Earlier today we talked about the change in leads, and maybe fortunes, in the Minnesota House, thrown into chaos by the DFL’s hubris in Distict 40A.

Today, let’s look at the Senate.

The Senate wasn’t up for election this year – so they held on to the same one-vote lead they’ve had for the past two years – by the solitary dint of Nicole “The Ninja” Mitchell not leaving office after her arrest for burglary at the end of the last session.

And it’s no surprise – the DFL would ignore Ted Bundy if he was their whole lead, especially given the DFL’s losses in the House.

But then Senator Dziedzic died, last week.

Which leaves the Senate tied at 33-33, as long as Mitchell remains in office.

Mitchell will get forced out once her vote no longer matters, of course – and the DFL will likely win both special elections, barring a very unlikely swerve in either district.  And Governor Klink will be able to veto anything a temporary majority in both chambers sends to his desk. 

But this opportunity, such as it is, must not go to waste. 

So, last week was a big week. A good one, by Minnesota Republican standards. For the DFL, less so.

Both chambers of of the Minnesota legislature flipped to “tied” last week – one by via human tragedy, and one by hubris and stupidity.

Let’s talk stupidity and hubris first.

The House

As we noted last week, the election in House District 40B got thrown out by a Ramco Judge – DFLer Julian Castro – because the DFL winner, Curtis Johnson, hadn’t lived in the district the required six months.

Naturally, it took his GOP opponent and his supporters to dig up the information that went to trial – God knows the media isn’t going to do it. But the locals did prevail. Johnson is out.

Which, including the still-disputed 54A race, leaves the GOP one vote ahead as the session looms. Which means a GOP speaker of the House – a much better speedbump on DFL control than the “shared power” arrangement people were talking about last week.

Or it will, if the DFL can’t figure out a way to juke the rules in their favor. Which is exactly what they’re going to try to do.

On Friday, Johnson A DFL state representative-elect said Friday he will not appeal a judge’s ruling that he is ineligible to hold the office because he did not meet residency requirements for the district.

On Friday, Johnson announced he was opening the way to a special election to fill the 40B seat by “resigning“:

A DFL state representative-elect said Friday he will not appeal a judge’s ruling that he is ineligible to hold the office because he did not meet residency requirements for the district.

In a letter to Gov. Tim Walz, Curtis Johnson said he has “made the difficult decision not to accept my seat in the Minnesota House of Representatives and to resign from the Office of State Representative effective immediately and irrevocably.”

Which is great – except the couldn’t resign. He was never in the office – it’s still Becker-Finn’s seat, and Johnson’s election was voided by the court.

Pretty Vacant

And the word “vacancy” has a statutory definition:

Which didn’t stop Governor Walz from declaring a special election on January 24.

Now, I’m no lawyer, but Johnson’s not the incumbent – Becker-Finn is.

So trying to jam down a special election is against the law:

But there is no vacancy, so (as I, and I suspect Mr. Hansen, and presumptive-Speaker Demuth) see it), the governor doesn’t get to call the special election until 22 days after Johnson isn’t sworn in, on January 14, the first day of session.

So with the House tied at 67-67 after the election, and the 54A seat in Shakopee still in court, this gives the GOP a 67-66 lead in the House, and the potential of picking up the 54A (and refusing to seat Brad Tabke until the issue is resolved in court).

I say it’s time for some intransigence.

Let’s talk about the Senate later today. 

Former Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Kari Dziedzic passed away last Friday after a protracted battle with cancer.  She was 62.

“Senator Kari Dziedzic was a passionate legislator, a respected leader, and a trusted colleague and friend. She will be remembered for her integrity and her compassion for Minnesotans, something that we all saw as she continued to serve even as she battled cancer,” said Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, an East Grand Forks Republican. “I’m deeply saddened at her passing and am praying for her family and friends as we all mourn this loss.”

She was the daughter of former City Councilmember Walt Dziedzic, who may have been the last genuine union moderate in Minneapolis politics.

Prayers and condolences to the Senator’s family. 

Her passing, along with other recent events, put the DFL in a bit of a bind – but I won’t pollute an obit with that. 

A Ramsey County judge has tossed out the election of DFLer Curtis Johnson:

Ramsey County District Judge Leonardo Castro issued an order granting an election challenge against Curtis Johnson, determining he didn’t live in the Roseville area district he sought to represent for the time required in state law. 

