{"built":"2026-09-10","docs":[{"u":"/","t":"Home","d":"Madgett for Minnesota: 103,743 votes in the 2026 DFL primary for Attorney General, organizing toward 2030.","l":"Page","dt":"","b":"Madgett for Minnesota: 103,743 votes in the 2026 DFL primary for Attorney General, organizing toward 2030."},{"u":"/about","t":"About Dave","d":"Biography: University of Virginia School of Law, U.S. Air Force JAG Corps Captain and base Chief of Justice, founder of Madgett Law in Minneapolis.","l":"Page","dt":"","b":"Biography: University of Virginia School of Law, U.S. Air Force JAG Corps Captain and base Chief of Justice, founder of Madgett Law in Minneapolis."},{"u":"/issues","t":"The Platform: Six Priorities for Minnesota","d":"Fraud accountability, consumer protection, independent investigations, no new bureaucracy.","l":"Page","dt":"","b":"Fraud accountability, consumer protection, independent investigations, no new bureaucracy."},{"u":"/dashboard","t":"The Minnesota Dashboard","d":"Interactive charts: unemployment, migration, murders, budget balance, enrollment, property taxes, fraud, reading scores. Live data from BLS and the Census Bureau.","l":"Page","dt":"","b":"Interactive charts: unemployment, migration, murders, budget balance, enrollment, property taxes, fraud, reading scores. Live data from BLS and the Census Bureau."},{"u":"/tools","t":"Look It Up: Minnesota Law Calculators","d":"Wage garnishment, earned sick and safe time, noncompete, Paid Leave benefit. Built from the statutes.","l":"Page","dt":"","b":"Wage garnishment, earned sick and safe time, noncompete, Paid Leave benefit. Built from the statutes."},{"u":"/sources","t":"The Receipts: Every Source on This Site","d":"Every source cited across every article, the statute index, and what each article could not verify.","l":"Page","dt":"","b":"Every source cited across every article, the statute index, and what each article could not verify."},{"u":"/research","t":"Research: Minnesota Law and Policy, Sourced","d":"The library front door: every research section, the method, the newest work, and the open data files. 107 articles, 455 public sources, 226 statute citations.","l":"Page","dt":"","b":"The library front door: every research section, the method, the newest work, and the open data files. 107 articles, 455 public sources, 226 statute citations."},{"u":"/who-the-law-helps","t":"Who the Law Helps, Who It Hurts","d":"Research section on how Minnesota laws land differently by race, income, age, disability, and geography.","l":"Page","dt":"","b":"Research section on how Minnesota laws land differently by race, income, age, disability, and geography."},{"u":"/ethical-ai","t":"Minnesota, the Ethical-AI Capital","d":"Research section on what Minnesota could do about artificial intelligence without waiting for Washington, and how far the existing statutes already reach.","l":"Page","dt":"","b":"Research section on what Minnesota could do about artificial intelligence without waiting for Washington, and how far the existing statutes already reach."},{"u":"/where-dave-stands","t":"Where Dave Stands","d":"Positions argued from the record. Each states the strongest objection to itself and concedes a point that cuts the other way.","l":"Page","dt":"","b":"Positions argued from the record. Each states the strongest objection to itself and concedes a point that cuts the other way."},{"u":"/from-dave","t":"From Dave","d":"First-person notes about the work, the race, and what came after it.","l":"Page","dt":"","b":"First-person notes about the work, the race, and what came after it."},{"u":"/minnesota-by-the-numbers","t":"Minnesota by the Numbers","d":"The research series: primary data on what is actually happening to Minnesota.","l":"Page","dt":"","b":"The research series: primary data on what is actually happening to Minnesota."},{"u":"/vote","t":"Vote 2026: Minnesota's November 3 Election","d":"Every deadline for the November 3, 2026 general election computed from the election statutes: absentee voting opens September 18, registration closes October 13, Election Day registration at the polls, polls open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., paid time off to vote.","l":"Page","dt":"","b":"Every deadline for the November 3, 2026 general election computed from the election statutes: absentee voting opens September 18, registration closes October 13, Election Day registration at the polls, polls open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., paid time off to vote."},{"u":"/voter-guides","t":"2026 Minnesota Voter Guides","d":"Every statewide race on the November 3, 2026 ballot, plus Hennepin County Attorney. Objective facts and law.","l":"Page","dt":"","b":"Every statewide race on the November 3, 2026 ballot, plus Hennepin County Attorney. Objective facts and law."},{"u":"/press","t":"Press Kit","d":"Short and long bio, headshots, the one-line record, media contact.","l":"Page","dt":"","b":"Short and long bio, headshots, the one-line record, media contact."},{"u":"/minnesota","t":"Minnesota, As Dave Sees It","d":"Photographs of Minnesota taken by Dave: the North Shore, the Boundary Waters, Duluth, Minneapolis, Lake Minnetonka.","l":"Page","dt":"","b":"Photographs of Minnesota taken by Dave: the North Shore, the Boundary Waters, Duluth, Minneapolis, Lake Minnetonka."},{"u":"/blog-a-flat-fee-is-not-a-flat-burden","t":"Minnesota Charges the Same $75 to a Surgeon and a Line Cook. Then It Tells the Judge the Fine Underneath It Cannot Be Waived.","d":"A flat fee is a percentage that shrinks as income rises. Minnesota's $75 conviction surcharge is identical for a felony and a petty misdemeanor, the minimum fine underneath it is fixed at 30 percent of the statutory maximum and by law cannot be waived, and getting a revoked license back can cost $680. Minnesota already fixed the worst piece of this. Here is what is left, and the fix the state has already written into another statute.","l":"Who the Law Helps, Who It Hurts","dt":"2026-09-08","b":"The arithmetic nobody puts in a press release The minimum fine the court is forbidden to waive Then the license, which is where it compounds Now the part that cuts against the outrage What is still wrong What I could not verify, and will not assert What we can do Sources Minnesota Charges the Same $75 to a Surgeon and a Line Cook. Then It Tells the Judge the Fine Underneath It Cannot Be Waived. Second piece in this section. The rules do not change: a named public dataset or a statute for every claim, every disparity with its denominator, the innocent explanation weighed before the damning one, and a fix a real office could carry out. This one is almost entirely statute, which makes it unusually clean. There is no arguing about what the law says. You can read it yourself; the links are in the text. The arithmetic nobody puts in a press release Minnesota imposes a $75 surcharge on every person convicted of any felony, gross misdemeanor, misdemeanor, or petty misdemeanor . Not a percentage. Not a sliding scale. Seventy-five dollars, the same for a securities fraud conviction and a lapsed tab. Parking violations get a $12 surcharge instead. The statute is Minn. Stat. \u00a7 357.021, subd. 6(a), and it says the surcharge applies \"whether or not the person is sentenced to imprisonment or the sentence is stayed.\" A flat fee is not neutral. It is a percentage that falls as income rises. For a household clearing $400,000, $75 is 0.02 percent of a month's income. For someone working full time at Minnesota's minimum wage of $11.41 an hour, it is closer to four percent of a month's gross pay before a single other cost of the case. Same statute, same dollar figure, two entirely different punishments. That is not an accident of enforcement. It is what a flat ch Minn. Stat. \u00a7 357.021, subd. 6 (verified verbatim against raw text at revisor.mn.gov, Sept. 8, 2026): the $75 surcharge on every felony, gross misdemeanor, misdemeanor, and petty misdemeanor conviction; the $12 parking surcharge and the $25 surcharge under \u00a7 609.855; imposition \"whether or not the person is sentenced to imprisonment or the sentence is stayed\"; the single-surcharge-per-case rule; the discretionary Ramsey County $1 addition; and the paragraph (b) authority to reduce or waive \"on a showing of indigency or undue hardship\" or to permit community work service. Minn. Stat. \u00a7 609.101, subds. 2, 4, and 5 (verified verbatim): the minimum fine of \"not less than 30 percent of the maximum fine authorized by law\"; the statement that the minimum fine \"is in addition to the surcharge or assessment required by secti"},{"u":"/blog-held-before-anyone-proved-anything","t":"Two-Thirds of the People in Minnesota's Jails Have Not Been Convicted of Anything. The Rules Require Judges to Offer a Price.","d":"Minnesota's pretrial share of the jail population climbed from 50 percent in 2010 to 68 percent in 2019. The Rules of Criminal Procedure require a judge to set a cash figure that buys release with no conditions at all, which means the same defendant walks or stays depending on what is in the bank. Jail rates per 100,000: 107 white, 685 Black, 1,255 Native American. And a rule already on the books that nobody enforces.","l":"Who the Law Helps, Who It Hurts","dt":"2026-09-08","b":"The number Who is in there The rule that puts a price on the door The honest complications What I could not verify, and will not assert What we can do Sources Two-Thirds of the People in Minnesota's Jails Have Not Been Convicted of Anything. The Rules Require Judges to Offer a Price. Third piece in this section. Same rules as always: a named public dataset for every claim, every disparity with its denominator, the innocent explanation weighed first, and a fix a real office could carry out. This one has a dataset and a rule book, and they say the same thing from opposite directions. The number Vera Institute's Incarceration Trends dataset compiles county jail figures from the federal jail surveys. For Minnesota in 2019, with 85 of 87 counties reporting, the average daily jail population was 6,874 people, and 4,700 of them \u2014 68.4 percent \u2014 were held pretrial. Not serving a sentence. Awaiting the resolution of a charge. That share has moved in one direction for a decade: Year Jail population Held pretrial Pretrial share --- --- --- --- 2010 6,638 3,343 50.4% 2013 6,632 3,824 57.7% 2016 6,956 4,198 60.4% 2019 6,874 4,700 68.4% The total held roughly flat. The composition changed. Minnesota did not jail dramatically more people over the 2010s; it shifted who was in the jail from the convicted to the not-yet-convicted. In 2010 a Minnesota jail was about half people serving time. By 2019 it was two-thirds people who had been proven nothing. Who is in there Same dataset, same year, rates per 100,000 residents aged 15 to 64, which is the denominator Vera uses: Group Jail rate per 100,000 Compared with white --- --- --- White 106.9 \u2014 Black 6 Vera Institute of Justice, Incarceration Trends county-level dataset ( incarceration trends county.csv , downloaded from the project's public repository on Sept. 8, 2026), filtered to Minnesota: total jail population, total pretrial custody, and jail population and resident population aged 15\u201364 by race, aggregated across reporting counties. Coverage: 85 of 87 counties for 2019, 84 for 2018, 76 for 2010. Rates computed as jail population divided by resident population aged 15\u201364, times 100,000; ratios are those rates divided by the white rate. Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure, Rule 6, as published by the Minnesota Revisor of Statutes (verified verbatim, Sept. 8, 2026): Rule 6.02, subd. 1, including \"A person charged with an offense must be released without bail when ordered by the prosecutor, court, or any person designated by the court,\" the release standard \"will endanger the publ"},{"u":"/blog-the-hair-on-your-head-is-not-a-dress-code","t":"Minnesota Did Not Pass a Hair Law. It Changed the Definition of Race \u2014 and That One Sentence Moved Braids, Locs, and Twists Inside the Human Rights Act","d":"In 2023 Minnesota added twenty-four words to the definitions section of the Human Rights Act. It did not write a grooming statute. It put hair texture and hair styles inside the word 'race,' which runs through the Act's employment, public-accommodations, education, housing, and public-services provisions. That changes what a worker sent home over her hair is holding. It does not change what she still has to prove, and Minnesota does not publish a single number telling us whether anyone has used it.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-09-07","b":"The legislature amended a dictionary, not a dress code Inside the definition is a different place to stand Where the claim goes, and what it carries What a definition cannot do What we can do Sources Minnesota Did Not Pass a Hair Law. It Changed the Definition of Race \u2014 and That One Sentence Moved Braids, Locs, and Twists Inside the Human Rights Act The rule always sounds neutral in the handbook. Hair must be neat. Professional. Appropriate for a customer-facing role. Then a supervisor decides that locs are none of those things, and a woman who showed up ready to work goes home unpaid to do something about her head. She loses the shift. Sometimes she loses the job. The write-up says grooming policy , because nobody puts the other word in writing anymore. Minnesota answered that in 2023, and not with a hair statute. It answered with a definition. The legislature amended a dictionary, not a dress code Minnesota Statutes \u00a7 363A.03 is the definitions section of the Human Rights Act, running to subdivision 50 and defining terms like \"employer\" (subd. 16), \"place of public accommodation\" (subd. 34), and \"local commission\" (subd. 23). Subdivision 36a, added in 2023, reads in full: \"Race\" is inclusive of traits associated with race, including but not limited to hair texture and hair styles such as braids, locs, and twists. Twenty-four words. The act that added them, 2023 Minn. Laws ch. 3 (H.F. No. 37), describes itself in its own title as \"adding a definition of race to the Minnesota Human Rights Act; amending Minnesota Statutes 2022, section 363A.03, by adding a subdivision.\" It was presented to the governor and signed on January 31, 2023, at 7:51 p.m. It carried no effective-da Minn. Stat. \u00a7 363A.03, subd. 36a, was pulled raw from the Revisor of Statutes and quoted in full; the section's History line names 2023 c 3 as the amending act. The session law itself, 2023 Minn. Laws ch. 3 (H.F. No. 37), was read on revisor.mn.gov in the Revisor's strike-and-insert display: its title states that it adds a definition of race to the Human Rights Act by adding a subdivision to \u00a7 363A.03, its text contains a single section, and its foot records \"Presented to the governor January 31, 2023\" and \"Signed by the governor January 31, 2023, 7:51 p.m.\" Because the act specifies no effective date, Minn. Stat. \u00a7 645.02 supplies it \u2014 that section, also pulled raw, provides that a non-appropriation act \"takes effect on August 1 next following its final enactment,\" making the operative date August 1, 2023. The operative provisions were read raw as well: \u00a7 363A.02 (public policy, includ"},{"u":"/blog-the-two-gun-laws-minnesota-actually-passed","t":"Minnesota Passed Two Gun Laws in 2023, and Almost Every Argument I Hear About Them Describes a Statute That Does Not Exist: One Is Not Confiscation, the Other Is Not a Registry, and the Hardest Problem Is Buried in a Subdivision Nobody Quotes","d":"Minnesota's red-flag law and its private-transfer background check have been argued about for three years by people quoting each other instead of the text. I pulled both statutes raw and read every subdivision. The red-flag law is not seizure on an anonymous tip \u2014 the list of who may petition is closed and short. The transfer law is not a registry \u2014 the record stays in your hands, not the state's. And there is a real due-process problem in the emergency order that neither side is being honest about.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-09-07","b":"Who may actually file, and what they have to swear to The standard, the hearing, and how long an order lasts The emergency order, stated at full strength What the statute actually does about it Where the answer is weaker than I want it to be The other law, and the registry that isn't What we can do Sources Minnesota Passed Two Gun Laws in 2023, and Almost Every Argument I Hear About Them Describes a Statute That Does Not Exist: One Is Not Confiscation, the Other Is Not a Registry, and the Hardest Problem Is Buried in a Subdivision Nobody Quotes Somebody has told you that a Minnesota judge can now order your guns taken on an angry phone call from a person who doesn't like you. Somebody else has told you the state is quietly building a list of everyone who owns a handgun. If you own firearms, you have probably heard both, from people who are certain, and neither of them was reading the statute when they said it. I pulled both laws raw from the Revisor's site and read every subdivision. What follows is what the text says, including the part of it I cannot argue away. It describes the statutes in general terms. It is not advice about anyone's order, anyone's hearing, or anyone's firearms, and reading it does not make me your lawyer. Who may actually file, and what they have to swear to The red-flag law is Minn. Stat. \u00a7\u00a7 624.7171 to 624.7178, enacted in 2023. Section 624.7171, subdivision 4(b), lists who may petition, and the list is closed: the chief law enforcement officer or the chief's designee, a city or county attorney, a family or household member of the respondent, or the respondent's guardian. \"Family or household members\" is not a loose term here. Subdivision 1(b) defines it as spouses and former spouses, parents and children, people presently residing with the respondent, Everything above comes from raw statutory text pulled from revisor.mn.gov on September 7, 2026, and from a Supreme Court opinion read in full text on CourtListener. Minn. Stat. \u00a7 624.7171 (Extreme Risk Protection Orders, enacted 2023 Minn. Laws ch. 52, art. 14, \u00a7 2) supplied the definition of \"family or household members\" at subdivision 1(b), the closed list of eligible petitioners and the sworn-affidavit requirement at subdivision 4(b)\u2013(c), and the NICS transmission-and-removal rule at subdivision 4(m). \u00a7 624.7172 (orders after hearing) supplied the 14-day hearing deadline at subdivision 1(a), the continuance provision at subdivision 1(d), the clear-and-convincing standard and nine mandatory evidence categories at subdivision 2(a)\u2013(b), the six-month-to-one-year duration at subdiv"},{"u":"/blog-what-minnesota-owes-the-wrongly-convicted","t":"Minnesota Priced a Wrongly Taken Year of a Person's Life at $50,000 in 2014 and Has Not Changed the Number Since \u2014 and Even After You Win, the State Does Not Have to Pay You","d":"Minnesota is one of the states that compensates people it wrongly imprisoned. The Incarceration and Exoneration Remedies Act sets a floor of $50,000 per year of incarceration, a figure the Legislature wrote in 2014 and has never adjusted. In twelve years the state has appropriated money to pay seventeen people a total of $9,214,999.36. And the statute still routes a won award back to the Legislature 'for consideration as an appropriation,' which means winning and getting paid are two different events.