Right on! Susan Kent is new MN Senate DFL leader

A contemporary progressive has replaced a dinosaur conservadem. That's a very good thing. Go ahead and laugh at the corporate media pundits' preposterously self-important finger-wagging on this, if you still just gotta pay any attention to them at all.

Democrats in the state senate have a new leader: Sen. Susan Kent.

The Woodbury resident was elected Minority Leader in a party meeting on Saturday, officially ousting the long-serving Sen. Tom Baak. - Bring Me The News

This also means that in the more-likely-than-not event that DFLers are in charge of redistricting after 2020, Sen. Bakk won't be able to engineer some sort of Iron Range-friendly, pro-sulfides, pro-gun nuts, pro-etc. gerrymander. Or block votes on progressive priorities unless he gets his way on crap like that.

MN lege: Stuff of interest, good and otherwise

- “Worker Friendly Bills Continue to Move Forward" (Workday Minnesota)

- The House Health and Human Services Finance omnibus bill, HF 2414, was passed last week. House Party of Trump anti-choice zealots - that is, all MN House Republicans - tried and failed to add 6- and 20-week abortion bans. Of course. (The foregoing is paraphrased from an email I got from Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota Action Fund).

- The House passed a 100% clean energy by 2050 mandate.

The Minnesota Solar Energy Industries Association (MnSEIA) said the bill could increase solar jobs in the state 10x. “We estimate that if this bill were to pass through the senate, then our state’s solar industry would balloon from 4,600 jobs to well over 45,000,” MnSEIA Executive Director David Shaffer told pv magazine.

But it may be too good to be true. Every state house to date that has passed a 100% clean energy mandate has been dominated by the Democratic Party. And while the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party holds a 75-59 majority in Minnesota’s House, in the Senate it’s a different story: a story where Republicans hold a 35-32 majority.

Sources close to this bill have made it clear to pv magazine that some features of this bill – specifically the 100% clean energy mandate – have a snowball’s chance in Hell in the Senate due to Republican opposition, and this concern was alluded to in Shaffer’s statements. - pv magazine

- In fact, the Senate has very different ideas in general about anything good for the environment.

(In mid-April), the Minnesota Senate Environment and Natural Resources Finance committee unveiled an omnibus budget bill that would dramatically cut general state support for our natural resources by 25%. These cuts, representing a funding decrease of $90 million from the last two year budget, would harm the ability of agencies like the Department of Natural Resources, the Pollution Control Agency, and the Board of Water and Soil Resources to tackle environmental threats to Minnesota’s health and livelihoods. - Minnesota Environmental Partnership

MN lege: Education, so far

It’s unclear whether we’ll get any real change for the better in education funding through the Party of Trump-controlled MN Senate. Here’s what they’re about:

A proposal at the core of the differing education policies favored by Minnesota Republicans and DFLers might end up on the table for end-of-session negotiations between Gov. Tim Walz and Senate majority Republicans.

The bill is called the Equity and Opportunity Scholarship Act, and it would allow donations to scholarship foundations to be credited against state income taxes. The foundations would use the money to give private school scholarships to low- and middle-income students.

It is a version of private school vouchers and tax credits that have been used in other states (and to some extent in Minnesota) that have often raise constitutional questions, though the bill’s chief supporter believes the structure of the proposal would allow the program to pass muster with the courts. - MinnPost

A voucher for a few thousand dollars isn’t going to help a typical living paycheck-to-paycheck family be able to make the five-figure tuition at some private school. As always this is just the rich man’s whimpering, groveling political curs of the GOP looking to provide requisite payback. In this case, at the expense of public schools, which in spite of all the obstacles continue to turn out more and more graduates who are just plain too smart to ever vote for a conservative.

Moreover, and as people have been pointing out for a long time now, there is absolutely no evidence that private schools do a better job. Quite the contrary, more often than not.

The EPI report’s findings contribute to a significant and growing body of research showing the negative impacts of school voucher programs on student learning and the public education system.

New America Foundation’s Kevin Carey writes, “a wave of new research has emerged suggesting that private school vouchers may harm students who receive them. The results are startling — the worst in the history of the field, researchers say.”

Carey lays out how recent studies of voucher programs in Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio reveal that students who use vouchers to attend private schools tend to fare worse academically, particularly in math, compared to their peers attending public schools. - Jeff Bryant/OurFuture.org

Thankfully, while Gov. Tim Walz has said he’ll be willing to negotiate on a lot of things, according to the MinnPost article this isn’t one of them.

MN Gov: Walz budget proposal aims high

You’ve probably seen some things about MN Gov. Tim Walz’s budget proposal. I’ve been concerned - and still am, frankly - that as someone who made a big deal of being a “moderate” in Congress, now that he’s governor Walz will be willing to give away too much to Republicans in the legislature to cut deals. Perhaps this is an indication that I’m wrong, which would be good.

The issue, though, is what chance he has of picking up the two Republican votes he’d need in the MN Senate - and of holding on to all of the DFL votes. (It’s frankly Walz's own fault that he’ll need at least two of those Party of Trump votes and not just one. But there’s no use bemoaning, at any length, what’s over and done with.) He’s pretty clearly shooting for the stars with these opening numbers with the idea of still having some of it when all is said and done. I could see, for example, a few cents/gallon gas tax increase getting through, for now, maybe, but not any more than that. Perhaps I’ll end up actually being happy at having been proved wrong on that, too.

I haven’t looked at the budget details, but there’s presumably plenty therein designed to help get those Senate votes, from both parties. Without speculating with names, there certainly are those who can be persuaded if there’s something really good for their districts. And with Traitor Trump still doing his odious, contemptible things, vaunted Republican legislative “unity” could well be a lot more fissionable than has been the case. We’ll find out.