Johnson’s Republican challenger, Paul Wikstrom, sought the ruling after he and supporters gathered surveillance video and photos that aimed to show Johnson did not reside in the apartment he claimed to inhabit during the campaign.

The Minnesota Constitution spells out that a candidate must live in the state for one year prior to the election and in the district they hope to represent for six months ahead of the election.

 

This gives the MNGOP a one-vote lead in the House. The “trifecta” was dead even with 67-67 tie – tie votes are defeated.

But this means the Speaker will be a Republican, not some jury-rigged power-sharing arrangement.

I strongly urge the GOP to do to the DFL what John Bonham did to hotel rooms. 

Governor Klink – who two years before had arrogated emergency powers that Francisco Franco would have envied, who sicced the Attorney General on anyone who defied him – as the trifecta started marauding: “You got political capital, you gotta use it”.

Two years later and facing two years of tie votes in the House: “I hear NOTH-ing! I see NOTH-ing”:

But wait – it gets worse.  

You may think this is just a matter of the Governor and his media noise machine working to transfer the DFL’s little massive fraud problem to the House, abetted by the DFL’s noise machine and the subservient media. 

And you’d be partly right. 

But it’s worse than that:

That’s right – the governor who arroraged to himself the power to cancel Thanksgiving, to pack nursing homes with sick people, and to sort Minnesotans into “essential” and “nonessential”, apparently gave away the power to actually control his own executive branch. 

Looking to get someone to explain this madness on the show after Christmas. 

The big that confuses me so much about this story – the DFL jamming down a $10K appropriation to help one of their colleagues settle an issue with her “day job” outside politics – isn’t that the DFL is basically pickpocketing taxpayers to help one of their own with a private matter. (Emphasis added):

This all started when Rep. Bianca Virnig of Eagan was elected to the House as a Democrat in a special election and sworn in last January serving a district in the Eagan-Mendota Heights area. Her new position as a state lawmaker created a conflict with her employer, Brightworks, a non-profit established by the Minnesota Legislature in 1976 to provide services to public schools and school districts, according to its website.

“When she returned to her employment her employer dramatically cut back her hours and her pay based on her new job she held as a part-time state legislator,” Rep. Jamie Long, DFL Majority Leader, said at a House Rules Committee meeting Tuesday. “Since this was related to her work as a Minnesota representative we are proposing we pay for those legal costs.”

No, after years of DFL corruption eating up hundreds of millions of dollars, seeing something in five digits almost feels like watching “The Andy Griffith Show”.

The part that fairy astounds me is that, after getting elected to the legislature, either Rep. Virnig or “Brightworks” had a problem with the arrangement.

The DFL set up the non-profit/industrial complex specifically to serve as a farm team and lobbyist ranch for their regime.  A potential politician starts working with one of the state’s maze of public unions, pseudo-parties or poiltical/social non-profits, spends a few years making contacts and learning who buried the political bodies, and then run for office, already fully groomed as a DFL candidate – who goes on to do their mentor group’s bidding, and eventually to lobby for them and/or groups like them when and if they leave office

So the corruption doesn’t confuse me. The fact that either Virnig or Brightworks had a problem with each other does.

Since we have an election coming up, let’s take a trip down memory lane.

Here’s Rep. Dave Pinto, progsplaining last session why DFL prosecutors won’t go after straw buyers – because the sentences are “too low”…

…before joining his entire caucus in voting down a bill that would have increased the sentence.

Pinto will get re-elected. He’s in a nauseatingly save DFL district.

But if you live somewhere in play?

Your mission is clear.

The DFL and Media (should almost be one word, shouldn’t it) are howling about allegations of domestic abuse against a GOP legislator, six weeks before the election:

In 2008, Dotseth was arrested and charged with misdemeanor domestic assault and he later pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct. In a sworn affidavit by his ex-wife when filing for divorce, she detailed years of alleged abuse, according to the newspaper, including that he allegedly kicked and choked her in one incident and in another, pinned her against a wall.

Anyone but me getting deja vu, here?

