Good morning, and welcome to another Monday.
The Minnesota Legislature has a week to go until it takes a break for Easter and Passover, and MPR’s Brian Bakst reports it’s working on big budget and policy bills containing numerous changes to law or spending. Maybe to no one’s surprise, the mega-plans taking shape in the Republican-led Senate and DFL-led House are vastly different. It’s a foreboding sign as the Legislature decides what to do with a projected $9.25 billion surplus, some or much of which could be left uncommitted if lawmakers can’t reach a compromise. Normally in even-year sessions, lawmakers buff around the edges of a budget passed the year before – perhaps to fill in a shortfall or tack on some extra money because of a surplus. But there’s so much money this time that the list of new or expanded programs under consideration is quite long. So are tax cuts of all varieties. House and Senate leaders both say they plan to have several topic-focused omnibus bills rather than one or two giant supplemental budget bills as has happened in the past. Senate Majority Leader Jeremy Miller, R-Winona, explained why. “It's too hard for the public to follow along with that. Frankly, it's too hard for legislators to follow that process,” Miller said. “So I've made a commitment to legislators and, frankly, the people of Minnesota that we are not going to do one large supplemental budget bill.”
MPR’s Mark Zdechlik reports about a push at the Capitol to make a financial literacy class a requirement for students to graduate from high school. Rep. Hodan Hassan, DFL-Minneapolis, worries that many of her young constituents and other students around Minnesota are not getting enough information in school about how to manage money. “I finished high school without knowing anything about personal finances,” said Hassan, 40, who said she learned the hard way. “I went to college and got myself into a lot of debt, and I thought I was the only person that was struggling with managing personal finances,” Hassan said. “Then I talked to some of my friends who are either immigrants or from communities of color, and I realized that many of us were struggling with this because money is not something that families with lower socio-economics talk about.” There is no requirement in Minnesota that students take a stand-alone course on personal finance. Hassan is pushing legislation that would require all students to take such a class before graduating. In Minnesota, communities of color consistently lag the majority white population in income, employment, home ownership and other measures of wealth. There are likely many reasons for that, but Hassan and others believe that educating students about financial literacy may help begin to change it.
Minnesota Republicans are hoping to repeat what happened in Virginia last year.Briana Bierschbach at the Star Tribune reports: The "Virginia model" is being talked up by the field of Republican governor candidates and in memos from national groups targeting Minnesota legislative races this fall. They're hoping to replicate Republican Glenn Youngkin's message in the race for Virginia governor focused on the economy, public safety and more parental control in classrooms to win races up and down the ballot. Democrats in Minnesota are heeding national headwinds and warnings from Virginia, but they point to differences between the two states and in the messages coming from candidates. For the Virginia model to work in Minnesota, Republicans must crack into the increasingly blue Minnesota suburbs, a dynamic that has shut them out of power in the state House since 2018 and out of all statewide offices since 2010.
Washington County Attorney Pete Orput has died.The Star Tribune reports he died Sunday at his home in Stillwater at age 66. Orput announced in January that he would not seek re-election for a fourth term in office and planned to retire at the end of the year. That announcement came more than a year after he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. A former Marine who served in Vietnam, Orput was a high school history teacher before entering the law. He worked for the Minnesota Attorney General's Office, served as general counsel for the state Department of Corrections, and prosecuted violent crime for the Hennepin County Attorney's Office.
Some convention news from over the weekend. Rep. Steve Drazkowski of Mazeppa defeated Rep. Barb Haley of Red Wing for the Republican endorsement to run for state Senate in the newly drawn District 20, where Republican Mike Goggin is retiring. Drazkowski won with 70 percent of the delegate vote on the first ballot. And Republican Sen. Paul Utke of Park Rapids lost the GOP endorsement to Bret Bussman, a candidate backed by the group Action 4 Liberty. In the 5th Congressional District, Republicans endorsed Cicely Davis to run against U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar. Another GOP candidate Royce White said he would run in the primary. | 