Daily Digest: Back to the Capitol
Good morning, and happy Tuesday. The Legislature is due back in St. Paul today after a break, and budget bill negotiations are due to start. Here's the Digest.
1. Gov. Mark Dayton welcomed lawmakers back with a warning to Republicans Monday that he's not willing to negotiate over their proposed budget reductions unless they come with more specifics on which programs and services would see cuts. In a letter to House Speaker Kurt Daudt, R-Crown, and Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, R-Nisswa, the DFL governor called on the GOP leaders to avoid the type of "chaotic conclusion" that ended the state's last budget-setting process, in 2015. To highlight his differences with the legislative leaders on virtually every element of the budget bills they've passed, Dayton attached 55 separate letters from his department commissioners. Each outlined specific concerns about Republican budget plans, which prioritize tax cuts and include reductions for state agencies to help fund them. "With a $1.5 billion remaining budget surplus projected for the next biennium, we reject the notion that services to Minnesotans should be arbitrarily reduced," Dayton wrote. (Star Tribune)
2. Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson is keeping her friends and foes guessing about whether she'll run for governor in 2018, causing some with designs on the state's top legal job to charge ahead in the dark. While she decides, the scramble for the attorney general's office is in full swing, with Republican Harry Niska declaring his candidacy on Monday. A second Republican, former state Rep. Doug Wardlow, is also running. Two Democrats have launched campaigns so far and others say they're mulling it over. "You need to start preparing now," said state Rep. John Lesch, DFL-St. Paul, who established a campaign committee this month that allows him to raise money and take other concrete steps just in case Swanson moves on. Lesch's former House DFL colleague, Ryan Winkler, has been in the race for five months already. (MPR News)
3. President Trump's suggestion that he might withhold $7 billion in health care subsidy payments until Democrats agree to negotiate an Obamacare replacement bill has some Minnesotans concerned that such a move would be disastrous to people who get their insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Analysts say ending the payments, which go to insurers, could severely disrupt the non-group market and send health insurers fleeing. After the failure of the GOP replacement bill, Trump said the best thing to do politically would be to let Obamacare explode. But recent polling suggests he does so at his own peril. According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey 62 of Americans believe Trump and Congressional Republicans are now responsible for problems with the Affordable Care Act. (MPR News)
4. Facing several challengers in her campaign for a second term, Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges on Monday launched a verbal attack not on them, but on President Trump. Hodges said Muslims, immigrants, Jews, transgender and gay people, journalists, artists and the poor all are under assault, and she said the city of Minneapolis would protect those groups. Her opponents were not impressed with Hodges' speech, arguing that the focus on Trump is a distraction from more pressing needs in Minneapolis. (Star Tribune)
5. President Trump is trying to put more muscle into his campaign slogan of "Buy American and Hire American" and is preparing to sign an executive order Tuesday aimed at strengthening existing government policies to support domestic products and workers. Trump is expected to sign the order during a visit to the Snap-on tool company in Kenosha, Wis. The "Buy American" portion of the executive order calls for stricter enforcement of laws requiring the federal government to buy American-made products when possible. Administration officials complain that those laws have been watered down over the years and often are sidestepped with government waivers. (NPR)
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