Good morning, Gov. Tim Walz is speaking at 11:30 a.m. to announce Minnesota is opening up the state's vaccine eligibility thresholds to everyone 16 or older, in anticipation of a boom in vaccine supply. Of course, being eligible doesn't mean everyone will be able to get a shot yet; even at the anticipated higher rates of supply it will take a month and a half to give most Minnesota adults one dose. [Read more] [ Listen live] Reaction: Republican state Sen. Michelle Benson said the announcement was "very good news for our ability to reopen the state much sooner than people may have anticipated." Yesterday I referred you to President Joe Biden's first news conference. Now take a look at The Associated Press's fact check of the president's comments. [Read more] Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a new law limiting mail-in and early voting Thursday, part of a major Republican push to limit voting access. Meanwhile, a Democratic state lawmaker was arrested on camera after repeatedly knocking on the door of the room where Kemp was signing the bill. [Read more from NPR News' Jaclyn Diaz] Alright. Now that we've dealt with the important political news of the day, it's time to deal with something thoroughly unimportant. Yesterday, Minnesota saw a most unusual bill introduced: a constitutional amendment to allow counties to secede from the state. The intention, sponsoring Rep. Jeremy Munson, R-Lake Crystal, later revealed in a tweet, was for western Minnesota to leave and join a new, larger South Dakota:
To be clear, this is a publicity stunt that isn't going anywhere. Munson linked to his fundraising site in his tweet, and tagged South Dakota Gov. Krist Noem. (And why join South Dakota instead of the equally proximate North Dakota? South Dakota's greater prominence over the past year as a state that has resisted lockdowns, masks and other anti-COVID-19 measures.) His own proposed amendment required two-thirds of both lawmakers and voters in Minnesota to approve the secession, meaning there would have to be bipartisan support in both the seceding and remaining parts of the state to make it happen. But we're all politics nerds here, myself especially. So instead of washing the dishes last night, I spent a few hours crunching the numbers on what it would mean if Munson's stunt actually came true.
The 64 counties Munson proposes to secede have a combined population of around 1.6 million, versus just under 4 million in the smaller but more densely populated remnant. Demographically, South Dakota, with less than 900,000 residents, would actually be the junior partner in this merger. Minnesota would go from a population on par with Wisconsin and Colorado to one closer to Oregon or Oklahoma, while South Dakota would rise from one of the smallest states to in between New Mexico and Kansas. The seceding counties are also relatively poor, with a GDP per capita of around $51,000, compared to $63,000 for current South Dakota and $69,000 for current Minnesota, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis figures. The rump counties remaining in Minnesota would have a new per capita GDP around $76,000. As a result, New South Dakota and the ex-Minnesotan counties would both find themselves with a smaller economic base per person than they did before, while the New Minnesotans would have more money to go around — the seventh-richest state, up from the current 14th-richest. The real purpose here is political, though. The ex-Minnesotans would go from a state that leans left into one that's solidly right-wing. Donald Trump received about 62 percent of the two-party vote in both Old South Dakota and these hypothetically seceding counties. So the majority of seceding voters there would find themselves in a friendlier political climate, which anyone who's ever lived in a state governed by the other party can tell you would probably make them happier. Compared to Minnesota, the New South Dakotans would face fewer government regulations and a more socially conservative environment, including more state restrictions on abortion and possibly a state ban on transgender girls participating in girls sports. The ex-Minnesotans would also pay considerably less in taxes, though this would be offset to some degree by fewer government services. (Minnesota currently spends $300 to $400 more per capita on K-12 education than South Dakota does , for example.) How individuals felt about that tradeoff would depend on the relative value they put on their taxed money and the government's services; the region's Republican majority might not have many complaints about this. Less happy would be the minority of 300,000 Democrats in these seceding counties, who would go from a state where their party exercises real power to one where it exercised little to none. The same can be said for the 900,000 Republicans left behind in New Minnesota, which would go from a divided state to one as Democratic as Illinois or New York, where the DFL would have a real shot at supermajorities in the Legislature.
On the national level, I estimate that New Minnesota would probably have five U.S. House seats, of which at least four would likely be held by Democrats, though this gets more speculative. (Some creative gerrymandering might be able to give Democrats all five New Minnesota in good years — but the new state would be so long and thin that it'd be hard to slice it up too much outside the metro. One district would likely comprise southeastern Minnesota stretching up into Dakota County, and another the Iron Range down to the north metro, with three districts splitting up everything else.) New South Dakota would go from its one current congressional seat to four, of which all four would probably be held by Republicans. Currently Minnesota and South Dakota together have four Democratic members of Congress and five Republicans, with one seat expected to go away with the 2020 Census. So this rearrangement probably wouldn't lead to any major changes in the partisan balance of the region's congressional delegation. South Dakota would likely continue to elect two Republican senators, and Minnesota two Democratic senators. In term of presidential elections, Democrats are currently the likely winners of Minnesota's 10 electoral votes (soon to likely fall to nine), while Republicans win South Dakota's three electoral votes without breaking a sweat. Post-secession, Minnesota would have seven safe Democratic votes, and South Dakota five safe Republican votes — a four electoral vote swing in Republicans' favor, which could possibly swing the presidency in an extremely close electoral race. In the *even more unlikely* scenario of an election thrown into the House of Representatives, this secession might benefit Democrats, since voting there is done by delegation, and in 2020 (for example) Minnesota's delegation was split 4-4 and wouldn't have cast a ballot. New Minnesota would likely be a sure Democratic vote in this scenario that hasn't happened in two centuries. Meanwhile, not everything would be politically hunky-dory in New South Dakota. The ex-Minnesotans might agree with South Dakotans on national political issues, but plenty of issues fall along regional lines. Current statewide South Dakota elected officials might not be so happy to suddenly have more than a million new voters who don't know them and would likely insist on electing some of their own people. The New Minnesotans would almost certainly force New South Dakota to move its capital east from Pierre, which is extremely remote from places like Bemidji and St. Cloud. Here's a table comparing the demographics of current (or "Old") South Dakota and Minnesota, the hypothetically seceding counties ("ex-Minnesota") and the new states of New Minnesota and New South Dakota.
So the outcomes of this secession might not be as happy as Munson imagines, if you take the idea seriously rather than dismissing it as a stunt. In fact, the happiest people of all in this scenario might be the Democrats left behind in New Minnesota, who'd live in a smaller but richer state and would finally have carte blanche to pass a long bucket list of programs from which they've been stymied for years. More context: A few years ago a group of conservative Colorado counties tried to secede and form "North Colorado." They failed. [Read more from Governing's Frank Shafroth] Also: Geographer Andrew Shears made a map of a United States where dozens of past proposed state secession movements had succeeded. The map pre-dates this idea, but does include an independent Iron Range. [See "The 124 States of America"] Something completely different:Actress Jessica Walter died yesterday at the age of 80. She was perhaps best known for her role as the selfish, alcoholic matriarch Lucille Bluth on the sitcom Arrested Development. So in honor of Walter's long career, here's a supercut of some of Lucille's best moments. [Watch] Listen: I'm still looking for reader suggestions for songs to share at the bottom of each newsletter. Shoot me an email with a song or artist you think this newsletter's readers might enjoy. For now, here's Vashti Bunyan's ethereal "Train Song".[ Listen]
