3CD DFL

DFL DeBrief: The Anti-Vax Quack Running for Governor

Dr. Scott Jensen is a Republican candidate for governor of Minnesota and a total quack. The crew discusses Jensen’s candidacy, the efforts by Republicans in St. Paul to delay passage of a budget bill, and the future of voting rights legislation in Washington D.C.

Listen here: https://dfldebrief.buzzsprout.com/1789166/8762584-the-anti-vax-quack-running-for-mn-governor

If you like the show, be sure to tell your friends and rate and review on Apple Podcasts! You can submit trivia answers or any feedback you have to podcast@dfl.org.

Articles referenced this week:

Commissioner Chris LaTondresse (Dist. 6) Update: June 25, 2021

June 25, 2021

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

This week the Board approved $100,000 in playground projects and $124,823 in small equipment and/or other small capital assets funding through our Hennepin Youth Sports Program. These grants include a total of $61,506 for four projects in District 6, including playgrounds in Edina and Shorewood and sports equipment in Orono.

The Hennepin Youth Sports Program awards capital grants to build, repair, renovate or expand youth sports facilities in Hennepin County. Earlier this month, I was able to see one of these finished projects at the Shorewood Badger Park grand opening. The Youth Sports Program helped fund the new playground. It also contributed to synthetic turf for a multipurpose field at Badger Park.

Updates in this week’s newsletter:

Rep. Laurie Pryor (HD48A) Update: June 25, 2021

Neighbors,

Progress is being made as the legislature assembles the two-year budget. We have already passed several budget bills and expect to be at work all day Saturday and Sunday approving more compromise bills to finalize our budget before the end of June.

Earlier today, the Environment budget was approved 99-34 and is heading to the Governor for his signature. Minnesotans can be assured that state parks, the zoo, and museums will remain open. The bill also contains Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR) recommendations for allocation of lottery money to fund research and habitat preservation. Stronger protection against harmful PFAS chemicals is also part of the budget.

The Jobs and Labor budget was also approved today and provides $8 million in childcare grants to increase the number of providers throughout Minnesota.

Gov. Walz and Lt. Gov. Flanagan Update: June 25, 2021

Governor Walz Continues to Fight for Students, Working Families, Small Businesses

Governor Walz continues to work with legislative leaders to pass a two-year state budget that will drive Minnesota’s recovery by making investments in our students, small businesses, and working families. Our state is ready to put this pandemic behind us, and Governor Walz is committed to finishing the job.

Governor Walz Announces Huber Engineered Woods LLC to Bring 150 New Jobs to Cohasset

Iron Range Resources & Rehabilitation Board approves $15 million to construct a new wood products manufacturing facility

On Monday, Governor Walz announced the Iron Range Resources & Rehabilitation Board approved $15 million in funding for the construction of the new Huber Engineered Woods LLC manufacturing facility in Cohasset, bringing 150 new jobs to the region.

Sen. Ann Johnson Stewart (SD44) Update: June 25, 2021

A message from your Senator

Constituents and friends,

We continue to work towards passing Minnesota’s two-year budget before the July 1 state shutdown deadline, a task that is both very achievable and non-negotiable. Thus far, we have passed the omnibus Agriculture, Higher Education, Legacy, Jobs, Commerce & Energy, and Transportation budget bills, but several others remain unpassed, including E-12 Education, Housing, Taxes, and Capital Investment. Those will occupy our time and attention across the weekend and early next week.

The passage of the Jobs bill was particularly controversial. Senator Karla Bigham proposed a refinery safety amendment during floor debate on the bill last Friday, the Safe and Skilled Worker Act, that would require Minnesota’s petroleum refineries to employ only skilled, properly-trained workers – truly a no-brainer from the standpoint of both worker and community safety, given the extensive and geographically-widespread damage that can result from refinery accidents. We passed the Act and added it to the Jobs bill on Friday by a large, bipartisan majority vote, 50-17.

However, by Monday, my Republican colleagues had changed their minds, and they used their power as our chamber’s majority party to pull the Jobs bill back to the Finance Committee and remove that Act. I was incredibly disappointed by this example of pure partisanship used to the detriment of our state, but we haven’t given up on Senator Bigham’s provision, and intend to work towards its inclusion in a different budget bill. I spoke on the Senate floor on Monday about my support for the Act, rooted in my career experience, which you can view below.

Rep. Erin Koegel (HD37A) Update: June 25, 2021

Dear Neighbors,

The Legislature convened a special session on June 14 and we have been hard at work in final negotiations crafting bipartisan budget bills that will fund our state for the next two years. Details on the overall budget agreement and where the Legislature currently is in the process can be found here.

