Capitol View for May 16

Good morning. The Timberwolves have their backs to the wall, and so do state lawmakers.

Minnesota lawmakers picked up the pace Wednesday, moving through several sprawling bills and other measures. They have three voting days left. Dana Ferguson has the round up. Some items that advanced Wednesday: an education policy bill that would, among other things, prohibit local governments and school boards from being able to ban books in libraries; a proposal to set up extra systems to keep Black kids with their families in the child protection system; a bill that attempts to close gaps in opioid treatment program staffing and adds more transparency to certain nursing home transactions; and a bill that would set the state’s minimum wage at $10.85 an hour. Walz signed into law yesterday a bill that added clarification in the Minnesota Human Rights Act giving religious organizations some exemptions. Republicans had said they would gum up the consideration of the Equal Rights Amendment and some other bills unless Walz signed the religious exemption bill.

The participation of Sen. Nicole Mitchell in the session’s closing days remains a point of contention. Yesterday, Republicans tried again to disqualify the Woodbury DFLer. This time, they brought an expulsion motion, which was blocked and would have needed a two-thirds vote to succeed even if an up-or-down vote had been called. Later, Senate Republicans were able to add an amendment to a public safety bill that has a strong tie to Mitchell’s arrest on a suspected burglary charge. The clause would make it so body camera footage for incidents involving public officials could be subject to public release in many circumstances. It defines a public official as “a member of the state Legislature, the governor, the lieutenant governor, state auditor, attorney general or a commissioner of a state agency.” Attempts to get access to the footage in Mitchell’s April 22 arrest in Detroit Lakes haven’t been successful to date and her criminal case is still active.

Minnesota House Democrats are quietly pushing to overturn a major ruling on community solar. The Star Tribune’s Walker Orenstein reports that behind closed doors , House Democrats are negotiating with Senate Democrats on an energy policy package that could have a consequential impact on legislation that would speed up the clean energy permitting process. While the permitting bill is a top priority for many in the clean energy sector, it’s now becoming a bartering piece for community solar. Community solar is an alternative to rooftop solar and allows Xcel customers to subscribe to a shared third-party solar garden. In return, Xcel subscribers receive a bill credit from the utility for energy Xcel must take from the solar gardens. Critics argue the program is too expensive. Earlier this year, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission voted to shrink the credits Xcel subscribers receive from using the community solar gardens.

DFL lawmakers are also at odds over a housing policy bill and whether a voucher provision will make it through this year. DFLers scrapped a provision that would have required landlords to accept tenants who pay rent with housing vouchers, like Section 8. Senate Democrats said they would not have had enough votes to pass it on a floor vote. It caused a dustup yesterday. Representative Mike Howard called out DFL Senator Ron Latz for his opposition. "I think it is important for the public to know that the reason this bill is not moving forward is the Senate Judiciary Chair, Sen. Latz, has informed us that he would vote against this entire transportation, housing and labor bill if this provision is in our bill,” said Howard. Latz told MinnPost’s Peter Callaghan he has a philosophical disagreement with mandating that landlords take part in federal and state housing voucher programs.

Former President Donald Trump’s appearance Friday in Minnesota won’t be one of those arena- or tarmac-filling events. He’ll speak to an invite-only donor crowd. But Trump’s loyal base is getting ready to activate. In central Minnesota, one voter told MPR’s Mark Zdechlik : “From a personal point of view, never cared for the guy. But I would vote for him in a minute. He did more for the working people in this country than the last five, six presidents combined.” Trump’s campaign will need to run up the score in places just like it in greater Minnesota, pull back suburban voters who were cool to him four years ago and minimize the losing margin in urban areas if the GOP candidate has any shot to capture a state reliably in the Democratic presidential column since 1976 — the longest streak for Democrats anywhere. Mark is working on a voter portrait project, in part to detail how people are sizing up this campaign or what led them to their political beliefs.

President Joe Biden and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump have agreed to two presidential debates. CNN will host the first debate on June 27 and ABC will host the second on Sept. 10. The debates will circumvent the traditional debate process with the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which has organized presidential debates for more than three decades. There will be no audiences. The two campaigns and television networks had held weeks of informal talks on ways to circumvent the commission’s grip on presidential debates. The Biden administration has long held a grudge against the commission for failing to evenly apply its rules during the 2020 Biden-Trump matchups, most notably when the commission did not enforce COVID-19 rules against Trump. As for Trump, he’s had issues with the commission, too, objecting to technical issues at his first debate with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016.

A Minnesota woman is celebrating passage of the Federal Aviation Administration’s reauthorization by Congress — and it has to do with her efforts to assure dignified changing spaces at airports. Linda Hood, a Woodbury resident who was paralyzed after suffering from an autoimmune disease, lobbied hard for the law to put in stations for clean, accessible and private restroom spaces for people with disabilities to use while traveling through the nation’s airports. It requires medium and large airports to install the stations in passenger terminal buildings if they want to unlock improvement grants. It’s similar to requirements Hood had previously pushed successfully for a state-level law and inclusion of the stations in other public venues. “If I had to change while traveling, I would have to do it on the airport bathroom floor. In this day and age, that didn’t make sense,” Hood said in a news release. U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips took up her cause in Congress.