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-09-07","b":"What the Act actually pays The floor has not moved since 2014 Seventeen people in twelve years An award is not a check Who is left out, and why most of those lines are drawn correctly What we can do Sources Minnesota Priced a Wrongly Taken Year of a Person's Life at $50,000 in 2014 and Has Not Changed the Number Since \u2014 and Even After You Win, the State Does Not Have to Pay You Minnesota has a price list for a year of a person's life taken by mistake. It is written into the statute books, it has a floor and a set of caps, and it has been sitting at the same dollar figure since 2014. Start with the name, because the Legislature keeps getting it wrong. Minn. Stat. \u00a7 611.368 reads: \"Sections 611.362 to 611.368 shall be cited as the 'Incarceration and Exoneration Remedies Act.'\" It was the Imprisonment and Exoneration Remedies Act from 2014 until the 2019 first special session struck that word and inserted \"Incarceration\" (Laws 2019, 1st Spec. Sess., ch. 5, art. 2, \u00a7 25). Every appropriation bill enacted since \u2014 five of them, through the one the governor signed this past May \u2014 still uses the repealed name. That is how much attention this corner of the law gets. What the Act actually pays Section 611.365, subdivision 2, does the arithmetic. First, reimbursement for \"all restitution, assessments, fees, court costs, and other sums paid by the claimant as required by the judgment and sentence\" \u2014 the state gives back what it collected from you for the conviction it got wrong. Then the floor: \"the claimant is entitled to monetary damages of not less than $50,000 for each year of incarceration, and not less than $25,000 for each year served on supervised release or as a registered predator Every statutory quotation in this piece came from raw HTML pulled from the Revisor of Statutes at revisor.mn.gov (2025 Minnesota Statutes edition) on September 7, 2026, not from a summary. Minn. Stat. \u00a7 611.368 supplies the short title, quoted in full. Minn. Stat. \u00a7 611.365 supplies the damages formula: subdivision 2, paragraph (a), for the reimbursement provision, the $50,000 and $25,000 per-year floors, and the six additional damage categories; paragraph (b) for mandatory attorney fees; subdivision 3 for the no-aggregate-limit sentence and the $100,000 and $50,000 per-year internal caps on clauses (1) and (4) to (6); subdivision 6 for the bar on offsetting the state's cost of custody; subdivision 7 for survival of the claim. Minn. Stat. \u00a7 611.362 supplies the filing mechanics, including subdivision 2's requirement that the state be named as respondent and represented by the att"},{"u":"/blog-go-buy-gift-cards-and-read-me-the-numbers","t":"Minnesota Has a Gift-Card Statute and a Vulnerable-Adult Statute, and Neither One Was Written for the Phone Call That Empties Your Mother's Checking Account","d":"The gift-card scam runs on a script, and the script is the most useful thing anyone can hand you. Minnesota's gift-certificate law regulates fees and expiration dates \u2014 it says nothing about fraud. The financial-exploitation crime is real, but 'vulnerable adult' is a defined term, and most independently living retirees do not meet it. Here is what the statutes actually do, what reaches the caller, and why the money is almost never coming back.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-09-07","b":"The script, step by step The gift-card statute does not do what the pairing suggests \"Vulnerable adult\" is a defined term, and it is narrower than \"an older person\" What actually reaches the caller The numbers What I cannot tell you What we can do Sources Minnesota Has a Gift-Card Statute and a Vulnerable-Adult Statute, and Neither One Was Written for the Phone Call That Empties Your Mother's Checking Account The call comes at 10:40 on a Tuesday morning, because that is when she is home and alone. The man on the other end knows her name. He says he is from Social Security, or from her bank's fraud department, or from Microsoft, and he says her account has been used in a crime. Then he says the only thing he actually needs her to do: go to the store, buy gift cards, and read him the numbers off the back. Four hours later she has spent $2,400 at three different retailers, she has been on the phone the entire time, and the money is gone. Not frozen. Not reversible. Gone, into a code that was redeemed in another country before she got back to her car. I have practiced consumer law in Minnesota long enough to watch this pattern harden into a script. So here are the two useful things: the script, precisely enough that you can interrupt it, and what Minnesota law does and does not do about it. The script, step by step The pretext is fear, and it is always about protecting money she already has. The FTC's analysis of these reports names three opening lies: someone is using her accounts, her information is being used to commit crimes, or there is a security problem with her computer. That last one usually starts with a fake on-screen alert carrying a phone number. Notice what none of them are. Nobody offers her a prize. The scam weapon Minnesota statutory text was pulled raw from revisor.mn.gov and read in full, including each section's History line. Minn. Stat. \u00a7 325G.53 (Gift Certificates) supplied the definitions in subdivision 1, the complete prohibition quoted from subdivision 2, the six nonapplication categories in subdivision 3, and the remedy reference in subdivision 4; its History line shows a single enactment, 2007 c 93 s 1, and no amendment since. Minn. Stat. \u00a7 8.31 supplied the attorney general's investigative and injunctive authority (subdivisions 1, 2, and 3) and the private right of action with costs and attorney fees (subdivision 3a). Minn. Stat. \u00a7 609.2335 supplied the two routes to the crime in subdivision 1, the sentencing cross-reference in subdivision 3, the six-month aggregation rule in subdivision 4, and the venue rule in subdivision 5. Min"},{"u":"/blog-two-grocery-chains-and-one-attorney-general","t":"Eight States and the District of Columbia Went to Federal Court to Stop the Largest Supermarket Merger in American History, and Minnesota Was Not in the Caption \u2014 Which Is Strange, Because Minnesota Has Had Its Own Antitrust Statute Since 1971","d":"A $24.6 billion grocery merger was blocked in Portland in December 2024 by the FTC and nine state and district plaintiffs. Minnesota was not one of them. Minnesota's own antitrust law has been on the books for fifty-five years, it awards treble damages to shoppers who never bought a thing from the defendant, and it hands the Attorney General discovery power before a complaint is ever filed. This is an argument about the tool, not about the man holding it.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-09-07","b":"What actually happened, with docket numbers What Minnesota's antitrust law says, in its own words Where the statute stops The part of this that cuts against me What we can do Sources Eight States and the District of Columbia Went to Federal Court to Stop the Largest Supermarket Merger in American History, and Minnesota Was Not in the Caption \u2014 Which Is Strange, Because Minnesota Has Had Its Own Antitrust Statute Since 1971 42,625 Minnesotans went to work in a supermarket last year. Their average pay was $32,196. That is the Bureau of Labor Statistics count for private supermarkets and grocery retailers in this state in 2025, and it is down 1,369 jobs from 2024 \u2014 a 3.1 percent drop \u2014 across a store count that moved by two. The rest of us walk into those stores and hand over money. So when the two largest traditional supermarket chains in the country agreed to become one company, it was a Minnesota question. It was filed in February 2024, decided in December 2024, and the fee fight on it is still open. Minnesota was not a party to any of it. What actually happened, with docket numbers On October 14, 2022, Kroger and Albertsons announced that Kroger would buy Albertsons for approximately $24.6 billion. The Federal Trade Commission's complaint called it \"by far the largest supermarket merger in U.S. history.\" On February 26, 2024, the FTC filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon \u2014 Federal Trade Commission v. Kroger Company , No. 3:24-cv-00347-AN. The FTC did not file alone. The caption reads: Federal Trade Commission, State of Arizona, State of California, District of Columbia, State of Illinois, State of Maryland, State of Ne Minnesota's antitrust chapter was read as raw text from revisor.mn.gov, section by section: \u00a7 325D.49 for the chapter's own short title (\"Minnesota Antitrust Law of 1971\"); \u00a7 325D.50, subds. 4, 5, and 6 for the definitions of \"contract, combination, or conspiracy,\" \"person,\" and \"trade or commerce\"; \u00a7 325D.51 and \u00a7 325D.52 for the operative prohibitions, both quoted in full above; \u00a7 325D.53, subd. 1 for the per se list; \u00a7 325D.55, subd. 2 for the regulated-conduct exemption; \u00a7 325D.57 for treble damages to persons injured \"directly or indirectly\"; \u00a7 325D.59 for the Attorney General's investigative and suit authority; \u00a7 325D.64 for the four-year limitation; and \u00a7 325D.66 for the interstate-commerce provision. Each section's History line was read; every one traces to 1971 c 865, with later amendments noted at \u00a7\u00a7 325D.53, .55, .56, .57 and .59 and none in the current biennium. The two sessi"},{"u":"/blog-the-price-is-the-price","t":"Minnesota Made the Advertised Price the Price You Pay \u2014 Then Wrote Nine More Paragraphs Around It, and Left the Number Itself Alone","d":"Since January 1, 2025, advertising a price that leaves out a mandatory fee has been a deceptive trade practice in Minnesota. The prohibition is one sentence. The qualifications run nine paragraphs and three industry exemptions. I read all of it, because the carve-outs are where the money is \u2014 and because nothing in this law makes anything cheaper.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-09-07","b":"One sentence, and what it actually reaches The exceptions are the real statute Who can actually make someone stop The office has used the theory \u2014 before the law existed Tickets are governed twice, by two different agencies What this law cannot do What we can do Sources Minnesota Made the Advertised Price the Price You Pay \u2014 Then Wrote Nine More Paragraphs Around It, and Left the Number Itself Alone You have had this happen. The ticket is $38 until checkout, where it is $54. The hotel room is $129 a night until a \"resort fee\" appears on a property with no resort. The sandwich is $10 on the board and $10.50 on the receipt because of a fee with a wellness-sounding name. You did not misread anything. You were shown a number that was never the number. Since January 1, 2025, that has been illegal in Minnesota in most \u2014 not all \u2014 of the places it happens. I read consumer statutes for a living, and this one is worth reading closely, because the prohibition is a single sentence and the qualifications around it run nine more paragraphs. The carve-outs are not fine print. They are the story. One sentence, and what it actually reaches Minnesota Statutes section 325D.44, subdivision 1a, paragraph (a), says a person engages in a deceptive trade practice when, in the course of business, vocation, or occupation, that person \"advertises, displays, or offers a price for goods or services that does not include all mandatory fees or surcharges.\" That is the whole rule. Everything else is definition and exception. \"Mandatory fee\" is defined in paragraph (b), and the definition is broad in two ways people miss. It \"includes but is not limited to\" \u2014 so the list is a floor, not a boundary. And the three tests are joined by or , not and : a fee counts if it \"must b Every statutory quotation here was taken from the raw text of the section at revisor.mn.gov, not from a summary. Minn. Stat. \u00a7 325D.44, subd. 1a and subd. 1b supplied the prohibition in paragraph (a), the three-prong disjunctive definition of \"mandatory fee\" and the government-tax exclusion in paragraph (b), the six \"is compliant with this subdivision if\" safe harbors at (c), (f), (g), (h), (i), and (j), the shipping allowance at (d), the discount savings clause at (e), the federal-preemption clause at (k), and the three exemptions \u2014 motor vehicle dealer fees, PUC-regulated businesses, and RESPA settlement services \u2014 in subdivision 1b; the section's History line reads \"1973 c 216 s 2; 1986 c 444; 1988 c 592 s 11; 2023 c 57 art 4 s 6,7; 2024 c 111 s 1,2; 2025 c 20 s 247,\" and I pulled both session laws. The enacting l"},{"u":"/blog-the-water-under-the-karst","t":"Minnesota Set a Goal for Its Groundwater in 1989. In the Karst Country of the Southeast, the Law's Escalator to Mandatory Rules Runs Off Public Wells \u2014 and 93,805 People There Drink From Private Ones.","d":"Chapter 103H says groundwater should be kept free from degradation caused by human activities, and it builds a ladder from voluntary practices to enforceable orders. The Groundwater Protection Rule wired the top of that ladder to public wells. In eight southeast counties, the people at risk are on private wells. Eleven organizations petitioned EPA in 2023 to force the issue. Here is exactly what EPA did, what it did not do, and what the state's own quarterly numbers show through March 31, 2026.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-09-07","b":"The promise the state made in 1989 The ladder, and the rung the escalator starts on The petition, and precisely what EPA did What the state's own numbers say The concession, and it is a real one What we can do Sources Minnesota Set a Goal for Its Groundwater in 1989. In the Karst Country of the Southeast, the Law's Escalator to Mandatory Rules Runs Off Public Wells \u2014 and 93,805 People There Drink From Private Ones. Nitrate has no color, no odor, and no taste. A glass of water at 12 milligrams per liter looks exactly like a glass at 2. In eight counties in the southeast corner of this state \u2014 Dodge, Fillmore, Goodhue, Houston, Mower, Olmsted, Wabasha, and Winona \u2014 about 93,805 people draw their drinking water from a private well, and nobody in the world tests that well unless the owner sends in a sample. I read rules for a living. This one has a design flaw you can see from the text. The promise the state made in 1989 Minn. Stat. \u00a7 103H.001 is four sentences long and it is titled DEGRADATION PREVENTION GOAL. Here is the whole thing: It is the goal of the state that groundwater be maintained in its natural condition, free from any degradation caused by human activities. It is recognized that for some human activities this degradation prevention goal cannot be practicably achieved. However, where prevention is practicable, it is intended that it be achieved. Where it is not currently practicable, the development of methods and technology that will make prevention practicable is encouraged. That has been the law since 1989 and has never been amended. Read the second sentence as carefully as the first \u2014 the Legislature built the escape hatch and the goal into the same paragraph. The definitions Minn. Stat. \u00a7\u00a7 103H.001, 103H.005, 103H.151, 103H.175, 103H.201, 103H.251, and 103H.275 were pulled as raw text from revisor.mn.gov and read in full, including History lines; \u00a7 103H.001 traces to 1989 c 326 art 1 s 1 with no subsequent amendment, and the four-sentence goal above is quoted complete and verbatim. The \"practicable voluntary practices\" definition is \u00a7 103H.005, subd. 4; the pollutant and pollution definitions are subds. 11 and 12; the ineffectiveness trigger and the chapter 18D penalty are \u00a7 103H.275, subds. 1(b) and 2(f). The Groundwater Protection Rule, Minn. R. ch. 1573, was read at parts 1573.0030 (statewide fall-application and frozen-soil prohibitions, keyed to vulnerable groundwater areas by quarter section), 1573.0040 (mitigation level designations from public well data; the three-growing-season evaluation and review windows at subps. 6 and 7), and"},{"u":"/blog-who-is-in-the-building-at-two-in-the-morning","t":"Minnesota Never Told a Nursing Home How Many People to Put on the Night Shift. It Set a Wage Floor Instead \u2014 and After Twenty-Three Months, a Federal Sign-Off, and a Line in the Medicaid Budget, That Floor Takes Effect Thursday.","d":"State law requires two hours of nursing personnel per resident per 24 hours and a nurse on site eight hours a day. It does not say who is on the floor at 2 a.m. Minnesota's answer to that question is not a staffing ratio \u2014 it is a nine-member wage board, and on September 10 its floors finally reach a paycheck. Four in ten Minnesota nursing home workers still leave within a year, and raising the floor bills a state that has already capped what it will pay.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-09-07","b":"What the rulebook says about the night shift The board Minnesota built instead What the board actually set Why the pay is the staffing answer What this costs, and who eats it What we can do Sources Minnesota Never Told a Nursing Home How Many People to Put on the Night Shift. It Set a Wage Floor Instead \u2014 and After Twenty-Three Months, a Federal Sign-Off, and a Line in the Medicaid Budget, That Floor Takes Effect Thursday. At two in the morning the hallway is dark and the call lights still go on. Somebody has to answer them. If your mother is in one of the 338 nursing homes Medicare and Medicaid certify in this state, that is the only question you actually care about \u2014 how many people are on that floor, and whether one of them will get to her room before she tries to get to the bathroom by herself. I went and read what the law requires. It is thinner than almost anyone assumes. What the rulebook says about the night shift Minnesota sets a total, not a schedule. Minn. Stat. \u00a7 144A.04, subd. 7(a): \"The minimum number of hours of nursing personnel to be provided in a nursing home is the greater of two hours per resident per 24 hours or 0.95 hours per standardized resident day.\" Hours summed across a whole day, divided across a whole census. Miss it and the fine is $300 for each day of noncompliance. The scheduling rules are qualitative. Minn. R. 4658.0510, subp. 1 requires a home to have \"on duty at all times a sufficient number of qualified nursing personnel, including registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and nursing assistants to meet the needs of the residents at all nurses' stations, on all floors, and in all buildings if more than one building is involved.