One of the few significant bills to pass the Minnesota Legislature this year was an energy conservation bill that requires utilities to make bigger annual cuts to energy use. Though the propane industry and Chamber of Commerce were opposed, the measure passed with bipartisan majorities after amendments to mollify some critics. [Read more from MinnPost's Walker Orenstein]
An attempt to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is foundering as prominent Republicans come out against it. [Read more from NPR's Claudia Grisales]
Behind the concern: Many Republican lawmakers who have been open to the commission fear its findings will be a "distraction" from 2022 campaign messages about taxes and public safety, or that Democrats will "weaponize" the commission's findings against them. But: if the bipartisan commission doesn't pass, Democrats will probably go ahead with a more partisan investigation anyway. So Republicans need to weigh the extra influence on the proceedings they'd get by endorsing a bipartisan commission, against refusing to participate and denying it the bipartisan veneer given to past reports like the 9/11 Commission and the Warren Commission. [Read more from CNN's Manu Raju]
The Supreme Court's decision to take up an abortion rights case with its new 6-3 conservative majority has many people either hoping or fearing that the court could overturn or significantly weaken Roe v. Wade. If that were to happen, nothing would immediately change in Minnesota, where abortion is legal based on a state court ruling. [Read background from former MPR News reporter Briana Bierschbach]
But 10 states have laws on the books that would likely make abortion illegal the moment the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of those bans, while another 12 are considered likely to pass such bans promptly. That would lead to the closest abortion clinic closing for an estimated 41 percent of childbearing-age women, and thus to fewer abortions conducted in the United States. Though abortion would remain legal in Minnesota, counties in western Minnesota would likely be impacted by the closure of clinics in Fargo and Sioux Falls. [ Read more from Quoctrung Bui, Claire Cain Miller and Margot Sanger-Katz in the New York Times]
But it's impossible to predict the long-term impact on abortion rights in the United States if Roe v. Wade were overturned. (Remember, overturning Roe wouldn't ban abortion nationwide, it would just let states ban it.) In a provocative 2006 piece (written at another time when people speculated the Supreme Court was about to revisit abortion precedent), Jeffrey Rosen argued that in the long run, overturning Roe might lead to a new increase in abortion rights in the U.S., by driving a wedge between anti-abortion activists who want total abortion bans, and the sizable share of electorate who oppose abortion in most cases but support it in certain circumstances, such as when the health of the mother is at risk. [Read more]
The Biden administration has abandoned President Donald Trump's attempt to buy Greenland from Denmark, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this week while on a visit to Copenhagen. [Read more from Matthew Lee of The Associated Press]
Yesterday I reported on the New House Republican caucus expelling Rep. Erik Mortensen. Last night, Mortensen discussed his ouster in a Facebook Live video, criticizing fellow Republicans who had urged him to get along better with other lawmakers and declaring, "I'm not going to change." [Read more from the Reformer's Ricardo Lopez]
Something completely different: Let's get really different here with a recipe. My go-to way to cook steaks now comes from this Taste of Home entry: sear a steak (ideally a tender filet) on both sides over the stove, remove, sauté mushrooms in some red wine, add some broth, flour, and a range of mustards and steak sauces, then add the steaks back in and let them finish cooking in the reducing sauce. The result is incredibly tender and needs only one pan. [Read the recipe]
Listen: Apparently I forgot to update my music recommendation in yesterday's newsletter! Oops. For today, check out the languid flow of English rapper Loyle Carner in "Isle of Arran." [Watch]
