Good morning and happy Tuesday.
The DFL-controlled Minnesota Legislature has chosen three new University of Minnesota regents, ahead of a meeting later this week when the board will review candidates to lead the school on an interim basis following the departure of current president Joan Gabel. MPR’s Matt Sepic reports: West St. Paul City Council Member Robyn Gulley is joining the 12-member panel that governs the U along with former Allina Health CEO Dr. Penny Wheeler and Mary Turner, president of the Minnesota Nurses Association. All would serve six-year terms. Lawmakers also re-appointed Regent Tadd Johnson, who became the first Native American regent last July. Johnson, a former professor, tribal attorney and tribal court judge, is a member of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa. Before his appointment, Johnson retired from his position as the U’s first senior director of American Indian Tribal Nations relations.
Minnesota lawmakers are considering a proposal to allow guns to be temporarily taken away from people who pose a risk to themselves or others. But as MPR’s Mark Zdechlik reports , there’s not a lot of evidence about whether red flag laws actually reduce gun deaths. Jennifer Paruk at Michigan State University's School of Criminal Justice studies extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs). “Researchers have found that ERPOs are being used when there is a risk of suicide, and there is a small body of evidence to suggest that ERPOs may reduce firearm suicide,” Paruk said. “However, more research is definitely needed.” Paruk said there is also early evidence extreme risk protection orders could help prevent mass shootings. She and other researchers examined circumstances behind all such orders filed in a half dozen states. “We found that almost 10 percent of ERPOs are being filed after mass shooting threats,” Paruk said. “Mass shooters sometimes tell someone about their plans, giving an opportunity for intervention.” Still, law enforcement in Minnesota is divided on extreme risk protection orders.
I passed along some bad information yesterday. The Minnesota Senate will actually debate a tax bill today. The Pioneer Press has a look at where the Senate DFL approach differs with the House: With rebates for taxpayers, credits for families and new revenues, there are a lot of similarities in how Democrats in the House and Senate want to change the taxes Minnesotans pay, but there are also some key differences. The biggest discrepancies? The Senate proposal raises less new tax revenue than the House proposal, and it allows dozens of local communities to hike sales tax rates. The House version excludes those local sales tax requests and adds in a new income tax tier.
An early push at the Capitol for statewide ranked choice voting has come up short. MinnPost reports: It began this session of the Minnesota Legislature as a bill that would have triggered statewide ranked choice voting in time for the 2026 election and allowed all local governments to do so sooner. As it stands with three weeks to go in the 2023 legislative session, all of that is gone. Only a 33-member task force remains in the bill, and ranked choice voting would be just one of many election issues that task force would study along with voter engagement, education and any other possible changes to election systems. “We need to not presume that ranked choice voting is the objective of the task force,” said Senate Elections Committee Chair Jim Carlson, DFL-Eagan. “It is to find out what the alternatives are, what is workable.” Even that — and a $500,000 price tag — is not guaranteed to survive a House-Senate conference committee. The House bill does not have any new ranked choice voting provisions.
The debate over legalizing marijuana has spawned a lawsuit from two people involved in the hemp industry. The Star Tribune has the story: Steven Brown and Glenn McElfresh, two outspoken hemp industry advocates and business owners, are suing the main lobbying group pushing for recreational marijuana legalization, accusing it and one of its associates of defaming them online and intentionally inflicting emotional distress. They allege that the pro-legalization nonprofit MN is Ready, and Crested River Cannabis Company owner Shawn Weber, attacked them for raising concerns about how the marijuana legalization bill might affect the hemp industry. "I got threats online from people," said Brown, owner of Nothing But Hemp. "People were believing that my company was not for full legalization, which is not true." MN is Ready issued a statement last week calling the lawsuit a "frivolous public relations stunt" backed by "two of the most vocal opponents of legalization."
Xcel Energy's plan to install a battery storage system in central Minnesota is getting a financial boost. MPR’s Kirsti Marohn reports: Earlier this year, Xcel announced plans to partner with Massachusetts-based Form Energy to install iron-air battery systems at two retiring coal plants in Becker, Minn. and Pueblo, Colo. Now, Breakthrough Energy Catalyst has agreed to commit $20 million in grant funding for the projects. The funding platform, part of a company started by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, invests in emerging technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The battery systems will allow Xcel to store renewable energy when it is produced, then distribute it later, when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing.
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