Good morning. Congratulations, we've made it to the first Friday of Autumn. Let's celebrate by checking the Digest. 1. Trump will hold a rally in Minneapolis. President Trump is headed back to Minnesota for a political rally as impeachment proceedings start in Washington.
Trump’s campaign says he’ll host an Oct. 10 rally at Target Center. It’s just the latest appearance in a state the Republican president is targeting for his reelection effort in 2020. No Republican has won Minnesota in a presidential race since 1972, but Trump came within a couple of percentage points in 2016. The president has said repeatedly he believes he can win Minnesota next year. In announcing the rally, the Trump campaign focused on job gains during his term. Trump was last in Minnesota in April for a round table meeting. Last year, he held political rallies in Duluth and Rochester. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, declared Trump an unwelcome visitor. “Under ordinary circumstances, it would be an honor to welcome a sitting president of the United States to Minneapolis and to showcase all our city has to offer on the national stage,” Frey said in a statement Thursday. ”But these aren’t ordinary circumstances. Since taking office President Trump’s actions have been reprehensible and his rhetoric has made it clear that he does not value the perspectives or rights of Minneapolis’ diverse communities.” MPR News 2. Emmer says Democrats will pay for impeachment. Rep. Tom Emmer represents the state's 6th District and heads up the Republican effort to win back control of the House next year as chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Emmer put out a statement earlier this week opposing the effort, and in an interview Thursday said Wednesday’s release by the White House of a partial transcript of Trump’s telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy strengthened his opposition. “There is no basis whatsoever in the transcript that was released to support an impeachment, let alone an impeachment proceeding,” Emmer said, adding that Democrats will pay a political price for the move. “Their obsession with their hatred for this president will cost them their majority next year.” Emmer said Democrats would have been smarter to wait until next year’s election to try to defeat Trump. “They have accomplished nothing,” he said of the Democratic House majority. As to whether Republicans would have a different view if a Democrat were in the White House, Emmer said some Republicans wanted to conduct similar investigations of President Barack Obama, but “nobody took the bait.” MPR News 3. Impeachment is a teachable momen t. When social studies teacher Mark Westpfahl heard on Tuesday that the House would begin a formal impeachment inquiry of President Trump, he knew he needed to change up his lesson plans for the next day. "Immediately following school, turned on the radio in the car and Nancy Pelosi was on the radio,” said Westpfahl. “Immediately I said, 'We're changing it.” Westpfahl is a middle school teacher at Capitol Hill Magnet in St. Paul. He wanted to make sure his students understood the process and history of impeachment. When he told his seventh graders that his lesson would help them understand impeachment better than most adults, the room erupted in cheers. Westpfahl put together a worksheet of questions on impeachment and then scattered answers around the room in boxes for his students to find. Then he turned on dramatic music from the Harry Potter soundtrack because, as he said, impeachment is a dramatic event. MPR News
4. AFSCME looks for a new leader. The head of an influential Minnesota public employee union is out. It comes about six weeks after he was placed on leave during a misconduct investigation that officials have declined to detail. John Westmoreland, who had been executive director of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Council 5, submitted his resignation to the board this week. Westmoreland couldn’t be reached for comment. Pete Benner, a longtime labor official who had been leading AFSCME amid the investigation, said Thursday that the union’s executive board appointed Julie Bleyhl as interim executive director. Bleyhl has been the main lobbyist for the union at the Capitol for decades and also served previously as a University of Minnesota regent and state colleges system trustee. She didn’t immediately respond to a phone call or text message. “She is the interim executive director and will help lead the search process for a permanent executive director,” Benner said. He said there is no timetable for filling the position. “People will want to fill it sooner rather than later, but I can’t tell you how long the search will take,” Benner said. The union representing more than 17,000 state employees across the state is a key force in Democratic politics, making its stability a source of interest heading into a high-stakes election year. MPR News
5.State's aging workforce starting to pinch. Minnesotans stayed among the nation’s top earners last year, with wage growth that outpaced inflation. New annual data that the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday more broadly depicted a state that is wealthier and pays more equitably than most. But the bureau’s American Community Survey also showed that Minnesota is starting to feel more effects from the accelerating retirement of baby boomers, which has caused stagnation in the state’s workforce for two years. And the flow of immigrants remained lower than it was in the middle of the decade, another constraint on the state’s job base. “We need it to be going in the other direction from a workforce perspective,” state demographer Susan Brower said as she examined the voluminous release. The size of the state’s workforce has held steady at just under 3 million for about a year and the pace of job growth has slowed to around 10,000 a year, down from 50,000 annually at the start of this decade. The new Census Bureau data, produced from a survey of more than 2 million households, provides the nation’s most regular look at state-level income and population trends. It’s also an annual check on income inequality, a condition that shapes broader growth and consumption. Star Tribune. |