\" S The staffing law was read raw at revisor.mn.gov. Minn. Stat. \u00a7 144A.04, subd. 7 supplies the \"greater of two hours per resident per 24 hours or 0.95 hours per standardized resident day\" minimum and the $300-per-day civil fine at paragraph (d); Minn. R. 4658.0510 supplies the \"sufficient number of qualified nursing personnel\" standard (subp. 1), the eight-hours-a-day on-site nursing coverage requirement (subp. 3), and the on-call registered nurse (subp. 4). The federal counterpart, 42 C.F.R. \u00a7 483.35, was read in its current form on eCFR, which carries a source note of 90 FR 55697, Dec. 3, 2025, and contains no hours-per-resident-day minimum; paragraph (b)(1) is the \"at least 8 consecutive hours a day, 7 days a week\" registered-nurse rule and paragraph (e)(1) is the waiver conditioned on \"diligent efforts (including offering wages at the community prevailing rate for nursing facilities).\""},{"u":"/blog-the-middlemen-in-your-prescription","t":"Minnesota Licenses 52 Companies That Sit Between You and Your Pharmacist, Requires Them to Report What They Keep, and Then Publishes Those Reports With the Companies' Names Removed","d":"Chapter 62W makes pharmacy benefit managers hold a state license, disclose the spread, and stop clawing back money from pharmacies and from you. It does not ban spread pricing. And the annual transparency report Commerce publishes is unaudited and anonymous \u2014 twelve of the thirty reports filed for 2024 say the company kept nothing. Here is how the money actually moves, what Minnesota law reaches, and where federal law stops it.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-09-07","b":"Spread pricing, in plain English Two kinds of clawback What chapter 62W actually prohibits \u2014 and what it leaves alone Minnesota published the numbers and erased the names The federal ceiling is real, and it is not where the industry said it was What the industry says, and where it has a point What we can do Sources Minnesota Licenses 52 Companies That Sit Between You and Your Pharmacist, Requires Them to Report What They Keep, and Then Publishes Those Reports With the Companies' Names Removed You hand the pharmacist a card. Something happens for four seconds. A number appears \u2014 $12, or $340, or \"not covered\" \u2014 and you pay it or you walk out without the medication. The pharmacist did not pick that number, and neither did your doctor or your employer. A company you have never heard of picked it, and Minnesota licenses 52 of them to do exactly that. They are called pharmacy benefit managers. I want to emphasize how ordinary this is: if you have prescription coverage through work, a PBM is standing between you and the counter right now. Spread pricing, in plain English There is not one price for a prescription drug. There are at least three, and they differ on purpose. The manufacturer lists the drug at a wholesale acquisition cost. The PBM pays the pharmacy something else for filling it. The PBM charges your employer's plan something else again. The gap between those last two is the PBM's money. The arithmetic, in round numbers. A pharmacy dispenses a generic; the PBM reimburses the pharmacy $8, bills the plan $23, and keeps $15. The pharmacist never learns what the plan was billed. The plan never learns what the pharmacist was paid. You, who paid a copay set by a formula neither of them controls, learn nothing at all. That is spread pricing, and nothing about it is hidden from the PBM \u2014 i The statute is Minnesota Statutes chapter 62W, pulled raw from revisor.mn.gov as the full chapter text on September 7, 2026, and read section by section including every History line. Section 62W.01 supplies the short title \u2014 the \"Minnesota Pharmacy Benefit Manager Licensure and Regulation Act\" \u2014 and the chapter's operative sections were enacted by 2019 Minn. Laws ch. 39, with later amendments at 2021 Minn. Laws ch. 30 (\u00a7 62W.11), 2022 Minn. Laws ch. 55 (\u00a7 62W.09), and 2023 Minn. Laws ch. 57 (\u00a7 62W.15). The Revisor's chapter page carries a 2026 session note: \u00a7 62W.06, subd. 4, has been added by 2026 Minn. Laws ch. 124, art. 3, \u00a7 9, which I pulled raw from the session-law text \u2014 it directs the commissioner of commerce to share the subd. 2(a) data with the commissioner of he"},{"u":"/blog-the-lease-is-not-the-whole-law","t":"Your Lease Is a Contract. Chapter 504B Is the Law. Most of What a Minnesota Renter Actually Has Was Never Printed in the Lease \u2014 and Some of It Is Five Weeks Old.","d":"Minnesota's landlord-tenant chapter runs to nearly a hundred sections, and a long list of them cannot be waived by anything a tenant signs. A landlord must send a specific 14-day letter with six specific things in it before filing for nonpayment. An eviction record comes off the public file by operation of statute in five situations, no motion required. And on August 1, 2026, the rent-payment rules changed. This is what the statutes say, not advice about anyone's situation.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-09-07","b":"Before anyone files, there is a letter The record outlives the case Retaliation is a defense, and for 90 days the landlord carries it The rights that were never printed in the lease What changed on August 1, 2026 What this costs the landlord who owns one duplex What we can do Sources Your Lease Is a Contract. Chapter 504B Is the Law. Most of What a Minnesota Renter Actually Has Was Never Printed in the Lease \u2014 and Some of It Is Five Weeks Old. For most Minnesota renters the lease is the only document they will ever read about their own tenancy. Eight or twelve pages, written by the landlord's side, and it feels like the whole deal. It is one document sitting inside Minnesota Statutes chapter 504B, which runs to nearly a hundred sections \u2014 many of which say in so many words that a tenant cannot waive them and a landlord cannot ask them to. Where the lease and the chapter disagree, the chapter wins. What follows describes what those statutes say. It is not advice about anybody's apartment or anybody's court date, and reading it does not make me your lawyer. The legislature anticipated that gap and wrote the answer into the statute: the notice a landlord must send before filing has to carry the sentence \"You have the right to seek legal help. If you can't afford a lawyer, free legal help may be available. Contact Legal Aid or visit www.LawHelpMN.org to know your rights and find your local Legal Aid office.\" It is in the law because a tenant with a lawyer and a tenant without one are in two different proceedings. Before anyone files, there is a letter Since January 1, 2024 \u2014 the effective date the legislature set when it wrote the provision in 2023 \u2014 a landlord cannot walk into court on a nonpayment case cold. Section 504B.321, subdivision 1a requires written Every statutory quotation and figure here was pulled as raw text from the Revisor of Statutes at revisor.mn.gov this morning, not from a summary. Minn. Stat. ch. 504B (2025) was retrieved in full from revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/504B/full , which is also where the banner appears warning that the chapter \"has been affected by law enacted during the 2026 Regular Session.\" Sections relied on: \u00a7 504B.321 (subd. 1(d) dismissal-and-expungement language; subd. 1a's six required notice contents and 14-day period; subd. 1b emergency verification; subd. 2 expedited procedure; subd. 5 defective filing; subd. 6 nonpublic record); \u00a7 504B.285 (subd. 1(b) protection for victims; subd. 2 retaliation defense and 90-day burden shift; subd. 3 rent increase as penalty, including the tender condition; subd. 4 nonlimitation"},{"u":"/blog-why-ethics-has-to-be-in-the-code","t":"A Machine Does Exactly What You Told It to Value, and Nothing You Forgot to Mention: Why Ethics Has to Be Written Into AI Before It Ships, Not Bolted On After","d":"The famous paperclip story is twenty-three years old, usually misquoted, and has taken serious published criticism I give here in full. What survives it is the part a state should care about: nobody can currently prove that a large AI system does what its builders intended and nothing else. That is an engineering problem with real results and real limits \u2014 and Minnesota buys these systems.","l":"Minnesota, the Ethical-AI Capital","dt":"2026-09-06","b":"Being smart and wanting what we want are two different things Ethics is not a feature you add in version two The strongest case against everything I just told you People are already building the answer, and it works on small things Why this is a state's business and not just a lab's What we can do Sources A Machine Does Exactly What You Told It to Value, and Nothing You Forgot to Mention: Why Ethics Has to Be Written Into AI Before It Ships, Not Bolted On After Sometime in the next decade, software will make a decision about you that a person used to make. Whether your claim gets paid. Whether your application gets a second look. Whether the state thinks your paperwork smells like fraud. Some of it is already on the table \u2014 Minnesota has proposed putting machine learning to work hunting fraud among Medicaid providers. The question isn't whether we live with these systems. We do. It's whether anyone can show that a given system does what its builders said it does, and nothing else. At the scale these things are built, nobody can. That gap has a name \u2014 alignment \u2014 and it isn't a philosophy seminar. It's an engineering discipline with published results, known limits, and almost no public money behind it in this state. Being smart and wanting what we want are two different things The idea is two decades older than the chatbot on your phone. In 2003 the philosopher Nick Bostrom published a short paper, \"Ethical Issues in Advanced Artificial Intelligence.\" Most people in technology have heard a garbled version of one paragraph in it. Here is what he wrote: \"It also seems perfectly possible to have a superintelligence whose sole goal is something completely arbitrary, such as to manufacture as many paperclips as possible, and who would resist with all its might any attempt to alter t Nick Bostrom's two paperclip passages are quoted verbatim from \"Ethical Issues in Advanced Artificial Intelligence,\" posted by the author at nickbostrom.com and retrieved as raw text; the paper carries its own bracketed note identifying it as a slightly revised version of a paper published in Cognitive, Emotive and Ethical Aspects of Decision Making in Humans and in Artificial Intelligence , Vol. 2, ed. I. Smit et al., 2003, pp. 12-17. The criticism is Peter N. Salib and Simon Goldstein, \"Today's AIs Aren't Paperclip Maximizers. That Doesn't Mean They're Not Risky,\" published by AI Frontiers on May 21, 2025 and retrieved as raw page text; every quoted phrase \u2014 \"significant cracks,\" the imitation-versus-optimization passage, the Claude-4/GPT-5 line, \"swerve back,\" and the scarce-res"},{"u":"/blog-what-austin-bought-and-what-it-lost","t":"Austin Won the Two Biggest Prizes in American Technology, and Both of Them Are Gone \u2014 What Stayed Behind Is the Part Minnesota Should Be Copying","d":"Austin landed MCC in 1983 and SEMATECH five years later, and people have been citing it as the model for regional tech development ever since. I've cited it myself. Both of those wins ended: MCC's board voted to dissolve it in 2000, and SEMATECH moved its headquarters to Albany in 2007 after New York offered more than Texas matched. What left was the part that had been bought. What stayed was the part that had been built into people.","l":"Minnesota, the Ethical-AI Capital","dt":"2026-09-06","b":"Austin went and got it, twice Both of those wins ended What left was the part that had been bought Minnesota already competed, and came in second The thing nobody can outbid What we can do Sources Austin Won the Two Biggest Prizes in American Technology, and Both of Them Are Gone \u2014 What Stayed Behind Is the Part Minnesota Should Be Copying Every few years somebody in Minnesota politics promises to go get us the next big thing. A headquarters, a plant, a federal institute. There's a press conference, a rendering, and a number with a lot of zeros in it. Then a decade goes by and it's hard to say what actually changed. I want that instinct aimed at artificial intelligence, and I've said so in plain terms. The example everybody reaches for when they make that argument is Austin. I've reached for it too. So here is the whole Austin story, ending included. The ending is the part that makes it useful. Austin went and got it, twice In the early 1980s a group of American computer companies formed a research consortium \u2014 the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation, MCC \u2014 as the industry's answer to a Japanese national push into advanced computing. It needed a home. Fifty-seven communities bid. Four made the final round: San Diego, Atlanta, North Carolina's Research Triangle, and Austin. Austin won, in July of 1983. What Austin put on the table is the interesting part. The package came to more than $20 million, and the two pieces the researchers single out tell you what Texas actually understood. One was a facility and lab at the University of Texas, financed by the university and by private donors from across the state and leased to MCC for ten dollars a year. The o The MCC story \u2014 fifty-seven communities bidding, the four finalists, Austin's selection in 1983, and the consortium's dissolution \u2014 comes from the Texas State Historical Association's handbook entry on the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation, corroborated against other independent historical accounts; the board's 2000 vote to dissolve and the 2004 wind-down are consistent across those accounts but were not confirmed against a primary corporate or court filing, so I'm describing them as the histories describe them. The more-than-$20-million MCC incentive package, the ten-dollar-a-year university lab lease, the thirty-two million-dollar endowed chairs, SEMATECH's selection of Austin over 137 competing cities, the roughly $62 million Texas put up in incentives, the fact that much of SEMATECH's technical staff came to Austin on temporary assignment from member companies, and"},{"u":"/blog-funding-it-without-building-a-slush-fund","t":"A Minnesota AI Fund Is Exactly the Kind of Program That Becomes a Slush Fund, and the Only Thing That Stops It Is Not a Promise \u2014 It Is Merit Review, Published Results, and an Expiration Date","d":"Minnesota won a federal Tech Hub designation in 2023 and got none of the $504 million that followed. The state runs an AI governance subcommittee and has announced an AI fraud-detection pilot, and neither one funds research. I am not going to name an appropriation \u2014 that number belongs in a bill drafted by people who cost it. What I will argue is the structure that has to come attached to it before the number matters at all.","l":"Minnesota, the Ethical-AI Capital","dt":"2026-09-06","b":"Minnesota has not done nothing, and pretending otherwise would sink this argument We already competed for this money, and we came in second The number belongs in the bill. The structure belongs in the argument. If the benefit only lands downtown, the rest of the state paid for a press conference Ethics written only by engineers and lobbyists is ethics nobody trusts The concession, and I am not going to wave it away What we can do Sources A Minnesota AI Fund Is Exactly the Kind of Program That Becomes a Slush Fund, and the Only Thing That Stops It Is Not a Promise \u2014 It Is Merit Review, Published Results, and an Expiration Date Somebody always asks what it costs. That is the right question, and it is where this kind of idea usually dies \u2014 not because the answer is bad, but because everyone in the room has watched an economic-development fund turn into a pile of money with a nice name on it. So I will answer it first. Nearly three years ago the federal government looked at Minnesota, found a real asset base, and said so in writing. Then it wrote the check to somebody else. Minnesota has not done nothing, and pretending otherwise would sink this argument The state is not standing still on artificial intelligence, and anyone who says it is has handed the other side an easy correction. Minnesota has a Technology Advisory Council \u2014 it advises the governor and the state chief information officer, with Minnesota IT Services providing its administrative support \u2014 and in 2023 that council stood up an Artificial Intelligence Subcommittee \u2014 in the council's own words, to work \"alongside the Transparent Artificial Intelligence Governance Alliance (TAIGA).\" Its 2024 report describes what it actually does: build a strategic framework for AI adoption inside state agencies, support pilot projects, and work on bias, privacy, and governance recommendations. And on January 3, 2025, the Governor announced a fraud package that put  The MNIT facts come from the Technology Advisory Council's own report on its 2024 work, dated January 23, 2025, pulled as a raw PDF from mn.gov and read directly: the council \"prioritized AI as a critical area of growth in 2023,\" which \"culminated in the establishment of the TAC's AI Subcommittee to work alongside the Transparent Artificial Intelligence Governance Alliance (TAIGA),\" and the subcommittee's described work is agency adoption, pilots, bias, privacy, and governance recommendations. The fraud-detection language is quoted verbatim from the Governor's own press release, \"Governor Walz Takes Executive Action, Announces Legislative Package to"},{"u":"/blog-what-a-minnesota-ai-standard-would-say","t":"Minnesota Already Wrote the Hardest Sentence in American AI Law. The Bill That Would Have Finished the Job Died in Committee, and the Word That Killed It Was Voluntary.","d":"Minnesota gives you the right to demand why an automated system turned you down, see the data behind it, and have the decision run again on corrected facts. Then the same statute exempts the banks, the insurers, and the employment file \u2014 most of the industries that do the turning down. Here is what a Minnesota AI standard would say, built out of the law we already have and the gap we already left, and what our Legislature's near-miss got right and got wrong.","l":"Minnesota, the Ethical-AI Capital","dt":"2026-09-06","b":"Minnesota already wrote the hardest sentence A right is not a standard What Colorado and Europe actually do The bill that had the right idea and one fatal word What the standard would say The part I cannot promise What we can do Sources Minnesota Already Wrote the Hardest Sentence in American AI Law. The Bill That Would Have Finished the Job Died in Committee, and the Word That Killed It Was Voluntary. A computer told you no. Not a person \u2014 a scoring model. You applied for the apartment, the auto loan, the job, the insurance policy, and a system evaluated you and produced an answer. The person on the phone cannot tell you what it weighed, because the person on the phone does not know. Minnesota wrote you a right to make them find out. It has been law since July 31, 2025, and I have yet to meet a Minnesotan outside the compliance trade who knows it exists. Then the same statute exempted the bank, the insurer, and the employment file. Three of those four doors are shut before you knock. Minnesota already wrote the hardest sentence A Minnesota AI standard does not start on a blank page. It starts in the Minnesota Consumer Data Privacy Act, at Minn. Stat. \u00a7 325M.14. If an automated system profiles you in a decision carrying legal or similarly significant effects, you may question the result. You may be told the reason the profiling produced that decision \u2014 that decision, not a brochure about the model in general. Where feasible, you may be told what you might have done differently. You may see the data it used on you. And if the decision rested on inaccurate data, you may have the data corrected and the decision run again on the corrected version. The company gets 45 days, extendable once with notice. It defines The Minnesota provisions were read as raw statutory text pulled from the Office of the Revisor of Statutes with a browser user agent, not through a summarizer. Minn. Stat. \u00a7 325M.14, subdivision 1, paragraph (g) is the profiling right described here \u2014 to question the result, to be informed of the reason the profiling resulted in the decision, to be informed if feasible of what the consumer might have done differently, to review the personal data used, and to have inaccurate data corrected and the decision reevaluated on the corrected data; the 45-day clock and its single 45-day extension are in subdivision 4 of the same section. The covered decisions and the functional definition of profiling are in \u00a7 325M.11. The 100,000-consumer and 25,000-plus-25-percent-of-revenue thresholds are in \u00a7 325M.12, subdivision 1, and the exclusions described here are a"},{"u":"/blog-the-poisoned-well-of-open-ai-models","t":"There Is No \\\"Hugging Face Hack.