| | The Daily Digest for August 29, 2019 | | Posted at 6:15 a.m. by Mike Mulcahy |
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Good morning, and happy Thursday. Our friends from 1A will be at the State Fair at 9 this morning at the MPR booth where Gov. Tim Walz will be Joshua Johnson's guest. Stop by or listen on the radio. But in the meantime here's the Digest. 1. Hortman yanks Grossell's committee assignments. A Minnesota lawmaker who ran afoul of the law last spring lost his seats Wednesday on two legislative committees that deal with law enforcement issues. Police arrested and cited Rep. Matt Grossell, R-Clearbrook, for disorderly conduct and trespassing on May 4 following drunken altercations at a St. Paul hotel and a nearby hospital. House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL- Brooklyn Park, notified Grossell Wednesday that he is no longer on the judiciary and public safety committees. Hortman said the behavior described in police reports conflicts with the expectations of the House of Representatives, specifically noting that Grossell stated he was “in the House of Representatives” and “a retired police officer” as he confronted people during the altercations and said there would be “hell to pay” if he were arrested. “When someone seeks to use the fact that they are a state representative to secure special treatment, that warrants a reaction from the institution,” Hortman said. She made the decision after reviewing cases of past member misconduct, alcohol-related violations of the law and ethics complaints, Hortman said. Grossell, a retired Clearwater County sheriff’s deputy and former Blackduck police chief, agreed to enter a court diversion program. “Despite Speaker Hortman's efforts to remove law enforcement voices from the Public Safety Committee, I will continue to focus on efforts to make our communities safer and support the men and women in law enforcement who put their lives on the line each day to protect Minnesotans," he said. (MPR News)
2.Group files complaint against Omar. A conservative group known for filing campaign finance complaints against prominent Democrats asked federal regulators Wednesday to investigate U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., over her campaign spending. The National Legal and Policy Center seized on the latest controversy surrounding Omar, a first-term Democratic congresswoman who represents a Minneapolis-area district. The group wants the Federal Elections Commission to look into whether Omar spent campaign money inappropriately. The complaint relates to a divorce filing in Washington on Tuesday that alleged that Omar has had an extramarital affair with one of her top political consultants. The consultant’s firm has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars from Omar’s campaign, including on the man’s travel to events involving Omar. His wife filed for divorce. The group says the FEC needs to determine if there were campaign spending violations. The FEC currently has vacancies that leave it short of a quorum, raising concerns it won’t be in a position to adequately police campaign spending heading into the 2020 election. (MPR News)
3.More on the Omar story. Washington lawyer David Mitrani, who is representing Omar’s campaign and E Street Group, issued a statement calling charges that Omar or E Street “acted to skirt the law in any way is absolutely false, and completely unfounded.” The complaint is “nothing more than a political ploy … and just another example of the right wing’s attempts to ‘throw the kitchen sink’ at [Omar] and her allies,” Mitrani said. Richard Painter, the former chief ethics lawyer in George W. Bush’s White House and a University of Minnesota law professor, said the issue is whether the Omar campaign’s payments to E Street Group were “fair compensation.” The same question would apply if the campaign had paid an Omar relative, he said. “If I were the FEC I’d ask for backup material” to verify the expenditures’ validity, he said. Omar tweeted an image Wednesday of a death threat mailed to the DFL Party before the Mynett issue surfaced. “I hate that we live in a world where you have to be protected from fellow humans,” she added. The threat warned that her life will “end” at the Minnesota State Fair. Fair officials said in a statement that fairgoers are protected by “multiple law enforcement agencies and experts at every level.” A spokesman for Omar said Wednesday afternoon that the threat was reported to law enforcement and that she visited the State Fair earlier but has no plans to return. ( Star Tribune)
4. Ethanol waivers frustrate farmers. When President Donald Trump levied tariffs on China that scrambled global markets, farmer Randy Miller was willing to absorb the financial hit. Even as the soybeans in his fields about an hour south of Des Moines became less valuable, Miller saw long-term promise in Trump's efforts to rebalance America's trade relationship with Beijing. "The farmer plays the long game," said Miller, who grows soybeans and corn and raises pigs in Lacona. "I look at my job through my son, my grandkids. So am I willing to suffer today to get this done to where I think it will be better for them? Yes." But the patience of Miller and many other Midwest farmers with a president they mostly supported in 2016 is being put sorely to the test. The trigger wasn't Trump's China tariffs, but the waivers the administration granted this month to 31 oil refineries so they don't have to blend ethanol into their gasoline. Since roughly 40% of the U.S. corn crop is turned into ethanol, it was a fresh blow to corn producers already struggling with five years of low commodity prices and the threat of mediocre harvests this fall after some of the worst weather in years. "That flashpoint was reached and the frustration boiled over, and this was the straw that broke the camel's back," says Lynn Chrisp, who grows corn and soybeans near Hastings, Nebraska, and is president of the National Corn Growers Association. "I've never seen farmers so tired, so frustrated, and they're to the point of anger," says Kelly Nieuwenhuis, a farmer from Primghar in northwest Iowa who said the waivers were a hot topic at a recent meeting of the Iowa Corn Growers Association. Nieuwenhuis said he voted for Trump in 2016, but now he's not sure who he'll support in 2020. (AP via Mankato Free Press)
5. It was a good summer for the tourism business. Minnesota resorts, hotels and campgrounds reported a positive outcome following their busiest season of the year, a state tourism survey shows.Explore Minnesota on Tuesday, Aug. 27, released the results of a survey of 300 lodging business owners that showed more than half of those who responded said their financial health was positive heading into autumn. Summer is Minnesota's top earner in terms of tourism dollars. Forty-two percent of business owners said they saw a bump in their summer occupancy this year compared to the summer of 2018 and nearly half saw revenue jump this year as compared to last summer. Meanwhile, 27% said they saw their incomes stay flat and a little more than 23% reported a dip in revenue. "They had been telling us it was a really great summer but the survey we just completed really bears that our," said John Edman, director of state tourism promotion agency Explore Minnesota. "Overall it was a very good summer tourism season." A strong economy and cheap gas prices helped contribute to the stronger demand for vacations, weekend getaways or staycations, Edman said. And that boost in demand for accommodations appeared to be pretty evenly spread around the state.With the state's second-biggest tourist season right around the corner, businesses expressed optimism too about the next few months. Thirty-one percent of the resort, hotel and other lodging businesses surveyed said they expect to bring in more revenue this fall and 28% expect to see increased occupancy. Fourteen percent of respondents, meanwhile said they expect to bring in less revenue than a year ago an 15% expect occupancy numbers to be lower. (Inforum) | |
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