Tag: DFL

GOP, DFL State House Leaders Prepare to Negotiate ‘Power-Sharing Agreement’

Alpha News
Hortman and Demuth

With almost all the dust settled the day after the election in Minnesota, caucus leaders in the Minnesota House faced the media for the first time since they learned that Republicans and DFLers are likely to be deadlocked in a 67-67 tie when the 2025 legislative session starts on Monday, Jan. 13

Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman and House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth both acknowledged that their caucuses will have just a few weeks to structure the organization of their chamber in a challenging, but not unprecedented, “power-sharing agreement.”

Read More

State Republicans Accuse DFL, Walz of Playing Politics with Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment Results Release Date

Minnesota Sun Staff
Classwork in school

For more than 20 years the Minnesota Department of Education has released to the public aggregated results of the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment test during the first weeks of the school year — before or by Sept. 1, to be exact. That’s almost certain to change.

Last week DFL lawmakers who control the House stood firm in defending a provision in their education policy bill that would give MDE a 12-week extension to release MCA results to the public.

Read More

Ranked-Choice Voting Push Continues at Minnesota Capitol

Minnesota Sun Staff
MN RCV

A pair of DFL lawmakers who fell short last year of gaining enough support in the legislature to turn Minnesota into a ranked-choice voting state aren’t giving up on their goal. They’ve just scaled back their efforts to more incremental steps.

On Wednesday, a committee in the state House approved a bill that would make it easier for cities across the state to implement ranked-choice voting as a method of electing local representation.

Read More

Minnesota Republicans Run into DFL Roadblock in Attempt to Fast-Track Passage of School Resource Officers Fix

Minnesota Sun Staff
SRO Class

Republicans in the Minnesota House of Representatives wasted no time in the opening moments of the 2024 legislative session in attempting to fast-track passage of a seemingly bipartisan proposal to fix a new law enacted last year that has hampered the work of school resource officers in several public schools across the state.

But the author of that bill ended up being the GOP’s biggest stumbling block in attempting to pass it on the House floor Monday.

Read More

Minnesota Left-Wing School Board Member Wins DFL Primary for South Metro House Seat

Minnesota Sun Staff
Bianca Virnig

A progressive member of Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan School Board who cast the lone dissenting vote among her colleagues in March 2022 to end masking requirements for students won a competitive DFL primary contest on Thursday for a vacant south metro seat in the state legislature.

Bianca Virnig beat out three other candidates all competing to affix the Democratic-Farmer-Labor label next to their name on the Dec. 5 ballot for the House District 52B special election.

Read More

DFL Party Bans Minneapolis City Council Candidate After Endorsing Convention Melee

Minnesota Sun Staff

The DFL has officially banned a Minneapolis City Council candidate from seeking future endorsement from the political party, two weeks after his supporters were allegedly involved in starting a melee that broke out at a local endorsing convention.

On Tuesday evening, longtime DFL Party Chair Ken Martin released a statement announcing the organization had utilized a pair of newly-approved bylaws that allowed its state central committee to ban Nasri Warsame, a Minneapolis resident, from “seeking the DFL Party endorsement for any office.”

Read More

DFL-Controlled Legislature Hands $8 Billion Transportation Bill to Walz for Signature

Admin

A nearly $8 billion finalized transportation bill has cleared the House and Senate and is on its way to the desk of Gov. Tim Walz to be signed into law.

On Sunday, the DFL-controlled House and Senate voted along party lines to pass the conference committee report for HF2887. That omnibus transportation finance bill includes nearly $1 billion in new taxes and fees dedicated to transit and roads that will come from three sources: a new metropolitan area sales tax increase of 0.75 percent, a 50-cent fee for all deliveries of retail goods over $100 and a gas tax increase indexed to inflation. An increase in fees for automobile registrations and a sales tax increase for purchase of automobiles will also add more than $340 million in new revenues for transportation expenditures over the next two years.

Read More

DFL Scales Back Rebate Checks, Social Security Tax Elimination in Minnesota Tax Bill

Minnesota Sun Staff

With under six weeks remaining in the 2023 legislative session, budget bills are making their way to the floors of the House and Senate. And so is a way to pay for them.

