The 201 members of the House and Senate return on January 31, 2022, to gavel in for the start of the regular session. The Minnesota Legislature remains divided with a DFL-led House of Representatives and a GOP-led Senate.
 
The DFL-led House announced all legislative work will continue to be conducted virtually, while the Republican-led Senate will operate under a hybrid model.
 
Statutorily, lawmakers have no required business to complete in the second year of the legislative biennium. Historically, even numbered years are considered the time for significant infrastructure investment packages also referred to as bonding projects. However, the last 18 months in Minnesota and nationally have been anything but typical.
 
The legislature is constitutionally required to adjourn by May 23, 2022.
 
Additional driving factors in the session will be the significant influx of federal funds coming to the state, the upcoming election with all 201 lawmakers and the governor on the ballot, and re-drawing of all 201 legislative districts.

Child Protection League president Michele Lentz asserted in an interview with Kyle Hooten, editor of Alpha News, that Minnesota is becoming a ‘sanctuary state’ for child sexual predators.  According to Lentz, 87-91% of those accused in Minnesota receive only probation, leaving them at large in our society.

Lentz specifically addressed those charged for possession, distribution and/or production of child pornography, but provided no data on what percentage of child sexual predators fell into this category. 

Lentz concludes that the reason is a growing sympathy for predators over victims and a general distaste for incarceration here in Minnesota, but offered no specific evidence for her conclusion during the interview.

The Child Protection League ( CLICK HERE to see their principles), is promoting Minnesota legislation to toughen penalties for child sexual predators.  Rep. Matt Grossell (R- Clearbrook) and Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen (R, Alexandria) introduced HF 229  and SF 1220 , respectively, to address the problem.  Both bills are known as the Protect Minnesota Kids Act.  The bills would raise Minnesota sentencing standards to more closely match Federal sentencing standards.

Kendall Qualls formally announced his run for governor January 9, joining 5 other Republican candidates looking to defeat DFL Gov. Tim Walz.

The Army veteran and former health care executive ran as a political newcomer for our MN Third Congressional District in 2020 and then established non-profit TakeCharge MN.

Qualls told Fox & Friends that he was filing as a candidate on the Republican ticket "because in our state we were ground zero — all of the rioting, looting and defunding the police initiatives all started and spread across the country…. And even now, two years later, we're suffering from record crime across our state.... And in the center of it all is our governor, Tim Walz,  allowing that to happen, his weak leadership." To watch the brief video CLICK HERE

Here is the current list of Republican candidates that have announced their run for governor and candidate websites, in alphabetical order:

Sen. Michelle Benson  Michelle4MN.com
Sen. Paul Gazelka  gazelkaforgovernor.com 
Dr. Scott Jensen  drscottjensen.com 
Lexington Mayor Mike Murphy MikeMurphyforMN.com 
Kendall Qualls  KQforMN.com
Dr. Neil Shah  electneil.com 

In December, businessman Mike Marti dropped out of the governor's race.

All currently-active Republican candidates will be listed for the Governor straw poll at the February 1 Caucuses.

In May, the Republican Party State Convention will endorse one candidate to take on Walz.

Minnesota is one of a few states that still recognizes the value of citizens meeting together in neighborhood groups to renew their political parties every two years. On Tuesday, February 1, Republicans across Minnesota will be gathering for precinct caucuses. The future of our Party and Nation belongs to those who show up.

Citizenship starts in the community. To make certain that communities and cities are based on self-governance, citizens need to be active. We as Americans need to begin playing the traditional role of good, concerned citizens. One way to “get into the arena,” as Theodore Roosevelt urged, is to engage in the grassroots process called caucuses.

The midterm election season is underway. In three weeks, we begin the work of deciding who we want to represent us. If you wish to see a change in our Party or to influence which of the candidates gains the delegates needed to be endorsed, precinct caucuses are your chance to stand up and be heard. Attend your caucuses and make a difference!

