Free Republic

Minneapolis, MN – The new stadium plan for the Minnesota Vikings has received approval from the state's House of Representatives. After passing by a margin of 73-58, the proposal will next move to the state Senate. "It's the first hurdle, a couple more to go, but we're really excited," said Vikings vice president Lester Bagley.

Gov. Mark Dayton, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and DFL legislators have repeatedly said that passing a constitutional amendment requiring people to show photo ID to vote would end "same-day" voter registration. This is completely untrue. The fact is, same-day (or Election Day) voter registration would be preserved under the constitutional amendment recently passed by the Legislature and to be considered by voters this fall. Same-day voter registration is an important aspect of Minnesota's election system. In any given election, about 15 percent to 20 percent of voters will register on Election Day. The vast majority of same-day registrants show...

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton says he's ready to do whatever he can to urge voters to reject the proposed voter ID constitutional amendment that will appear on the ballot in November. Dayton issued a symbolic veto of the amendment Wednesday, though he has no legal power to stop it from appearing on the ballot. The GOP-controlled Legislature signed off on it last week. Dayton says the amendment would cripple Minnesota's election system by curbing same-day voter registration, absentee balloting and mail-in voting. Backers say requiring voters to prove their identity is an election integrity measure. The...

In a blow to Gov. Mark Dayton and union supporters, a Ramsey County judge has permanently blocked a unionization vote by Minnesota child care workers. District Judge Dale Lindman wrote in an eight-page order filed Friday, April 6, that the governor "exceeded his authority" when he called for the union election. The proper way to deal with the issue would be at the Legislature, the judge wrote.

Gov. Mark Dayton was right to veto the so-called Castle Doctrine bill, but he did it for the wrong reason. The bill, co-authored by Minnesota Sen. Gretchen Hoffman of Vergas, would have gone further than the Florida “shoot first” law now being invoked in the controversial shooting death of a black teenager. The proposed Minnesota law would not have endangered police officers, and would not have resulted in a rash of shootings. But it would have made it easier to shoot and kill someone, and the vaguely-worded bill would have made it very difficult to prosecute anyone who used deadly...

If you do only one thing for gun rights this year, this is it! Minnesota --(Ammoland.com)- The Stand Your Ground bill passed the Minnesota House last year. It overwhelmingly passed the Senate last week. Now the bill is headed to Governor Dayton. TODAY! Call Governor Dayton’s office and ask him to sign HR1467, the Stand Your Ground bill. * Metro: 651-201-3400 * Toll Free: 800-657-3717 Write a real letter, on paper. These are incredibly effective in convincing a politician of how seriously we take an issue. Governor Mark Dayton 130 State Capitol 75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd....

A group of Minnesota home-based child care providers have filed a federal lawsuit to halt an order forcing them to unionize. Jennifer Parrish from Rochester filed the suit Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota with free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation Legal Defense Foundation. Gov. Mark Dayton's executive order would designate the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and Service Employees International Union officials as the collective...

Gov. Mark Dayton and top DFL lawmakers proposed a jobs plan Wednesday that they contend would put thousands of unemployed Minnesotans back to work. The DFL's prescription includes the $775 million bonding bill, which would include money to help businesses expand. But it also would give Minnesota businesses a $3,000 tax credit for each unemployed person, veteran or recent college graduate they hire over the next year and a $1,500 credit for each new hire through June 2013. Leaders said the $35 million program would create 10,000 private-sector jobs this year and would be paid for by closing corporate tax...

ST. PAUL, Minn.—A Ramsey County judge on Monday blocked a unionization vote by Minnesota child care workers that was to get under way this week, saying the issue must go through the state Legislature. Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that the Democratic governor exceeded his powers with the executive order setting up the election. "If unionization of day care is to become the law of Minnesota, it must first be submitted to the lawmaking body of the state," Judge Dale Lindman said after hearing three hours of testimony. Lindman also said he was "bothered" that less than half of the...

The Senate Committee on Rules and Administration voted Thursday to file a "friend of the court" brief in support of a lawsuit seeking to stop an upcoming unionization election for in-home child care providers. The vote was 6-1 along party lines, with Republicans in favor and the lone Democrat in attendance, Richard Cohen of St. Paul, opposed. GOP senators argued that Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, overstepped his legal authority in issuing an executive order for the election. Filing an amicus brief does not make the Senate a party to the suit but offers support for the complaint submitted Monday...

