Good morning, and welcome to Monday.
We’ll get a look at the state of the Minnesota budget this week. MPR’s Brian Bakst notes Minnesota Management and Budget is set to release an updated economic forecast, something done only twice a year, and with revenues running ahead of expectations, a surplus is likely. The forecast will set the tone for the Legislature’s deliberations. Just four months into the new fiscal year, Minnesota tax collections were already almost $750 million ahead of estimates. And lawmakers also have quite a bit of federal money at their disposal. They left more than $1 billion in coronavirus rescue aid unspent and other federal help is still flowing in. A portion of any state budget surplus would be automatically be used to shore up the state’s budget reserve. And there is some other first-in-line authorized spending. The Legislature begins its election-year session in late January.
And speaking of the Legislature and the election year, the House is working on redrawing Minnesota’s political boundaries, even though the courts are likely to finish the job.MPR’s Tim Pugmire reports , the House Republicans are taking aim at a legislative redistricting plan DFLers released just before Thanksgiving. Republicans say there would be 18 legislators paired together in the same districts under the DFL plan. Twelve of those House districts would be Republican against Republican. Three would be DFL against DFL and three would be a Republican against a DFLer. There would also be nine Senate district pairings. Why is that important? Because if such a map became law, the paired lawmakers would have to either compete to be a candidate next year, move to another district, or one lawmaker would have to step aside. House Republicans have drawn their own redistricting plan with 15 House pairings and 13 Senate pairings. They plan to present it as a proposed replacement during a committee hearing scheduled later this week.
There’s a problem with resettling Afghan refugees in Rochester: finding places they can afford to live. MPR’s Catharine Richert has the story : Twenty Afghan families — a total of 80 people — by February of 2022 are expected to be resettled by Catholic Charities of Southern Minnesota . Many of them will settle in Rochester, the region’s economic hub, because there are ample jobs, good schools, public transportation, and even grocery stores that sell familiar products from home, John Meyers of Catholic Charities said. But when refugees arrive, they face a mash-up of temporary housing options, like hotels, until Catholic Charities can secure permanent housing. Meyers says complicating matters are stricter income requirements for new tenants — like proving income to pay three months rent before signing a lease, something refugees don't usually have. "When you start breaking down those numbers, it becomes very untenable to get some of these apartments based on the income threshold that they've set,” he said.
Since May 2021, people living in counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump during the last presidential election have been nearly three times as likely to die from COVID-19 as those who live in areas that went for now-President Biden. That's according to a new analysis by NPR that examines how political polarization and misinformation are driving a significant share of the deaths in the pandemic.
President Biden and Gov. Walz have ordered flags to fly at half staff to honor former Republican Sen. Robert Dole, who died Sunday at 98. I met Dole in 1987 when he was running for president and spoke at the Minneapolis VA Hospital. He told the emotional story of being horribly wounded in Italy in World War ll and his long and difficult recovery. I didn’t know it until I later read the book What It Takes , by Richard Ben Cramer, but that campaign was the first time Dole told that story publicly after keeping it to himself for many years. (There’s lots about Biden in that book too, by the way.) Here’s the New York Times obituary of Dole. | 