Good morning. Here’s your Digest:
1. Minnesotans divided on eve of impeachment vote. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to vote Wednesday on two articles of impeachment against President Trump, Minnesotans are split. Outside the State Capitol in St. Paul Tuesday night, hundreds of people rallied in favor of impeachment. Sue Scott of Edina said Americans need to speak up. “You have to make a statement that what he has done is unconstitutional and worthy of impeachment. And if the Republicans in the Senate won’t remove him from office, that’s too bad, but you have to set a limit somewhere,” she said. Earlier Tuesday at Kay's Kitchen in St. Joseph, diners said their support for the president remains strong even as he faces the biggest challenge of his presidency. Bruce Batzer of Avon, who runs a road construction business, said he doesn’t think Trump did anything that warrants impeachment, including the president’s July 25 phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump asked Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. “This president holds everyone accountable. These countries are only our friends because we pay them to be our friends. I don't care what he says to them or how he handles them. I think he's the greatest and most powerful president that I've ever seen,” Batzer said. MPR News
2. Crowded presidential primary ballot on the Democratic side. Fifteen Democrats running for president will appear on Minnesota’s March 3 primary ballot — far beyond the single name on the Republican side and creating the likelihood some candidates will be options after they’ve ended their bids. Minnesota votes on Super Tuesday along with more than a dozen other states in the first multi-state showdown of the nomination season. The field could very well shrink in February as Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada play their traditional early roles. By Minnesota law, the names are locked in. But people who had cast a ballot as early as Jan. 17 through the absentee process will have a chance to replace their ballot if they act quickly enough. MPR News
3. Minnesota is getting tough on wage theft. Wage theft is now defined in state law as when an employer fails to pay an employee their earned wages. That could mean withholding a paycheck or overtime payments, or simply failing to pay the state minimum wage. And violations now come with stiff criminal penalties, ranging from $1,000 to $100,000 in fines and up to 20 years in prison, depending on the severity of the theft. It’s one of the toughest wage theft laws in the nation. Minnesota is one of only two states that makes it a felony in some cases. And the state is taking enforcement seriously. The Department of Labor and Industry is hiring seven new staffers dedicated solely to investigate wage theft claims and Democratic Attorney General Keith Ellison has added two attorneys to his office who will handle cases where employers appear to have clearly broken the law. “As soon as we put up the flag we got calls, a lot of calls,” Ellison said. “What could be more important than being able to put food on the table for your family? If you’re promised a certain amount of money and you don’t get it, that’s incredibly frustrating.” MPR News
4. Mining study removed from spending bill. Language that would have required a study of the impact of copper-nickel mining on the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness was dropped from the Department of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill this week. It would have commissioned a report from the National Academy of Sciences "on the impacts on ecosystem services of the Superior National Forest and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness resulting from a Twin Metals sulfide-ore copper mine located in the watershed of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness" but it was removed from the final agreement by White House negotiators, a spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, D-St. Paul, who authored the bill, confirmed to the News Tribune Tuesday. Twin Metals, owned by Chilean mining conglomerate Antofagasta, is hoping to build a large underground copper-nickel mine near Ely, within the Rainy River Watershed and on the edge of the BWCAW. Duluth News Tribune
5. Liberians welcome residency measure. Minnesota’s Liberian community celebrated the passage of a long-awaited measure that gives permanent residency to those who have been living here for decades under temporary protections. The U.S. Senate on Tuesday approved the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which included an amendment that offered a path to American citizenship for Liberians currently under Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) status. The measure, which passed the House last week and President Donald Trump has said he will sign, would prevent the deportation of many Liberians that was set to take place after March 31. “We are very happy,” said Erasmus Williams, chairman of the Liberian Immigration Coalition. “We are pleased. This will bring a lot of relief … It’s something that’s overdue.” Many Liberians fleeing civil war in the 1990s were given temporary protected status to stay in the U.S. — with no path to American citizenship — and became part of the DED program in 2007. They faced the prospect of deportation under administrations of both parties, with continual extensions. Star Tribune | 