Author: MinnPost

Of all the questions Met Council Chair Charlie Zelle received during his second public grilling over the massive cost overruns on the Southwest Light Rail project, one was the hardest to answer. Call it the $500 million question. “You’ve told us why we have to go on no matter what, but Chair Zelle, where the heck are you going to get the money?” asked Rep. Paul Torkelson, R-Hanka. “It will likely not come from any one place,” Zelle said. He cited the federal government, the council’s own funds and Hennepin County as sources of money to fill the budget hole. “We…

Feb. 18, 2022 It turns out, $73 billion has a way of changing the way you look at things. During a hearing on Feb. 17 on federal COVID-19 relief funds received by the state, Sen. Michelle Benson noticed a difference in the slides presented by Minnesota Management and Budget. Rather than the last three digits being left off to shorten the numbers, the last six digits were removed in order to simplify the explanation of how money flowed to Minnesota in COVID-19 relief. “The amount of money has gotten so big, we’re used to seeing in the upper corner the…

By Peter Callaghan | MinnPost Staff Writer 1. The least change is the best change? In filing the first lawsuit seeking Supreme Court intervention in drawing new congressional and legislative districts last year, Peter Wattson, a redistricting expert and former state Senate staffer, thought the end result would be maps that do just enough to even out population shifts. He was right. Despite calls from one of the intervenors in the lawsuit calling for sweeping changes to boost the political clout of voters of color, the special five-judge panel overseeing the process went small when it redrew lines for Minnesota’s 201 legislative districts and eight congressional districts.…

By Peter Callaghan | MinnPost Staff Writer The Minnesota Legislature is facing an important deadline this week to agree to new legislative and congressional district maps following the 2020 Census. It’s not going to make it. Neither the House nor the Senate is going to even pass their own versions of the maps that will determine a lot about which party controls politics in Minnesota for the next decade. “I don’t anticipate that happening,” said Senate Majority Leader Jeremy Miller when asked whether the Senate would debate maps prior to the statutory Tuesday, Feb. 15, deadline for agreement. While the Senate had…