\\\" There Are Five, They Happened Five Different Ways, and the Differences Are the Whole Argument for Building AI Somewhere That Checks","d":"The AI inside the software your hospital, your bank, and your school district buy was mostly downloaded free from a public library of models. That library has had at least five separate security incidents in three years \u2014 leaked keys, malicious files, an evaded scanner, a breached platform, and a backdoor hidden in the math itself. The defenses that followed were fast and real, and there is now a scanner that looks for the last of the five. A scanner is not a proof. That gap is a market, and Minnesota should own it.","l":"Minnesota, the Ethical-AI Capital","dt":"2026-09-06","b":"The file is not a document. It is a program. Five incidents, three years, five mechanisms Three of those five are the AI story The honest concession: the defenses are real, and they worked What the fix does not reach What we can do Sources There Is No \"Hugging Face Hack.\" There Are Five, They Happened Five Different Ways, and the Differences Are the Whole Argument for Building AI Somewhere That Checks When a Minnesota hospital buys software that helps read your scan, or a bank buys software that scores your loan application, there is a good chance the intelligence inside it was not built by the company that sold it. It was downloaded \u2014 free, from a public website, the way you would download a photograph. That is not a scandal. It is how the industry works, and the openness is mostly good \u2014 it is why a four-person company in Duluth can compete with a giant. I download and run these models myself. The question was never whether the well should be public. It is whether anybody checks the water. Which brings me to a phrase I keep hearing from people who mean well: \"the Hugging Face hack.\" Hugging Face is the public library most of this material comes from. There is no such thing as the hack. There are at least five separate incidents across three years, five mechanisms, five dates \u2014 and the differences are the entire story. The file is not a document. It is a program. Everything else follows from one fact almost nobody outside the field knows. A trained AI model has to be saved to a file, and the standard way in the most widely used AI toolkit is a Python feature called pickle. Pickle is not a document format the way a PDF or a spreadsheet is \u2014 numbers sitting still, waiting to be read. It is a short list of instru The incident record comes from the security researchers' and the platform's own published accounts, retrieved as raw pages and quoted from their own text rather than from summaries. JFrog Security Research, \"Data Scientists Targeted by Malicious Hugging Face ML Models with Silent Backdoor\" (February 27, 2024), is the source for the roughly 100 malicious models and the code-execution-on-load mechanism. Hugging Face's own disclosure, \"Space secrets security update\" (published on its blog in early June 2024 and retrieved from that blog's source repository), is the source for every quoted phrase about the Spaces intrusion, including the report to law enforcement and data protection authorities. HiddenLayer, \"ShadowLogic: Persistent No-Code Backdoors in AI Computational Graphs\" (October 10, 2024), is the source for the computational-graph backdoor, the"},{"u":"/blog-the-research-engine-we-already-paid-for","t":"The University of Minnesota Is Not the Largest Research University in the Country. It Is Twenty-First \u2014 and Twenty-First, Plus Fifty-Four College Campuses in Towns Nobody Else Is Bidding For, Is a Better Hand Than the Story We Keep Telling Ourselves","d":"Minnesotans repeat a flattering line about the U that does not survive ten minutes with a federal spreadsheet. Here is the real number \u2014 $1.41 billion, twenty-first in the country \u2014 and why the real number is still the argument. The asset almost nobody counts is the other one: a 54-campus state college system that reaches the parts of Minnesota no data center ever will.","l":"Minnesota, the Ethical-AI Capital","dt":"2026-09-06","b":"Twenty-first is not a consolation prize The half of the hand nobody counts Two bosses, and the split is an asset The base is real. The trend is not. What we can do Sources The University of Minnesota Is Not the Largest Research University in the Country. It Is Twenty-First \u2014 and Twenty-First, Plus Fifty-Four College Campuses in Towns Nobody Else Is Bidding For, Is a Better Hand Than the Story We Keep Telling Ourselves I have heard Minnesotans call the University of Minnesota the largest research university in the country. I have been in rooms where nobody corrected it, including me. It is wrong. It is also easy to check, which means the day someone builds a serious economic argument on top of it, a stranger with a spreadsheet takes the whole argument apart in an afternoon. I would rather do that myself, now, than watch it happen to a plan I care about. So here is the real number, pulled off the federal data table instead of a press release. The University of Minnesota Twin Cities spent $1,409,710,000 on research and development in fiscal year 2024. Twenty-first is not a consolation prize That is twenty-first in the country, among the 681 universities that receive the long form of the National Science Foundation's annual survey of academic research spending. Among public universities alone it is twelfth \u2014 eleventh if you set aside Pittsburgh, whose public status is a genuinely gray case. Johns Hopkins, first on the list, spent $4.1 billion, nearly three times as much. It is not the largest by headcount either. Twin Cities enrolled 57,879 students last fall. The University of Central Florida, by itself, enrolled 70,674. Now the part that survives The University's research spending, its rank, and the count of billion-dollar public universities all come from one federal file, downloaded and parsed directly rather than read off a summary: the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics' Higher Education Research and Development Survey for fiscal year 2024, Table 13, which ranks institutions by R&D spending back to fiscal 2010, and Table 5, which groups every institution by state and by public or private control. Table 13 puts the University of Minnesota Twin Cities at rank 21 with $1,409,710 thousand for fiscal 2024 and $786,074 thousand for fiscal 2010, Johns Hopkins at rank 1 with $4,129,264 thousand, and national totals of $61.3 billion in fiscal 2010 and $117.6 billion in fiscal 2024; those national totals are where the 79-percent and 92-percent growth figures come from. The table ranks 681 institutions \u2014 the standard"},{"u":"/blog-who-gets-sentenced-in-minnesota","t":"Who Gets Sentenced in Minnesota: A Black Adult Is Six Times as Likely as a White Adult to Be Sentenced for a Felony. The Judge Is Not Where That Happens.","d":"The Sentencing Guidelines Commission's own 2024 tables: 1,243 Black adults sentenced per 100,000, against 201 white; American Indians at 1,809. Yet at the sentencing hearing, judges cut prison time below the guideline more often for Black defendants than white ones. The disparity is built upstream, in who gets charged and in the guideline grid itself. What the numbers show, what they can't, and what to change.","l":"Who the Law Helps, Who It Hurts","dt":"2026-09-06","b":"The disparity, with its denominator Now the part the outrage merchants skip Where the disparity is actually built The zip code problem, which is also a race problem What I could not verify, and what this report cannot tell you What we can do Sources Who Gets Sentenced in Minnesota: A Black Adult Is Six Times as Likely as a White Adult to Be Sentenced for a Felony. The Judge Is Not Where That Happens. This is the first piece in a new section of this site. The rule for the section is stricter than the rest: a named public dataset for every claim, every disparity stated with its denominator, the innocent explanation weighed before the damning one, and a fix at the end that a real office could actually carry out. No manufactured outrage. If the data doesn't support a sentence, the sentence doesn't run. The dataset here is the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission's 2024 Sentencing Practices: Annual Summary Statistics for Felony Cases , a 109-page report the Commission's research staff publishes every year and almost nobody reads. It covers every felony sentence handed down in Minnesota in 2024, 14,193 of them with a recorded race, and it compares those people to the Census Bureau's estimate of the state's adult population. I read the whole thing. Here is what it says. The disparity, with its denominator Start with the number that should be on the front page of every newspaper in the state and isn't. In 2024, Minnesota sentenced 201 white adults for felonies for every 100,000 white adults in the state. It sentenced 1,243 Black adults per 100,000 . It sentenced 1,809 American Indian adults per 100,000 . Hispanic adults were sentenced at 351 per 100,000; Asian adults at 164. The statewide rate was 316. Put differently: a B Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission, 2024 Sentencing Practices: Annual Summary Statistics for Felony Cases (PDF read in full, 109 pages, downloaded from mn.gov/sentencing-guidelines on Sept. 6, 2026): Executive Summary (pp. 5\u20136); Figure 7 and Figure 8 and the accompanying text on population-adjusted sentencing rates (p. 16); Table 1, felony cases sentenced by sex, race/ethnicity, and judicial district compared to the 2024 estimated adult population, with the Census Bureau's July 1, 2024 estimates as the denominator (p. 18); the judicial-district comparison (p. 19); Table 2, incarceration rates by race (p. 23) and the accompanying discussion of presumptive versus actual prison rates (pp. 24\u201325); Table 3, dispositional departures by race and district (p. 34); Table 4, durational departures among executed prison sentences by race and"},{"u":"/blog-child-care-is-infrastructure","t":"Where I Stand: You Can't Subsidize Your Way to Child Care That Doesn't Exist. Fix the Supply.","d":"Subsidize demand' versus 'government shouldn't be in it' both miss the problem: in much of Minnesota there is no child care to buy at any price. Treat it as the workforce infrastructure it is \u2014 right-size the rules that make a small provider impossible, back shared-services networks so a home provider isn't also a lone accountant, and bring employers in. Same logic as the rent piece: fix supply.","l":"Where Dave Stands","dt":"2026-09-05","b":"Child care is infrastructure Why the supply collapsed \u2014 and how to rebuild it The honest concession What I'd actually do Sources Where I Stand: You Can't Subsidize Your Way to Child Care That Doesn't Exist. Fix the Supply. Ask any Minnesota parent of a young child what the hardest thing about working is, and the answer isn't the job. It's the child care \u2014 finding it, affording it, and keeping it. In too much of this state, the answer to \"where's the nearest licensed provider with an opening?\" is a waiting list two years long, or nothing at all. This series documented the shortage earlier: whole counties in Greater Minnesota where the number of licensed family providers has collapsed, and metro families paying more for infant care than for their mortgage. And the political debate offers two answers that both miss the actual problem. One side says: subsidize families so they can afford it. The other says: government shouldn't be in the child-care business. But you can't subsidize a family into a slot that doesn't exist, and \"stay out of it\" leaves a market that has already failed. The problem is supply. Treat it that way. Child care is infrastructure Start with what it is. Child care isn't a family perk. It's the thing that lets a nurse take a shift, a welder show up, a teacher teach someone else's kids. When a county loses its providers, it doesn't just inconvenience parents \u2014 it pulls workers out of the workforce, and employers in that county can't hire. That makes child care workforce infrastructure , in exactly the sense that roads and broadband are. We don't argue about whether government should \"be This is a policy position. Minnesota's child-care supply shortage \u2014 the decline in licensed family providers, county-level gaps in Greater Minnesota, and infant-care costs \u2014 is documented in this series' earlier articles drawing on First Children's Finance need analyses, the Greater Minnesota Partnership, and the 2026 Minnesota Child Care Business Survey (Minneapolis Fed and First Children's Finance, June 2026). Shared-services alliances for home-based providers are documented by the Opportunities Exchange and state programs in several states. Family child-care licensing is governed by Minn. Stat. ch. 245A and Minnesota Rules ch. 9502. Specific provider-count declines and cost figures are as reported in this series' sourced rural and affordability articles; the regulatory changes and employer-match design would be set in legislation and rule. Corrections: campaign@madgettformn.com."},{"u":"/blog-minnesota-the-ethical-ai-capital","t":"Where I Stand: Code Ethics Into AI Here, and Make Minnesota the Place the World Comes to Build It Right","d":"Artificial intelligence is the biggest economic and safety question of the next decade, and Minnesota is sitting on the assets to lead it: one of the largest research universities in the country and a statewide network of state colleges. Austin built a tech capital around a university. We can build the North's \u2014 around the thing the industry is most desperate for and least able to supply on its own: trust.","l":"Where Dave Stands","dt":"2026-09-05","b":"The opportunity is real, and it's ours to lose The thing the industry can't supply itself: trust The plan: build the ethical-AI capital of the North The honest concession What I'd actually do Sources Where I Stand: Code Ethics Into AI Here, and Make Minnesota the Place the World Comes to Build It Right Every few decades an industry arrives that decides which regions of the country grow and which ones get left behind. Steel did it. The auto industry did it. Software did it, and Minnesota mostly watched it happen somewhere else. Artificial intelligence is that industry right now, and I'm not willing to watch this one go by too. Here's my position, and it has two halves that only work together: Minnesota should become the place the world comes to build AI \u2014 and the thing that draws them here should be that we build it right. The opportunity is real, and it's ours to lose Start with the assets. The University of Minnesota is one of the largest research universities in the country, with serious depth in computer science, statistics, medicine, and agriculture \u2014 three of the fields where AI is going to matter most. Around it sits something almost no other state has: a distributed network of state colleges and universities reaching into every corner of Minnesota, from Bemidji to Winona to Moorhead. That's not just a research engine. It's a pipeline for talent that doesn't require every AI job to be in one downtown. Now look at the model. Austin didn't become a technology capital by accident. It happened because a great public university, deliberate state investment, and a decision to court the industry aggressively turned a college town into a place companies chose to build. Texa This is a policy position. The University of Minnesota's standing among the nation's largest research universities is reflected in National Science Foundation HERD research-expenditure rankings and enrollment data; the Minnesota State system comprises the state's public colleges and universities across roughly 50-plus campuses statewide. The \"paperclip maximizer\" thought experiment originates with Nick Bostrom (\"Ethical Issues in Advanced Artificial Intelligence,\" 2003) and is developed in Superintelligence (2014). Security incidents in the open-model ecosystem \u2014 including malicious model files distributed through public model hubs and exposed access credentials \u2014 have been documented by security researchers and the platforms themselves. Austin's development as a technology hub around the University of Texas and deliberate state and local recruitment is widely documented. The specific o"},{"u":"/blog-fix-the-traffic-stop-not-the-statute","t":"Where I Stand: We Legalized Cannabis and Kept Making the Same Traffic Stops. Fix the Enforcement, Not Just the Law.","d":"The cannabis debate is 'legalize more, faster' versus 'the rollout is a mess, crack down.' Both miss the scandal this series already surfaced: thousands of racially lopsided charges for cannabis in a vehicle under a traffic statute that survived legalization. Close that gap, unstick the social-equity and tribal licenses, and make the legal market actually work.","l":"Where Dave Stands","dt":"2026-09-04","b":"The stop that survived legalization The market that isn't working The honest concession What I'd actually do Sources Where I Stand: We Legalized Cannabis and Kept Making the Same Traffic Stops. Fix the Enforcement, Not Just the Law. Minnesota legalized adult-use cannabis in 2023. If you listened to the debate since, you'd think the only questions left are whether to legalize more , faster , or whether the botched rollout means we should slow down and crack down. Both of those miss the thing I found when I dug into the numbers earlier in this series \u2014 the thing that should be the whole conversation. The stop that survived legalization Buried in Minnesota's traffic code \u2014 not the cannabis chapter, not anything the Office of Cannabis Management tells consumers about \u2014 is Minn. Stat. \u00a7 169A.36, which makes it an offense to have cannabis open or accessible in a motor vehicle. It predates legalization. It survived legalization. And since legalization, Minnesota has brought thousands of charges and well over a thousand convictions under it \u2014 for something that is now legal to possess. Then look at who gets charged. In Hennepin County, roughly 42 percent of those charged were Black , in a county that's about 13 percent Black. Edina \u2014 Edina \u2014 charged more people than Minneapolis. That's not a cannabis policy. That's the same racially lopsided traffic stop that legalization was supposed to end, running on a statute nobody noticed was still loaded. So my first position isn't about the market at all. It's this: a state that legalizes a substance and then keeps prosecuting people for it under a traffic  Minn. Stat. \u00a7 169A.36 (open-package cannabis in a motor vehicle) and Minn. Stat. ch. 342 (adult-use cannabis, 2023), as documented in this series' earlier cannabis article; charging and conviction figures and the Hennepin County racial breakdown (approximately 42 percent Black among those charged, in a county roughly 13 percent Black; Edina charging more than Minneapolis) from Minnesota Reformer's analysis of state court data (Dec. 9, 2025), cited there. Licensing figures (licensed retailers against a 150 cap; social-equity licenses out of more than 500 applicants; hemp-edible license counts) as reported in the same article as of August 2026. Tribal cannabis sovereignty and first-mover dispensaries: Minn. Stat. \u00a7 3.9224 and this series' tribal-sovereignty article. Charging and licensing figures are as compiled in this series' sourced cannabis article and should be refreshed against curre"},{"u":"/blog-even-trump-says-credit-cards-are-a-scam","t":"Even Donald Trump Says Credit Card Rates Are a Scam. On That, He's Right \u2014 and the Fine Print Makes Sure You Can't Do Anything About It.","d":"When a Democrat consumer lawyer and Donald Trump agree that the credit card industry is fleecing people, it's not a left-or-right issue \u2014 it's an everyone-versus-the-industry issue. Sky-high rates, junk fees, and an arbitration clause that hides it all and blocks you from fighting back. Here's the whole machine, and what a state can actually do about it.