Minnesota

cross-posted from: https://fanaticus.social/post/3449848

In about 75 Minnesota locations, old dams have been removed and replaced with staircase-like rapids designed to allow the river to flow more freely and to avoid costly dam repairs — or worse, a collapse.

Several laws passed in the 2024 legislative session took effect Monday, establishing new policies and funding sources for education, economic development and the environment.

The law, which took effect last year, says people with felony convictions regain the right to vote after they have completed any prison term.

Quinn ruled the law was unconstitutional in a pair of orders in which he sentenced two offenders to probation, but warned them they were not eligible to vote or to register to vote — even though the law says they were. It was an unusual step because nobody involved in those cases ever asked him to rule on the constitutionality of the law.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16997964

[PSA] Minnesota workers: there have been worker-friendly updates to Earned Sick and Safe Time

The new bill primarily clarifies rules that were a bit vague, but it also has new changes that will substantially improve life-work balance.

• ESST can be used in at least 15 minute increments and cannot be required to use more than four-hour increments
• Qualifying workers were expanded to people hired with an expectation of working 80 hours in a year, rather than actual hours worked. Some jobs still exempted
• ESST usage has expanded to bereavement
• ESST rules for use are expanded to all paid time off
• Employers that do not provide ESST must pay the worker for twice the amount they were supposed to get in ESST

Yes, she's the Republican candidate for this position.

A host of Minnesota environmental groups are calling out state agencies tasked with protecting public health and natural resources, alleging that regulators consistently cater to industrial interests.

People Not Polluters, a 16-member coalition, issued a June 11 declaration taking on Minnesota agencies. Citing examples from the Line 3 oil pipeline in northern Minnesota, to agriculture feedlots in the southeast and industrial sites like Smith Foundry in Minneapolis, People Not Polluters makes the case that Governor Tim Walz’s administration favors industry over the public.

“We see a pattern of polluting industries having undue influence over state agencies that are charged with protecting human health and the environment,” said Margaret Levin, state director of the Sierra Club’s North Star Chapter.

Many rural pride events in Minnesota have at some point faced pushback, or even threats. Over the weekend Cook County Pride in Grand Marais received a bomb threat.

Meanwhile, Itasca Pride in Grand Rapids is also facing pushback as they get ready for their first ever celebration this weekend. But despite that, rural pride events are still successful in Minnesota.

East Central Pride in Pine City, claims to be the first rural pride in the country, and celebrated with its 19th annual event at the beginning of June.

For the first two years of East Central Pride, chair Aaron Bombard said they more or less flew under the radar. Then in the third year, the community realized it was here to stay and there was some opposition.

“They had a pro-family picnic where they had Christian music groups kind of trying to oppose us,” Bombard said. “I kind of laugh at the idea — as if LGBT pride is not pro-family.”

On Tuesday evening Royce White, the Minnesota GOP-endorsed candidate to challenge U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, posted a map to Twitter, now X, with the following caption: “Crime in Minneapolis…Out of control. Come on now. Refund the police! #Godspeed”

The sentiment was standard fare for a political party that often seeks to make crime a centerpiece of its election campaigns.

The map, on the other hand, didn’t show crime at all, but rather the locations of 195 public drinking fountains in the city.

It’s the latest in a long line of embarrassments for a candidate who has himself pled guilty to theft and disorderly conduct, endorsed conspiracy theories, denigrated women and LGBTQ people, described himself as an “antisemite,” fallen behind on child support, and played fast-and-loose with campaign finance laws.

The MN Department of Revenue just announced the application won't be available today, BMTN hasn't updated their article as of the time I'm posting this. I've been hitting F5 for almost three hours, I'm going to go take a nap.

The governor and the chief prosecutor of the state’s largest county exchanged harsh criticisms of one another over how they handled the now-dismissed case against a state trooper in the fatal shooting of a Black motorist in 2023.

Former 3M scientist Kris Hansen was among the first to discover how widespread PFAS contamination in humans was in the late 1990s — and the company continually disputed her results, ultimately sidelining her from PFAS research altogether, she said.

Extensive reporting from ProPublica dug into the decades-long cover-up. Now an environmental consultant, Hansen joined MPR News Morning Edition host Cathy Wurzer to tell her story and share more about her research in light of the article.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15794937

With Minnesota repeal, number of states restricting public broadband falls to 16.