We have been given expensive ringside seats to quite a public backscratching. Unions - AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and SEIU, Service Employees International Union - have been patting their old pal, Governor Dayton, on the back and saying, "You can do it" and "Atta boy, go get 'em." And lo, Dayton, who is beholden to unions, looked out his window one day and decided he saw some people he could bring into the collective fold. Now, how the governor has the constitutional authority to order anybody to take a vote on joining a union...

Gov. Mark Dayton on Tuesday ordered an election to allow Minnesota's in-home child care providers to vote on whether to unionize. But his executive order drew swift response from Republicans who vowed to sue to prevent the vote. "There is nothing in Minnesota law that provides the governor with the power to do the thing that he says he's going to do," said Sen. David Hann, R-Eden Prairie, who chairs the Senate health and human services committee. "And I think the real question for us is, what do you do with a governor who won't follow the law?" Dayton, a...

Gov. Mark Dayton has ordered a vote among home-based child care providers about whether they should unionize. His executive order issued Tuesday sets an election for December. It affects thousands of self-employed providers. The state Bureau of Mediation Services will oversee the election. Dayton says if a union is authorized during the vote, membership would be voluntary. Dayton's decision furthers an already politically charged debate over union rights. The Democratic governor and majority Republican lawmakers have clashed for months about Dayton's authority to call an election and whether a union should exist.

Dayton, Ohio, welcomes immigrants as policy pointBy DAN SEWELL - Associated Press | AP – 17 hrs ago DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — On the same afternoon thousands of Hispanics in Alabama took the day off to protest the state's strict new immigration law, Mexican-born Francisco Mejia was ringing up diners' bills and handing containers piled with carnitas to drive-thru customers on the east side of Dayton. **SNIP** Dayton officials, who adopted the "Welcome Dayton" plan unanimously Oct. 5, say they aren't condoning illegal immigration; those who come here illicitly will continue to be subject to U.S. laws. While states including...

I've never seen this much attention given to child care," Clarissa Johnston, a 24-year home day care provider, told a Minnesota Senate committee hearing Thursday night. The reason for the attention was the possibility that Minnesota's 11,000 in-home child care providers might be unionized. The providers who testified were deeply divided over the issue. During the three-hour hearing, they argued passionately for and against being organized into labor alliances. Proponents contended that forming a union would enable them to negotiate the state rules and regulations that govern their operations and affect their wages, benefits and working conditions. "Recognize our right...

States are rushing for the No Child Left Behind exit door. Within hours of Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s announcement Monday that he will grant waivers from federal mandates, several states announced that they would apply for relief. Many others are expressing interest, pending the release of more details next month. Tennessee didn’t wait for Mr. Duncan’s news conference: The state sent its waiver request two weeks ago. The mad dash to escape high-stakes testing and gain more flexibility represents “a sense of desperation” among states, said Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators. “There’s no question...

Judge Judy Quizzes ‘Moron’ to Whom Taxpayers Have Given $70,000 ...so far. But the narcissistic, taxpayer-funded third-year college student wants to keep the party going. Clearly the "rich" have to pay more so this "musician" can continue his life of indulgence, ripoff, and squalor. Watch it quick, it won't last long.

DAYTON, TX (KTRK) -- Residents in a Dayton neighborhood say they are still in shock after hearing that someone shot and killed a dog that was loved by nearly everyone. The incident is a real blow to residents. Fred -- a four-year-old black Labrador -- had a family, but it seems everyone in this close-knit community loved him. Hope Havard was Fred's owner, but he wasn't just her pet. Fred was known to roam the streets of the neighborhood, and Havard said her neighbors treated him like a member of their own families, too. "He was a really good dog....

Dayton, OH — Cox Media Group has announced the award of a $1 million challenge grant from The James M. Cox Foundation. The money is to go toward a project to take out a dangerous dam along the Great Miami River and develop recreational opportunities along the waterway. The project's total cost is expected to be around $4 million. The plan is to take out the low dam near downtown and construct in its place two scenic drops designed for paddling. It's one of the top priorities of the Greater Downtown Dayton Plan aimed at growing economic development in the...

Here are summaries of the spending and policy changes in the largest budget bills: E-12 EDUCATION Money: Total state funding for schools over the next two years: $14.5 billion (not including delayed state payments), a $700 million, or 5.1 percent, increase over the past two years. Total state aid payments delayed to schools: $2.8 billion, a $772 million increase from last biennium. Policy: - Teacher and principal evaluations instituted. Teachers must be assessed every three years and principals annually. About a third of a teacher's evaluation will be based on student performance, if test scores are available in their subject...

