Daily Digest: Foster kids, fish and prisons

Good morning, and happy Tuesday. I hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend and managed to stay cool. A fresh week is here, and it's time to check the Digest.

1. 'Sibling Bill of Rights' passes with push from foster kids. Vivianna Castillo-Roybal, 19, was part of a push at the Legislature to make sure kids aren't separated from their siblings when they are placed in foster homes. With other children who lived in foster care, she helped write the first draft of the foster care sibling bill of rights, which creates guidelines in state law to keep siblings placed together, or at the very least to facilitate regular contact, including in-person visits, social media or phone calls. The Republican-led Legislature passed the bill, and Gov. Mark Dayton signed it earlier this month. In a session where many proposals of significance were vetoed or didn't make it to the finish line, it was a rare example of success. Even as other bipartisan issues were falling apart in the final days of session, the foster care sibling bill of rights managed to make it through, in part because it was the foster kids — not legislators — who shepherded it through every step of the process. (MPR News)

2. To stock or not to stock? Debate over muskies continues. The long-running controversy over the stocking of Minnesota's lakes with muskies — a fish with plenty of fans and foes — was left unresolved at the end of this year's legislative session. Muskie opponents pushed an unsuccessful effort this year to halt the progression of stocking in Minnesota lakes, and to give counties more input in the decision. Still, the debate over whether muskies pose a threat to other fish — or humans — is likely to continue, with anti-stocking legislation expected to return again next year. Muskellunge, the fish's proper name, are closely related to the northern pike, but bigger. The state-record muskie catch was 56 inches long. The fish is native to 44 Minnesota lakes and eight rivers. The Department of Natural Resources stocks about 48 others with muskie fry. (MPR News)

3. Jason Lewis gets active on criminal justice reform. U.S. Rep. Jason Lewis has joined a group of unlikely allies in trying to reshape the criminal justice system. The Minnesota Republican has teamed up with U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, a Democrat from Virginia, to advocate changes to federal law that would favor rehabilitation over imprisonment for first-time, nonviolent offenders — particularly juveniles — and reduce exploding incarceration budgets. Groups as ideologically diverse as the NAACP, FreedomWorks, Families Against Mandatory Minimums and the American Conservative Union all back their proposals. A freshman congressman from a political swing district, Lewis has in recent months highlighted several areas where his libertarian sensibilities have broken with the law-and-order orthodoxy of the Republican Party. He believes states should be permitted to legalize marijuana, at a time when U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions wants to get tougher on marijuana crimes. (Star Tribune)

4. Restaurants struggle to adapt to higher minimum wage. Facing a big rise in labor costs from a city-mandated minimum wage, chefs in the Twin Cities are tinkering with new ways to run a full-service restaurant. So far, the experiments have failed. Minneapolis passed a $15 wage last year that does not count tips as wages, despite pleas from restaurant owners and servers to allow lower wages for wait staff who earn most of their living in tips. Now St. Paul is preparing to pass its own minimum wage, and Mayor Melvin Carter also opposes a “tip credit.”  Counter-service restaurants that eliminate waiters are on the rise, but a tip-free experience has fallen flat at table-service restaurants. Customers bristle at what they view as a forced service charge; servers and bartenders make less money; the tip culture that is dear to many in the restaurant industry is upended; and restaurant owners say having to explain a new system disrupts the delicate equilibrium of the dining experience. One restaurant that replaced tips with a service charge — Heyday on Lyndale Avenue S. — is closing and preparing to relaunch in a few months. Two others that opened with a service charge — Bardo in northeast Minneapolis and Heirloom in St. Paul — have abandoned the policy and restored traditional tipping. (Star Tribune)

5. The move to raise the age to buy tobacco to 21 is spreading to the east metro area. Tobacco 21, a movement aimed at raising the legal age to purchase tobacco to 21 years old, is gaining momentum in the east metro. Falcon Heights and Shoreview adopted raising the age to buy tobacco to 21 earlier this month. Roseville is holding a public hearing about it in June. Maplewood city officials have casually discussed the idea at a council meeting. Shoreview was the first city in the east metro to approve the change on May 7. Four west metro cities — Bloomington, Edina, Plymouth, and St. Louis Park — had previously adopted higher age requirements. Advocates of Tobacco 21 (also called T21) argue it is necessary for the health of smokers and those inhaling secondhand smoke. Smoking currently leads to six million premature deaths each year and severe medical costs. “I’d rather see our doctors lose business because we don’t have cancer, we don’t have mouth cancer, we don’t have the asthma and obesity problems that come even if a person smokes and shifts away,” Falcon Heights Council member Melanie Leehy said in a recent council meeting. (Pioneer Press)

• Politics Friday: Should we stop trusting pre-election polling?
• MPR News congressional debates: 7th District and 8th District
• Politics Friday: 1st District, 3rd District congressional candidates debate the issues