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.
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Minnesotans are calling on Gov. Tim Walz and the Legislature to return the record-breaking $9.3 billion budget surplus to the people by permanently cutting taxes.
A crowd gathered inside the Minnesota Capitol rotunda Saturday for the “Give it Back Tax Rally.” The rally was hosted by the Center of the American Experiment and involved several speakers including multiple radio hosts and a former U.S. congressman.
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The Center of the American Experiment is hosting a tax rally outside the Minnesota Capitol to call for the return of the state’s enormous budget surplus to taxpayers.
The event, the “Give It Back Rally,” will take place on Saturday, April 23, at 11 a.m.
“We’re hosting a Tax Rally in St. Paul to pressure Gov. Tim Walz and the legislature to return the record-breaking $9.3 billion budget surplus to the hardworking taxpayers of Minnesota,” according to a press release.
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In a tough reelection battle this year, Gov. Tim Walz is changing his tune on gas taxes.
The Minnesotan joined five other Democratic governors urging the U.S. Congress to suspend the federal gas tax amid soaring prices at the pump caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and President Joe Biden’s ban on importing Russian oil this week.
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Two governors who serve as co-chairs of the bipartisan, presidentially-appointed Council of Governors – meant to give advice and opinions to the United States President’s Office along with heads of executive branch agencies like the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – Friday denounced Russia’s…
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Democrats announced a plan Monday to promote police officer recruitment that mirrors proposals of Gov. Tim Walz and Republicans.
House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler authored the bill, HF 3581, which was developed in consultation with the Minnesota Sheriff’s Association, Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association, and Minnesota Department of Public Safety. He said at a news conference announcing the bill that law enforcement leaders want to recruit officers who reflect the community, have a high social-emotional set of skills and are committed to community services, but they’re struggling to do that.
“[The bill] is built on the premise that Minnesota can recruit, can hire, can train and can retain the kinds of police officers who reflect our communities’ values,” Winkler said.
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Gov. Tim Walz says he plans to send 2.7 million Minnesotans “Walz Checks” up to $350 as part of his 2022 Local Jobs and Projects Plan.
“To continue growing Minnesota’s economy, we must invest in the people who made it strong in the first place,” Walz said in a statement. “By investing in workforce development, cutting taxes for the middle class and working families, lowering costs, and expanding access to resources like technical education and high-speed broadband, we will improve economic prosperity across the state and grow the workforce we need to compete.”
The proposal aims to deliver $700 million in direct payments to Minnesotans funded by Minnesota’s tax surplus.
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The Minnesota Medical Association (MMA) has announced its support for renewed mask mandates in the Twin Cities.
In a statement released Thursday, the MMA said it “fully supports the decisions by Minneapolis and St. Paul to re-institute mandatory mask use while indoors” and urged “other communities to consider similar actions.”
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In 1995, Minneapolis saw a record-setting 97 homicides. Operating by the strict definition of a homicide as an event where one person intentionally kills another, there were 97 homicides in the city last year.
The final homicide of 2021 occurred just hours before the new year as a 15-year-old boy was gunned down in north Minneapolis. No arrests have been made. The shooters are believed to have fired from a vehicle.
Some homicides, like the killing of Winston Smith in June, were justified and non-criminal. Technicalities aside, most share a concern about the high number of murders in 2021.
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Republican Kendall Qualls announced Tuesday that he is stepping down as president of TakeCharge, a nonprofit he founded earlier this year, prompting speculation that he will be running for governor of Minnesota.
Qualls first gained notoriety in 2020 during his unsuccessful bid against Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips in Minnesota’s Third Congressional District. A few months later, he launched TakeCharge, which has focused on inspiring a “new movement in the black community to return it to its cultural roots of faith, family and education.”
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Gov. Tim Walz announced Tuesday via Twitter that he and other members of his family have tested positive for COVID-19.
Gus, who is vaccinated, had “some sniffles” over the weekend, tested negative for COVID-19 with a rapid test and then tested positive, the governor said in a video message on Twitter.
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A Soros-backed activist who allegedly lied about her Native-American heritage and headed the Minnesota Freedom Fund (MFF) during its most controversial moments currently sits on the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission (MSGC).
Tonja Honsey was removed from all her major leadership roles except for one after it was revealed that she allegedly lied to and defrauded those around her. Now, she only sits on the MSGC that Gov. Tim Walz appointed her to, helping to decide what punishments should be available for Minnesota judges to dole out. In this position, she’s presently advocating for a measure that would eliminate stronger sentences for criminals who commit more crimes while on probation or parole.