Current Status of Budget Bills

We’ve reached bipartisan compromise on most budget areas. Here are the bills we have passed thus far.

Higher Education: Makes investments to ensure students can recover from the unprecedented challenges they’ve faced over the past year. It will help ensure young people have the ability to thrive as they move forward in the post-pandemic workforce.
Agriculture: Invests in emerging farmer outreach, urban and youth agriculture, the Farm-to-School initiative, Good Food Access, and funding for environmentally-friendly production practices and conservation techniques.

Sen Melisa Franzen (SD49) Update: June 25, 2021

Volume 6, Issue 20

June 25, 2021

Comments on the removal of the Refinery Safety Amendment in the Finance Committee after receiving 50 “yea” votes on the Senate floor.

A weekly message from your Senator

Dear Constituents and Friends,

We are amid a Special Session at the Capitol to settle budget negotiations. With the looming government shutdown, I continue to work with my colleagues to reach agreements. The Senate Finance Committee has had the most action out of all committees during Special Session. Each bill must pass through the committee to assess funding and review spending before heading to the floor. We have met almost every day since the beginning of the Special Session on June 16th, where we tackle budget bills. I will go into detail about some of the budget bills below and the status of the bills. To stop the government from shutting down, we need to pass our budget bills by July 1st. Each day that we wait to finish budget bills, the state of Minnesota spends more money preparing for the potential shutdown. Government employees have received their layoff notices, and nobody wants to see that. I have heard stories about people not being able to refinance their home or purchase a home because they have a layoff notice. The Minnesota Senate has efficiently passed bills through our chamber while the House minority continues to stall the process in the House. It is unacceptable, Minnesotans expect us to get our work done efficiently, and we are still here waiting.

As Democrats spar over advancing Biden’s climate agenda, they move to cut methane

Friday’s House vote to restore Obama-era limits is intended to curb the oil and gas industry’s emissions of a potent greenhouse gas

The House voted Friday to restore a rule targeting leaks of methane from oil and gas operations, reinstating Obama-era standards for limiting the potent greenhouse gas that had been dismantled under President Donald Trump.

The 229 to 191 vote marked a rare bipartisan step in the fight against climate change, but it comes amid growing tensions among Democrats over whether broader and more ambitious action is being sacrificed in the push for a bipartisan infrastructure deal. Twelve House Republicans sided with 217 Democrats to push through the measure.

The vote to re-establish more stringent oversight of methane, whose emissions have surged at a startling rate in recent years, focuses on the oil and gas sector, which ranks as the nation’s largest industrial source of methane emissions. Continue reading.

The vast majority of current COVID-19 deaths in the US are among the unvaccinated: report

In the United States, around 65% of the adult population has, according to the New York Times, been at least partially vaccinated for the COVID-19 coronavirus. Vaccination rates tend to be higher in blue states than in red states, some of which have recently seen spikes in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations. And according to reporting in the Associated Press, the vast majority of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are, at this point, among the unvaccinated.

Associated Press journalists Carla K. Johnson and Mike Stobbe report, “An Associated Press analysis of available government data from May shows that “breakthrough” infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1200 of more than 853,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations. That’s about 0.1%. And only about 150 of the more than 18,000 COVID-19 deaths in May were in fully vaccinated people. That translates to about 0.8%, or five deaths per day on average.”

Johnson and Stobbe note that AP “analyzed figures provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” adding that “the CDC itself has not estimated what percentage of hospitalizations and deaths are in fully vaccinated people, citing limitations in the data.” Continue reading.

Justice Dept. sues state of Georgia over new voting restrictions

Justice Department officials announced a federal lawsuit Friday against Georgia over new statewide voting restrictions that federal authorities allege purposefully discriminate against Black Americans, the first major action by the Biden administration to confront efforts from Republican-led jurisdictions to limit election turnout.

The legal challenge takes aim at Georgia’s Election Integrity Act, which was passed in March by the Republican-led state legislature and signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp (R). The law imposes new limits on the use of absentee ballots, makes it a crime for outside groups to provide food and water to voters waiting at polling stations, and hands greater control over election administration to the state legislature.

The action came as GOP-led state governments across the country have been seeking to impose broad new voting restrictions in the wake of President Biden’s victory over Donald Trump last November. Trump has spent months waging a baseless effort to discredit the result, making false and unsubstantiated allegations of widespread voter fraud. Continue reading.

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Governor Walz Continues to Fight for Students, Working Families, Small Businesses

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A message from your Senator

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A weekly message from your Senator

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