Hot Dish 06.07.24

By Rochelle Olson

Good morning. It’s the first Friday in June and the 2024 legislative session ended May 19, which was exactly 2,374 days ago. That’s how it feels with the filing/withdrawal/endorsement season wrapping and steamrolling us all right into campaign mode.

We’ll have new Minnesota Poll results starting Monday, a joint project of the Star Tribune/MPR News/KARE 11. The poll inquired about the 2024 presidential race, former President Donald Trump’s criminal convictions, Israel’s war with Hamas and other issues. Something to look forward to on Monday morning. Have I seen the results already? Yes.

At the end of business Thursday, state Sen. Kelly Morrison, DFL-Deephaven, announced her resignation from her state Senate seat to focus on her run for Congress. That leaves the Senate sitting at a 33-33 partisan split. As reporter Ryan Faircloth points out, this puts control of the Senate on the November ballot and all eyes on the west metro.

Morrison is an OB-GYN and a respected member of the caucus, but the DFL wanted her to resign so her seat would be on the general election ballot rather than later with a lower-turnout special election. She won her seat in 2022 by nearly 13 percentage points. Morrison received 27,222 votes. Her GOP opponent Kathleen Fowke got 21,128.

Let’s have more fun with numbers. In 45A, DFL Rep. Patty Acomb of Minnetonka got 14,915 votes while the GOP candidate got 9,108. In 45B, Rep. Andrew Myers of Tonka Bay won with 12,830 while the DFLer got 11,356. The district is overwhelmingly white and prosperous. In addition to those already mentioned, the district includes all or parts of Excelsior, Minnetrista, Mound, Orono, St. Bonifacius, Shorewood, Spring Park, and Wayzata.

Let’s all get a lake place on Lake Minnetonka for the summer, shall we? But beware of highway detours this weekend, per Tim Harlow.

Still talking campaign, Republican-endorsed U.S. Senate candidate Royce White is already plenty cranky. I attempted to talk to him for a story about a federal campaign complaint filed against him by a national watchdog group. White wasn’t interested in answering questions. He wanted to ask them - which isn’t how this generally works. Repeated attempts to ask him for comment culminated in him cursing at me and the call curtailed. To be fair, perhaps White was having a rough day as his provocateur pal Steve Bannon was ordered to report to prison July 1 on his contempt sentence.

The elections complaint alleges White misappropriated $157,000 from his 2022 congressional campaign for personal use and isn’t properly tracking fundraising or spending for his current Senate campaign. It’s worth a read, I promise.

Far from home, Gov. Tim Walz and First Lady Gwen Walz were in Normandy for the commemoration of the D-Day, the pivotal Allied invasion that turned the tide of World War II. Our D.C. correspondent Sydney Kashiwagi recapped the day commemorated by other Minnesotans here and there as well. In case you missed it, see the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s emotional moment with a veteran at the event. As stark and evocative as the white crosses are in photos, they are an emotional gut punch in person.

NEW LAW: I talked to Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero about a change to the Human Rights Act that affects those with transient physical conditions. The change grew from a lawsuit brought against the Minnesota Agricultural Society, which runs the State Fair. Until now, Lucero said state law failed to recognize that transient conditions can be difficult to manage even in remission. “When we get stuck on: ‘Are you technically disabled under the law,’ I think we are missing the fact that we are humans, we are families,” Lucero said.

WHERE’S WALZ: He’s still in the land of Brie and bread. He’ll visit the Saint-Gobain and the Cargill France SAS headquarters. Walz also has a call with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

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