Good morning. Oh, the weather outside is frightful…
People have opinions — lots of them — about what Minnesota’s flag should look like. A call for public submissions for the flag and a corresponding seal has attracted more than 1,300 ideas. And that was days ahead of a Monday night deadline for getting entries in. We should get final numbers this morning. That’s step one. The next move is to narrow down the field to five entries for each emblem later this month. Then, new ones get picked by year’s end.
Getting a job with the state comes with one less hurdle today. MPR’s Dana Ferguson has more on an executive order from Gov. Tim Walz . It relaxes educational attainment requirements associated with many positions in the executive branch. A four-year college degree will no longer be a requirement for most state jobs. The DFL governor said dropping the condition for 75 percent of state positions could increase the pool of potential applicants and make the slots more accessible. Because it’s via executive order, a future governor could just as easily reverse course.
Dana also sends more information about a curiously chatty Gov. Walz. He went on a posting spree Sunday on X — the former Twitter — during the Vikings-Packers game. There were dad jokes, cringy posts, unsolicited play-calling advice, jabs at his Wisconsin peer (“You Ok?” he asked of Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers as the Vikings notched the win) and culinary questions about chip dips. About that query about pico and salsa, Walz said he got an answer: "Andrew Zimmern explained to me the difference between salsa and Pico (de gallo) so I learned something in all that tweeting. So that's good." Walz said he enjoyed the feedback on his posts, which flowed freely and clearly without staff intervention.
A round of automatic expungements for certain offenses under Minnesota’s Clean Slate Act are more than a year off. But MPR’s Peter Cox says state officials are reminding Minnesotans of existing avenues to seal criminal histories. Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office is holding a clinic for people who'd like to get offenses from their past expunged from their record. The event is Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. in Minneapolis. The Star Tribune also wrote about the issue discussed in a news conference yesterday.
Newcomers are assured on the Minneapolis city council. In his latest installment on city elections, MPR’s Jon Collins takes a look at the turnover ahead in Ward 7, where Lisa Goodman has served for more than a quarter century.
We’re waiting on a judge to rule in a case challenging Minnesota’s new law around voting eligibility for people with felony records. MPR’s Matt Sepic and Nicole Ki were at a hearing in an Anoka County courtroom yesterday. It’s one of multiple challenges to the law that restores voting rights to people upon leaving jail or prison. A conservative group argues that the Legislature is being too selective in which civil rights it restores; lawyers for the state say that doesn’t mean the law is invalid.
Dean Phillips won’t have the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary to himself. The AP reports there will be names of 21 Democrats on the ballot; incumbent President Joe Biden isn’t one of them, although his backers plan a write-in effort. There are 24 Republicans competing on that side of the ballot. | 