Good morning, and happy Tuesday.
A Minnesota House committee is scheduled to consider a plan today to allow the state to issue driver's licenses to people who are in the country without proper documentation. The plan has long faced opposition from Republicans at the Capitol, but with DFLers in control of all three levers of power it seems to have a clear path forward. Rep. Aisha Gomez, DFL- Minneapolis is carrying the bill and said passing it would improve public safety. "The community that will be impacted by this has been waiting for 15 years for the state Legislature to act,” Gomez said. “And it's past time for us to do so for purposes, of course, of their human dignity and for the safety of all drivers on the roads." Eighteen states and the District of Columbia allow people to apply for driver's licenses no matter their immigration status. Minnesota changed its law in 2003 to require applicants to show proof of lawful admission to the U.S. to receive a license. The Senate version of the bill is scheduled for its first hearing Wednesday.
Secretary of State Steve Simon wants the Legislature to adopt a number of voting law changes.MPR’s Dana Ferguson reports: Among them are plans to set up an automatic voter registration program, restore the right to vote to people convicted of a felony who complete their jail or prison sentence, let 16 and 17 year olds pre-register to vote and set in place gross misdemeanor charges for harassing or intimidating election workers. The requests came after Simon won a third term in November and was the top vote-getter in the state. He said voters sent a clear message to the Legislature that they trust Minnesota’s elections and want to make it easier for people to vote. “They spoke loudly and clearly,” Simon said. “They sent us a message and they gave us direction to build on our Minnesota success story as a leader in elections and voting, to further expand access, to erase disparities and to continue to innovate.” On new laws to protect election workers Simon said, "It takes 30,000 Minnesotans to step up and stand up and be election judges in their polling places on election day. They serve on the front lines of our democracy and increasingly they face threats and intimidation just for doing their work. That is unacceptable. And we need to make it clear that this behavior is not tolerated anywhere in Minnesota." Those proposals will likely have a friendlier audience at the Capitol now that Democrats control the House, Senate and governor’s office. DFL lawmakers days earlier put forward pieces of the plan Simon recommended. And they said that others would be forthcoming this legislative session.
The Minnesota House unanimously passed a bill Monday that lines up some state and federal tax deductions. Quick passage of what's called the tax conformity bill keeps the measure on track to get to the governor's desk by the end of this week. State officials say the $100 million in personal and business tax deductions should be in place when 2022 filing opens this month. Among the items it covers are COVID-19-related business loans, deductions tied to some student loans and writedowns of mortgage debt forgiveness. The Senate is also speeding the bill through, with a vote likely tomorrow.
U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger is targeting crimes committed with guns, including carjacking.MPR’s Matt Sepic talked to Luger about his focus on crime. “For us in Minnesota, it’s kind of a brand-new crime,” Luger said of carjackings. “When I arrived and I heard that there were over 600 carjackings in Minneapolis alone, that meant that we had to dive in and do something, and we’ve got a federal statute and we’ve got authority, and the FBI working together with the police can make it happen. These are such traumatic incidents for the victims.” Luger also notes that consequences in the federal system are often more severe, which can be a deterrent for potential carjackers. For one thing, there’s no parole, and people charged with violent crimes are typically held in pretrial detention. “In talking with offenders, that fact alone matters a great deal to them. If they know that the federal presence is larger and looming, it deters people,” Luger said. “One of the mistakes we think people make all the time is to assume that violent criminals don’t have any rational basis for what they do, and the data proves otherwise.”
A bill to extend unemployment benefits to laid off iron ore miners cleared its first legislative committee Monday. MPR’s Dan Kraker reports the bill is designed to help workers at Northshore Mining, which Cleveland Cliffs temporarily closed last April. The meant 410 workers were laid off at the mine in Babbitt and the pellet plant in Silver Bay on the North Shore. Their unemployment benefits began running out in November. A bill introduced by Sen. Grant Hauschild, DFL-Hermantown, would extend benefits for 26 weeks. John Arbogast with the Steelworkers union testified that dozens of workers have already left for other jobs. "So it's critical that we get this extension so we can stop the bleeding, stop the workers from moving out of state on to different jobs," Arbogast said. DFL leaders say they want to get a bill to Gov. Tim Walz quickly. Cliffs has said the earliest the mine could reopen is April.
The longest-serving current member of the Minneapolis City Council, Lisa Goodman, said Monday she won’t run for an eighth term.MPR’s Tim Nelson reports Goodman made the announcement in a message sent to constituents and posted online. Goodman was elected to the council in 1997, and has represented a shifting slice of the city through two rounds of redistricting. Her 7th Ward currently includes much of downtown, Bryn Mawr, the northern edge of Uptown and neighborhoods to the west to the city limits of Golden Valley and St. Louis Park. Goodman has been a supporter of development and listed “unprecedented investment and growth in downtown” among the notable achievements of her tenure. She noted that the residential population downtown has doubled.
The Justice Department is investigating after a batch of potentially classified documents were found in the Washington office space of President Joe Biden's former institute, the White House said Monday. The Associated Press has more: Special counsel to the president Richard Sauber said “a small number of documents with classified markings” were discovered as Biden's personal attorneys were clearing out the offices of the Penn Biden Center, where the president kept an office after he left the vice presidency in 2017 until shortly before he launched his 2020 presidential campaign in 2019. The documents were found on Nov. 2, 2022, in a “locked closet” in the office, Sauber said. Sauber said the attorneys immediately alerted the White House Counsel's office, who notified the National Archives and Records Administration — which took custody of the documents the next day. “Since that discovery, the President’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives,” Sauber said.
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