I’ll help you out – 2006, during Keith Ellison’s first run for Congress, when the Strib put out a hatchet piece against GOP congresisonal candidate Alan Fine, dredging up domestic abuse allegations from his first marriage, but never managed to add a few things to the story: there were no convictions, Fine got custody of their son, and the wife went on to get arrested later on for…domestic abuse.

I’ll wager a shiny new quarter the allegations were brought up by an ex-spouse and her sleazebag lawyer to try to put a thumb on the scales during a nasty divorce – which is far from unprecedented, and in fact likely accounts for a huge percentage of domestic abuse allegationws.  Husbands and fathers are guilty until proven innocent, at least as far as the media and political class are concerned – as we saw with Fine. And it’s why the story is coming out today.  

I say nobody should even talk about leaving a race until Keith Ellison comes clean about his own, much better-documented history, not to mention Nicole MItchell leaving office and Judd Hoff leaves his legislative race. 

My two cents: This story means one or both of two things:

• The race for the state legislature is closer than the DFL is letting on. .
• Some oppo researcher, somewhere, is about to drop a big domestic abuse allegation against a DFLer. 

Any action on that bet?

What’s the next front in the specious war on “white supremacy?”

We’ll come back to that.

Redundant And Extraneous: Something I’ve always wondered about; why does Minnesota have a Senate, but the Senate just replicates each pair of House districts?

It give you all the disadvantages of a purely majoritarian unicameral legislature, which an added layer of bureaucracy which doesn’t actually protect the population from the tyranny of the majority.

I’ve often thought it’d be best to make the legislature more analogous to the US Senate, including the focus on blunting the power of the pure majority – either 2-3 Senators per Congressional district, or one per County.

And I’m not the only one.

Adversarial: The move to give Minnesota a minoritarian, deliberative Senate has finally gotten a mention out there:

That would shift power to lower-population counties, and make the Minnesota Legislature more like the U.S. Congress, with the House membership based on population proportionality and the Senate membership elected one per county, no matter how many people live in that county.

“The real problem is the representation in Minnesota,” [propoenent Allen] Lysdahl told the Becker County Board during the open forum period on Tuesday, June 4. ”It’s either very concentrated in some areas or very diluted in others.” The existing system is “pure majority rule,” he added. “It’s not conducive to good government — majority rule is like a lynch mob

It would help the legislature bridge the tribal divides that currently slop most legislation into our current, useless three-person junta. And it’d help prevent the orgy of one-sided spending caused by the Metro area’s stranglehold on the Legislature.

Smug Alert: So you know the DFL is going to hate it.

That’s right – the party that gave us ranked choice voting, ballot harvesting and season-long early voting windows, and has spent this state into decline and oblivion, is complaining about “rigged elections”.

Suffice to say, I support it. It will, of course, take a GOP trifecta, and a decisive one at that, to make it happen.

As the Minnesota state legislature, led by the no-way, no-how insane Nicole Mitchell, meanders toward passing a “safe storage” bill, I went out to try to take the community’s temperature on the issue.

I started out at a Menards. There was a line of people in various gang colors, lined up waiting for new safes to be rolled out of the back room. The attendant, Lars “Schmidty” Schmidt, said they were down to just a couple left, and the truck with more wasn’t due until Tuesday.

Things were getting a little edgy, so I went to a Cabela’s.

It’d be a little threadbare to say “I was shocked”…

…but I was.

I kid you not, the line of gang members trying to buy gun safes to comply with the “safe storage” law ran out the door.

This is where the story gets a little dicey – honestly, i can hardly believe I saw this.

One guy was driving away with his new safe when two youths walked up to him in the parking lot, stuck a gun in his face, and jacked the pickup

And then as they were driving away with the new gun safe, another car blocked them in, and three guys got out and carjacked them. They drove off with the safe, leaving three other gang members outraged, perplexed, and with no way to keep their firearms safely locked up.

All of this is as true as I can make it.

Just a quick point before we get started.

The “I’m just asking questions’ school of opinion journalism – whether Rachel Maddow or Tucker Carlson or anyone in between – is a particularly toxic practice. “Asking questions” that aren’t intended to elicit the truth is pointless at best; doing it as a substitute for seeking the truth or, worse, to deny or obfuscate it, is much worse.

We’ll come back to that.

The Premise: I try not to attach too much news significance to “features” columns. It’s entirely possible that columns like this Strib article from MPR alum Laura Yuen has no ulterior motives.

