Category: Uncategorized

We’ll see you again on Monday.

Dear Neighbors,

Several laws take effect today, including the Alec Smith Insulin Affordability Act and the Prescription Drug Price Transparency Act. These new laws hold drug manufacturers accountable for inflating the cost of insulin and other medications and will help make prescription drugs more affordable long-term. Legislation that invests in renewable energy initiatives also takes effect today. You can read more about laws that are going into effect here.

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CARES Act Funds for Local Governments

Last week, Governor Walz announced a plan to distribute $841 million in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding to Minnesota’s cities, counties, and towns. His plan utilizes the per-capita formula that legislators developed during the special session. Based on that formula, Minnetonka will receive $4 million, Plymouth will receive $5.9 million, and Woodland will receive $35,000. Local governments have been working hard to keep us safe since the onset of COVID-19, and these funds will help them continue providing the critical services Minnesotans count on. Continue reading “Rep. Patty Acomb (HD44B) Update: July 1, 2020”

After voters in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada went to the polls this month, some races hung in the balance for days as election officials waded through thousands of absentee ballots.

On Tuesday, a similar scenario is expected to play out in Kentucky and New York, where officials have already announced that some results will not be available for as long as a week.

In all five states, officials have contended with an avalanche of mail ballots as voters seek to avoid exposure to the novel coronavirus. It was a fresh illustration of how the pandemic is transforming the way elections are conducted in the United States. Continue reading.

President Trump is focusing this week on highlighting efforts to restrict immigration into the U.S., seeking to reenergize his base of supporters and deliver on campaign promises as he lags in the polls behind presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

The administration on Monday detailed new limits on work visas, and Trump will visit the border wall in swing state Arizona on Tuesday. The president also said over the weekend he intends to refile paperwork to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program after the Supreme Court rejected his first attempt to do so.

While the latter in particular is a politically fraught issue, officials close to the administration argue Trump must dig in on immigration issues or risk alienating his core supporters. Continue reading.

The president’s team had been relieved that he wasn’t slipping below 40 percent in the polls. Well. Now he is.

As Donald Trump returns to the campaign trail this Saturday night in Tulsa, Oklahoma, some of his top political advisers are growing increasingly concerned that the president won’t be able to dig himself out of the hole he’s made for himself.

Over the past two weeks, several of the president’s campaign lieutenants as well as individuals in his administration have reacted with mounting alarm as multiple polls have shown Trump dipping into the 30s against former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee. In weeks past, various aides in the White House and on the Trump re-election effort had privately expressed cold comfort in the fact that with everything going on—a bungled response to a deadly pandemic, a massively crippled U.S. economy, protests across the nation, and a number of Trump’s own former top officials coming out against him—it was practically a miracle that the president’s poll numbers hadn’t sunk even lower.

Early this month, one senior White House official told The Daily Beast that their “nightmare scenario” would be for the president to slip beneath 40 percent support in a sustained string of public and private surveys—thus signaling that a previously unshakable base was starting to grow a bit disillusioned. Trump’s consistent—though perhaps unenviable—standing in the low 40s had for years remained an illustration of his enduring base and iron Republican support.  Continue reading.

President Trump pushed back his first campaign rally in months by one day after critics condemned him for scheduling it on Juneteenth, the observance of the end of slavery in the United States, in a city that experienced one of the country’s worst episodes of racial violence in U.S. history.

In a late-night tweet of Friday, Trump said he is pushing the “Make America Great Again” rally in Tulsa back a day, to June 20, in response to “many of my African American friends and supporters.

“We had previously scheduled our #MAGA Rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for June 19th — a big deal,” Trump wrote. “Unfortunately, however, this would fall on the Juneteenth Holiday. Many of my African American friends and supporters have reached out to suggest that we consider changing the date out of respect for this Holiday, and in observance of this important occasion and all that it represents.” Continue reading.

You can put the Georgia voting debacle right on the shoulders of two people: Supreme Court Justice John Roberts and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. In communities of color, people waited for hours to vote. In a pandemic. With new machines, and fewer voting locations. Back in the day, when Georgia’s election system was subject to preclearance under the Voting Rights Act, this wouldn’t have happened.

But the Supreme Court under Roberts decided seven years ago that the country had had enough of voting rights. Roberts, who had spent his entire legal career fighting against the Voting Rights Act, wrote the opinion striking down Section 4 of the law, requiring jurisdictions with a long history of voting discrimination to submit any changes in voting procedures to the Justice Department. Roberts argued that “Things have changed dramatically” since the VRA was enacted in 1965. “Yet the Act has not eased Section 5’s restrictions or narrowed the scope of Section 4’s coverage formula along the way. Instead those extraordinary and unprecedented features have been reauthorized as if nothing has changed, and they have grown even stronger.” Republican states that had been subject to preclearance rushed to show the lie in his words, passing dozens of voter restrictions aimed precisely at people of color. Roberts also suggested that Congress could update the law to reflect our new glorious racially blind society. House Democrats have done so, but Moscow Mitch McConnell refuses to act. Continue reading “Why the Georgia voting debacle is on John Roberts’ and Mitch McConnell’s heads”

NOTE:  This article is being provided free of charge by the Washington Post.

The World Health Organization moved Tuesday to clarify its position on whether people without symptoms are widely spreading the new coronavirus, saying much remains unknown about asymptomatic transmission.

A comment by a WHO official on Monday — calling such asymptomatic transmissions “very rare” — touched off a furious scientific debate over the unresolved question and attracted widespread criticism of the organization.

Less than 24 hours later, the WHO convened a special news conference to walk back its comments, stressing that much remains unknown. But the comment from Monday had already spread widely and been seized upon by conservatives and others to bolster arguments that people do not need to wear masks or maintain social distancing precautions. Continue reading.

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – The members of the Minnesota Legislature’s People of Color and Indigenous (POCI) Caucus issued the following statement in response to Republican Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka’s comments regarding criminal justice reform and the upcoming special session:

“We express our extreme disappointment in Senator Gazelka’s comments during his June 5th media availability in which he stated criminal justice reform legislation will not be considered during the upcoming special session.

“Our proposed reforms in response to the death of Mr. George Floyd — an act that has brought Minnesotans of all races and cultures together to express their refusal to accept that inhumanity and has shocked citizens across our nation and indeed, the world — are the result of a great deal of work with numerous community members, reform experts, and multiple stakeholders both in and outside of law enforcement. These reforms are important, deeply needed and have been well researched and well thought out.  Continue reading “POCI Caucus Response to Sen. Gazelka’s Comments on Special Session, Criminal Justice”