House DFLers who unveiled their tax bill on Monday said it represents the largest tax cut in state history and is aimed at helping those who need it most. Senate Republicans returned serve and claimed that provisions Democrats have touted — if approved without any concessions — would add up to nearly $10 billion in tax hikes on Minnesotans over the next four years.

Read More

Republicans Shine a Light on Swiss Billionaire’s Role in U.S. Elections During House Debate

Admin

How did a Swiss billionaire who has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to left-leaning American nonprofit political advocacy groups become a topic of debate over an elections bill on the floor of the Minnesota House of Representatives?

Republican legislators allege that Hansjörg Wyss, a former medical device industry executive turned political activist, has his fingerprints on a provision included in a sweeping elections reform bill the DFL House majority passed on a party-line vote late Thursday night.

Read More

DFLer Carrying Ranked Choice Voting Bill ‘Confident’ He’ll Get GOP Support, Despite Having None

Admin

A Democrat lawmaker carrying a bill that would make Minnesota only the third state in the nation to adopt statewide ranked choice voting in its elections said he’s confident he will garner support from Republicans.

That’s despite the fact that Republicans in a House Elections Committee on Friday told Rep. Cedrick Frazier, DFL-New Hope, that his RCV bill has no support from among the 64 Republican members of the House of Representatives.

Read More

Twin Cities Legislators Introduce Bill to Block Mining Facility in Northeast Minnesota

Admin

More than two dozen DFL legislators — nearly all from the suburbs — have signed onto a bill that would attempt to put permanent brakes on a highly contentious, planned copper-nickel mining facility near Ely that could bring upwards of 2,000 new jobs to northeast Minnesota. Critics of what would be Minnesota’s first copper-nickel facility, proposed by Twin Metals, argue that copper-nickel mining in the area would irreversibly pollute the environment in the nearby Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Supporters have said that Twin Metals has demonstrated its plant will use the best available technology to mitigate and prevent such pollution. The project remains up in the air as Twin Metals has sued the Biden administration over lease rights to the project.

Read More

Minnesota Planned Parenthood Names Sitting DFL Legislator New CEO

Admin

A sitting DFL legislator plans to continue serving in the Minnesota House despite just being named the new CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States, which provides abortions to women in the Upper Midwest.

Rep. Ruth Richardson defended her new position in a statement Wednesday, saying she won’t “oversee political work or lobbying for Planned Parenthood while I hold this legislative seat.”

Read More

DFL Party Chair Appointed to Minnesota Arts Board That Gives Out Taxpayer Dollars

Minnesota Sun Staff

The chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) is now sitting on a state government board that hands out taxpayer-funded arts and culture grants.

On Monday, Ken Martin was appointed as a member of the State Arts Board by Gov. Tim Walz. Martin occupies the seat previously held by Sean Dowse, former mayor of Red Wing in southeast Minnesota, who recently resigned from the post.

Read More

Democrat State Legislator Complains About Having to ‘Look at President Lincoln’ Painting

Admin

“We have to look at President Lincoln every day we’re in this space,” DFL Minnesota Rep. Jamie Becker-Finn recently bemoaned on the House floor.

The progressive lawmaker’s anti-Lincoln position came up during debate on an education bill as she critiqued the way indigenous history is taught in Minnesota schools.

Her specific complaint regarding America’s 16th president centered around a series of executions that saw 38 Dakota men hanged in Mankato under Lincoln’s approval. Becker-Finn retold the story on the House floor, upset that the executions drew a bloodthirsty crowd that reportedly clashed with law enforcement and cheered when the gallows dropped.

Read More

Consulting Firm Co-Owned by Omar’s Husband Received Money from DFL Committee

Admin

A consulting firm co-owned by the husband of Rep. Ilhan Omar is “back in business,” a new report says.

According to Federal Election Commission paperwork, E Street Group received $15,000 from the Minnesota DFL Party’s federal committee on Feb. 25, just two days after Rep. Omar’s campaign paid the DFL committee the same amount on Feb. 23.

Read More

Minnesota State House Democrats Urge Republicans to ‘Repent’ for Their ‘Foolish statements’

Minnesota Sun Staff

Minnesota State House Democrats recently filed a complaint against their Republican colleagues who raised concerns about changes to Minnesota’s election laws, urging them to “repent of their foolish statements.”

