Reporting on State Politics and Government
Reporting on State Politics and Government
Capitol View Digest reporting on state and politics and government
| | The Daily Digest for July 22, 2019 | | Posted at 6:40 by Bill Wareham |
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Good morning. Welcome to a new week and a new Digest. 1. MNLARS all over again? Minnesota’s judicial branch is pulling the plug on an ambitious software project that would have given the public remote online access to court records statewide. The project, approved in 2017 and scheduled to go live this past January, has been plagued by missed deadlines, frequent programming mistakes and security errors. Chief Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea said the branch will start over rather than try to patch up the troubled web portal. “I think there was just a really high level of frustration,” Gildea said in an interview this week. The shuttered project is the latest example of a state government technology upgrade gone amiss, following the costly state licensing and registration system failure and widespread technical snafus associated with the 2013 rollout of Minnesota’s online health insurance exchange. (Star Tribune) 2. Prisons turn to telepsychiatry to address mental health needs. The psychiatrist is sitting at her desk, facing the spot where the patient would normally sit across from her. Behind her there is a bookshelf with books and little knickknacks. It looks like an ordinary scene in a doctor’s office. Except that the doctor sees the patient on a screen and talks on a speaker phone. “Seeing patients, it’s really not that different,” said the psychiatrist, Dr. Tanuja Reddy. “I feel like it’s the same patients, same type of patients, same type of concerns that we’re addressing. The only difference is I’m not there inside the prison.” Reddy’s not only outside the prison, she’s far outside of Minnesota. She’s sitting in her home office in the suburbs of Nashville, Tenn. Her patients sit in the men’s prison in Rush City, Minn., about an hour north of the Twin Cities. As more and more people in prison need mental health care, more and more prison systems are turning to telepsychiatry. It’s basically a video psychiatry appointment, a doctor’s visit via Skype or FaceTime. (MPR News)
3. Where have we seen that before? When lawmakers sought right-to-work legislation in Minnesota last year, they copied words written by a national conservative group that had been introduced in at least six other states. A simultaneous effort to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol was nearly identical to language drafted by a left-leaning group that had been a source for dozens of bills in the Minnesota Legislature. From abortion to paid sick leave to school choice, legislators in Minnesota and across the nation use prewritten bills for more than inspiration. They lift full paragraphs written by political and religious groups, repeating them nearly verbatim. The outside help isn’t always ideological. Industry groups helped shape Minnesota bills to expand a cellphone user fee, clarify vehicle warranty requirements and make it easier for doctors to get licensed to practice in multiple states. Other organizations produce model bills aimed at standardizing less controversial state laws. The number of model bills, or copycat legislation, introduced in Minnesota has increased in recent years, according to a Star Tribune analysis. (Star Tribune)
4. New DHS head keeps lid on upheaval explanations. Four top brass resigned, and then two un-resigned, and there’s been little public explanation for why all the drama at Minnesota’s largest agency, the Department of Human Services. And don’t expect any more insight from Pam Wheelock, the acting commissioner appointed by Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday. In an interview with the Pioneer Press on Friday, Wheelock refused to discuss it in any detail. (Pioneer Press )
5. Another top administrator heads for the door. Gov. Tim Walz is losing another top administrator, this time in the Department of Corrections. Sarah Walker resigned as deputy commissioner Friday. She headed the community services division at the Department of Corrections and was part of Commissioner Paul Schnell’s executive team. Walker came to the state post six months ago from a private-sector government affairs and public relations agency in St. Paul. Her lengthy resume also includes time as an instructor at Metropolitan State University and founder of the Minnesota Second Chance Coalition. "In my short time as deputy commissioner, I have become convinced that my voice and skills are best suited for pushing for wide-spread reform from the outside,” Walker wrote in a resignation letter. (MPR News) | |
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