But go ahead and read it, and tell lme – if the piece were part of a DFL attempt to curry sympathy for Mitchell, to soften public attitudes as the DFL heads into an election with their House majority on the line behind a raft of legislation that may or may not have enduring popularity in the third and fourth tier suburbs, how woulld it be any different?

What Nicole Mitchell did is bizarre, tragic and unlawful, if the police narrative of her breaking into her stepmother’s home prevails. The state senator’s apparent failed heist of her father’s ashes and other belongings likely spells the end of her political career.

But the emotions behind it? I understand them.

In case that opening graf left you in doubt about Yuen’s sympathies, she follows with this list of center-left dog-whistles and signaled virtues:

Trauma after losing a loved one can make a person act out of character, if not out of their mind. An Air National Guard officer, former meteorologist, lawyer, single mom and staunch defender of children’s rights, this promising first-term DFL legislator had everything to lose.

The piece goes on to discuss the crazy things that follow from grief and, it needs to be said, family issues. It isn’t not worth a read, as far as that goes.

Stil – while nobody expects features columnists to be clinically detached – “journalistic” – about their subjects, I think it’s significant that Yuen buries the facts that Mitchell changed her story, not just under questioning but on social media, using her very large publid figure megaphone.

And then (emphasis added):

Until this point, Mitchell has always struck me as a superhuman, measured in both achievements and decency. (We both worked at MPR News, and I wrote a column about her and fellow meteorologist Rob Kupec after they were sworn into the Senate.) Mitchell might deserve a second chance in politics, but it would be easier to make that case if she apologized for the actions that led up to her arrest.

Hold onto that word, “Superhuman”.

Anyway – we’ve established grief can do crazy things to the psyche.

The Possible: And it’s not necessarily a features columnist’s job to examine all the other possibilities.

But since Yuen ends with a hypothetical…:

She could start by saying she’s in grief. That she’s embarrassed by what she’s done. That she’s going to step aside while she receives professional help to heal.

And as a culture, we need to allow for people to talk openly about debilitating grief, the kind that makes a hard-working, respected legislator risk it all when she acted on the worst decision of her life.

….so will I.

It’s possible that grief pushed Senator Mitchell past the bounds of normal behavior.

Also entirely possible: Yuen isn’t hte only one to think of Mitchell as “superhuman”.

Does Mitchell believe it herself?

I’m not “Just asking questions”, here.

Mitchell is a lawyer – who publicly contradicted her statements to the police, on Facebook:

Did she do this – violate a tenet of criminal defense that every first-year law student knows – because she was crazy with grief? Or because she figured she was superhuman and could do it?

It’s probably a little trite to say “I’ve suffered plenty of grief in my life, and I never burgled any relatives” – but that’s at least in part true because neither I nor most anyone else figures that’s the right thing to do, and nothing we’re grieving about is worth that kind of trouble.

Did grief make Senator Mitchell irrational? Or is Senator Mitchell’s version of “rational” different than yours, mine or Yuen’s?

I”m going to suggest the data supporting each conclusion are about equal.

Upshot: I’m not saying that Yuen’s piece is a part of the DFL’s PR effort, to try to pitch Mitchell’s alleged behavior as sympathetic as the DFL sneaks her into the Senate to finish jamming down their agenda.

But if it were, would it be any different?

Fearless prediction: Mitchell will appear on Esme Murphy for mimosas, toenail-painting and affirmation.

Senator Mitchell (DFL Woodbury) was arraigned for First Degree Burglary in Becker County yesterday.

I’ll cop to the fact that I honestly hope someone who has attitudes about civil liberties and rights like she has, has a short political career.

Now, I really need to follow my. own counsel here; Berg’s 18th Law applies. We don’t know all the facts, and our media will be pretty worthless at getting those to us accurately anyway, especiallly since she’s one of their own – both as a media person and a Democrat.

So I’m jumping to no conclusions, here. Pinky swear.

Still – it’s been in the news. I’m gonna talk about it.

You Have The Right To Remain Silent: She doesn’t seem to have done herself many favors before arraignment; for someone with a JD, she seems to have missed the whole “don’t talk to the cops without an attorney present” thing:

I’m nothing if not a pollyanna: It all could be a huge misunderstanding. It’s a crazy world.

