Good morning. My tomato plants have nearly tripled in size over the last few days.
Gov. Tim Walz said he accepts responsibility after a report found his administration failed to stop what federal prosecutors call the biggest pandemic fraud case in the nation. A report from the legislative auditor published last week said “actions and inactions” by the Department of Education opened the door for fraud in taxpayer-funded child nutrition programs. Last week, a jury convicted five of seven defendants affiliated with Feeding Our Future. Dozens more have been charged in this case. Clay Masters reports on the first comments by Walz, who said there wasn’t malfeasance at the state Department of Education. But he said, “They simply didn’t do as much due diligence as they should have.”
Across the country, state legislatures are becoming more politically polarized. It’s happening in Minnesota, too, where recent years have seen more moderate Minnesota lawmakers step down. Dana Ferguson spoke to some retiring members of the Legislature who said that political divides were among the reasons that spurred them to step down. Across the country, political experts say they’re seeing similar stall outs as political polarization from the national level trickles down to state legislative candidates. You can read the installment of our Talking Sense series here.
Former Senate Majority Leader Kari Dziedzic has a revealing opinion piece about her health struggles in today's Star Tribune. Dziedzic writes about being hit with six-figure treatment bills, having to struggle to get proper medical equipment to deal with complications and reveals that she now moves around in a wheelchair because her mobility has been so impaired by cancer and subsequent treatments. The Minneapolis DFLer says she'll use her own experience to fight up for changes to state health policy.
Gov. Tim Walz held a ceremonial bill signing yesterday for the so-called Minnesota Debt Fairness Act. Aspects of the law will begin to go into effect in August. It bans medical providers from withholding medically-necessary care because of unpaid debt. It also eliminates transfers of medical debt to a patient’s spouse. And it prevents medical debt from impacting credit scores and creates a new process to help people dispute medical coding and billing errors.
Some third-party candidates have qualified for the ballot this November. The Independence-Alliance Party of Minnesota will have two candidates listed: Joyce Lacey, running for U.S. Senate against Amy Klobuchar, and Creedence Petroff, running for state Representative in a Luverne-area district. In a press release, the party’s leaders said they have renewed conversations with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his campaign on potentially offering endorsement. There is incentive for the party because a strong showing by Kennedy could mean a pathway to major-party status for the Independence-Alliance Party. The Libertarian Party of Minnesota will also have two candidates listed on the ballot: Rebecca Whiting is part of the U.S. Senate Race and T.J. Hawthorne will run in North St. Paul-area House district 44B. Read more about the odds third-party candidates have this year here.
State senators say they were prepared to filibuster on the final night of session to stop the sports betting bill. Rochelle Olson of the Star Tribune reports that Sen. Erin Maye Quade warned her DFL colleague, Sen. Matt Klein, that she and others would filibusters for hours if he brought up the sports betting legalization bill. The coalition of DFL-ers and at least one conservative contradicts the post-session narrative that the Legislature simply ran out of time to get an agreed-upon sports betting bill across the finish line. In the final days of session, Democrats heavily criticized Republicans for filibustering to block bills they disagreed with, something it apparently seems their own party was doing behind closed doors. In response to the article, Sen. Maye Quade posted on X that, “It wasn’t a plan to filibuster, it was a plan to have the debate that’s needed.” | 
