Four pieces of legislation that Democrats have introduced at the Minnesota Legislature in recent weeks aim to transfer ownership of property they say tribal nations inside Minnesota lost decades ago due to federal and state government policies.
But while proponents believe these land reclamation, or “land back,” bills are gaining momentum, many residents and local government officials in those areas are criticizing the legislation and opposing it at the Capitol.
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While European nations hit pause on puberty blockers and surgical measures for children, Minnesota Democrats are pushing health plans to cover so-called “gender-affirming care.”
A detransitioner from Oregon recently testified in front of Minnesota lawmakers after she says she was given the green light for top surgery over a Zoom call.
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Democratic members of the Minnesota House of Representatives rejected an amendment that would have allowed local law enforcement agencies to purchase armored and tactical vehicles with state funds.
Last year, Minnesota state government authorized legislation that allocated $300 million to law enforcement agencies around the state. Agencies that received the money could use those funds to update equipment, offer raises, give out retention bonuses, and other needs. However, the agencies who received those funds were barred from using the money to purchase armored or tactical vehicles.
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Minnesota Democrats plan to use their governing trifecta to bring assisted suicide to the state next year.
Sen. Kelly Morrison, DFL-Deephaven, who carried an assisted suicide bill in the legislature this past session, said in a press release this week that “advocates are now ramping up their push to pass the bill during the 2024 legislative session that convenes in February.”
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The 2023 Minnesota legislative session wrapped up about three weeks ago, but that doesn’t mean lawmakers have stopped working.
Democrats in a state House legislative committee voted themselves a pay raise last week that allows legislators in the House of Representatives to retroactively receive a per diem increase of about $20 per day they served during the 2023 legislative session.
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Republicans are speaking out against the DFL majority’s decision to remove a bipartisan proposal to expand the sales tax exemption for baby products from an omnibus tax bill.
“Who was against this?” asked Sen. Julia Coleman, R-Waconia, during a Monday press conference. “It passed with unanimous bipartisan support. It has a relatively small fiscal impact. So where was the controversy?”
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There was no disagreement among DFLers and Republicans on the Senate floor Monday over whether Minnesota workers across all industries want and need expanded access to paid family and medical leave benefits.
To what degree the state should provide those benefits is where the differences between caucuses were stark and along party lines, as senators debated the highly controversial HF2 for more than six hours before the DFL’s one-vote majority held together to pass the bill.
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Minnesota Democrats want to remove language from the state’s Human Rights Act which clarifies that pedophilia is not included in the protected “sexual orientation” class.
“‘Sexual orientation’ does not include a physical or sexual attachment to children by an adult,” the Human Rights Act says. HF 1655, a bill carried by Rep. Leigh Finke, DFL-St.Paul, seeks to remove that language from state statutes.
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Minnesota Democrats have introduced a $100 million reparations bill that would require the state to issue a formal apology to the family of George Floyd and acknowledge the “systemic racism in the state.”
Introduced by Rep. Samakab Hussein, DFL-St.Paul, the “Minnesota Migration Act” begins with a list of “findings.”
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The question of whether health care providers should be allowed to administer gender transition-related medical care to children — such as puberty blockers, mastectomies or hormone replacement therapy — became a flashpoint for debate in the Minnesota House of Representatives on Monday.
So much so that one DFL legislator, who appeared to defend such medical care being administered to minors, attempted to analogize it to infants and toddlers getting their ears pierced.
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Minnesota Democrats are pushing a bill that would require public schools to provide “climate justice instruction.”
The bill says this type of instruction “views the effects of climate change as interconnected with forms of oppression connecting climate change to social and economic justice issues.”
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Two Twin Cities lawmakers have introduced bills to ban the sale of new gas-powered lawn mowers and Zambonis in Minnesota.
Reps. Jerry Newton, DFL-Coon Rapids, and Heather Edelson, DFL-Edina, introduced HF 1715 and 1716 this week. The first would require all new lawn and garden equipment sold or distributed in Minnesota after Jan. 1, 2025, to be powered solely by electricity. This would apply to lawn mowers, leaf blowers, hedge clippers, chainsaws, lawn edgers, string trimmers, and brush cutters.
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On Monday the Minnesota House of Representatives voted to pass a bill raising reimbursement rates for a child care program once at the center of a fraud investigation.
The Democrat-controlled chamber passed HF 13, which will fund increased reimbursement rates for providers who participate in the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), by a 69-59 vote. The program exists to help low-income families afford child care, which is more expensive in Minnesota than most states.
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Democrats are one step closer to fulfilling their campaign promise to enshrine a woman’s “right” to an abortion in Minnesota law.
The Minnesota House Health Finance and Policy Committee passed what opponents are calling an “abortion-until-birth” bill Thursday morning.
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Minnesota Democrats introduced a bill Thursday to legalize the recreational use of marijuana for adults over the age of 21.
With control of both chambers of the Legislature, and a governor who is ready to sign it into law if passed, they are confident this is the year it will happen.
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The state’s teachers union, a top ally of and donor to Minnesota Democrats, who now control the whole of state government, said it wants a $5 billion chunk of the budget surplus.
Minnesota Management and Budget announced in an economic forecast this week that state lawmakers will have a projected $17.6 billion surplus to work with when crafting a budget for the 2024-2025 biennium next session. That’s up from an estimated $9.2 billion surplus projected in February.
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Rep. Ilhan Omar and her communications director both made radical calls to upend the Supreme Court after a leaked decision indicated that the court plans to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The leak, obtained by Politico, is the initial draft of the majority opinion of the court which holds “that Roe and Casey must be overruled.” This decision would end federal protection of abortion, although states like Minnesota, which have legally guaranteed it locally, can continue the practice.
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On Wednesday, Republican Party of Minnesota Chairman David Hann called out Governor Walz and the Democrats for their “continued political gimmicks regarding taxes on Minnesotans amidst rising energy prices and a historic state budget surplus.”
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Minnesota Democrats have called for Rep. John Thompson to resign nearly one year after his long history of alleged violence and domestic abuse became a topic of public discourse.
Thompson first achieved notoriety in August 2020 when he called for anti-police protesters to burn down the town of Hugo. Shortly after that incident, Alpha News unearthed and reported on his criminal record, which shows he has a history of domestic assault accusations. Despite this, the Minnesota DFL, Gov. Tim Walz and U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar upheld their endorsements of then-candidate Thompson.
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Rep. Ilhan Omar urged President Joe Biden’s administration in a letter Monday to end Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) contracts with prisons and jails.
The letter calls for Biden to issue an executive order to end ICE’s contracts with state, county and local jails due to the treatment of the detained immigrants and the facilities’ conditions. The Minnesota Democrat called the conditions of the facilities “systemic abuse.”
“Conditions in the municipal, county, and state jails and prisons contracting with ICE to detain immigrants mirror the systemic abuses in privately operated immigration detention facilities, including mental neglect, long term use of solitary confinement, sexual assault, and lack of access to legal counsel,” Omar wrote in the letter.
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