But, while I am no attorney, that seems to be a dumb thing to say to cops, when dressed in black, outside a place you have allegedly entered without authorization, dressed in black, before 5AM.

We’ll come back to that.

Anything You Say Can And Will Be Used Against You: Now, she was represented by counsel at her hearing. After which she (or someone claiming to e her) posted this on social media:

Now, I lost my mother to Alzheimers two years ago this week – after years of adventures including a ten hour drive to try to find her (long story). I’m nothing but sympathetic to relatives of Alzheimers patients.

But, uh…

• “Prompted me to check on the family member” – at 4:45 AM? Dressed in all black? And telling the cops you know you did something wrong after you were Mirandized?
• “have come and gone from countless times” – at 4:45 AM? Through, it is alleged, a basement window?
• “Startled this close relative” – at 4:45 AM, while allegedly dressed in black and entering the home through something other than a door? I don’t wonder.

Did her defense counsel know she was posting this? It seems…ill-advised, but again, I am no expert.

Speaking of the close relative:

The stepmother said in an interview that she’s afraid of her stepdaughter and applied for a restraining order against her. She also said that while most of her husband’s ashes were buried, she sent Mitchell a miniature container with some of them.

Is the stepmother genuinely afraid of Mitchell? Or suffering from delusions while suffering from dementia? Experience notwithstanding, I’m no expert – but either way, it seems that entering the woman’s house (allegedly) at 4:45AM, dressed like a ninja, through a window, might not be an optimal choice.

Senator Mitchell is of course innocent until proven guilty. But it is difficult to see how a DFL with any integrity, as opposed to lust for power in a Senate where Mitchell is the margin, keeps her in office. While she won her seat by a 18 point margin, having her in office is a problem.

So last week, the DFL introduce this amendment to existing state statute on “reasonable force” self-defense in this bill.

And the amendment includes some curious bits of language:

A Kiss Is Just A Kiss

Minnesota law allows the use of “Reasonable” and non-lethal force (that’s another statute altogether) in some circumstances: when you’re:

• A cop doing legal cop things (or helping a cop do cop things, or carrying out a legitimate citizen’s arrest
• Helping someone defend themselves against an assault
• Resisting trespass
• Grabbing a prison escapee
• Restraining a child or student, under some circumstances, if one is a parent, teacher, guardian or lawful custodian
• If you’re a school or employee or bus driver, to protect students
• If you’re a common carrier and need to 86 a troublesome passenger (with reasonable care for the passenger’s safety)
• Restraining someone who’s mentally ill or otherwise developmentally disabled from harming themselves
• If you’re an institution and need to restrain a patient from harming themself or someone else.

So far so good.

But the DFL wants to add an exception to the law:

Subd. 4. 

Use of force not authorized; reaction to victim’s sexual orientation. 

Force may not be used against another based on the discovery of, knowledge about, or potential disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, including gender identity and expression, including under circumstances in which the victim made an unwanted nonforcible romantic or sexual advance towards the actor, or if the actor and victim dated or had a romantic or sexual relationship.

So if I read this right – lawyers in the house, please sound off – it sounds like someone who takes a non-forcible pass at someone is fair game for a good slap – but not if they are or are “perceived” to be transgender, in which case it’s off limits?

Again – not being lawyer, I’m unclear on this, but is it currently OK to slap someone who makes a pass at you, if they’re “cisgender?” Or merely gay?

And that’s just the beginning.

Liquored Up?

When booze is involved, things get a little weirder, at least to this non-lawyer: Booze is no defense, except as an aspect of crimes whose elements include a particular state of mind:

An act committed while in a state of voluntary intoxication is not less criminal by reason thereof, but when a particular intent or other state
of mind is a necessary element to constitute a particular crime, the fact of intoxication may be taken into consideration in determining such intent or state of mind

Unless that state of mind involves a crime against a transgender person:

It is not a defense to a crime that the defendant acted based on the discovery of, knowledge about, or potential disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, including gender identity and expression, including under circumstances in which the victim made an unwanted nonforcible romantic
or sexual advance towards the defendant, or if the defendant and victim dated or had a romantic or sexual relationship.