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-09-04","b":"The three-part machine Why the arbitration piece is the keystone The honest complication What we can do Sources Even Donald Trump Says Credit Card Rates Are a Scam. On That, He's Right \u2014 and the Fine Print Makes Sure You Can't Do Anything About It. I am an independent-minded Democrat and a consumer-protection lawyer. Donald Trump and I do not agree on much. But during the 2024 campaign he looked at the credit card industry, called the interest rates abusive, and floated capping them at around 10 percent. And you know what? On that narrow point, he was right. I say that on purpose, because the credit card industry has survived for decades on one trick: convincing you that whether it's ripping you off is a political question. It isn't. When a progressive consumer lawyer from Minneapolis and a Republican president land in the same place, it should tell you that the people getting fleeced here are not Democrats or Republicans. They're just customers. This is one of those rare fights where the line isn't left versus right. It's everyone versus the industry. The three-part machine Here is how the credit card business actually works when it works against you. Part one: the rate. Credit card interest rates routinely run north of 25 percent \u2014 rates that would be flatly illegal as payday loans in Minnesota, where we cap small consumer loans at levels far below that. The industry gets away with it partly through federal preemption tricks that let issuers \"export\" the loosest state's rules to everyone. Trump's instinct to cap the rate wasn't radical; it was the same instinct behind the Military Le Drawn from David J.S. Madgett's book The Rigged Court (2026) and this series' earlier articles on the fine print and on Minnesota's consumer-loan caps. Donald Trump's 2024 campaign proposal to temporarily cap credit-card interest rates at approximately 10 percent, describing prevailing rates as abusive, was widely reported (e.g., statements at a September 2024 New York campaign event). Credit CARD Act of 2009: the substantive fee-limit savings (on the order of $12 billion/year) versus disclosure savings are from Agarwal et al., 130 Q.J. Econ. 111 (2015), and NBER Working Paper 19484, as cited in this series' fine-print article. Minnesota's consumer-loan caps: Minn. Stat. \u00a7\u00a7 47.60 and 47.603 (36 percent APR ceiling on larger consumer small loans; parallel to the federal Military Lending Act's 36 percent Military Annual Percentage Rate). Forced-arbitration and class-waiver mechanics, and t"},{"u":"/blog-a-distributed-grid-is-national-security","t":"Where I Stand: A Centralized Power Grid Is a Target. A Distributed One Is a Defense. Home Power Production Is National Security.","d":"Keep the clean-energy goal, but tie the pace to a public reliability-and-affordability dashboard. And make the case conservatives should already be making: a grid built around a few giant plants and substations is a single point of failure \u2014 one attack, one storm, one cyber-intrusion from the dark. Rooftop solar, batteries, and microgrids aren't a climate program. They're resilience. That's a security argument, and it's one everyone can sign.","l":"Where Dave Stands","dt":"2026-09-03","b":"The grid we have is a target Distributed power is the defense Why conservatives should own this The honest concession What I'd actually do Sources Where I Stand: A Centralized Power Grid Is a Target. A Distributed One Is a Defense. Home Power Production Is National Security. I wrote earlier in this series about Minnesota's 2040 carbon-free law \u2014 and about the reliability off-ramp written into it that almost nobody cites. My position on the pace of the transition is the one I laid out there: keep the destination, watch the gauges. Tie the timeline to a public reliability-and-affordability dashboard , use the statutory off-ramp honestly if the lights are actually at risk, and stop pretending the choice is between freezing in the dark and torching the goal. But I want to add an argument that's been missing from the energy debate, and I want to aim it specifically at conservatives, because I think it's their argument and they've been leaving it on the table. The Twin Cities under winter haze. A grid built around a few large plants has a few large points of failure, and January is when that math gets tested. Photo: Dave Madgett • Minneapolis The grid we have is a target Picture how Minnesota's electricity actually reaches you: a handful of very large generating plants, feeding high-voltage lines, feeding a few hundred substations, feeding your neighborhood. It's efficient. It's also centralized \u2014 which, in security terms, is another word for fragile. A system with a few giant nodes is a system where a few giant nodes are all an adversary needs. This isn't theoretical. In 2013, snipers shot up a transformer substation in This is a policy position. Minnesota's carbon-free standard and its reliability off-ramp: Minn. Stat. \u00a7 216B.1691, subd. 2b, as documented in this series' grid article. Grid-attack incidents: the April 2013 Metcalf (PG&E) substation sniper attack near San Jose, California, later described by the then-FERC chairman as the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid; the December 2022 Moore County, North Carolina substation shootings that cut power to roughly 45,000 customers for days; federal assessments (Department of Energy, DHS/CISA, and NERC) on large-power-transformer scarcity and physical/cyber vulnerability, including the 2015 and 2016 cyberattacks on Ukraine's grid as demonstrated capability. Distributed-generation resilience concepts (islanding microgrids for critical facilities) are documented by the Department of Energy and national laboratories. Incident"},{"u":"/blog-let-the-money-follow-the-reader","t":"Where I Stand: Half Our Kids Can't Read at Grade Level. Fund What Teaches Them To \u2014 and Let Families Walk Toward It.","d":"More school funding' versus 'vouchers' is the wrong fight. Reading is the one outcome that predicts everything else, and Minnesota already passed the law requiring evidence-based instruction. My position: enforce it, publish every school's results plainly, supercharge public open enrollment so a family can leave a failing school, and tie a slice of funding to actual reading gains. Accountability inside the public system \u2014 not an exit from it.","l":"Where Dave Stands","dt":"2026-09-03","b":"Minnesota already passed the law. Enforce it. Publish the results \u2014 plainly, by school Let families walk \u2014 inside the public system Tie a slice of funding to reading gains The honest concession What I'd actually do Sources Where I Stand: Half Our Kids Can't Read at Grade Level. Fund What Teaches Them To \u2014 and Let Families Walk Toward It. I wrote earlier in this series about the number that should end every education debate before it starts: roughly half of Minnesota's kids can't read at grade level. Not in a struggling district somewhere \u2014 statewide. And reading is the skill everything else is built on. A child who can't read by the end of third grade is behind in science, in history, in math word problems, in life. Every other education argument is downstream of this one. So it frustrates me that the debate is stuck on a fight that doesn't touch it: \"more funding\" on one side, \"vouchers\" on the other. Both sides can be right about money and still leave the kid unable to read. Minnesota already passed the law. Enforce it. Here's what most people don't know. In 2023 Minnesota passed the READ Act , Minn. Stat. \u00a7 120B.12, and its language is unusually direct. The Legislature \"seeks to have every child reading at or above grade level every year, beginning in kindergarten.\" By the 2026\u20132027 school year , every district \"must provide evidence-based reading instruction\" built on \"phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency\" along with vocabulary and comprehension \u2014 the science of reading, in other words, replacing the discredited guessing-based methods that quietly failed a generation of kids. And every teacher responsible for reading must be trained in it. That law is the fix. It's just not fully enforc Minn. Stat. \u00a7 120B.12 (READ Act Goal and Interventions), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the legislative goal of every child reading at or above grade level beginning in kindergarten; the 2026\u20132027 deadline for districts to provide evidence-based reading instruction focused on phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, oral language, vocabulary, and comprehension consistent with \u00a7\u00a7 120B.118\u2013120B.124; and the teacher-training requirement (subd. 1). Statewide reading-proficiency figures from the Minnesota Department of Education's MCA results, as reported in this series' earlier article on reading scores and the workforce. Public open enrollment: Minn. Stat. \u00a7 124D.03. The precise current statewide reading-proficiency percentage and open-enrollment participation figures are as reported in this series' earlier sourced article and MDE data; the growth-funding "},{"u":"/blog-fund-results-not-the-nonprofit-industrial-complex","t":"Where I Stand: On Homelessness, Fund What Works and Defund What Doesn't \u2014 Compassion Has to Show Its Receipts","d":"The homelessness debate is 'unconditional housing forever' versus 'sweep the camps,' and neither is a plan. Mine: rapid shelter and housing paired with real engagement \u2014 treatment, case management \u2014 and every dollar tied to one outcome, cost per person housed and kept housed. Turn the money toward what works and off the contracts that just perpetuate themselves.","l":"Where Dave Stands","dt":"2026-09-02","b":"What's true on both sides My position: housing and accountability, funded by outcomes The honest concession What I'd actually do Sources Where I Stand: On Homelessness, Fund What Works and Defund What Doesn't \u2014 Compassion Has to Show Its Receipts Two camps, and neither one is a plan. One says: housing first, no conditions, and anyone who suggests otherwise is cruel. The other says: clear the encampments, and anyone who objects is naive. Meanwhile the number of people sleeping outside in Minnesota doesn't move, the money keeps going out, and the same programs get the same contracts year after year regardless of whether anyone actually got housed. I come at this the way I come at fraud: follow the money, and measure the results. What's true on both sides The \"housing first\" people are right about the core thing: you cannot get someone stable while they're sleeping in a tent. Treatment for addiction or mental illness doesn't work on the street; a person needs a door that locks before anything else can take hold. The evidence for getting people into housing fast is strong, and the \"earn your way to a bed\" model fails most of the people it's aimed at. The \"clear the camps\" people are right about something too, and it's often dismissed: a permanent encampment on a public trail or under a bridge is not compassionate to the people in it or the neighborhood around it. It's dangerous, it's unsanitary, and it's frequently where addiction and predation flourish. \"Leave them alone\" isn't kindness; it's abandonment with better PR. And a city that has no answer for public space loses the public's patience for the whole effor This is a policy position. The evidence base for rapid placement (\"housing first\") and its retention outcomes is summarized in the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness and HUD research literature; Minnesota's point-in-time and Wilder Foundation homelessness counts document the state's population. The cost comparison between chronic homelessness and its downstream public costs (emergency care, incarceration) is documented in multiple cost-of-homelessness studies. The outcome-funding model draws on pay-for-success and results-based contracting frameworks. Cross-reference to this series' articles on fraud and program oversight. Minnesota's current homelessness counts and per-placement cost figures were not pulled to a primary line this pass and are described in general terms. Corrections: campaign@madgettformn.com."},{"u":"/blog-the-right-to-earn-a-living","t":"Where I Stand: A License Should Protect the Public, Not the People Already Inside the Door","d":"Occupational licensing is sold as consumer protection, and sometimes it is. Too often it's a guild \u2014 a wall that keeps out the immigrant, the military spouse, the person leaving prison, and the worker who learned the trade in another state. Recognize legitimate licenses by default, sunset the ones that guard insiders, and keep the ones that actually guard safety. It's progressive and deregulatory at the same time.","l":"Where Dave Stands","dt":"2026-09-02","b":"What licensing has become The position: recognize by default, sunset the guilds, keep the real protections The honest concession What I'd actually do Sources Where I Stand: A License Should Protect the Public, Not the People Already Inside the Door Here's an issue that scrambles the usual teams. Say \"deregulation\" and it codes conservative. Say \"consumer protection\" and it codes liberal. Occupational licensing sits right on that seam \u2014 and once you look at who it actually keeps out, you realize the honest position is both at once. What licensing has become A generation ago, about one in twenty American workers needed a government license to do their job. Today it's closer to one in four. Some of that is legitimate \u2014 I want my surgeon and my electrician licensed, and so do you. But the growth hasn't come from surgeons. It's come from hair braiders, interior designers, auctioneers, florists in some states, and a hundred trades where the \"public safety\" rationale is thin and the real function is something else: keeping the number of competitors down. The people who write licensing rules are, overwhelmingly, the people already licensed. They set the hours of training, the fees, the exams, and \u2014 surprise \u2014 the bar tends to land right where it protects their own incomes. Now look at who hits that wall hardest. The immigrant nurse or engineer whose foreign credential Minnesota won't recognize, so she drives for a rideshare app while hospitals go short-staffed. The military spouse who has to re-license from scratch every time the family moves \u2014 a problem so bad the Pentagon calls it a readiness issue. The person leaving prison who learned This is a policy position. The growth of occupational licensing from roughly 5 percent of the workforce in the 1950s to roughly a quarter today is documented in the 2015 White House/Treasury/CEA report \"Occupational Licensing: A Framework for Policymakers\" and subsequent Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Arizona's universal license recognition law (2019 Ariz. Laws ch. 55) and subsequent adoption by other states are matters of public record; the military-spouse licensing burden is documented by the U.S. Department of Defense State Liaison Office. Cross-references to this series' articles on immigrants and the Minnesota economy and on automatic record sealing (Clean Slate). The precise current share of licensed workers in Minnesota and the specific Minnesota statutes governing reciprocity for particular professions were not pulled to a primary line this pass and are described in general ter"},{"u":"/blog-the-weapon-turned","t":"Corporations Wrote 'You Must Fight Us One at a Time.' Then Lawyers Filed 280,000 Cases at Once \u2014 and the Companies Begged for a Class Action.","d":"The same clause that locks you out of court can be turned into a weapon against the companies that wrote it. Mass arbitration, the 2022 sexual-harassment carve-out, and a debt-collection hypocrisy that Minnesota can attack head-on. The hopeful chapter of the arbitration story \u2014 and the agenda a state attorney general can actually run.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-09-02","b":"The counterstrike: mass arbitration The proof that carve-outs work The hypocrisy a state can attack today What Minnesota can actually do Sources Corporations Wrote \"You Must Fight Us One at a Time.