Concerns about the complaint were brought up by Republicans during a Thursday House session.

Read More

Minnesota Lawmaker Calls Protest Outside of His Home ‘Terrorism’

Admin

Minnesota Rep. Carlos Mariani, DFL-Saint Paul, called an anti-lockdown protest outside of his home “terrorism.” 

Anti-shutdown protesters held a demonstration Saturday outside of  Mariani’s home, using a similar tactic as the left-leaning Sunrise Movement, which has endorsed several DFL lawmakers. 

During the protest, attendees blocked the street with vehicles and chanted for the representative to come outside to meet them. Some of the protesters arrived with body armor and firearms, including handguns and rifles.

Read More

Over 90 Percent of Minnesota University’s Top Faculty Donations Went to Democrats, Study Finds

Minnesota Sun Staff

Data from the Federal Election Commission show that 90.8 percent of the top 100 donations to political candidates and committees from University of Minnesota employees and affiliates went to Democrats, according to a recent report by Minnesota Business Daily.

The analysis found that UMN employees and affiliates donated $201,383 to political candidates and committees. Of that amount, $182,919 went to Democrats. Another $11,125 went to the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party.

Read More

‘Really Bad News’: DFL on Edge After Poll Has Lewis Trailing Smith by One Point

Minnesota Sun Staff

U.S. Senate candidate Jason Lewis has closed the gap between him and his opponent, Sen. Tina Smith, to only one point, putting Democrats on edge.

A survey released Wednesday by KSTP shows the margin between former congressman Lewis and Sen. Smith has closed to just one point in their race for the Senate. A MinnPost poll released Tuesday had Lewis trailing by four points. 

Read More

Ilhan Omar Uses Misinformation in Interview to Push Abolishing Police

Corinne Murdock

Representative Ilhan Omar (DFL-MN-5) stated that the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) hasn’t solved half the homicides and destroys rape kits. Because of this, she says, the MPD should be dismantled.
“We can reimagine a public safety system that empowers and provides safety for every person in our city regardless of the color fo their skin or zip code,” the freshman congresswoman tweeted. “Dismantling the Minneapolis Police Department is necessary in order to heal and move forward as a community.”

Read More

DFL House Leaders Postpone Event with Pro-Riot Candidate Thompson After Widespread Pushback

Corinne Murdock

The Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party has officially postponed its event with Democratic candidate John Thompson due to widespread pushback. A reporter with The Star Tribune announced the fundraiser’s indefinite delay.
However, DFL House Speaker Melissa Hortman did not initially want to remove Thompson from the event.

Read More

Minnesota DFL House Leaders Will Host Fundraiser with Candidate Who Threatened to Burn Down Hugo

Minnesota Sun Staff

The DFL House Caucus plans to host an official fundraising event this week with John Thompson, Alpha News has learned.

Thompson was at the center of a viral video captured by Alpha News last month in which he screamed profanities at a group of young girls and threatened to burn down a neighborhood. At one point he told a man holding a blue lives matter sign to “take that sign” and “stick it in your ass.”

Read More

Commentary: Can Trump Win Minnesota?

Minnesota Sun Staff

How bad do things look for Joe Biden’s campaign right now? Consider this: Democrats are worried about Minnesota, a state no Republican presidential candidate has carried since Richard Nixon’s 1972 landslide. Yet polls show President Trump gaining ground in Minnesota, and Democrats are worried because they haven’t seen any appearances by Biden or his running mate Kamala Harris. “Why aren’t they here?” one Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party official told Minnesota Public Radio last week. “We need to hear from them. We need to see their presence on the ground.”

Biden’s peril in Minnesota is in many ways emblematic of everything that’s gone wrong for Democrats in this campaign. While the Real Clear Politics average of Minnesota polls still shows Biden leading Trump by more than five points, a poll by Emerson College earlier this month had Trump within three points, and a poll by the GOP-affiliated Trafalgar Group two weeks ago showed a tie in Minnesota. How could a state that twice gave majorities to Barack Obama, a state that not even Ronald Reagan could win in his 1984 landslide, be in play for Trump this year? Well, in a word, riots.