So, is there a crime, currently, where the state of mind is an element of the crime, where intoxication can be considered as part of the defendant’s state of mind, that would not be affected by a victim’s perceived gender?

Someone help me out here.

And finally:

If You’re Not A Biologist, Is It Really “Manslaughter?”

Among several other motivations, manslaughter is when one…:

intentionally causes the death of another person in the heat of passion provoked by such words or acts of another as would provoke a person of ordinary self-control under like circumstances, provided that…

That appears to this non-attorney to refer to someone reacting to some form of extreme stressor, like crying child, or…:

(ii) the discovery of, knowledge about, or potential disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, including gender identity and expression, including under circumstances in which the victim made an unwanted nonforcible romantic or sexual advance towards the actor, or if the actor and victim dated or had a romantic or sexual relationship

So – is killing someone in the heat of the moment a lesser grade of manslaughter than killing someone of ambiguous gender?

Is it just me, or is that really weird?

This is your brain on crack:

This is the DFL’s brain on DFL ideology:

You have no agency re your behavior until you’re in your thirties, but you can choose to have yourself neutered when you’re 8.

I suspect there’ll be a bill in the next session, if the DFL maintains the majority, banning logic of every kind.

Wait – didn’t the DFL in the Legislature spend most of April and May of last year doing the endzone happy dance celebrating having “fully funded” education?

I do believe they did.

So – what is up with this?

Now, when you asked a DFL legislator or an EdMN partisan what “Full Funding” meant, the “answers” should have come with a side of blue cheese for all the word salad. It was gibberish. And that was just the ones that didn’t ignore the question entirely.

As we see now, pretty much intentionally so.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, for people who love to control other people:

And right back atcha – happy first day of session to all you DFLers who treat it like an orgy!

So, Erin Murphy is the new MN Senate Majority Leader, replacing Senator Dziedzik (whom I wish the best in her ongoing battle with cancer).

What this means is that the old “Labor” coalition that ran the DFL and often Minnesota has been demoted to the back seat. Dziedzik’s father was a long-time Northeast MInneapolis politician who was a perfect metaphor for the coalition; blue-collar, from Northeast or the Iron Range, pretty much your typical Perpich voter.

Murphy represents the, uh, great leap forward for the DFL: Metro, public employee union, and not one degree behind The Squad in terms of perfect “progressive” credentials.

Anyway, here we are:

By the way – has anyone noticed that, if you left all anthropological terms out of the rhetoric, the “improvements” the DFL is making are the same kind of thing a farmer does to take care of a herd of livestock?

As opposed to free people?

Anna Matthews joined me to talk about Cynthia Lonnquist’s race to replace Ruth Richardson in MN HD 52B.

Interested in helping out? Write “info@mngop.com”, or join them Sunday morning at 10AM at the McDonald’s at Dodd and Crosstown.

Today’s song list.

If you’re a conservative in Minnesota, you’ve got friends moving elsewhere. I personally have friends, including some of the regulars here, who’ve moved or are planning to move to any of the less-insane states; the Dakotas, Tennessee, Texas, Republican northwest Wisconsin, and of course Florida – a state where expats from Minnesota are almost as big a cliche as New Yorkers.

Not me.

And not John Phelan of the Center of the American Experiment.

Phelan gives his three reasons. I agree with ’em all – and I’ve got one of my own to add:

I’m going to start at the end of the list:

Finally, and most importantly, Minnesota is still a wonderful place to live. Its scenery is beautiful, its weather varied (or challenging, depending on your view), and its people decent, none of which, of course, depends on high taxes. When you have something good it is worth fighting for even when you feel the odds are against you. Perhaps especially then.

I’m from North Dakota. The weather in southern Minnesota is like a 12 month vacation (at least since I got AC in my car and bedroom).

The larger point? I was here first.

Second, even while its economy splutters, crime rises, test scores fall, the lights go out, and residents flee in numbers not seen in at least three decades, Minnesota’s government is being lauded as an example by progressives around the country. NBC News, the Daily Beast, and the New York Times have all run pieces lately praising the state government and Gov. Walz in particular. It matters to the entire country that the sad truth about Minnesota gets out.

Because whether you live in Orono or Orlando, they are coming for you, like it or not. Might be next election cycle, it might be when your grandkids are married and having kids of their own, but they’re playiing the long game.

