If Republicans ran Minnesota - education, elections, &c.

This series is based mostly on what Party of Trump state legislators have been trying to do. It is not remotely meant to be anywhere near exhaustive. Just items I’ve chosen to particularly highlight, being brought together for easy reference. I may be adding stuff, from time to time. Part 1, finances and budget, here. Part 2, environment, here.

School funding issues would only get worse. That’s what you call a “lock bet.”

State aid to Minnesota school districts—properly adjusted for inflation—has fluctuated significantly over the last fifteen years, but the overall trend has been downward, as documented in a recent North Star report. Of course, long-term trends are not exclusively the result of changes enacted by state policymakers.* Using information compiled during the 2017 special legislative session, it’s possible to isolate the impact of legislative actions during the current fiscal year (FY) 2018-2019 biennium. And those actions led to a decline in real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) per pupil general education revenue. - North Star Policy Institute

More here. And here, especially about how Republicans seek to backdoor public money for private schools.

- Election-rigging. Of course. Republicans have made numerous efforts to destroy Minnesota’s public campaign financing, and to potentially enable gerrymandering. In particular, they’ve sought to add riders to these ends to must-pass budget bills, apparently blissfully oblivious to just how obnoxiously childish - and cowardly - such tactics make them look.

- An effort to get the Appleton prison doing its thing died in the Senate, this time. Also from Bluestem Prairie, outstate locals do not in fact really seem to be on fire for the lock-em-up mentality. But a GOP legislature and governor would presumably quickly pass one of those override bills, mostly used in other states so far to reverse local minimum wage increases, to deal with such manifestations of intelligence and humanity.



- This is of course just one example of the veritable plethora of assaults on the safety net that we’d see.

Rep. Kelly Fenton (R-Woodbury) has put forth a bill that would eliminate SNAP benefits (commonly called “food stamps”)  for regions that do not meet federal employment requirements. As of now, 29 counties and 12 American Indian reservations are exempt from the work requirement, and these numbers could go down with the new bill, impacting Native and rural populations most. - Twin Cities Daily Planet

- Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed an ultrasound bill. Note from the article that the bill’s big backers included the likes of Abigail Whelan and Rep. Mary Franson (R-Alexandria). In other recent sessions GOP forced-birthers have also attempted TRAP laws, restrictions on medication abortion, and so on.