Good morning, and happy first Friday of the year. Here’s the Digest.
1. State DFL leaders defend GOP choice to list only Trump on presidential primary ballot. Two of Minnesota’s leading Democratic officeholders and the state DFL Party went to bat this week for a state law the Republican Party relied on to include only President Trump by name on the March presidential primary ballot. The odd bedfellows situation at the start of a supercharged 2020 election year comes in a case before Minnesota’s Supreme Court. The case attempts to open up the ballot to a Republican trying to challenge Trump while also undoing the law that led to it. In briefs filed by a Tuesday deadline, Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon and the state DFL Party argue for the preservation of party power in determining primary ballot line-ups. Simon, the defendant in the case, is represented by DFL Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office. “The state has a legitimate interest in avoiding a ‘laundry list’ ballot that contains the name of every would-be candidate, no matter how frivolous her candidacy,” the Simon brief says. If that happened, it goes on, “both Minnesota voters and their election system would suffer from the lengthy lists of candidates that would inevitably result.” The Minnesota DFL’s friend-of-the-court brief cites previous federal court decisions that “the major political parties’ freedom of association necessarily includes a right not to associate.” MPR News 2. Klobuchar courts Republican voters in New Hampshire. Sen. Amy Klobuchar's presidential campaign said Friday it raised $11.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, more than doubling its third quarter total. But she still trailed some of the other Democratic candidates in fundraising for the quarter. The Klobuchar campaign is targeting traditionally Republican towns that have been essentially ignored by other campaigns. One example is Wolfeboro, where opulent mansions like Mitt Romney’s $10 million, seven-bedroom summer home with a private boathouse overlook Lake Winnipesaukee. On Sunday, 200 people attended her town hall there. Klobuchar’s most recent debate performance has made a difference — particularly the ensuing spike in fundraising. The campaign said they are diverting resources to New Hampshire out of the $1 million Klobuchar raised following her well-received debate performance in December though they declined to disclose how much. A dozen Democrats and political watchers, including supporters, said a third-place finish here would be a huge victory. They largely agree she is seeing a surge, leading to a renewed interest from voters to attend a town hall, but wonder if it will be enough to vault her from the back of the pack. With 40 days to go before the first primary in the nation, it would take a massive investment for Klobuchar’s campaign operation here to match the size of better funded campaigns. Politico 3. Some lawmakers agree with Axtell on slavery reference in constitution. Some Minnesota lawmakers want to amend the state’s constitution to eliminate a little-known clause allowing slavery if someone has been convicted of a crime. “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the state otherwise than as punishment for a crime of which the party has been convicted,” the language in article 1, section 2 reads. In a Facebook post this week, St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell wrote that he has long been troubled by the clause. “Words matter,” he wrote. “That’s why I’m making it my 2020 resolution to raise awareness of this clause to ignite a movement among people who care about doing what’s right—a movement to champion an amendment removing slavery from the Minnesota State Constitution.” Already, his post has prompted action from state lawmakers. Rep. John Lesch, DFL-St. Paul, said he plans to draft a constitutional amendment to change the language and will hold hearings on the issue during the 2020 legislative session that begins next month. "It does to seem to me that having an exception for slavery is really, really a problem," said Lesch, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee. "The constitution we live under as Minnesotans is our values document ,and we shouldn't keep legacy language in for the sake of history because the history is there, and the reasons for our changing it would be well documented history as well." Constitutional amendments need only a simple majority vote in both the House and Senate to head to the ballot. "Slavery and involuntary servitude are obviously no longer relevant to our laws,” said Republican Sen. Warren Limmer, who chairs the judiciary committee in the upper chamber. “I'm surprised this hasn't come up before." MPR News 4. Ellison wants review of public defender’s suspension. Attorney General Keith Ellison on Thursday called for the Minnesota Board of Public Defense to examine the process that led to the suspension of Hennepin County's chief public defender, saying he believes Mary Moriarty was targeted for speaking out against racial bias in the criminal justice system. Separately, law clerks and lawyers in Moriarty's office wrote to the board in her defense, praising her leadership and commitment to clients and calling for her reinstatement. And dozens of public defenders and public interest attorneys outside Minnesota signed onto a letter objecting to her suspension. “When I hear that she’s in trouble because she tweeted something about a lynching, or spoke up about racial injustice, that’s just incredibly disappointing,” Ellison said Thursday, criticizing what he called a lack of transparency surrounding Moriarty's suspension. “And the way this has been handled raises serious questions about due process.” Moriarty, appointed in 2014, was put on paid leave last week. Moriarty said she was summoned by State Public Defender Bill Ward and three members of the board's personnel committee. She said they expressed concerns about her management style, what they called inflexibility with other criminal justice officials and confrontations on the issue of racial inequality. They also questioned a series of Tweets about historic lynchings in the Deep South, she said. The Associated Press
5. Arrests for impaired driving rise. The number of people being arrested for driving while impaired in Minnesota is on the rise, and it’s not just drunken drivers police are catching. A majority of the 27,975 motorists cited for driving while impaired (DWI) last year had too much alcohol in their system, according to preliminary data released Thursday by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. But a growing number of drivers arrested for being impaired by substances other than alcohol — namely cannabis, opioids and methamphetamine — contributed to a nearly 5 percent increase in DWI arrests last year when compared with 2018. “The fact that we see those numbers going up does cause us some concern,” said Mike Hanson, director of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s Office of Traffic Safety. “There is no reason for us to arrest nearly 28,000 Minnesotans for DWI.” The number of annual arrests for driving under the influence peaked in 2006 at 42,000, and dropped for about a decade before rising in the last couple years. Star Tribune
Finally, if you’ve ever wondered how the “shorts protest” at Dartmouth College in 1930 relates to how some people dress in Minnesota in the winter, this is the piece for you. Star Tribune | 