And here’s the big one (I’m adding emphasis):

First, the liberal grip on Minnesota is not as tight as it seems. In 2022, the DFL’s party unit took in nearly $24 million from all sources while the state Republican Party took in a paltry $1.3 million. Even so, and with the built-in advantage of a friendly media, the DFL took the state Senate by just one seat and that by just 321 votes. The DFL is governing like a party that just scored 60 percent of the vote, not because they did, but precisely because they didn’t, and they want to ram their agenda through before Minnesotans cotton on to what they’re up to.

Minnesota has eight congressional districts (for nine more years, anyway).

• Two (4 and 5) will be hard blue until some future apocalypse makes everyone a conservative.
• One (3) appears to have slid off the rais.
• Two (6 and 7) will never vote DFL again.
• Two (1 and 8) are getting redder by the year. If you’d told me 15 years ago I’d never say that about CD8, I’d have said you were nuts).
• One (CD2) might be redeemable.

That’s 4-4 – and with the right candidate in the right year, 5-3.

Yes, the DFL balllot-harvesting machine gives the DFL a huge lift with the metro vote – but if the legislature stays in play, that gives us gridlock. Not the eternal blue nightmare. And given how many Republicans stayed home last year, and how close the GOP candidates came in the Attorney General and State Auditor races, despair is premature.

They can’t overturn Roe again, after all.

And the DFL knows it.

The DFL’s awareness of this weakness is evident, too, in its attack on democracy by making it practically impossible for third parties to get on the ballot in Minnesota. Not a single reporter asked a single legislator a single question about this.

Last week, President Obama tweeted, “If you need a reminder that elections have consequences, check out what’s happening in Minnesota.” He is exactly right. Our state is about to move from the “fool around” to the “find out” stage of voting for ever higher taxes, ever higher government spending, and ever bigger government. Minnesota needs its conservatives now more than ever.

Which brings us to Reason #4. The fight is worth fighting.

My ancestry is half Viking and 1/4 lowland Scots white trash. We fight just to stay awake, ffs.

What the hell is there to do in this life but fight?

I was here first. I’m not going anywhere.

If there are two bright spots in this current legislative session, it is the emergence of Harry Niska and Walter Hudson, as two of the best state legislators in the United States.

Here, Walter finishes the job Harry started, giving the single best explanation of why the DFL, and the StarTribune, are lying about the removal of language, regarding pedophilia from state statute.

Pass this around, like it’s hot.

Members of the House of Representatives routinely vote for each other.

The Minnesota House’s hours-long floor sessions are often mundane and monotonous, the chamber regularly half full at best. But when members get to voting on an amendment or a bill, the chamber suddenly looks as bustling as a bee hive.

Members press the green and red voting buttons at their desks to cast a “yes” or “no” vote. But some of them aren’t just recording their own vote. Many stretch, lean over and press the voting buttons for their seatmates, who are gone.

Then, a handful get out of their seats to make sure all the empty seats around them have a vote cast.

Where are the missing members? And why are they surrendering their vote to their seatmates?

Which is technically a violation of the rules, but hey, rules are for peasants.

The reps involved have their, er, reasons:

House members say voting for one another is a longstanding practice and no cause for alarm — though it’s technically against the rules.

House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, doesn’t believe the practice compromises the legitimacy of the vote.

Walter Hudson goes into the reason behind the reason:

This – the serious work being argued out behind closed doors by the Governor, Speaker and Senate Majority leader, has been a problem since at least the early years of the Dayton regime, if not longer.

The Pandemic made it worse; the state was in effect run by a junta, and the Legislature was of no more use than the Supreme Soviet.

That’s something for a future, good government to fix, if we ever get one.

The new head of Planned Parenthood Twin Cities is Ruth Richardson.

Who also happens to be a Minnesota state representative:

Wonder if she plans on recusing herself from votes on Planned Parenthood funding if the media would say anything about it even if she didif the media would say anything about it even if she did or BWAHAHAHAHAHhHhaaaaa sometimes I say the dumbest things.

I wouldn’t say there was much in the way of “surprises“ in the primaries last night. Mostly confirmation of existing hunches, and a brief stab of hope followed by waves and waves of confirmation that Minneapolis is not only screwed, but seems hell-bent on participating in its own screwing.