\" Then Lawyers Filed 280,000 Cases at Once \u2014 and the Companies Begged for a Class Action. I've spent three articles in this series laying out how forced arbitration locks you out of court, hides corporate wrongdoing, and keeps the credit card machine humming. Let me end on the part that gives me hope, because there is a real one. The wall the Supreme Court built has cracks in it \u2014 and some of them were made by ordinary people using the corporations' own weapon against them. The counterstrike: mass arbitration Here's the beautiful irony. Corporations wrote clauses that said: you cannot sue us as a group; you must bring your claim alone, one at a time, in individual arbitration. For years that was a shield. Then plaintiffs' lawyers read it back to them literally \u2014 fine, we'll do exactly that \u2014 and filed tens of thousands of individual arbitration claims at the same time. And it turned out the companies had built a trap for themselves. Because in consumer and employment arbitration, the company that wrote the clause pays the bulk of the filing and arbitrator fees \u2014 often thousands of dollars per case. When 5,010 DoorDash drivers each filed an individual arbitration, as their contracts demanded, DoorDash suddenly faced millions of dollars in fees before a single case was even decided. A federal judge told DoorDash, essentially, this is the system you built and insisted on \u2014 now live in it. In 2024 alone, mass-arbitration campaig Drawn from David J.S. Madgett's book The Rigged Court (2026). Mass arbitration: the roughly 280,000 individual claims filed at the American Arbitration Association in 2024, and the AAA's 2024 mass-arbitration rule changes, as documented in the book and AAA materials; the DoorDash mass-arbitration episode involving 5,010 drivers and the resulting judicial rulings on filing-fee obligations (N.D. Cal., 2020); and Amazon's 2021 removal of the arbitration clause from its consumer terms following mass-arbitration pressure. The Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 (Pub. L. 117-90, effective March 2022; 9 U.S.C. \u00a7\u00a7 401\u2013402). The Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal (FAIR) Act as the proposed general restoration of court access for consumer, employment, civil-rights, and antitrust disputes. Federal Arbitration Act preemption, 9 U.S.C. \u00a7 1 et seq., as constr"},{"u":"/blog-a-duty-of-loyalty-to-the-twelve-year-old","t":"Where I Stand: If You Build a Product to Hook a Twelve-Year-Old, You Owe That Twelve-Year-Old a Duty \u2014 and Minnesota Should Enforce It","d":"The kids-and-screens debate bounces between 'ban the app' panic and 'that's the parents' problem.' Here's a lawyer's fix instead: platforms serving Minnesota minors owe them a duty of loyalty \u2014 designed for the child's interest, not maximum engagement \u2014 enforceable by the Attorney General. We already impose that duty on everyone else entrusted with something precious.","l":"Where Dave Stands","dt":"2026-09-01","b":"The machine, described honestly The fix: a duty of loyalty The honest concession What I'd actually do Sources Where I Stand: If You Build a Product to Hook a Twelve-Year-Old, You Owe That Twelve-Year-Old a Duty \u2014 and Minnesota Should Enforce It Every parent I know is fighting the same losing battle against a phone. And the public debate offers them two useless options: a vague \"ban the app\" panic that never survives a court challenge, or a shrug \u2014 \"that's the parents' problem, not the state's.\" Neither one touches the actual machine. Let me offer a third option, and it comes from the law I practice every day. The machine, described honestly The apps our kids spend hours on are not neutral tools that children happen to overuse. They are engineered \u2014 by some of the most sophisticated behavioral engineering on earth \u2014 to maximize the time a user spends and the attention a user gives, because time and attention are what the company sells to advertisers. Infinite scroll, autoplay, streaks, variable-reward notifications, algorithmic feeds tuned to whatever keeps this particular kid looking: these are not accidents. They are the product. And the product works better on a twelve-year-old brain than on an adult one, which is precisely why the twelve-year-old is the target. A company that designs a product to capture a child's attention against the child's own interest \u2014 sleep, school, friendships, mental health \u2014 is doing something the law has a name for in every other context: it is exploiting a relationship of trust and vulnerability for its own gain. The fix: a duty of loyalty Here's the l This is a policy position. The fiduciary/duty-of-loyalty concept as applied to digital platforms draws on Jack Balkin's \"information fiduciaries\" scholarship (e.g., 49 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1183 (2016)) and on the design-code approach of the U.K. Age Appropriate Design Code and California's Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (2022), the latter of which has faced First Amendment litigation that informs the design-not-content framing here. Documentation of engagement-maximizing design practices and their effects on minors is drawn from the U.S. Surgeon General's 2023 advisory on social media and youth mental health. Cross-reference to this series' articles on data brokers and Minnesota's consumer data privacy law (Minn. Stat. \u00a7\u00a7 325M.10\u2013.21). The statutory definition of prohibited design practices and the penalty structure would be set in legislation; the litigation status of comparable design-c"},{"u":"/blog-the-clause-that-deleted-your-jury","t":"There Is a Clause in Your Credit Card Agreement That Already Took Away Your Right to a Jury. You Never Agreed to It, and You Can't Refuse It.","d":"Forced arbitration is the fine-print clause that quietly cancels your Seventh Amendment right to sue in court and hands your case to a private judge the company picks. More than 85 million American workers and hundreds of millions of consumers are bound by it. Here is how a 1925 law for merchants became the most powerful shield corporations have \u2014 drawn from my book, The Rigged Court.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-09-01","b":"What the clause actually does The scale is almost hard to believe How a 1925 law for merchants swallowed the Seventh Amendment Why it matters even if you never sue anyone What we can do Sources There Is a Clause in Your Credit Card Agreement That Already Took Away Your Right to a Jury. You Never Agreed to It, and You Can't Refuse It. I wrote a book about this because I could not stop being angry about it. It's called The Rigged Court , and its argument is simple: the most important constitutional right you have lost in your lifetime, you lost without a vote, without a court ruling in your own case, and almost certainly without ever knowing it happened. You lost it to a clause in the fine print \u2014 the same fine print I wrote about earlier in this series, the contracts nobody reads and nobody can refuse. The clause is called forced arbitration , and here is what it does. What the clause actually does Right now, as you read this, you are almost certainly bound by dozens of mandatory arbitration agreements. Your cell phone contract has one. Your credit card agreement has one. Your bank account, your streaming services, your internet provider, your car loan, your gym membership \u2014 all of them contain a few paragraphs, written in language you were never expected to read, saying that if the company wrongs you, you give up your right to sue in court. No judge. No jury. No public trial. Instead, your dispute goes to a private arbitrator \u2014 often chosen from a roster the company had a hand in, paid in a system the company designed, who will see that company's lawyers again and again in future cases, and who owes you nothing but a closed-door hearing. And stapled to nearly every  Drawn from David J.S. Madgett's book The Rigged Court (2026) and the underlying authorities. Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. \u00a7 1 et seq. (1925). Supreme Court decisions, verified via CourtListener: AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U.S. 333 (2011); American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant, 570 U.S. 228 (2013); Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, 584 U.S. 497 (2018) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting, reading from the bench). Market-concentration figures (wireless carriers ~95%; card networks Visa/Mastercard/American Express ~96% of transactions; deposit concentration) and the \"more than 85 million workers\" bound by forced arbitration are as documented in The Rigged Court , drawing on Economic Policy Institute and industry data. U.S. Chamber of Commerce amicus success rate as documented in the same. The Seventh Amendment guarantees the civil jury-trial right; the class-action-waiver mechani"},{"u":"/blog-buy-health-care-like-the-giant-customer-we-are","t":"Where I Stand: Minnesota Is One of the Biggest Health-Care Buyers in the State. It Should Stop Acting Like a Helpless Patient.","d":"Skip the single-payer-versus-free-market fight. The state already buys an enormous share of Minnesota's health care \u2014 Medicaid, MinnesotaCare, public employees. Use that leverage: demand real all-payer price transparency, pay reference prices, and refuse to keep signing secret contracts. That's not ideology. It's what any large customer does.","l":"Where Dave Stands","dt":"2026-08-31","b":"The secret-price problem Buy like a giant customer The honest concession What I'd actually do Sources Where I Stand: Minnesota Is One of the Biggest Health-Care Buyers in the State. It Should Stop Acting Like a Helpless Patient. The health-care debate in this country is stuck between two grand visions \u2014 single-payer on one side, \"let the market work\" on the other \u2014 and while they argue, the bills keep climbing. I'm going to skip the grand vision, because I think there's a lever sitting in plain sight that neither side uses, and it doesn't require anyone to win the ideological war first. Here it is: the State of Minnesota is one of the largest purchasers of health care in Minnesota. Through Medical Assistance and MinnesotaCare, through the health plans for state employees and teachers, through corrections and public programs, the state writes checks to hospitals, clinics, and drug companies on a scale almost no private buyer can match. And yet it behaves, most of the time, like a patient handed a bill in the parking lot \u2014 paying whatever the number says, in contracts it can't see, at prices it never negotiated. No large customer in any other industry acts this way. Walmart doesn't pay the sticker price. Neither should we. The secret-price problem The reason health care costs what it costs is that almost nobody knows what anything costs. The same MRI can bill at three times the price across town. The same drug carries a list price, a negotiated price, a rebate, and a \"net\" price that only the middlemen see. Contracts between hospitals and insurers are confidential by design, so Minn. Stat. \u00a7 62U.04 (Payment Reform; Health Care Costs; Quality Outcomes), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the Commissioner of Health's mandate to \"create transparent prices\" and \"provide comparative information to consumers on variation in health care cost and quality across providers\" (subd. 1), and to develop \"a uniform method of calculating providers' relative cost of care\" (subd. 2). Montana's reference-based pricing for its state employee health plan (implemented 2016, benchmarked to a multiple of Medicare rates) and its reported savings are documented by the Montana Department of Administration and in subsequent policy analyses. Federal hospital price-transparency rules: 45 C.F.R. Part 180. Cross-reference to this series' articles on health-care consolidation and the Prescription Drug Affordability Board. The share of Minnesota health-care spending attributable to st"},{"u":"/blog-impunity-is-the-real-crime-crisis","t":"Where I Stand: The Crime Debate Is Wrong. The Problem Isn't Too Soft or Too Harsh \u2014 It's That Most Crimes Are Never Solved.","d":"Defund' versus 'lock everyone up' is an argument about punishment. The real scandal is clearance rates: most crimes, including serious ones, never result in anyone being identified, let alone charged. A crime with no consequence isn't reform and isn't toughness \u2014 it's impunity. Fund investigation, measure cases solved, and the rest of the debate gets a lot smaller.","l":"Where Dave Stands","dt":"2026-08-30","b":"The number nobody campaigns on Why this is the honest common ground Measure what matters The honest concession What I'd actually do Sources Where I Stand: The Crime Debate Is Wrong. The Problem Isn't Too Soft or Too Harsh \u2014 It's That Most Crimes Are Never Solved. I prosecuted cases in the military and I've spent two decades in Minnesota courtrooms, so I've listened to the crime debate from the inside for a long time. And here's my conclusion: both sides are arguing about the wrong thing. One side says the system is too harsh. The other says it's too soft. They're both arguing about what happens to people who get caught. Almost nobody is talking about the fact that most people never get caught at all. The number nobody campaigns on It's called the clearance rate \u2014 the share of reported crimes that end with someone identified and charged \u2014 and it is the most damning statistic in American criminal justice. Nationally, roughly half of murders go unsolved. For burglary, motor-vehicle theft, and most property crime, the clearance rate is in the teens or lower. A car stolen in Minnesota is, statistically, a crime with no consequence; the overwhelming majority are never solved. Sexual assault clearance is dismal. If you are the victim of a typical crime in this state, the most likely outcome is that no one is ever held accountable. Think about what that means for the two sides' arguments. If a crime has, say, a 15 percent chance of ever being solved, then arguing about whether the sentence should be five years or seven is arguing about the tail of the dog. The certainty of consequence, not the severity , is what deters \u2014 This is a policy position. National clearance-rate figures are drawn from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting / NIBRS \"Crime in the United States\" data (clearance by arrest or exceptional means, by offense type); Minnesota-specific figures are reported by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension's annual Uniform Crime Report. The criminological finding that certainty of apprehension deters more than severity of punishment is summarized in the National Institute of Justice's \"Five Things About Deterrence\" (2016) and the underlying literature (e.g., Nagin, 2013). Cross-reference to this series' articles on public defense and wrongful-conviction safeguards. Specific Minnesota clearance percentages by offense were not pulled to a primary line this pass (the BCA's site blocks automated retrieval) and are described in general terms; confirm current BCA figures before citing exact numbers. Cor"},{"u":"/blog-the-bodies-that-move-your-packages","t":"The People Who Pack Your Orders and Cut Your Meat Are Getting Hurt at Brutal Rates. Minnesota Now Requires Employers to Engineer the Injuries Out.","d":"Warehouse, meatpacking, and hospital work destroys bodies \u2014 repetitive-motion injuries, wrecked backs, torn shoulders. Minnesota's 2023 ergonomics law makes large employers in those three industries build real injury-prevention programs. It's a quiet, physical kind of worker protection, and it targets exactly the jobs that are booming.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-30","b":"What the law requires Why these three industries, and why now The honest limits What we can do Sources The People Who Pack Your Orders and Cut Your Meat Are Getting Hurt at Brutal Rates. Minnesota Now Requires Employers to Engineer the Injuries Out. There's a category of work that keeps modern life running and quietly wrecks the bodies of the people who do it. The worker who lifts and twists a package every few seconds for a ten-hour shift. The line worker who makes the same cut on a carcass thousands of times a day. The nurse or aide who lifts patients by hand until her own back gives out. These aren't freak-accident jobs; they're slow-injury jobs, where the damage accumulates one repetition at a time until a shoulder, a wrist, or a spine simply fails. Minnesota decided that in its hardest physical industries, preventing that damage can't be optional. What the law requires Minn. Stat. \u00a7 182.677 requires every large employer in three specific industries \u2014 warehouse distribution centers and meatpacking sites with 100 or more employees, and licensed health care facilities (hospitals, nursing homes, outpatient surgery centers) \u2014 to build and run a written ergonomics program aimed at preventing musculoskeletal disorders: the injuries to muscles, nerves, tendons, joints, and spinal discs that this kind of work causes. And it's not a poster on a break-room wall. The program has to include a real assessment to find the injury risks in that specific facility; training so workers know to report early symptoms before a twinge becomes a disability; a reporting procedure to catch problems Minn. Stat. \u00a7 182.677 (Ergonomics), enacted 2023 (2023 Minn. Laws ch. 53, art. 1; amended 2024 Minn. Laws ch. 110, art. 3), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the covered industries \u2014 warehouse distribution centers and meatpacking sites with 100 or more employees, and licensed health care facilities (hospitals, outpatient surgical centers, nursing homes), each identified by NAICS code (subd. 1); the required written ergonomics program to \"minimize the risk of its employees developing or aggravating musculoskeletal disorders,\" with a directive to \"focus on eliminating the risk\" and to use \"feasible administrative or engineering controls\" (subd. 2); the mandatory program elements \u2014 risk assessment, initial and ongoing training, early-reporting procedures, a worker-solution process, ergonomics-conscious plant modifications, and annual evaluation (subd. 2); and the annual-effective"},{"u":"/blog-where-corporate-wrongdoing-goes-to-hide","t":"A Bank Admitted in Writing That My Account Was Drained by a Forged Check. Then It Sent Me to a Private Arbitrator \u2014 Who Turned Out to Work for the Other Side.","d":"Forced arbitration's cruelest feature isn't that you usually lose. It's that it's secret. No public record, no precedent, no pattern exposed \u2014 so the same fraud runs on the next person, and the next. This is how arbitration hides what banks and credit card companies do to people, told partly through my own case.