In Bloomington, the Republican Precinct Caucuses will be held at Jefferson High School. For Republicans in Edina, Eden Prairie Precinct 08 (P-08) and Minnetonka P-1B and P-1C, the Republican caucuses will be held at Southview Middle School in Edina.

Doors will open at 6:15 pm, and the caucuses will convene at 7:00 pm.
During your precinct caucus, you will
• Elect your precinct officers
• Elect your delegates and alternates to the Senate District convention in March
• Learn about the scheduling of the local, regional, and state conventions in 2022 and how you could become a delegate or alternate to these important party meetings
• Submit and debate amendments to the Republican Party platform
• Learn about candidates seeking the Republican endorsement to run at the local and state level and how you can support the ones that best represent your views
• Vote in a straw poll for the Republican candidates running for MN governor

As reported at Alpha News, the revised social studies standards for schools continue to wend their way through the rule-making process. That will take 18 months to two years, and will include “multiple opportunities” for public comments and potential changes. There will be a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge before formal adoption.

The article at Alpha News by Katherine Kersten, Center of the American Experiment, includes detailed analysis and commentary on the third and final draft of the standards, with examples. As previously noted, the new standards omit many basic historic facts about the United States and Minnesota and instead focus on "group identity based on race; life as a power struggle between oppressors and victims; and American history as a shameful story of domination, marginalization and injustice."

There are two ways to make your voice heard on the recently released third draft social studies standards, which you may download as a 92-page PDF document from the MN Department of Education's website.

The first is easy — sign a petition at the Center of the American Experiment’s website, and send a message to the Minnesota Department of Education and the Office of Administrative Hearings. You can sign your name to their prepared text or personalize it with your own thoughts. The MDE comment period closes on Dec. 14, 2021, and your comments will be sent to both MDE and the Office of Administrative Hearings.

The second way to make your voice heard is to engage directly with the Office of Administrative Hearings through their open comment process. Commenters can join an ongoing discussion Minnesotans are having about the current draft of the standards. You can attach documents to your comments to support your views. The Administrative Law Judge will read all of the comments before making a decision. Click here  to create a profile and join the discussion. This comment period closes on Jan. 14, 2022.

Minnesota came through the 2020 census with all of our eight Congressional seats intact.  However, the ramification of that census will not end there.  The shifts and growth of the state population could well result in the adjustment of precinct, senate district and Congressional district boundaries.

The legislature has until February 15 to reach agreement on the maps for Minnesota’s eight Congressional districts and 201 state House and Senate districts.  A special panel empowered by the Minnesota Supreme Court “is preparing to be the ultimate decider.”  It has schedule oral arguments on January 4 over a lawsuit filed by activist groups.  Fox 9 reports that it is prepared to take over on February 15 if the divided legislature cannot finalize the maps by that date.

On November 18, the State of Minnesota Special Redistricting Panel released its Order Stating Preliminary Conclusions, Redistricting Principles, and Requirements for Plan Submissions. In it, the special panel said it would draw districts that are within 2 percent of an ideal district – a population of 42,586 for the house and 85,172 for the Senate.  As reported by Fox9, “the court-drawn districts will be convenient and contiguous, will not violate federal voting rights laws, and will not protect incumbents.” 

The Order was released as part of on-going litigation around redistricting in Minnesota.  As was true with voting rights litigation in Minnesota in 2020, the DFL and DFL affiliates like the League of Women Voters Minnesota, Common Cause, OneMinnesota.org, and Voices for Racial Justice are suing to drive certain changes in the way the state is redistricted.  The various proposals from the DFL and DFL-affiliates would have all led to the same result: spreading excess votes from urban areas to districts in suburban and rural Minnesota. However, this time, Republican Plaintiff-Interveners have joined the litigation, represented by attorneys with vast redistricting experience, to ensure that their claims are not settled by consent decrees.

