Minnesota

The law was confusing enough — and troubling enough — that some bars and restaurants decided it was safer to keep hemp-derived beverages off the menu.

At issue was a provision in the state’s recreational marijuana law signed last May that would have prohibited bar servers from selling a patron alcohol and THC beverages in the same five-hour period.

The first confusion was over when bars would start enforcing the “five-hour rule.” Some thought immediately after the bill’s passage, but the myriad effectiveness dates contained in the 300-page bill said it wasn’t to become law until spring 2025. Regardless, the larger issue was this: While a server might know that a patron who they’d served a beer to couldn’t then be served a THC-seltzer, they would have no way of knowing if other patrons had one or the other at another bar.

Key Democratic lawmakers want to place a question on the 2024 general election ballot that would create an independent redistricting commission to prevent the common practice — including in neighboring Wisconsin — of majority parties drawing highly favorable legislative and congressional district maps that can lock in those majorities for a decade or more.

The proposed constitutional amendment would also seek to prohibit lawmakers from becoming lobbyists within one year of leaving office and give the Legislature more leeway to determine its calendar — including potential year-round sessions.

For Indigenous students in Minnesota, taking care of their mental and spiritual health in a culturally specific manner may soon be viable, thanks to a bill introduced by Sen. Mary Kunesh (DFL-New Brighton). This bill, S.F. 2998, would permit Indigenous students to smudge in Minnesota public schools with staff supervision. Prior to the introduction of this bill, schools in the St. Paul Public Schools system adopted a policy in 2022 allowing students and staff to smudge in school buildings under the supervision “of an appropriate School District staff member.”

Minnesota’s Office of Cannabis Management is proposing changes to the state’s marijuana law, including one that would allow the issuance of a set number of temporary licenses.

Those licenses would cover everything from cultivation to testing to retail and delivery operations.

The goal of issuing those temporary licenses, the office said, would be to give those businesses “the clarity they need to establish business operations and be prepared for market launch” once regulatory rules are finalized, likely in 2025.

State Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton and Rep. Aisha Gomez, DFL-Minneapolis are sponsoring legislation to transfer state-owned land from the 160,000-acre White Earth State Forest to the White Earth Nation by the end of the decade.

The proposed legislation would also give the White Earth Nation the right of first refusal on the sale of any tax-forfeited land that comes up for sale within the forest.

Kunesh says the intent of the bill is to honor the sovereignty of the White Earth Nation. Most of the White Earth State Forest is located within the White Earth reservation.

Minnesota could more easily rein in corporate power if lawmakers pass a series of reforms to the state’s antitrust laws, Attorney General Keith Ellison said Monday.

Ellison and some Democratic-Farmer-Labor lawmakers are advocating for policies that would grant the attorney general’s office more leeway to punish large corporations that use their market share to artificially drive up prices.

At least four Minnesota labor unions are making plans to potentially go on strike all at once during the first week of March unless their demands are met.

During the initial stage of rehousing the materials as well as entering their details into ArchivesSpace, I had a lot of time to think as I worked. I found myself reflecting on all the behind-the-scenes work that goes into making archival information accessible both in analog form and digitally. So much archival labor occurs behind the scenes, away from the eye of users. As archivists very well know, processing work is an invisible and at times tedious, but essential part of making records available. By the time a user receives a box of materials or a digital file in front of them, someone would have already worked hours upon hours on the backend preparing those materials for use. As a result of my work during the past year, I now have a much better understanding and appreciation of this work.

Welcome to The Topline, a weekly roundup of the big numbers driving the Minnesota news cycle, as well as the smaller ones that you might have missed. This week: secession skepticism; robust tax collections; grim transit numbers and a map about goats.

The Minnesota Legislature last session created new criteria for major party status. To qualify, a party must hold local conventions and have executive committees for at least 45 counties or legislative districts, and must submit documentation that includes the list of dates and locations of those conventions during a general election year.

...

The secretary of state’s office told the Legal Marijuana Now Party it needed to submit specific dates and locations of the conventions. Schuller submitted a third letter, which included a list of the party’s 2022 conventions. The list consisted of its state convention, eight legislative district conventions and 67 legislative district or county conventions, all held on the same date in June 2022 at an address in Bloomington and online via Zoom.

"In defending itself against union busting allegations, Trader Joe’s fired a cannon ball that could sink the ship of modern American labor law.

The grocery store chain is arguing that the federal agency prosecuting it for unfair labor practices — including giving union workers worse retirement benefits and barring workers from wearing union pins at work — is unconstitutional."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/8291259

Warning: Jesse Singal is looking for trans youth near Minnesota to interview

For anyone unfamiliar with Gwen Smith, she’s a cofounder of TDOR and a reporter for the Bay Area Reporter.

If you know any trans youth around Minnesota please pass it on to them or their families!

