Daily Digest: Talking about hate crimes

Good morning. Here’s your Digest.

1. Ellison holds hate crimes forum in St. Cloud. A former neo-Nazi who works to counter violent extremism warns that hate groups’ recruitment efforts are growing more sophisticated, and they’re having success luring troubled youth. Christian Picciolini, who spent eight years in the skinhead movement, spoke at St. Cloud State University Tuesday. It was part of a series of listening sessions on white nationalism organized by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. Ellison’s forum comes a month after the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, abruptly called off a public discussion on hate crimes in St. Cloud over what officials said were safety concerns. It also followed a New York Times story last summer that focused on longstanding tensions between white and Somali-American community members. Before the event, Ellison emphasized to reporters that he is not implying that St. Cloud is a white nationalist hotbed, noting that he hosted a similar listening session last week at a Minneapolis synagogue. “How can we say the problem is in one place and not another? It’s everywhere,” Ellison said. “And we need to build a strong, cohesive bond amongst each other. We need to talk to each other. We need to listen to each other.” MPR News

2. Top GOP leader McCarthy backs Fischbach in 7th District A year out from 2020's election, the U.S. House's top Republican is backing a candidate for Minnesota's 7th Congressional District, which Republicans see as one of their top flip opportunities in the country. U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, on Tuesday, Oct. 22, tweeted that Republican candidate Michelle Fischbach has his "complete and total endorsement." Minnesota's former Republican state senator and lieutenant governor announced her candidacy to take on Democratic-Farmer-Labor incumbent U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson in September. Peterson has represented the western Minnesota district since 1991, but Fischbach's campaign noted in a Tuesday news release that his margins of victory have shrunk in the past three elections. Republicans hope that President Donald Trump's name on the ballot in 2020 will invigorate enough voters in the district to turn Peterson's seat red in Congress. Rochester Post Bulletin

3. State labor contracts to go into effect without vote. Two-year labor contracts for thousands of Minnesota government workers are due to take effect this week now that state lawmakers will miss a deadline to block them. The deals provide wage increases of more than 2 percent each year but could be higher for employees who aren’t at maximum pay for their positions. There will be some additional health premium costs for employees. A committee of state lawmakers had the ability to reject the agreements but had to act by Thursday. A hearing of the Subcommittee on Employee Relations was canceled Tuesday, and a key senator said there is no intention of rescheduling it this week, meaning interim approval is granted by default. The agreements covering more than 30,000 employees were negotiated this summer and ratified by union members. The agreements with the two biggest unions — the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Council 5 and the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees — overlap in many respects but have some differences. The first 2.25 percent raise for all workers will be retroactive to July. Another across-the-board bump kicks in next July. Many employees are also eligible for seniority and merit raises. MPR News

4. Blocked “public charge” rule still having impact on Minnesota immigrants. On a recent school night, Northfield Superintendent Matt Hillmann donned a hair net and began passing out cups of water to first graders and their families in the Greenvale Park Elementary cafeteria. He was joined by a team of teachers and school administrators, including Greenvale’s principal, Sam Richardson. They served up pizza boats and apple slices. “It’s a huge community builder for us,” Richardson said. “Connecting the families, I really think, makes the biggest difference in how students and their families feel about school.” Greenvale has worked hard to build up its community in different ways. It runs on a community school model, partnering with local organizations to support students and families. But close to a year ago, it began to be concerned about how a possible Trump administration change to immigration rules might affect the school’s student body and funding. Those changes, which have been called a “public charge” rule, were officially announced by the Trump administration over the summer. The rule would have made it more difficult for immigrants to get permanent U.S. residency if they used or seemed as if they might use public benefits like Medicaid, food stamps, housing subsidies and cash assistance. The rule is now blocked and did not take effect this month as planned. But fear and confusion about the rule’s potential impact on immigration status has already prompted some in Minnesota to take themselves or their children off certain benefits. MPR News

5. Poll shows widespread backing for gun background checks. A strong majority of Minnesota voters support universal background checks on all gun sales and a ban on semiautomatic military-style rifles like the AR-15, a new Star Tribune Minnesota Poll has found. More than 8 out of 10 Minnesota voters favor expanding criminal background checks to cover all gun sales, including those sold privately or at gun shows. And while legislation that would do so has stalled along party lines at both the State Capitol and in Washington, the Minnesota Poll found widespread support for the proposal across ideological, geographic and demographic lines. One of the only deeply partisan divides over guns that the poll found was over banning “military-styled rifles” such as the AR-15. Support for a ban on such firearms was strongest among Democrats at 82%, compared to 35% among Republicans. The nation’s long-running gun debate has further intensified since a pair of mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, left more than 30 dead just hours apart in August. The bloodshed renewed calls for stronger gun restrictions nationwide. That includes in Minnesota, where Democratic legislators are pushing measures for universal background checks and to create a new “red flag” law to allow authorities to petition a judge to remove guns from those deemed a threat to harm themselves or others. Star Tribune