Democrats who hold all three levers of power at the Minnesota Capitol said Thursday that they would shut down long speeches that have impaired their ability to pass bills in the final days of the legislative session.

The move came less than a day after DFL Speaker Melissa Hortman called a snap vote on a bill making changes to a new paid family and medical leave program, an illustration of a possibly bumpy push to the session’s finish this weekend.

Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, said that after eight hours of debate on the paid-leave proposal, it was time to bring the bill to a vote. Republicans shouted and called out various points of order during the vote. They said that they’d been silenced by the move to call the vote with no notice.

“Minnesotans sent us here to deliver, we will deliver we’ll get the work done,” Hortman said Thursday. “Just as the rules provide that the minority has a right to be heard, the rules of the House also provide that the majority has the right and the responsibility to govern.”

Hortman said that would mean approving nearly 20 budget touch-up bills, an equal rights amendment, a sports betting bill and other priorities before the deadline to vote on bill Sunday at 11:59 p.m.

She said the House would move forward with a vote on the equal rights amendment that contains protections for gender identity and pregnancy outcomes on Friday, even if that meant spiking a capital investment bill for the year. Republicans have said they would withhold votes on a capital investment package unless Democrats tabled the ballot question.

“It’s time for us to expand civil rights clearly in our Constitution to include everyone,” Hortman said. “And the Republicans may want to fight that. But we are just as determined, if not more, to fight for it.”

Minnesota is poised to prohibit book bans in schools and public libraries as part of an education bill the House approved Wednesday, the last step before it heads to the governor for his signature.

The law, which would become effective July 1, establishes a so-called "Library Bill of Rights" and states that libraries cannot restrict access to material "because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval."

Democrats who backed the provision say it's a necessary step in curbing politicized campaigns against books that focus on multiracial — and especially LGBTQ — experience. Those efforts have become more pronounced as school board politics have become increasingly polarized in the last few years.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals has ruled that Twin Cities nonprofit media collective Unicorn Riot won’t need to comply with an order requiring it to submit newsgathering materials for in camera review in a lawsuit filed by Energy Transfer, the Dallas company responsible for the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).

Energy Transfer had sued the environmentalist group Greenpeace International and other entities in state court in North Dakota in 2019, alleging that it had engaged in a civil conspiracy to stop construction of the DAPL, a 1,172-mile-long oil pipeline running from North Dakota to Illinois.

The allegations arose mainly from protests that took place between July and November 2016, as the DAPL neared completion. According to Energy Transfer, thousands of protesters gathered at the DAPL construction site near Lake Oahe in North Dakota and locked themselves to construction equipment, set up roadblocks, threatened law enforcement and DAPL personnel and burned vehicles, shutting down construction.

When the superintendent of Noble Academy was ready to retire, the Brooklyn Park charter school awarded him a multimillion-dollar management contract — without competitive bidding. Who’s responsible for monitoring these deals? Possibly, no one.

History was made in Minnesota on Saturday. The state’s new flag rose for the first time, just in time for Statehood Day.

A lot of Minnesotans have opinions on the flag. Some spent Saturday hoisting it up in their yards, while others are mourning the change. In St. Paul, one man took it to another level — he hosted a Minnesota-themed party in celebration of the new flag.

The state Supreme Court ruled as constitutional Friday the law under which Gov. Tim Walz declared a peacetime emergency during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The emergency is long over but the courts still sought to answer the question of whether the Emergency Management Act is constitutional.

The emergency act gives the governor broad authority to respond quickly during crises, Justice Gordon Moore wrote for the court.

"A delicate balance must be struck to ensure that Minnesotans are protected from both government overreach and emergent threats to their health," the ruling said, adding that the act doesn't unconstitutionally usurp the authority of the Legislature.

"Although the separation of powers is a critical piece of our constitutional infrastructure, we cannot blind ourselves to the need for some degree of flexibility when delineating the boundaries of each governmental branch," Moore wrote.

For the fourth straight year, Minnesota produced more than half its electricity from carbon-free sources in 2023, helping lead to a 10 percent annual drop in climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector.

Those are two of the main findings from the 2024 Minnesota Energy Factsheet released Tuesday by Clean Energy Economy Minnesota and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy.

The report found that 54 percent of the electricity in Minnesota comes from carbon-free sources, including renewable sources like wind, solar and hydropower, along with nuclear power. That compares to 41 percent nationally.

Minnesota lawmakers passed a law last year requiring that utilities in the state generate 100 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2040.