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A woman who kept her restaurant open against Gov. Tim Walz’s orders was convicted and began her jail term the same week the state dropped charges against the man who toppled and destroyed a statue of Christopher Columbus at the Minnesota Capitol.
Lisa Hanson owns The Interchange Wine and Coffee Bistro in Albert Lea, Minnesota. When Walz issued an executive order last year demanding that all bars and restaurants close their doors in the name of COVID-19 prevention, she did not comply. This resulted in her being convicted of six criminal misdemeanors on Thursday following a trial that took less than a week and a jury deliberation that took only a few hours.
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Gov. Tim Walz announced he’s preparing the Minnesota National Guard to provide public-safety assistance if necessary during the trial of former Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter.
The mobilization to readiness follows a request made by the Brooklyn Center and Hennepin County.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we are prepared to ask members of the Minnesota National Guard to be available to support local law enforcement with the mission of allowing for peaceful demonstrations, keeping the peace, and ensuring public safety,” Walz said in a statement.
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Minnesota schools are struggling with an increase in student violence, yet Gov. Tim Walz’s Department of Education (MDE) lobbied against a measure to quell the chaos.
Rochester schools are “taken over with violence,” a fight between students at Hopkins High School recently left three staff members with injuries, and ISD 728 is accused of not cracking down on student-on-student sexual abuse. Meanwhile, Rochester is banning parents who don’t wear masks from school grounds for a year, a St. Louis Park Catholic school has rolled out a new “social justice algebra” class, and some other schools are moving back to “distance learning.” Critics say that spending time and money on initiatives like these distracts from what schools should be focused on: stopping classroom violence.
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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has admitted that declaring another state of emergency in the face of rising COVID cases would lead to negative political repercussions.
In a Wednesday call with reporters — from Finland, no less — the governor said he won’t invoke emergency powers while Minnesota’s COVID cases spiked to the highest 7-day average in the United States.
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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz snapped at reporters Friday when he was asked about Republican priorities for a special session that has been in the works for months.
“They wanted an absolute ban on vaccine passports, which we don’t have a damn vaccine passport so quit pretending on the politics. My patience level is gone,” Walz said Friday during a visit to North Memorial Hospital.
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A judge who was once praised by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for his “open-mindedness” and “compassion” released an accused pedophile with zero bail required earlier this month.
Jonathan Alton is a 22-year-old Coon Rapids man who is accused of trying to solicit a 15-year-old girl to engage in sexual conduct. Prosecutors are pursuing felony charges after Alton allegedly contacted an undercover investigator who he believed to be a child and pursued a sexual relationship with her while acknowledging the illegality of his actions.
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Minnesota long-term care facilities like nursing homes and memory care centers say they’re in an impossible situation.
President Joe Biden unveiled a mandate last month that effectively requires U.S. employers to make their workers receive the coronavirus vaccine or face termination. This is likely to force a significant portion of workers in long-term care facilities out of their jobs. However, the industry can’t afford to lose more staff as it’s already overburdened and unable to provide care for patients amid a labor shortage.
“There is going to be a mass exodus” of workers, warned Natalie Zeleznikar, a nursing home administrator and executive.
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The state of Minnesota is expected to receive 275 Afghan refugees, according to a new Axios report.
Senior Biden administration officials speaking to Axios said that governors and mayors across the United States have recently been notified on the number of refugees they should be receiving.
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Two high-profile endorsers of now-expelled State Rep. John Thompson (D-District 67A) remained silent Thursday when asked whether they still support the embattled congressman.
Thompson was expelled earlier this week from the Minnesota House Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) caucus after a string of incidents stemming back to August of 2020, and the resurfacing of allegations of domestic abuse in his past.
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The Minnesota State Fair has asked a conservative group to remove a “disrespectful” caricature of Gov. Tim Walz from its booth.
Action 4 Liberty President Jake Duesenberg told Alpha News that he was asked to remove the display by the end of the day Friday.
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Democrats said Monday that Gov. Tim Walz’s emergency powers will most likely continue into August.
Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman, D-Brooklyn Park, thinks both the governor and the legislature “foresee an end to the peacetime emergency sometime in the not-too-terribly distant future,” she said during a press conference Monday regarding the start of the special session.
She later indicated an end to the peacetime emergency sometime in August.
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Gov. Tim Walz plans to extend his emergency powers for another 30 days on Monday, making it the 15th month in a row that the peacetime emergency has been extended.
A Minnesota statute says that a governor who declares a peacetime emergency may have emergency powers for only five days, after which he must ask his Executive Council to extend his powers for an additional 30 days.
Walz has requested that his powers be extended 15 times since first declaring the peacetime emergency in March of 2020, and thus has had emergency powers for over 450 days.
