Daily Digest: Bye-bye MNLARS
Good morning and happy Thursday. Here's the Digest.
1. Walz wants to scrap MNLARS and replace it with off-the-shelf system. Gov. Tim Walz Wednesday embraced a new report that recommends pulling the plug on the troubled Minnesota Licensing and Registration System. A blue-ribbon panel formed by the governor said that the system known as MNLARS should be switched over to a private vendor and off-the-shelf software at a cost of at least $20 million. When lawmakers passed a stop-gap funding measure earlier this year to keep MNLARS repairs on track, they also required that independent experts review the system and report by May 1. “Our recommendation is to move to a packaged software solution,” said Thomson Reuters Vice President Rick King, who chaired the panel that looked at whether the state has resources needed to correct remaining problems and whether the system should be outsourced to the private sector. State IT experts and lawmakers have been wrestling with MNLARS since its failed launch in September 2017. The total costs have already topped $100 million. (MPR News)
2. BCA in the spotlight after Noor verdict. Gov. Tim Walz said Wednesday he's looking into criticism of the early work of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension as it investigated the killing of 911 caller Justine Ruszczyk by Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor. Hennepin County prosecutors rapped the quality of the BCA's early investigation of the Noor shooting. Following Noor's conviction Tuesday on murder and manslaughter charges, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said the BCA made early mistakes in the probe but that after hearing his office's complaints, it replaced agents on the case with two who did an "exemplary" job. "On every investigation I've been involved in — with the exception of the Noor case — the work was superb," Freeman said, adding that he believed the rift between his office, the BCA and Minneapolis police had since been repaired. The BCA typically oversees police shooting investigations in Minnesota. Watchdog groups, however, have criticized the agency as cop-friendly in past investigations where officers were ultimately found to be justified in using deadly force. Those criticisms resurfaced in the Noor trial when agents acknowledged they took the statement of Noor's partner, officer Matthew Harrity, over coffee and doughnuts at his lawyer's home three days after the shooting. (MPR News)
3. Stage is set for the finish at the Capitol if all sides are willing to bargain. This is the time of year when negotiation metaphors are abundant at the Capitol. “We’re all lining up on a football field and now we’re ready to hike the ball, and two sides come together,” said Republican Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka. “This is like the beginning of the fourth quarter. And you know the last two and half minutes of the game really take the longest part of the whole game. We haven’t gotten to the two-minute warning yet,” said House Speaker Melissa Hortman. While the two legislative leaders both framed the session’s finale in sports images, their teams are on separate fields when it comes to building a new state budget. Billions of dollars and scores of conflicting priorities stand between them and an agreement. Oh, and there’s one more big player in the mix -- first-year Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat and, as fate would have it, a former prep football coach. He says he stands ready to cut a deal. “I am willing to compromise with them,” Walz said. “The Senate tells me they are. But they view compromise as ‘no, no, no, no’ four no’s. ‘No, no, no’ we went to three no’s. So we’ve compromised with you. No, that is not it.” (MPR News)
4. Klobuchar pushes Barr on obstruction. Minnesota U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar grilled Attorney General William Barr on revelations in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report suggesting that President Donald Trump had sought to obstruct justice by influencing the testimony of key figures in the Russia probe. “I look at the totality of the evidence, and when you look at it, it is a pattern,” said Klobuchar, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. Klobuchar, one of three Judiciary Committee members running for president, cited reports that Trump had inferred there was possible criminal involvement by family members of attorney Michael Cohen, who was testifying about their business dealings. She also cited evidence that Trump told Cohen that as long as he backed his version of a disputed building project in Moscow, the president “had his back.” Klobuchar also asked about a report that Trump promised former campaign chairman Paul Manafort that he would be “taken care of” if his loyalty to the president put him in additional legal jeopardy. She also questioned Barr about reports that Trump had asked White House counsel Don McGahn to deny allegations that he had asked him to fire Mueller. Trump has denied those reports. Barr disputed that any of those statements, taken alone, amounted to “obstructive acts.” (Star Tribune)
5. DNR to appeal lake name ruling. The Department of Natural Resources said Wednesday it will appeal a court decision that rejected its authority to change the name of Lake Calhoun to Bde Maka Ska. The DNR's move comes two days after the Minnesota Court of Appeals renewed the controversy over the renaming of the Minneapolis lake, ruling the DNR lacked the power to OK the name change. Lake Calhoun was returned to Bde Maka Ska, its Native name, in 2018. Backers argued that the lake's then-namesake, John C. Calhoun, was unworthy of the honor. A South Carolina native and powerful figure in early 19th century American politics, Calhoun was committed to maintaining slavery in the United States. He was also the architect of the forced removal of Native Americans from their homelands in the South. The organization Save Lake Calhoun, which supports the name Lake Calhoun, has argued that the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, Hennepin County, and the Department of Natural Resources did not have the authority to change the name. The DNR had called the entire question moot because the U.S. Board of Geographic Names already changed the name of the lake to Bde Maka Ska, and a Ramsey County district court judge had agreed. On Monday, however, the state Appeals Court reinstated the challenge, saying that a 40-year window to change the lake's name had closed and that the change could only be made by the state Legislature. (MPR News)
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