Read More

St. Paul Primary Winner John Thompson Leads BLM Protest to Police Union Leader’s Neighborhood, Calls for Violence

Corinne Murdock

Over the weekend, Democratic candidate John Thompson spoke at a Black Lives Matter protest by the home of police union leader Lt. Bob Kroll. Thompson recently won the Democratic primary for District 62A in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Multiple video coverages of Thompson’s seven-minute speech show him calling for violence against the “racists” of Hugo, Minnesota.

Read More

DFL Files Campaign Finance Complaint Against Ilhan Omar’s Challenger Melton-Meaux

Corinne Murdock

Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) filed a complaint against Democratic challenger Antone Melton-Meaux, claiming that his campaign created LLCs to shield the identity of several consultants and donors. The DFL filed the complaint exactly one week before the upcoming primary on August 11.

Read More

DFL Targets State Senate Republicans on Police Reform in New Ad Campaign

Anthony Gockowski

The Minnesota DFL Party launched a new ad campaign this week targeting key Republican state senators who are accused of “standing in the way of passing real police reform.”

Jason Lewis, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, said in a recent interview that Democrats don’t “want reform” so much as they “want a political issue.”

Read More

Minnesota Lawmakers Unveil $300M Plan to Rebuild from George Floyd Riots

The Associated Press

Democrats who control the Minnesota House announced a $300 million economic aid proposal Monday for businesses that were damaged or destroyed during the civil unrest over the death of George Floyd.

The legislation is aimed at commercial corridors in lower income neighborhoods that were hardest hit as protests over Floyd’s May 25 death while in Minneapolis police custody turned violent. Many of the affected small businesses along Lake Street and Broadway Avenue in Minneapolis, and University Avenue in St. Paul, are owned by people of color and immigrants.

Read More

DFL Lawmaker Wants Portrait of Lincoln Removed from Minnesota House Chamber

Anthony Gockowski

A DFL lawmaker revealed on Twitter this week that she’s “tried a bunch of times” to get a portrait of President Abraham Lincoln removed from the Minnesota House chamber.

State Rep. Mary Kunesh-Podein (DFL-New Brighton) said it’s “hard to look at” House Speaker Melissa Hortman (DFL-Brooklyn Park) when she’s “standing in front of Lincoln.”

Read More

DFL Lawmakers Want State and Federal Aid to Rebuild Minneapolis

Anthony Gockowski

DFL lawmakers want the state and federal governments to chip in to help repair the estimated $55 million in damage caused to Minneapolis in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman (DFL-Brooklyn Park) and the Legislature’s People of Color and Indigenous Caucus called for “immediate legislative funding for Minneapolis and St. Paul rebuilding efforts” in a joint statement.

Read More

After Backing Alleged Domestic Abuser Keith Ellison, Minnesota Dems Say State Rep Is ‘Trivializing’ Domestic Abuse

Anthony Gockowski

The Minnesota DFL Party, which supported accused domestic abuser Keith Ellison in his run for attorney general, criticized a Republican lawmaker Thursday for “trivializing the severity of domestic abuse.”

Read More

Keith Ellison Stands by Omar After Strong DFL Challenger Emerges

Anthony Gockowski

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has endorsed Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) for a second term in Congress.

“I see U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar as a leader who is disrupting conventional wisdom and challenging 50 years of thinking that has brought us stunning inequality, weakened public institutions and an utter lack of preparedness for a global pandemic,” Ellison said in an endorsement of Omar in The Star Tribune.

Read More

After Mocking ‘Liberate Minnesota’ Protest, State Media, Politicians Silent on Minneapolis Gun Violence Demonstration

Anthony Gockowski

Minnesota’s political establishment and mainstream media mocked and condemned the Trump-backed protesters who gathered outside the Governor’s Residence Friday, but were silent just two days later when hundreds gathered for a demonstration in Minneapolis.

According to the St. Paul Police Department, an estimated 800 people were in attendance at Friday’s “Liberate Minnesota” protest, which called for an end to Gov. Tim Walz’s stay-at-home order issued in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Read More

Keith Ellison Goes on Rant Against Voter ID Laws: ‘Clearly a Bad Thing’

Anthony Gockowski

  Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said laws requiring voters to present a photo ID are “clearly a bad thing” in a Sunday Twitter rant. “If you believe that elections should be decided by We the People, then photo ID is clearly a bad thing. In Minnesota, we beat the…

Read More