The public was in the dark on many of the measures. When the session started, only seven of the 12 bills scheduled for votes were posted on the Legislature's website. When lawmakers returned to the House and Senate floors shortly after 6 p.m., they quickly passed six of the 10 tax and spending bills that make up the budget. Most bills sailed through largely on party-line votes with little debate. Still to come were three highly contentious spending bills to fund K-12 education, health and human services and state agencies. The House passed a controversial tax bill late Tuesday night....

Minnesota's government shutdown -- the longest in U.S. history -- may soon be over. The breakthrough came on July 14, when Gov. Mark Dayton announced he was taking higher taxes -- his signature issue -- off the table. Much remains to be done before the deal is wrapped up. But now is the moment to reflect on what happened, and why. For the left, especially government employee unions, the stakes in Minnesota's budget battle were momentous. Raising taxes is at the heart of the progressive agenda. More tax money is essential if government is to continue its rapid expansion, which...

I started following the story that I called Minnesota Cage Match for two reasons: I thought, given the constellation of forces at work, that events here would foreshadow events in Washington, and I found the slant of the incompetent media coverage driven by the Minneapolis Star Tribune to be sickening. As in the national mainstream media, Democrats here control what Glenn Reynolds calls “the master media narrative,” only more so. Let us briefly review the state of play. In the mighty storm of the 2010 elections, Republicans won control of the Minnesota House and Senate. How long has it been...

Minn. governor, GOP leaders have deal to end government shutdown; needs legislative approval. Gov. Mark Dayton said Thursday morning that he is willing to accept Republicans' June 30 budget offer, which would close a $1.4 billion budget difference by delaying payment of school funds and borrowing against the state's tobacco settlement. "This is the only viable option that's potentially available," Dayton said. Dayton said his acceptance was contingent on Republicans' dropping all controversial policy positions as well as the push to cut 15 percent of the state's work force, and the passage of a $500 million bonding bill. Senate GOP...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton offered Thursday to end a two-week government shutdown by accepting a Republican proposal to bring more money into Minnesota's budget. Dayton announced in Minneapolis that he will agree to an offer legislative Republicans made just before the shutdown started, if they agree to drop a list of policy changes and a plan to reduce the state workforce by 15 percent. GOP leaders said they were reviewing the offer and had no immediate comment. The offer would raise $1.4 billion, half by delaying state aid checks to schools districts and the other half by...

Looks like Republicans have prevailed in Minnesota. Governor Mark Dayton has “reluctantly” agreed to the GOP’s June 30th budget proposal and will call a special session to pass it in three days, ending the state shutdown started by his veto of the budget proposed in May: Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton sent a letter Thursday to House Speaker Kurt Zellers and Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, saying he “reluctantly” agrees to accept the Republican budget proposal from June 30 if it will end the government shutdown. Dayton said accepting the offer would bridge a $1.4 billion gap between him and the...

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton sent a letter Thursday to House Speaker Kurt Zellers and Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, saying he "reluctantly" agrees to accept the Republican budget proposal from June 30.

DAYTON — An ice cream truck driver was shot and killed just moments after he sold ice cream to children in the 4600 block of Midway Avenue Tuesday evening. Carl Banks, 60, of Dayton, was identified as the driver by the Montgomery County Coroner's Office late Tuesday night. Police originally thought it was an accident when someone called 911 to report the ice cream truck struck a house in the 4400 block of Midway Avenue. When emergency crews arrived on scene, they found Banks shot to death at the wheel, Dayton Police Sgt. John Sullivan said. Witnesses told police they...

Hundreds of bars, restaurants and stores across Minnesota are running out of beer and alcohol and others may soon run out of cigarettes -- a subtle and largely unforeseen consequence of a state government shutdown. In the days leading up to the shutdown, thousands of outlets scrambled to renew their state-issued liquor purchasing cards. Many of them did not make it. Now, with no end in sight to the shutdown, they face a summer of fast-dwindling alcohol supplies and a bottom line that looks increasingly bleak. The Ugly Mug doesn't have enough beer to get through the baseball season. "Our...

Jessica and Craig Porter of Somerset, Wis. have their newly adopted baby’s room all ready, but the shutdown is forcing their new son to sleep in a playpen across the river in Minnesota. The family is stuck at a hotel until lawmakers strike a budget deal and the state shutdown passes. “We’re just so happy to be with him. We’ll probably go through anything to bring him home,” said Jessica Porter. Her baby boy, Ezra, is only 5 days old. He and his parents are living in a Stillwater hotel room, because they can’t go home to Wisconsin until his...