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-30","b":"Secrecy is the point Wells Fargo is the proof The trick that lets a stranger use your credit card clause against you Who this protects, and who it silences What we can do Sources A Bank Admitted in Writing That My Account Was Drained by a Forged Check. Then It Sent Me to a Private Arbitrator \u2014 Who Turned Out to Work for the Other Side. Let me start with something that happened to me, because it taught me the lesson at the center of my book better than any case in a textbook could. A forged check drained my bank account. This is not a close call or a matter of interpretation \u2014 the bank itself acknowledged, in writing , that the check was fraudulent. And then it reversed course and fought me. When the dispute went to arbitration, as my account agreement required, I learned that the arbitrator assigned to decide my case was employed by a firm that was simultaneously representing the opposing bank in other active litigation. In a courtroom, that is grounds for immediate disqualification \u2014 a judge with that conflict would be off the case before lunch. In arbitration, it's Tuesday. I tell that story not because my own loss matters more than anyone else's, but because it made me understand what forced arbitration really is. The problem is not only that you tend to lose. The problem is that nobody ever finds out. Secrecy is the point A courtroom is public. When you sue a company in open court, a record is created. A judge writes an opinion. Reporters can read the file. Other victims learn they are not alone. Regulators notice the pattern. A precedent is set that binds the next case. Sunlight does its work. Arbitration is the opposite by design. It is private  Drawn from David J.S. Madgett's book The Rigged Court (2026), including his account of his own banking-fraud arbitration (forged check acknowledged in writing by the bank; arbitrator employed by a firm concurrently representing the opposing bank) and his consumer-practice case examples. Wells Fargo unauthorized-accounts scandal (approximately 3.5 million accounts, including ~1.5 million bank accounts and ~565,000 credit cards, 2002\u20132016; \"Eight is Great\" cross-sell culture): CFPB and OCC enforcement actions (2016) and subsequent settlements, as documented in the book. Non-signatory/equitable-estoppel doctrine: Arthur Andersen LLP v. Carlisle, 556 U.S. 624 (2009); GE Energy Power Conversion France v. Outokumpu Stainless USA, 590 U.S. 432 (2020); and the 2024 Disney+ wrongful-death arbitration attempt (widely reported; Disney later withdrew the argument). Confidentiality of arbitration and"},{"u":"/blog-make-it-affordable-to-say-yes-to-a-child","t":"Where I Stand: The Right Is Settled in Minnesota. If You Actually Want Fewer Abortions, Make It Affordable to Say Yes to a Child.","d":"Minnesota settled the legal question by statute in 2023, and I defend that right without qualification. Then I want to change the subject to the thing that actually reduces abortions \u2014 and that both sides can work on: making it possible to afford a child. Contraception, prenatal and postpartum support, child care, and a humane adoption path.","l":"Where Dave Stands","dt":"2026-08-29","b":"The thing both sides say they want What that actually means The honest concession What I'd actually do Sources Where I Stand: The Right Is Settled in Minnesota. If You Actually Want Fewer Abortions, Make It Affordable to Say Yes to a Child. Let me start with the part that isn't up for negotiation, because I don't want anyone to misread the rest of this. In 2023 Minnesota put reproductive freedom into statute. The Protect Reproductive Options Act , Minn. Stat. \u00a7 145.409, says it plainly: \"Every individual has a fundamental right to make autonomous decisions about the individual's own reproductive health,\" and \"every individual who becomes pregnant has a fundamental right to continue the pregnancy and give birth, or obtain an abortion.\" That's the law of this state, and as Attorney General I would defend it fully \u2014 against any federal encroachment and any attempt to chip away at it. Full stop. I'm not going to re-litigate a right Minnesota already decided. Now I want to change the subject, because I think the endless re-litigation is the reason we've made almost no progress on the thing both sides claim to want. The thing both sides say they want Ask a pro-life Minnesotan what they want and, underneath the politics, most will say: fewer abortions. Ask a pro-choice Minnesotan and, underneath the politics, most will say: nobody should have to end a pregnancy she'd otherwise keep because she can't afford the child. Those two wishes point at the same target. And the data has been telling us for decades where that target is. The single most common reason women give for ending a pregnancy is  Minn. Stat. \u00a7 145.409 (the Protect Reproductive Options Act, 2023), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the definition of reproductive health care (subd. 2) and the fundamental rights to reproductive autonomy and to continue or end a pregnancy (subd. 3), grounded in the Minnesota Constitution's liberty, privacy, and equality principles (subd. 4). The finding that financial inability to afford a child is among the most commonly cited reasons for abortion is drawn from the Guttmacher Institute's reasons-for-abortion research (e.g., Finer et al., 2005, and subsequent studies). Cross-references to this series' articles on paid family and medical leave (Minn. Stat. ch. 268B) and child care. This is a policy position; the affordability measures described would be set in legislation and budget. Corrections: campaign@madgettformn.com."},{"u":"/blog-the-floor-under-the-rideshare-driver","t":"Uber and Lyft Threatened to Leave Minnesota. Instead, the State Set a Pay Floor for Drivers \u2014 $1.28 a Mile and 31 Cents a Minute \u2014 and They Stayed.","d":"For the first time, Minnesota rideshare drivers have a legally guaranteed minimum: a per-mile and per-minute rate, a $5 floor per trip, tips on top, and pay owed even when the app fails to collect the fare. The companies said the state couldn't do this without driving them out. It could, it did, and they're still here.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-29","b":"What drivers are guaranteed now Why it matters \u2014 and why the fight was bigger than rideshare The honest other side What we can do Sources Uber and Lyft Threatened to Leave Minnesota. Instead, the State Set a Pay Floor for Drivers \u2014 $1.28 a Mile and 31 Cents a Minute \u2014 and They Stayed. For a decade the rideshare bargain was take-it-or-leave-it. The app set the pay, changed it whenever it liked, kept the math opaque, and treated the driver \u2014 who owns the car, buys the gas, and takes the risk \u2014 as a disposable contractor with no floor under their earnings. When Minneapolis tried to set a local minimum, Uber and Lyft did what these companies always do: they threatened to pull out of the whole metro and leave a state's worth of drivers and riders stranded. Minnesota called the bluff, and wrote a statewide floor into law instead. What drivers are guaranteed now Under the new Chapter 181C, a transportation network company must pay a Minnesota driver at least: - $1.28 per mile and $0.31 per minute of a trip; - a hard minimum of $5.00 for any trip , no matter how short; - an extra $0.91 per mile for a wheelchair-accessible vehicle; and - 80% of any cancellation fee the rider paid after the driver already headed for pickup. And three protections that matter as much as the rates. Tips are the driver's property, on top \u2014 the company can't count your gratuity toward its minimum-pay obligation, the way restaurants once pocketed tips against the wage. The company must pay the driver even if it fails to actually collect the fare from the rider \u2014 the platform's collection problems are no longer the driver's loss. And the minimu Minn. Stat. ch. 181C (Transportation Network Companies), enacted 2024 (2024 Minn. Laws ch. 127, art. 17), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the minimum-compensation rates of $1.28 per mile and $0.31 per minute, the $5.00 per-trip minimum, the additional $0.91 per mile for wheelchair-accessible vehicles, and 80 percent of cancellation fees (\u00a7 181C.03(a)); the 14-day maximum earnings period and required make-up payments (\u00a7 181C.03(b),(d)); tips as the driver's property, not counted toward the minimum (\u00a7 181C.03(c)); the requirement to pay the driver even where fares are not actually collected (\u00a7 181C.03(e)); the annual inflation adjustment beginning January 1, 2027 (\u00a7 181C.03(f)); and the compensation-notice, pre-acceptance disclosure, daily-receipt, and multilingual-notice requirements in English, Amharic, Arabic, Hmong, Oromo, Somali, and Spanish (\u00a7 181C.02). The statewide law"},{"u":"/blog-catch-the-fraud-cut-the-check","t":"Where I Stand: Catch the Fraud, Cut the Check \u2014 A Cost-of-Living Dividend Funded by the Cheats","d":"Every dollar Minnesota claws back from fraud, overpayment, and waste should go straight back to Minnesotans as a visible, universal rebate. It turns anti-fraud enforcement into something that pays you directly, gives government efficiency a constituency instead of a slogan, and ends the tired raise-taxes-versus-cut-taxes loop.","l":"Where Dave Stands","dt":"2026-08-28","b":"The money is already there \u2014 it's just been stolen The fix: a dividend, funded by the cheats The honest concession What I'd actually do Sources Where I Stand: Catch the Fraud, Cut the Check \u2014 A Cost-of-Living Dividend Funded by the Cheats Minnesota politics has two arguments about money and they never end. One side wants to raise taxes to fund more. The other wants to cut taxes to fund less. They've been having that argument my whole adult life, and the honest truth is that neither side ever wins it, because Minnesotans want both good services and a fair bill, and the argument forces them to pick. Here's a third way, and it comes straight out of the thing I've spent the most time on in this series: fraud. The money is already there \u2014 it's just been stolen I documented earlier what fraud and waste actually cost this state \u2014 and what a dollar of real oversight returns. The Feeding Our Future scandal alone ran into the hundreds of millions. The state's own auditors have found program after program with weak controls and money going out the door to people who had no right to it. And when the state actually funds oversight and enforcement, the return is extraordinary: the documented figure from real audits is on the order of several dollars recovered for every dollar spent catching cheats. Fraud enforcement isn't a cost center. It's one of the highest-yield investments government can make. But here's the problem. When the state recovers stolen money today, it disappears into the general fund. Nobody sees it. Nobody feels it. So there's no constituency for it \u2014 anti-fraud work is a line item that competes with everything e This is a policy position. The fraud, oversight-return, and program-control findings referenced are documented in this series' earlier articles on what fraud costs Minnesota (drawing on Office of the Legislative Auditor reports, U.S. Department of Justice Feeding Our Future prosecutions, and audited oversight-return figures). The dividend structure is modeled loosely on dedicated-fund payout mechanisms such as Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend, adapted to a recovery-funded rather than resource-funded base. The size of any annual dividend would depend on certified recoveries and is described in general terms; the fund's qualifying-recovery rules would be set in legislation. Corrections: campaign@madgettformn.com."},{"u":"/blog-local-police-work-for-minnesota","t":"Where I Stand: Local Police Work for Minnesota, Not Washington \u2014 Remove the Dangerous, Protect the Contributing","d":"A common-sense immigration position for a state that can't set immigration law but can decide how its own police spend their time. Local officers exist to keep the community safe, not to run federal errands. If someone is genuinely violent and removal is the tool, use it. Everyone else \u2014 the neighbor who works, pays taxes, and raises kids here \u2014 we actively protect. That's a Minnesota value.","l":"Where Dave Stands","dt":"2026-08-27","b":"Local police work for the community, not the federal government The dangerous: if removal is the tool, use it The contributing: we actively protect them The mechanism: a Minnesota review team decides who's actually dangerous The honest concession What I'd actually do Sources Where I Stand: Local Police Work for Minnesota, Not Washington \u2014 Remove the Dangerous, Protect the Contributing Immigration law is federal. A state can't write it, and I won't pretend Minnesota can settle the national argument from St. Paul. But a state absolutely decides one thing: what its own police do with their time. And on that, I have a clear, common-sense position that I think most Minnesotans across the political spectrum already hold, even if their politicians won't say it plainly. Local police work for the community, not the federal government A Minnesota police officer is paid by Minnesota taxpayers to keep Minnesota communities safe. That's the job. It is not the job of a Minneapolis, Rochester, or Worthington cop to serve as an unpaid federal immigration agent, and the Constitution agrees. In Printz v. United States , 521 U.S. 898 (1997), the Supreme Court held \u2014 in an opinion written by Justice Scalia, no less \u2014 that the federal government cannot commandeer state and local officers to carry out a federal program. Washington can enforce its own laws with its own agents. It cannot draft ours. This isn't about ideology. It's about safety and math. Every hour a local officer spends running federal errands is an hour not spent on the burglary, the domestic-violence call, or the fentanyl dealer. And there's a bigger cost: when immigrant communities believe that calling 911 might get a family member deported, they stop calling \u2014 crime victims go unreported, witnesses  Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997) (Scalia, J.) \u2014 the federal government may not compel state or local officers to administer a federal regulatory program (verified via CourtListener). The community-safety effects of local immigration enforcement (reduced crime reporting and witness cooperation in immigrant communities) are documented in criminology and policing research and in the positions of major police-chief associations. Cross-reference to this series' article on immigrants and the Minnesota economy for labor-force and tax-contribution data. This is a policy position on the use of state and local resources; it does not purport to alter federal immigration law. The design of the proposed review team (composition, criteria, timelines) is a proposal to be set in legislation. Corrections: campaign@ma"},{"u":"/blog-the-independent-contractor-lie","t":"Call a Worker an 'Independent Contractor' and You Can Skip Their Overtime, Their Workers' Comp, and Their Taxes. Minnesota Just Made That a Lot More Expensive to Do.","d":"Misclassification \u2014 labeling an employee a 'contractor' to dodge the obligations of employing them \u2014 cheats the worker, the honest competitor who plays by the rules, and every taxpayer. It's rampant in construction. Minnesota's strengthened 2024 law raises the penalties and puts the people who run the scheme personally on the hook.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-27","b":"What Minnesota's law does Why this is everyone's problem, not just the worker's The honest limits What we can do Sources Call a Worker an \"Independent Contractor\" and You Can Skip Their Overtime, Their Workers' Comp, and Their Taxes. Minnesota Just Made That a Lot More Expensive to Do. Here's a con that runs quietly through whole industries. A company hires people, tells them where to be, what to do, and how to do it \u2014 the very definition of an employee \u2014 but hands them a 1099 and calls them \"independent contractors.\" With that one relabeling, the company sheds a mountain of obligations: no overtime, no minimum-wage guarantee, no workers' compensation if the worker gets hurt, no unemployment insurance, no employer share of Social Security and Medicare taxes. The worker eats all of it, and often doesn't even realize it until they're injured on a job with no coverage, or hit with a tax bill they never saw coming. It's not a paperwork technicality. It's wage theft with a filing trick, and it's especially rampant in construction. What Minnesota's law does Minn. Stat. \u00a7 181.723 \u2014 Misclassification of Construction Employees \u2014 targets the industry where the scheme is most entrenched. It sets rules for when a construction worker is actually an employee versus a genuine independent business, and \u2014 critically, after a major 2024 overhaul \u2014 it puts real force behind the answer. The law reaches anyone who acts through an \"individual, sole proprietor, limited liability company... corporation, partnership\" or \"any other legal or commercial entity\" \u2014 because the classic dodge is to make a worker set up a shel Minn. Stat. \u00a7 181.723 (Misclassification of Construction Employees), originally enacted 2007 and substantially amended in 2024 (2024 Minn. Laws ch. 127, art. 10), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the broad definition of \"person\" reaching individuals, sole proprietors, LLCs, corporations, partnerships, and \"any other legal or commercial entity\" (subd. 1(a)); the Department of Labor and Industry as enforcing agency (subd. 1(b)\u2013(c)); and the \"knowingly\" standard defined as \"knew or could have known with the exercise of\" reasonable diligence (subd. 1(f)). The 2024 amendments are widely reported to have increased per-violation penalties and added individual/personal liability for those directing misclassification, as part of a broader worker-misclassification enforcement package and cross-agency initiative. Employee-vs-independent-contractor consequences (overtime, workers' compen"},{"u":"/blog-the-salary-has-to-be-in-the-ad-now","t":"Since January 2025, a Minnesota Job Ad Has to Tell You What It Pays. It Sounds Small. It Quietly Rebalances Every Negotiation.","d":"Minnesota now requires employers with 30 or more workers to put a real salary range in every job posting \u2014 no more open-ended ranges, no more 'competitive pay.' It's one of the cheapest, most popular worker protections there is, and it does more against the gender and racial pay gap than a dozen speeches.