Good morning, and happy Monday.
David Hann is the new chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota. Hann won an election Saturday at a meeting of more than 300 delegates in Hopkins, defeating business executive Jerry Dettinger on the final ballot. Hann will now work to unite the party ahead of next year's elections, in which all state legislative seats and state constitutional offices will be on the ballot. The party faces some big challenges. Republicans have not won a statewide race in Minnesota since 2006, and the state party is in debt. Hann represented Eden Prairie in the Minnesota Senate from 2003 to 2017 and was Senate minority leader. He said his first priority will be to complete an investigation into the controversy that led to the resignation of former party chair Jennifer Carnahan in August. Carnahan stepped down after federal sex trafficking charges were filed against Anton Lazarro, a GOP donor who had close ties to Carnahan. "What we're doing is we're asking for an outside evaluation of our party finances and a review of our human resource policies, practices, and just some of the things that have gone on in the last several months, to see if there are any lingering issues that need to be addressed, and if so we will address them," Hann told MPR News over the weekend. He also warned people not to underestimate Republican chances in next year’s election. "We as Republicans believe that our philosophy is more sound than the progressive left philosophy that is dominating,” Hann said. “And we think that the policies that we want to advance are going to be more helpful to the citizens of the state, and we are looking forward to presenting our case."
Hann, like many other Republicans, is also expressing doubts about election integrity in Minnesota. Even so, as Stephen Montemayor at the Star Tribune reports, the GOP has yet to attract a top-tier challenger to DFL Secretary of State Steve Simon.
Climate migrants in Duluth?MPR News Reporter Dan Kraker says they’re there: There are people who are displaced by climate-related disasters, and who may have limited resources to relocate or rebuild. And then there are people who reevaluate where they want to live because of climate or other factors. "There is a cohort of Americans who have the means, the resources, and they have the elective mobility to be on the move," Jesse Keenan, an expert on climate adaptation said. There isn't much data to show how many people are actually moving because of climate change. Only anecdotal stories. Duluth hasn’t grown much in the past decade, only adding around 400 residents since the last census. But in a survey of 2,000 U.S. residents last year, the online real estate company Redfin found that about half of Americans who planned to move factored extreme weather and natural disasters into their decisions to relocate.
Brian Bakst had this on the radio: State officials are defending a plan requiring either vaccination or testing for government employees who work in an office or report to a job site. For the past few weeks, about 25,000 state workers have had to prove they’ve been vaccinated or submit to weekly COVID-19 testing. More than 70 percent have had their shots, but the rest are going the other route. Republicans say too many workers could be taken away from their jobs too frequently if they have to get tested due to vaccination objections. But Minnesota Management and Budget Commissioner Jim Schowalter says COVID-19 infections are also costly. “We’re trying to avoid that higher cost of more people get sick in the workplace by having a policy to make sure we detect, we prevent, we avoid those costs and the spread of illness in state workplaces,” Schowalter said. The state says it will use federal money toward testing costs. The policy doesn’t apply to employees working remotely. The requirement will be a subject of a Minnesota Senate hearing this week.
And the focus shifts from Congress to the Supreme Court in Washington this week, as justices begin their new term today. Nina Totenberg of NPR has the story : The docket for this term is a humdinger, with major cases involving the biggest social issues of the day: abortion, guns, separation of church and state, and potentially affirmative action in higher education. "It seems like every few years, we say we're going to see radical conservative takeover of the Supreme Court in American law," says Tom Goldstein, publisher of SCOTUSblog. But this time, he adds, "We really mean it." | 