The marquee race, Don Samuels tackling Ilhan Omar, ended up a lot closer than I, or anyone, I suspect, figured it might.

That is painfully close. A few hundred people who kvetch about crime turning out? A few hundred Republicans crossing over? An errand thunderstorm? All could’ve affected the results enough to retire Omar.

I have to expect the results surprised congresswoman Omar as well; she ran almost no television, and a fairly languid campaign up until the frenzied (and occasionally tone deaf) tour with The Squad this past week. Primaries usually draw the party’s loyalists to the polls – the hard-core who also go to caucuses and the next layer outward. In Minneapolis. that generally means white, upper-middle-class progressives, and public union employees. I haven’t looked at the precinct results yet, but I have to suspect Samuels started getting people to the polls who normally wait ’til November, if at all, to vote.

Omar pulled it off by two points. If she doesn’t focus on crime, and Minneapolis continues to deteriorate, someone else – Samuels, or some new law and order DFLer – might have a shot.

Which is probably the closest thing we can find to a silver lining on the next two races.

In Hennepin County races, the top two finishers in the primary go onto the general election. and if the choices of the county voters gave themselves last night are any indication, there is going to be a big opportunity for a “law and order“ candidate in two years.

It’s hard to come up with an adjective phrase even softer than “soft on crime” to describe the choices that will move to the November ballot. Mary Moriarty and Martha Holton Dimick will be the “options“ this fall for Hennepin county attorney. Mori

And for sheriff, committed progressive Dawanna Witt will square off against Joseph “Who?” Banks. When Witt wins, she will make Dave Hutchinson look like Ted Nugent.

Last night – at least as re the CD5 DFL primary – was a little spasm of common sense and protest voting in the highest profile race in the city, the results are fairly clear; the people who come out of the primaries are fine with Minneapolis’s status quo.

On the other hand, the DFL finally cut itself loose from its biggest public relations boondoggle of 2020; John Thompson got pummeled, with a level of voting that suggests orders went out from party HQ:

And in house district 52 a – the area around my radio station – the reliably moderate, center left Sandy Mason got pummeled…

by…

Liz Reyer.

Liz who?

I don’t know who she is, but she pulled off the exceptionally difficult combination of “ELCA hair“ and pink. Not just literally, but figuratively and morally:

So Eagan has moved from center left to “Alandra Cano“ territory.

On the GOP side: Jim Schultz beat back a challenge from Doug Wardlow, to advance to run against Keith Ellison for Attorney General this fall.

Every time I see these, I have to ask – who are the 12 freaking percent of people who vote for Sharon Anderson?

I’ve got nothing against Wardlow; I’ve emceed or spoken at five of his fundraisers over the years. but I’m having a bigger and bigger problem with people defying the party endorsement. Especially after saying they would honor it.

Speaking of honoring endorsements: in the new 33B, endorsed candidate Mark Bischofsky prevailed over Tina Riehle, a candidate supported by most of the GOP brass (including Kurt Daudt and Karin Housley, who took a break from opining for the sanctity of the endorsement to float Riehle against the endorsed candidate, for reasons I am just not advanced enough an intelligence to figure out)

Here’s hoping the GOP can pull it together enough to get behind the primary winner, and flip that very winnable seat.

Whenever your Democrat friends condescendingly coo “nobody is coming for your guns”, just remember – they’re coming for your guns:

Gun owners in Minnesota had a pretty easy session last year. This year, the Dems have to try to turn out their base. Grabbing guns certainly gets the Karens and Mascists and ninnies of the left lathered up.

More this weekend.

Senator Melisa Lopez Franzen took what some called a “brave” stance in going after the perps in a sexual harassment scandal at the MN STate Capitol earlier this year.

A Senate staffer, Cynthia Callais, reported being harassed by a Legislative staff manager who happened to be related to Senator Jason Isaacson, a prominent DFLer.

The fracas led to the resignation of Susan Kent from her Senate Minority Leader role, and her announcement she wasn’t going to run again – potentially opening a seat for a GOP challenger, but that’s another story.

So Lopez Franzen just got elected to Kent’s old position.

And look who’s BFFs:

It’s not about justice, for women or anyone else. It’s about power – personal, and partisan.