means fewer children will go hungry at school next year, and we know that’s the number one way we can help students succeed,” Walz said in a statement. Minnesota was one of 8 states selected for the USDA pilot program. 


Two former Minneapolis police officers rejected last and final plea deals in state court Monday for their roles in George Floyd’s killing.MPR’s Jon Collins reports: Prosecutors had offered Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng sentences of 36 months for pleading guilty to aiding and abetting manslaughter, according to prosecutor Matthew Frank. The former officers would have served that time in federal prison because they’ve both already been sentenced to more than three years in prison for federal crimes. Both men rejected the plea deals. 


The mayor of Minneapolis laid out his budget plan Monday.The Star Tribune has the story: Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey proposed that the city spend more money on police, mental health teams and traffic control agents as local leaders work to create a new safety office and transition to a new form of government. The mayor's proposal — which calls for $1.6 billion in spending in 2023 and $1.7 billion in 2024 — also includes money for programs aimed at improving the quality of public housing, treating opioid addiction and combating climate change. "Behind this budget is the well-intentioned goal to make our city better — now," Frey said in a budget address Monday morning. "We have no time to waste."


Voters in North Dakota in November will decide whether marijuana should be legal there.Inforum reports: Secretary of State Al Jaeger announced on Monday that his office validated more than 23,000 signed petitions turned in by the pro-legalization sponsoring group — well over the 15,582 signature threshold. Jaeger's office rejected about 2,700 signatures turned in by the group, mostly for being incomplete or failing to state an address. New Approach North Dakota’s proposed measure would legalize the possession and purchase of small amounts of marijuana for adults 21 and older. The 19-page statutory measure would also allow adult residents to grow limited amounts of cannabis and implement policies to regulate retail marijuana stores.

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