The Republican Roundtable is a series of video interviews hosted by Max Rymer and produced by Patty Piatz.  In this 23-minute interview, recorded on December 1, the guest is Twila Brase, President & Co-founder of Citizens' Council for Health Freedom.  The topic is health care freedom and privacy and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996.     

Lynn Swon called our attention to the obituary of Tom Richards recently published in the Star Tribune.  According to Lynn, Richards was a loyal Republican who served as a delegate for many years from Edina.

Born in Chicago in 1926 and raised in Hamlet, Indiana, Richards survived both the Depression and military service in World War II.  He had a 41-year career with the 3M Company.  He and his wife Joan moved several times before settling in Edina, where they lived for over 55 years.

Richards retired from the 3M Company in 1992 and enjoyed 28 years of golf, tennis and traveling the world, vacationing often in Arizona, and Naples, FL.  In 2020, Tom and Joan moved to Friendship Village in Bloomington.  His family reported that he passed away peacefully on November 18.  At the time that the obituary was published, the timing of his memorial had not been identified.

Our House District 49B Representative Steve Elkins (DFL, Bloomington) has widely advertised his extensive interest and involvement in everything to do with Minnesota transportation. This information can be found in the several paragraphs on his candidate website discussing his future questionable plans for the district regarding roads, vehicles and taxes increases. 

Representative Elkins has been and continues to serve in high-ranking positions of Minnesota transportation committees since his participation in Minnesota politics after transplanting from California. He is currently vice chair of the Walz administration transportation committee. 

On his candidate website, Elkins clearly stated his support for increasing the gas tax to provide funding to complete road and bridge projects. “I also support fairly taxing electric vehicles based upon the number of miles they are driven. I support fully funding transit operations and capital investments in expanding the region’s Bus Rapid Transit system.” 

However, he has gone beyond simply trying to raise the state gas tax.  In January 2021, Representative Elkins proposed legislation to enable local governments (political subdivisions) to impose their own gas taxes.  A close look at his bill, House File 274 reveals that the bill does not specify any limits on those local taxes. 

The language is also vague and open to interpretation regarding how the revenue from his proposed local gas taxes could be spent.  It appears that it could go beyond bridges, highways and roads, to include “transportation infrastructure”.

Bloomington voters had their first experience with Ranked Choice Voting this year. Three City Council seats were decided using RCV.

The vote totals reported on the Secretary of State’s website after the polls closed was not the same as reported by Bloomington for its 1st round results. On close races, Bloomington reviewed ballots that were considered “inactive” and not counted by the electronic balloting machines. If a visual inspection could determine the intent of the voter, that vote was added to the totals. As an example, if a voter was confused by RCV and did not mark a first choice, but instead marked a second choice, it was treated as the voter’s first choice.

In this election, the review of the inactive votes affected the 1st round voting totals by at most 0,2%, generally less than 0.1%. However, that was enough to knock the front-runner in the 4th District from 50.02% down to 49.9%.

When none of the candidates in a race tallied at least one vote more than 50% of the “active” votes, the ballots of candidates that got the least votes were reviewed for the second choices. Any ballots that had a write-in for a first choice were also reviewed. In each race that went to the 2nd round, the runners-up were identified as the second choice almost two-to-one over the eventual winner, but those votes were not enough overcome the winner’s lead.

The number of ballots that were considered “inactive” at the end of the first round significantly increased at the end of the second round. This resulted when a voter chose not to mark a second choice. The percentage of Bloomington voters whose ballots did not register after two rounds for either the winner or the runner-up ran from 7,7% to 9,3%.

Depending on whether it was a District race or an At-Large race, the number of “inactive” ballots ranged from over 200 to almost 1,200. These are the numbers of votes that would have counted if the ballots had reflected just two candidates per race as has been the practice up to this year.

RCV proponents argue that by encouraging more candidates to run, more voters are encouraged to turn out. So far, that does not seem to hold true. In 2019, in the last city-wide municipal races including the mayor and an At Large council member, over 17,300 votes were cast. This year, 15,500 individuals voted for the At Large candidates.