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Gov. Tim Walz has proposed the use of incentives like shopping vouchers and fishing licenses for Minnesotans who receive a COVID-19 vaccination.
Walz spoke at the Mall of America Wednesday at an event intended to encourage children to get vaccinated. Currently, 62% of the population aged 16 and older have received at least one round of the vaccine. The governor is hoping to grow that number to at least 70%.
Walz said some states are offering prizes that are “a little gimmicky,” when “what really gets people is knowing they can take the afternoon off, or if they’re not feeling good the next day, they’ll still get paid and their employer will let them.
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DFL senators claimed on Tuesday that Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka’s decision to end all coronavirus restrictions on the Senate floor was “unnecessary, premature, and unwise.”
Just two days later, several Senate DFL members threw their masks in the air in what they called “Mary Tyler Moore style” after hearing about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new mask guidance.
A photo from Senate Media Services shows eight maskless Democratic senators tossing their masks in the air.
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Minnesota’s mask mandate will come to an end Friday, a maskless Gov. Tim Walz announced at a Thursday night press conference.
The polarizing mandate has been in place since July 25. Walz said last week that he would lift the mandate on July 1 or when 70% of the eligible population received a vaccine — whichever came first.
But a new guidance released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that “fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask or physically distance in any setting, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance.”
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As Minnesota returns to a semblance of normalcy with an increasing number of injected COVID-19 vaccines, one Republican aims to ban “vaccine passports.”
SF 1589 aims to ban forced COVID-19 vaccinations, forced digital contact tracing, and required proof of COVID-19 vaccination before entering a government business.
“Your personal health information should not be made public. I stand against the special interests that want your private health information,” Senate Health Committee Chair Michelle Benson, R-Ham Lake, posted on Facebook.
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Gov. Tim Walz expressed his support for a bill that would give progressive organizations influence over the state’s collection of data on “crimes motivated by bias” and police training standards for responding to those crimes.
“Words matter. It, to me, is stunning that we would not hold hearings in the Minnesota Senate to debate this bill that simply does the obvious, that makes it a crime to discriminate against a neighbor for any reason of who they are or their origin or their religious preferences or you name it,” Walz said at a Tuesday press conference on the bill.
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Gov. Tim Walz will quarantine after possible exposure to COVID-19 on Monday, his office announced Wednesday.
Walz’s spokesperson Teddy Tschann said a Walz staff member tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday morning after a Tuesday test.
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On Tuesday, Gov. Tim Walz announced Minnesota is expanding vaccine eligibility after reaching its goal of vaccinating 70% of Minnesotan’s seniors.
The state will expand eligibility to the next two phases of Minnesotans, starting Wednesday.
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A bipartisan group of senators sent a letter to Gov. Tim Walz Sunday asking for the immediate removal of personal questions on the COVID-19 vaccine sign-up form.
Sen. Karin Housley, R-Stillwater, has been leading the charge in advocating for senior citizens’ prioritization for the vaccine. Housley is now raising concerns about invasive questions being asked of seniors before they can receive the vaccine, such as questions about gender identity, sexual orientation, and mental or emotional condition.
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A Friday report from the Minnesota Department of Education confirmed what many have suspected all along: parents are opting to take their children out of public schools.
Overall public-school enrollment decreased by 2% between the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years, MDE said in its report, which translates to a net loss of about 17,000 students. This decrease was driven largely by a 9% drop in public kindergarten enrollment, according to the MDE.
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On Wednesday, Gov. Tim Walz updated Minnesota’s Safe Learning Plan to allow more middle school and high school students to return to the classroom for hybrid or in-person learning as early as Monday.
Walz expects all schools to offer their students some form of in-person learning by March 8, but said he won’t force them to comply.
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Gov. Tim Walz asked for President Joe Biden’s continued support for the biofuels program last week, despite economists’ concerns over concerns about biofuels’ inefficiency and costs.
Biofuels — bioethanol and biodiesel derived from plants — since 2005 have been pitched as a solution to climate change because they decrease dependency on fossil fuels.
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Republican lawmakers want to strip the governor of his ability to “unilaterally” close schools during a peacetime emergency.
Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester, authored a bill that would make Gov. Tim Walz’s peacetime emergency powers invalid in the realm of shutting down in-person school. The governor may “advise and consult” with school boards and leaders, but may not take any action himself, the bill states.
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For at least the fourth time in the last year, Gov. Tim Walz has activated the National Guard.
This time, it’s to keep the peace during former police officer Derek Chauvin’s trial. The former police officer stands accused of killing George Floyd in May 2020.
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A freshman member of the state House of Representatives is working to pass legislation that would end the COVID-19 emergency order levied by Gov. Tim Walz (D).