MillerCoors loses right to sell beer in Minnesota during shutdown Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal - by Mark Reilly, Managing Editor Date: Wednesday, July 13, 2011, 6:48am CDT Mega-brewer Miller Coors must pull all of its beer — all 39 brands — from Minnesota store shelves because its branding license wasn't renewed before the state shutdown.KSTP-TV has this absolute howler of a story, along with reaction from retailers, which is pretty much what you'd expect it would be. The beer company says it sent in the checks (brand licenses cost $30 for three years), but acknowledges they weren't processed...

While such parks normally are bustling with people - and have facilities to serve them - the relative seclusion appears to have emboldened some to do their business along trails and other areas where no Minnesotan would normally dare to squat. "People are taking it upon themselves to go out in the woods and relieve themselves, and without the presence of employees and others, they're not picking up after themselves," Konrad said. "People are also having a tendency not to pick up after their pets."

As the shutdown entered its second full week Monday, with no end in sight, politicians and public employees traded accusations over who's getting paid, who isn't and why. "None of them should be getting paid," said Mike Lindholt, a Department of Transportation maintenance worker idled by the shutdown. "If you don't do your job, you don't get paid. That's how it is for most people." The political leaders whose budget dispute caused the shutdown are still entitled to collect their pay, and more than half of them are. Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton and the Republican Senate majority leader have both...

To better understand Dayton and the Legislature's basic budget disagreements, here's a look at how much the state spent in the previous two years (fiscal years 2010 and 2011) that ended June 30 and how much the governor and lawmakers are proposing to spend in the current biennium (FY 2012-13). The figures represent spending from the state's general fund, the budget category that covers most day-to-day expenditures: The numbers show a nearly $1.4 billion gap between how much money lawmakers and Dayton want to spend. State finance officials forecast that the state, under current law, would collect about $34.4 billion...

...a friend of mine sent me a dialog he had on Saturday with a door knocker supporting Governor Dayton's agenda. It is instructive in the way the public dialog has evolved. The real events have disappeared in an unwavering zeal of "tax the richest 2%": Today (6/25) I had a chance to talk with a SEIU Person in her mid 20’s who was canvassing a neighborhood. Her start off pitch was the extreme high pay/bonuses the top CEO’s receive and the large stockpiles of money companies are holding onto. It would really help the economy and the Union people if...

Dedicated readers of Minnesota Democrats Exposed began notifying us of robo-calls being sent out of a Washington, D.C. call center into the districts of GOP lawmakers over the last several weeks. The calls, paid for by the AFL-CIO union organizing machine, ask union members to stay on the line while they directly connect the caller to the phone number of their state representative, where they are encouraged to leave messages about how they strongly support tax increases to protect union jobs. Many callers, however, used the connection to their legislator as a chance to say “thanks” for standing up to...

Minnesota stands to lose tens of millions of dollars in the nation's only state government shutdown, as lottery tickets go unpurchased, tax cheats go unpursued and 22,000 laid-off state workers collect unemployment and health benefits. The government interruption also threatens to slow an already sluggish economic recovery as the state employees in limbo and others who lose state-dependent jobs - including construction workers and nonprofit staffers - tighten their spending.

We are in day 7 of Minnesota Held Hostage. The shutdown of state government proceeds, with an exemption for staff designated essential. Governor Dayton has laid off about half of his 40-member staff during the shutdown, while he has designated 20 essential and kept them at work. Dayton is of course a (South Dakota) trust fund beneficiary who has never supported himself on a salary in his life, so his idea of “essential” may not be exactly mainstream. MinnPost’s Joe Kimball writes: “On the list of those still working are two staff members, Micah Pace and Michelle Mersereau, who were...

Minnesota is beginning its eighth day of a government shutdown. More than 20,000 state employees are out of work, and many more private-sector employees and businesses are beginning to feel the ripple effect of the shutdown. With the July 4th holiday over, more of our citizens will begin to experience the shutdown firsthand as they attempt to interact with the state. So it is with this sense of urgency that I offer these suggestions: 1. Abandon your continued call for tax increases. State revenue will increase $3.1 billion in the next biennium. We can fund the priorities outlined in your...

Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, campaigned for office last year promising to raise taxes on high earners, so it was no surprise when he proposed a tax increase on families making more than $150,000 a year to help close a $5 billion budget gap. In negotiations with the Republican majority in the Legislature, he compromised and reduced the increase to those making $1 million or more, but Republicans are refusing to consider any income tax increase.

For the second time in the past week, hundreds of laid off state workers rallied in the hot sun on the steps of Minnesota’s closed State Capitol to protest the state government shutdown. Wednesday’s rally again took aim at familiar theme: Taxing the state's wealthiest residents to help solve the state’s $5 billion budget deficit. One man held a sign that took his frustration a step further – he had changed it from “Tax the Rich” to “Eat the Rich.”

When Minnesota state parks and highway rest stops were closed suddenly along with other government services, the neighboring state to the east was the obvious beneficiary as Minnesotans scrambled to alter their holiday weekend plans. Others that stood to benefit included Minnesota's private campgrounds, city and county parks, amusement destinations, museums, and gas stations and fast-food establishments near closed rest stops.

In an attempt to end his budget impasse with lawmakers and reopen Minnesota government, Gov. Mark Dayton on Wednesday proposed two tax increases...

Last Thursday, California's liberal Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a balanced budget that doesn't raise income taxes. Imagine that -- on the same day that Minnesota's governor insisted on implementing a significant income tax increase, California -- a state that faced a budget deficit five times larger than Minnesota's -- did the right thing. It is living within its means. Fact is, we're the only state in the nation without a budget. That is because Gov. Mark Dayton is unable to shake the urge to fall back on the failed tax-and-spend politics of the 1960s. It's hard to imagine...

According to some observers, a terrible catastrophe has just struck the state of Minnesota. Due to an impasse on fiscal and taxation questions, the government of that state has been "shut down." On one side of the divide, you have Governor Mark Dayton, a tranquil (and some would say tranquilized) leftist who has been pushing for higher taxes as a way of solving Minnesota's budgetary deficit. On the other side, there is the Republican-controlled legislature that, to its credit, have taken the rare step of actually displaying a backbone by pushing for spending reductions instead and by standing up to...

The chart Andrew Stiles referred to Friday (from an earlier post by Veronique de Rugy) shows only the start of how counterproductive it is to increase taxes on the wealthy. As a result of lower tax rates on the top income earners, not only do they pay a much larger share of all taxes, but they pay much more taxes total — and revenue to the government has increased. This is because lowering taxes on the rich creates more rich people and richer rich people. The federal government gets much more revenue if you impose a 40 percent tax on...

The Minnesota Legislative GOP, in the waning hours last Thursday before the shutdown, introduced a “lights-on” bill – a bill that would provide a couple of weeks of short-term funding to keep state services going to those who need them, and are genuinely dependent on the state. Governor Dayton dismissed the bill as a “stunt”. Here’s Governor Dayton, not “stunting”: At the Alexandra House, a women’s shelter in Blaine that depends on state money, executive director Connie Moore has begun spending the shelter’s savings to keep the doors open. The desperate move won’t buy much time. “We’re gambling right now,”...

Minnesota’s government shutdown has made national news, in part because it foreshadows, in some respects, the battle that will play out in Washington over the next month on the debt ceiling. What has happened in Minnesota is clearcut: our Republican legislature passed a budget for the next two years, consisting of nine spending bills. Our Democratic governor, Mark Dayton, didn’t think the legislature spent enough money, so he vetoed them. As a result of Dayton’s vetoes, state agencies ran out of funding as of July 1 and, with the exception of certain critical functions, the state’s government shut down. Dayton’s...

What we have here is a failure to compromise. Much of the state budget could have been passed, but the governor chose not to get those parts of the deal done. At midnight the lights went out unnecessarily on lots of state workers and government functions tied to parts of the budget that could have been passed. At the 11th hour legislators proposed a lights-on measure that would have kept the government running for a few more days. The governor dismissed it as a gimmick. In other words, bring on the pain - an unnecessary infliction of pain. But, as...

How did Minnesota careen off the cliff to a government shutdown? Looking back, we could have predicted on Jan. 3, 2011 -- the day Gov. Mark Dayton took office -- that we'd face a shutdown "crisis" in June. Dayton is the old-fashioned version of a tax-and-spend liberal. He yearns, with almost religious fervor, to increase government spending and to hike taxes on "the wealthy." In 2010, he squeaked into office by a mere 9,000 votes, in a political climate that swept fiscally conservative Republicans into power across the nation and in the Minnesota Legislature. Dayton's election was something of a...