For anyone unable to see the post without a Bluesky account, it’s a picture of a flier that reads:

NOTE: It has come to our attention that journalist Jesse Singal has been reaching out to families in the area to gather stories, quotes, and personal accounts from trans youth and their families for a new book. Jesse has been listed on the GLAAD Accountability Project as expressing anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and spreading misinformation about the trans experience. QUEERSPACE collective and other LGBTQ+ youth organizations in Minnesota recommend not engaging with Singal or any of his proxies, even for debate or conversation, to avoid providing additional material for his upcoming works.

The cannabis office won’t likely have a director until mid-February at the earliest, and expungements aren’t expected until late summer. Minnesota officials have always been vague about exactly when retail sales of recreational cannabis would start, but predict it will be on store shelves sometime in the first quarter of 2025.

A public option that competes with Minnesota's private health insurers could entice more than 100,000 people at a cost up to $364 million per year to state taxpayers.

Those estimates were included in a study released Thursday by the state Department of Commerce ahead of what's likely to be a divisive debate in the Legislature over expanding the state's role in insuring Minnesotans.

Gov. Tim Walz and Democratic lawmakers say health insurance will become more affordable if a public option is available to compete with existing private plans. Republicans oppose public interference in the private insurance marketplace and say it will raise premiums in the end. Lobbying groups for hospitals and insurers are also lining up against a public option.

While a public option could provide coverage to the roughly 4% of Minnesotans without insurance, proponents also say it would offer cheaper and better benefits to people who can only afford bare-bones insurance through MNSure, the state's online marketplace for individual health plans. House Majority Leader Jamie Long, DFL-Minneapolis, hosted an online forum Tuesday that highlighted how Minnesotans are suffering from inadequate options in the individual insurance market.

"They can't use it because it is too expensive," Long said. "They have deductibles that are too high. They really are only covered for catastrophes, and that means that they aren't getting the care that they need on a day-to-day basis."

The study analyzed the consequences of removing income limits and creating open access to MinnesotaCare. That's the public health insurance option for individuals and families who earn too much to qualify for Medical Assistance poverty benefits but don't have workplace benefits and can't afford top-flight private insurance on the individual market.

The analysis by Milliman, a national actuarial firm, also examined the benefits of offering a private plan similar to MinnesotaCare on the private marketplace.

Both would attract about 471,000 Minnesotans, but only 100,000 to 150,000 would sign up, the study found. The state would pay $86 million to $364 million per year to provide a public option to that many Minnesotans, after factoring out federal subsidies and premiums paid by the enrollees.

The proposal has created an unusual coalition of opposition from two groups that traditionally compete for their share of health care dollars. The Minnesota Council of Health Plans commissioned a study suggesting that the state would gain more affordable insurance options and increase enrollment if it instead moved all of its existing MinnesotaCare enrollees into the private marketplace.

The Minnesota Hospital Association has bemoaned payment rates from public plans such as MinnesotaCare that are below the cost of providing care, and it has opposed any expansion that could undermine struggling hospitals.

"Hundreds of patients are stuck in hospitals every day and hospitals around the state are being forced to cut services at an unprecedented rate in order to keep their doors open," said Dr. Rahul Koranne, the hospital association's president and chief executive.

The DFL-controlled Legislature considered creating a public option during the 2023 session before delaying plans and seeking the analysis.

Minnesota's commerce and human service secretaries made several recommendations Thursday to the Legislature, including that it conduct additional research to see if a public option would provide equitable benefits to disadvantaged populations. Nearly 22% of Hispanic Minnesotans are uninsured, compared with less than 3% of white non-Hispanic Minnesotans, according to the state Department of Health.

Minnesotans seeking better health insurance options include Lisa Phillips, whose family raises livestock and grows pumpkins and produce on 450 acres in Good Thunder, about 14 miles south of Mankato. Phillips said during Long's public forum that her family recently went uninsured because it couldn't afford annual premiums of $25,500 and keep its business afloat. She said that decision might have delayed identification and treatment of her husband's cancer and worsened his prognosis.

Phillips said she wants to pass the farm to her daughter and son-in-law but doesn't want to bind them to farming unless they have access to affordable health insurance.

"This could be the end of our family farm," she said.

Republican lawmakers and commentators questioned U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s allegiance to the United States — even calling for her to be deported — over a video clip with an inaccurate translation of her remarks from Somali to English.

Many Minnesota based corporations have resumed donating to election deniers, thinking we wouldn't notice.

Unions are enjoying the most robust public support in nearly six decades and winning double digit pay raises for their members, yet the share of the American workforce that is unionized remains stuck at historic lows.

In Minnesota, union membership ticked down nearly a full percentage point from 14.2% to 13.3% in 2023, inching closer to the national average of 10%.