Minnesota

Republican and Democratic lawmakers acknowledged Wednesday that they will now have to put grudges aside and work together under a tied 67-67 Minnesota House.

Unofficial election results show that the party breakdown is split between Democrats and Republicans in the Minnesota House, effectively ending the two-year Democratic-Farmer-Labor trifecta control of state government. Republicans flipped three key swing districts on Tuesday.

DFL incumbents in two House Districts won their races by razor-thin margins, according to preliminary election data last updated on Wednesday afternoon. Rep. Dan Wolgamott, DFL-St. Cloud, won by 28 votes, and Rep. Brad Tabke, DFL-Shakopee, won by 13 votes. These results will likely be recounted, though they are expected to remain the same.

Democrats still control the Minnesota Senate and the governor’s office. Divided government in recent years has often led to acrimony and stalemate; in 2017, then-Gov. Mark Dayton and the GOP-controlled Legislature wound up in litigation when he vetoed their operating budget.

Many of the state’s abandoned places vanished without a trace. But some still attract visitors.

cross-posted from: https://fanaticus.social/post/4276069

The majority of health insurers in the state’s individual and small employer health insurance markets will raise premiums between 9% and 15% next year, in yet another sign health care costs are back on the rise.

Members of a task force in Minnesota are making progress toward issuing a report on how the state might regulate psychedelics, including psilocybin, MDMA and LSD. The group earlier this month held preliminary votes on certain policy recommendations—including on eliminating penalties for personal possession and regulating clinical access to some entheogens—with more votes expected at its next meeting in October.

Two recommendations that are already approved by the body are the creation of a state-regulated clinical psilocybin program and the appropriation of research dollars to study the therapeutic use of psilocybin, MDMA and LSD. It will be up to lawmakers, however, to introduce and pass any psychedelics-related legislation to formally enact the suggestions.

Regulators issued a permit to Magellan Pipeline Company at a hearing last week, keeping in view the objections of several tribal nations who say the pipestone quarried at the national monument and the surrounding areas are central to the spiritual practices of tribes across the continent.

“It’s just too much of a risk,” Upper Sioux Community tribal historic preservation officer Samantha Odegard told the commission.

Pipestone National Monument was created in 1937 to protect the rights of Indigenous people to quarry pipestone — or catlinite, a soft, red stone used to make pipes and works of art. The National Park Service consults with 23 tribal nations with documented ties to the quarry on the monument’s activities.

Last month, in a profile of newly named Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, The New York Times included a throwaway line about "the time his wife had seized his Dreamcast, the Sega video game console, because he had been playing to excess." Weeks later, that anecdote formed the unlikely basis for the unlikely Crazy Taxi: Tim Walz Edition mod, which inserts the Minnesota governor (and top-of-the-ticket running mate Kamala Harris) into the Dreamcast classic driving game.

"Rumor has it that Tim Walz played Crazy Taxi so much his wife took his Dreamcast away from him... so I decided to put him in the game," modder Edward La Barbera wrote on the game's Itch.io page.

The Minnesota Historical Society is digitizing more a hundred years of Native American newspapers, so they can be accessed online.

“To be able to just archive our histories as it happens, and especially that first-person perspective,” said Rita Walaszek Arndt, program and outreach manager for Native American Initiatives at the Minnesota Historical Society. “Being able to have those primary sources from the people is really important.”

Minnesota has the highest median personal income in the Midwest and boasts a relatively narrow gap between the lowest incomes and the median.

Minnesota officials certified last week’s primary vote Tuesday, confirming it as the lowest primary turnout since 2016.

Fifteen percent of registered voters cast ballots on Aug. 13. This translates to only 12 percent of all eligible voters. In 2016, 7 percent of eligible people voted.

“The thing about primaries is it is so dependent on who or what is on the ballot. If there's a hot contest somewhere, then people show up. If not, they tend not to,” said Steve Simon, Minnesota’s Secretary of State.

Michael Rubke, a desk attendant at La Rive condo complex in Minneapolis, is fighting for a union against a behemoth building management company, FirstService Residential of Minnesota, that has a near-monopoly on high-rise condos in the Twin Cities. It’s been a difficult battle so far. The unionization campaign is “at square one,” the 41-year-old explained over the phone after working an overnight shift. “They’re pretending we’re not there.”

But that lack of formal union representation did not stop Rubke and his colleagues throughout the Twin Cities from fighting for—and winning—statewide legislation this summer that improves the terms of their jobs, by beating back a little-known provision used to erode the job security of contracted workers.

Under the legislation, which went into effect on July 1, companies in Minnesota are barred from entering into new contracts that contain restrictive covenants, which function like noncompete agreements but have previously slipped past the prohibitions on noncompetes in Minnesota because they have a slightly different structure. Existing restrictive covenants, however, are left in place.

*Results update every 15 minutes or less.

(Probably won't start trickling in until after 9 pm)