“Last week, as you may know, I again introduced a resolution to End Walz’ Emergency Powers,” Rep. Erik Mortensen (R-MN-55A) said in a Saturday press release. “The effort failed on a party-line vote which was disappointing given 6 Democrats had previously voted to end the peacetime emergency.”
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The Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association (MADA) filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday aiming to stop Gov. Tim Walz’s administration from adopting California’s vehicle emission standards.
MADA, which represents 350 franchised new car dealers with more than 20,000 employees, alleges Minnesota lacks the authority under the Federal Clean Air Act to regulate motor vehicle emissions.
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Lawmakers kicked off the 2021 legislative session at noon on Tuesday, one day before Gov. Tim Walz is expected to announce loosening restrictions on indoor dining and other settings after an improvement in the state’s number of COVID-19 cases.
Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, R-East Gull Lake, told The Center Square in a phone interview one priority is to craft a new two-year state budget without raising taxes on gas, sales, or income.
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State Rep.-elect Erik Mortensen (R-Shakopee) has promoted a “bill” calling for the suspension of Gov. Tim Walz’s pay until Minnesotans are back to work.
Mortensen, who was elected in November to the Minnesota House, posted a “bill” on Facebook calling for the suspension of Gov. Walz’s pay. The bill calls for Walz’s pay to be suspended until his COVID-19 emergency orders restricting businesses are revoked.
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Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office yesterday filed lawsuits against two restaurants that have been open for dine-in despite the governor’s executive orders. Cornerstone Café in Monticello and Cork in Anoka are Ellison’s latest projects.
Ellison’s office issued a statement that says these restaurants have been running in “open violation” of Gov. Tim Walz’ orders, putting the “community at risk by violating ban on on-premises dining intended to slow the spread of COVID-19.”
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by Anthony Gockowski More than 150 businesses plan to reopen this week in defiance of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s coronavirus shutdown. The businesses have organized as the Reopen Minnesota Coalition. This group has created a Facebook page and GoFundMe to raise awareness and money for business owners who will likely face legal consequences…
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Clay County Sheriff Mark Empting called Gov. Tim Walz’s restrictions on private gatherings a “big government overstep” earlier this month.
“To start to tell you how many people you can have in your residence, I don’t necessarily think that that is any place for the government to tell people,” Empting told KVRR in a Nov. 11 interview.
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Representative-elect Erik Mortensen (R-Mn-55A), said he has invited Gov. Tim Walz (DFL) and Attorney General Keith Ellison (DFL) to his home for a Thanksgiving celebration this week.
Their presence at Mortensen’s home, of course, would be a violation of the governor’s four-week prohibition on social gatherings with people from other households. Gov. Walz announced sweeping new restrictions on the economy and private events in an executive order issued last week.
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Gov. Tim Walz hinted Monday he would enact targeted restrictions to slow the spread of COVID-19 but didn’t describe the new rules planned.
Walz said the state health department had identified three major infection sources of spread: social gatherings, bars and restaurants.
It appears as if those restrictions will mostly affect bars and restaurants.
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Gov. Tim Walz activated the Minnesota National Guard on Thursday to assist local law enforcement in protecting the greater Twin Cities.
“In light of developments in the George Floyd case, we’ve taken the precautionary step of asking the Minnesota National Guard to prepare to help ensure safety for Minnesotans,” Walz said in a statement. “I want to remind Minnesotans that today’s ruling marks a positive step in the path toward justice for George Floyd.”
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Emails obtained by the Star Tribune indicate that Gov. Tim Walz’s administration decided not to reinstall a Christopher Columbus statue the same day it was toppled over by a group of protesters.
The statue, which stood outside the State Capitol building, was torn down in broad daylight by a group of vandals affiliated with the American Indian Movement (AIM). Mike Forcia, chairman of AIM, said he alerted Walz’s office of his plans prior to the June 10 incident.
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Gov. Tim Walz announced Wednesday a special session will take place Monday, Oct. 12, during which he intends to extend his peacetime emergency declaration for the seventh time.
In the governor’s Proclamation for Special Session, issued Oct. 7, Walz said an “extraordinary occasion” has ensued, and, therefore, “it is necessary to extend the COVID-19 Peacetime Emergency.”
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Gov. Tim Walz’s administration purchased a warehouse for $6.9 million in May to be used for the “temporary storage of human remains,” but the facility was recently converted into a storage space for vaccines and other medical supplies.
The facility was intended to serve as “a building where we can properly handle with dignity and respect and safety the bodies of Minnesotans who may fall victim to the coronavirus,” Minnesota Homeland Security and Emergency Management Director Joe Kelly said at the time of the purchase.
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