Daily Digest: New Congress convenes today

Good morning, and welcome to the first Thursday of 2019. A lot of new faces start in Washington today, and Gov.-elect Tim Walz is expected to name more commissioners. Here's the Digest.

1. Minnesota Democrats say they'll look for places to work with President Trump. Congress begins its new session Thursday with Democrats newly in control of the U.S. House. Five of Minnesota’s eight-member House delegation will be new faces. Three of those new members are Democrats and two are Republicans. We’ll have more on the Republicans Friday. As for the Democrats, even though they strongly oppose President Trump on a variety of issues, each new member also says they are seeking out issues where they think they can work with Trump.  Long-time Congressional scholar and Minnesota native Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute threw some cold water on the Democrats’ hopes that bipartisanship is on the horizon. Instead, he said, look for an entrenched battle between the Republican White House and the new Democratic majority in the House. "We know that the agenda for investigations and for oversight over government agencies' wrong doing, malfeasance [and] ineptitude are going to be all over the House of Representatives," he said. "Legislating? Not so much." (MPR News)

2. Ellison says he's listening as he prepares to take over as AG. As a candidate for attorney general, Keith Ellison said he would work to help people afford their lives and ensure they have dignity and respect. Ellison says those goals remain unchanged as he prepares to take office next week. Drug prices, student debt, and housing costs are among his top priorities, he said. Ellison will hold a community listening session Thursday evening in north Minneapolis. He said meetings he already held in Duluth and Albert Lea provided additional advice on how best to approach those issues. “We never want to say well we’ve declared our priorities for now and always done. What we want to do is be very sensitive to what people are going through as we calibrate our focal point and our priorities.” (MPR News)

3. Klobuchar getting close to a decision. Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Wednesday that she is “getting close to a decision” about running for president in 2020. “I’m continuing to talk to people about it,” the Minnesota Democrat said in an interview in her U.S. Senate office, a day ahead of the start of a new congressional term. She said those discussions have been with a handful of longtime political advisers in Minnesota, some fellow U.S. senators, and others. Klobuchar, who was elected to a third six-year Senate term in November, said if she does run that her presidential campaign would be headquartered in Minnesota. Her likeliest strategy would be to win or finish strongly in neighboring Iowa, with its nation-leading presidential caucus on Feb. 3, 2020. Klobuchar declined to put an exact timeline on when she’d reveal her plans. But she acknowledged that the likelihood of a large Democratic field vying to challenge President Donald Trump means she can’t wait too long. (Star Tribune)

4. Ads and disclosure. Minnesota’s campaign finance board wants legislators to require political groups to name the donors who pay for issue advertisements that stop short of urging support or opposition of a specific candidate during a campaign. Outside groups that bankroll traditional campaign ads must disclose their spending and funding sources. But other “issue ads,” which talk about a state candidate or issue without using words considered to express advocacy, like vote for, elect, support, defeat or reject, are not subject to the same requirements. That means groups can legally run positive or negative ads about candidates or issues, even in the final days of an election, without saying who is footing the bill. On Thursday, the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board will weigh whether to ask legislators to update the law to trigger donor disclosure for ads that “easily convey support for or opposition to a candidate,” even if they do not explicitly urge a vote in one direction. (Star Tribune)

5. What do rural Minnesota interests want out of session 2019?  When groups representing rural Minnesota interests released their wish lists for the 2019 legislative session, some of the items looked familiar: a boost in funding for the Local Government Aid program, proposals to generate housing, more money for broadband expansion. Yet while the issues might not be new, some of the players at the Capitol are, including Gov.-elect Tim Walz, the former U.S. congressman from Mankato whose campaign theme – “One Minnesota” – heartened some rural leaders who have long felt left behind by the Twin Cities metropolitan region. “I’m a ‘One Minnesota’ kind of guy, so I’m kind of optimistic,” said Dan Dorman, the executive director of the Greater Minnesota Partnership (GMNP), a collection of businesses, nonprofits and other groups. Dorman, a former Republican state lawmaker, said he was committed to supporting a gubernatorial candidate from Greater Minnesota – regardless of party. So, in the fall election, he filled in the oval next to the Democrat Walz’s name. (MinnPost)

• 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