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-27","b":"What the law requires Why such a small rule does so much The honest limits What we can do Sources Since January 2025, a Minnesota Job Ad Has to Tell You What It Pays. It Sounds Small. It Quietly Rebalances Every Negotiation. Think about how much of your life is decided by a number you weren't allowed to see. You spend hours on an application, a screening call, two rounds of interviews, a \"culture fit\" lunch \u2014 and only at the very end, after all your leverage is gone, does anyone tell you what the job actually pays. Maybe it's half what you assumed. By then you've invested so much you take it anyway. That asymmetry \u2014 they know the number, you don't \u2014 was the whole game, and it was tilted against the worker at every step. As of January 1, 2025, Minnesota flipped it. What the law requires Minn. Stat. \u00a7 181.173 is short and to the point. An employer with 30 or more employees in Minnesota \"must disclose in each posting for each job opening\" the starting salary range \u2014 a real minimum and maximum, based on a good-faith estimate \u2014 \"and a general description of all of the benefits and other compensation,\" including health and retirement benefits. And it closes the obvious dodges. The range \"may not be open ended\" \u2014 no \"$40,000 and up\" or \"up to $200,000\" that tells you nothing. If the employer isn't offering a range at all, it has to list a single fixed pay rate. The rule covers postings done directly or through a recruiter, online or on paper. \"Competitive salary\" and \"DOE\" are, in Minnesota, no longer legal answers to the question of what a job pays. Why such a small rule does s Minn. Stat. \u00a7 181.173 (Salary Ranges Required in Job Postings), enacted 2024 (2024 Minn. Laws ch. 110, art. 7), effective January 1, 2025, verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the coverage of employers with 30 or more employees at one or more Minnesota sites (subd. 1(b)); the definition of \"salary range\" as the good-faith minimum and maximum annual salary or hourly compensation (subd. 1(d)); the requirement to disclose in each posting the starting salary range and a general description of benefits and other compensation (subd. 2(a)); and the prohibition on open-ended ranges, requiring a fixed pay rate where no range is offered (subd. 2(b)). The connection between pay secrecy and persistent gender and racial pay gaps, and the cross-partisan popularity of pay-transparency laws, are characterized from widely reported research and polling and were not re-derived from primary sources "},{"u":"/blog-the-gun-deal-that-can-actually-be-won","t":"Where I Stand: The Gun Deal That Can Actually Be Negotiated and Won","d":"The gun debate is stuck because both sides keep arguing about the rifle while most Minnesotans who die by a gun die by their own hand. Here's a negotiation, not a wish list: three terms a serious gun owner can sign, each one traded for something the other side actually wants. Aim the policy at the real deaths, and give the other side the due process it's right to demand.","l":"Where Dave Stands","dt":"2026-08-26","b":"Term one: aim at suicide \u2014 and give gun owners the lead Term two: a red-flag law with the due process the other side is right to demand Term three: negligent storage is real liability, the way it is with a car What I'm not asking for \u2014 and why The honest concession What I'd actually do Sources Where I Stand: The Gun Deal That Can Actually Be Negotiated and Won I'm going to write this one differently, because the usual gun essay \u2014 here's my ideal law, take it or leave it \u2014 has produced exactly nothing for thirty years. Instead I'm going to write it the way I'd write a settlement: what does each side actually need, what can each side actually give, and what's the deal that both can sign. Start with the fact that reframes everything. When you picture \"gun deaths in Minnesota,\" you probably picture a shooting. But the majority of Minnesotans who die by a gun each year die by suicide \u2014 not homicide, not a mass shooting, not a stranger. That's true in most states, and it's been true for years. The two sides have spent decades arguing about the AR-15 and the criminal while the largest share of the actual deaths was somewhere else entirely, in a quiet moment, with a gun that was already in the house. Aim the policy at where the deaths actually are, and suddenly there's a lot to agree on. Term one: aim at suicide \u2014 and give gun owners the lead What the safety side gets: the single largest category of gun deaths addressed head-on. What the gun-rights side gets: no confiscation, no registry, no ban \u2014 and ownership of the solution. The evidence here is unusually clear. Most suicide attempts are impulsive, and the outcome depends enormously on the means at hand; putting time and space between a person in crisis and a firearm saves lives. So: free lockboxes and voluntary safe-st This is a policy position. The finding that suicides constitute the majority of firearm deaths in Minnesota and nationally is drawn from CDC WONDER mortality data and Minnesota Department of Health vital-statistics reporting. The evidence on suicide impulsivity and means restriction (\"time and space\") is summarized by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center's Means Matter project; gun-shop suicide-prevention partnerships originated with the New Hampshire Gun Shop Project (2009) and have been adopted in numerous states. Extreme-risk (red-flag) statutes exist in roughly 21 states; Minnesota's 2023 law is codified at Minn. Stat. \u00a7\u00a7 624.7171\u2013624.7178. Negligent-storage liability is modeled on ordinary tort principles applied to other dangerous instrumentalities. Specific Minnesota suicide-share"},{"u":"/blog-you-own-the-home-but-rent-the-ground","t":"A Million-Dollar Buyer Can Evict a Whole Neighborhood at Once. Minnesota Gives Manufactured-Home Park Residents a Chance to Buy the Ground First.","d":"Manufactured-home parks are some of the last naturally affordable housing in Minnesota \u2014 and their residents own their homes but rent the land underneath. That's a trap: an investor buys the park, raises the lot rent or closes it, and homes that can't really be moved become worthless. Minnesota's law gives residents notice, relocation compensation, and a shot at buying the park themselves.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-26","b":"What the law does Why this is such a good use of law The honest limits What we can do Sources A Million-Dollar Buyer Can Evict a Whole Neighborhood at Once. Minnesota Gives Manufactured-Home Park Residents a Chance to Buy the Ground First. Here's a form of homeownership that sounds like security and is quietly built on sand. In a manufactured-home park, you own your home \u2014 you bought it, you maintain it, it's yours \u2014 but you rent the small patch of ground it sits on. For hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans, especially seniors on fixed incomes and working families priced out of everything else, this is the last rung of affordable homeownership. A manufactured home is one of the few homes an ordinary person can still buy outright. The catch is the word \"manufactured.\" Despite the name, these homes are extremely expensive and often impossible to actually move \u2014 the cost of relocating one can exceed what the home is worth, and there's frequently nowhere to move it to . So the person who owns the land owns you. If an out-of-state investor buys the park and doubles the lot rent, you can't just roll your house down the highway to a cheaper spot. And if the new owner decides the land is worth more as a strip mall, closing the park doesn't just raise your rent \u2014 it can turn your paid-off home into a worthless object you have to abandon. One transaction can evict an entire neighborhood of homeowners at once. Minnesota built some real protections against exactly this. What the law does Minnesota's manufactured-home-park statutes (Minn. Stat. ch. 327C) give park residents three  Minn. Stat. ch. 327C (Manufactured Home Parks), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the definitions framework including \"closure statement\" \u2014 a statement addressing \"the availability, location, and potential costs of adequate replacement housing within a 25 mile radius\" and \"the probable relocation costs of the manufactured homes\" \u2014 and \"displaced resident\" and \"in park sale\" (\u00a7 327C.015); and the park-closure, resident-relocation, and sale/opportunity-to-purchase provisions of \u00a7 327C.095, as amended through 2023\u20132025 (including 2023 Minn. Laws ch. 37 and ch. 57 and 2024 Minn. Laws ch. 96). The economics of manufactured housing (homes owned but land rented; high or prohibitive relocation costs; resident-owned communities as a durable affordability model) are characterized from widely reported housing research. The exact opportunity-to-purchase notice periods, the precise relocat"},{"u":"/blog-call-it-the-open-category","t":"Where I Stand: Stop Saying 'Men's Sports.' Call It the Open Category, and Most of This Fight Disappears.","d":"The trans-athlete debate is two groups talking past each other \u2014 one in the language of biology, the other in the language of identity. Here's a fix that doesn't require either side to surrender its vocabulary: keep the women's category protected, and rename the other one what it already is \u2014 Open. Then decide the hard edges by age, stakes, and sport, not from the Capitol.","l":"Where Dave Stands","dt":"2026-08-25","b":"Rename the category Then decide the hard edges by age, stakes, and sport \u2014 not from the Capitol The honest concession What I'd actually do Sources Where I Stand: Stop Saying \"Men's Sports.\" Call It the Open Category, and Most of This Fight Disappears. I've watched this argument for years, and here is what I finally noticed: the two sides aren't actually disagreeing. They're not even having the same conversation. One side talks in the language of biology \u2014 testosterone, muscle mass, bone density, the measurable advantages of male puberty. The other side talks in the language of identity and dignity \u2014 who a person is, what it costs a kid to be told she doesn't belong. Each side hears the other's vocabulary as an attack on its own. So the biology side thinks the identity side is denying science, and the identity side thinks the biology side is denying people. They are talking straight past each other, and politicians on both ends love it that way, because a fight nobody can win is a fight you can fundraise off forever. So let me offer something neither side has to surrender its language to accept. Rename the category Right now, sports have a \"women's\" category and a \"men's\" category. But look at what the \"men's\" category actually is in practice: it's the category with no eligibility restriction. Anyone can compete in it. It's already open. The only thing the word \"men's\" does is force a transgender woman who wants to compete there to accept a label that denies who she is \u2014 and that label is the whole reason the identity side digs in. So stop calling it \"men's.\" Call it what it is: the Open category. Watch what that one wor This is a policy position. The observation that the men's category in most sports carries no eligibility restriction, and therefore functions as an open category, is a description of standard competition rules. Several sports governing bodies have moved toward explicit \"open\" or \"open/female\" category structures (British Triathlon adopted an open category alongside a protected female category in 2022, and other federations have followed); the specifics of each body's eligibility rules vary by sport and are set by those bodies, not by this campaign. The physiological literature on the effects of male puberty on athletic performance is extensive and is the basis for elite-level eligibility rules. The governing-body precedents are characterized generally from widely reported policy changes and should be confirmed against each federation's current rules before being cited as specific authori"},{"u":"/blog-rent-control-that-rewards-building","t":"Where I Stand: Rent Control That Rewards Building Instead of Fighting It","d":"Hard rent caps choke the new housing that actually lowers rents \u2014 economists across the spectrum agree on that. Doing nothing leaves sitting tenants exposed to gouging. My position splits the difference on purpose: protect the tenant who's already there, exempt new construction so we never punish building, and give renters a real shot at owning.","l":"Where Dave Stands","dt":"2026-08-24","b":"Protect the tenant who's already there Exempt new construction \u2014 completely, for a long time And give renters a real shot at owning The honest concession What I'd actually do Sources Where I Stand: Rent Control That Rewards Building Instead of Fighting It Every rent-control fight in Minnesota runs the same play. One side wants a hard cap on what any landlord can charge. The other side wants nothing at all. And both sides ignore the one fact that should settle it: the thing that actually lowers rents over time is more housing , and hard caps are the surest way to stop it from getting built. That's not a talking point. It's about the closest thing to consensus economics has. Study after study of hard rent caps finds the same thing \u2014 landlords convert units to condos or pull them off the market, new construction dries up, and the people who benefit are the ones already in a capped unit while everyone looking for a place pays more. St. Paul learned this the expensive way after its 2021 ordinance, when permit applications for new housing fell off a cliff and the city spent the next two years carving out exemptions to get building going again. So here's my position, and it's built to hold both truths at once. Protect the tenant who's already there A family that's lived in an apartment for six years shouldn't be handed a 30 percent increase because the building changed hands. That's gouging, and it's a real thing that happens to real Minnesotans. So for existing rental units , I'd cap annual increases at inflation plus a reasonable margin \u2014 enough to let a landlord keep pace with taxes and maintenance, not enough to weaponize a renewal. Pair that with vacancy de The economic literature on hard rent caps \u2014 reduced rental supply, unit conversion, and suppressed new construction \u2014 is broadly consistent across ideological lines (e.g., the Stanford analysis of San Francisco's 1994 expansion by Diamond, McQuade, and Qian, 109 Am. Econ. Rev. 3365 (2019)). St. Paul's 2021 voter-approved rent stabilization ordinance (3 percent cap) and the subsequent decline in new-housing permit applications, followed by the city council's 2022 amendments exempting new construction for 20 years, are a matter of public record. The tenant-opportunity-to-purchase model draws on Minnesota's manufactured-home-park statutes (Minn. Stat. ch. 327C) as discussed in this series. This is a policy position, not a statute analysis; the St. Paul permit figures and the specific inflation-plus margin are described in general terms and would be set in legislation. Corrections: campaign@"},{"u":"/blog-the-deepfake-law-and-its-first-amendment-problem","t":"Minnesota Made It a Crime to Spread an Election Deepfake. Then the Tech Companies and a Satirist Sued, and the Hardest Question in American Law Showed Up: Where Does a Lie End and Speech Begin?","d":"Minnesota's law bans knowingly spreading AI-generated 'deep fakes' of candidates near an election. It's an early, serious attempt to defend democracy from synthetic media. It's also being challenged on First Amendment grounds by a satirist, by Elon Musk's X, and by xAI. This one has no easy answer, and I won't pretend it does.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-24","b":"What the law does Then came the lawsuits Where I come down \u2014 and where I won't pretend What we can do Sources Minnesota Made It a Crime to Spread an Election Deepfake. Then the Tech Companies and a Satirist Sued, and the Hardest Question in American Law Showed Up: Where Does a Lie End and Speech Begin? We are the first generation that cannot trust its own eyes. A convincing video of a candidate saying something they never said \u2014 confessing to a crime, slurring a group, announcing they've dropped out \u2014 can now be made by anyone with a laptop, in an afternoon, for free. Drop it online 48 hours before an election, when there's no time to debunk it, and it can move votes on a lie that looks exactly like the truth. Every honest person across the political spectrum should find that terrifying. Minnesota tried to do something about it. And in doing so it ran straight into the hardest problem in American constitutional law, which I'm going to lay out honestly rather than pretend it's simple, because it isn't. What the law does Minn. Stat. \u00a7 609.771 makes it a crime to disseminate a \"deep fake\" \u2014 defined as synthetic video, audio, or images \"so realistic that a reasonable person would believe\" they depict real speech or conduct that never happened \u2014 under specific conditions. To be criminal, the dissemination must be done knowing (or with reckless disregard) that it's a deepfake, without the depicted person's consent , with intent to injure a candidate or influence an election , and within a defined window: 90 days before a nominating convention, or after absentee voting has begun. Penalties  Minn. Stat. \u00a7 609.771 (Use of Deep Fake Technology to Influence Election), enacted 2023 (2023 Minn. Laws ch. 58; amended 2024 Minn. Laws ch. 112), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the definitions of \"deep fake\" (a realistic technological representation that a reasonable person would believe depicts real speech or conduct, substantially dependent on technical means) and \"candidate\" and \"depicted individual\" (subd. 1); the offense elements \u2014 knowing or reckless dissemination, without consent, with intent to injure a candidate or influence an election, within 90 days before a nominating convention or after absentee voting begins (subd. 2); the broadcaster carve-out; and the graduated penalties up to five years and a $10,000 fine for a repeat offense (subd. 3). Litigation verified on CourtListener: Kohls v. Ellison, No. 0:24-cv-03754 (D. Minn., filed Sept. 27, 2024), on appeal as"},{"u":"/blog-the-board-that-can-cap-a-drug-price","t":"Minnesota Built a Board With the Power to Say a Drug Costs Too Much \u2014 and Cap What Gets Paid for It. The Drug Industry Is Fighting Boards Like It Everywhere.","d":"The insulin law rescued one medicine. The Prescription Drug Affordability Board is the systemic version: an expert panel that can review the most expensive drugs and set an upper limit on what's paid for them in Minnesota. It's a genuinely new kind of power over pharma \u2014 and the statute even includes a severability clause, because everyone knew the lawsuits were coming.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-22","b":"What the board is Why it matters The honest hard part What we can do Sources Minnesota Built a Board With the Power to Say a Drug Costs Too Much \u2014 and Cap What Gets Paid for It. The Drug Industry Is Fighting Boards Like It Everywhere. Earlier in this series I wrote about the Alec Smith law \u2014 Minnesota's rescue of one medicine, insulin, for the people who were dying without it. That law treats a symptom. This is the piece about the attempt to treat the disease: the fact that Americans pay two, three, ten times what people in other wealthy countries pay for the exact same drugs, made by the same companies, and that no one in our system has ever really had the authority to say no, that price is too high. Minnesota created a body designed to say exactly that. What the board is Minn. Stat. \u00a7 62J.87 establishes the Prescription Drug Affordability Board \u2014 a nine-member panel of experts in pharmaceutical and health-care economics, appointed by the governor and legislative leaders, and pointedly walled off from the industry: a member \"must not be an employee of, a board member of, or a consultant to a manufacturer\" or a pharmacy-benefit manager. Its stated job is to \"protect consumers, state and local governments, health plan companies, providers, pharmacies, and other health care system stakeholders from unaffordable costs of certain prescription drugs. \" Here's how it works. Manufacturers already have to report price information to the state; that data flows to the board (\u00a7 62J.90), which then decides which high-cost drugs to put through an affordability rev Minn. Stat. \u00a7\u00a7 62J.87\u201362J.95, enacted 2023 (2023 Minn. Laws ch. 57, art. 2), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the establishment, purpose (\"protect consumers... from unaffordable costs of certain prescription drugs\"), nine-member composition, and industry-conflict prohibitions of the Prescription Drug Affordability Board, with the Attorney General directed to provide legal services to the board (\u00a7 62J.87); the flow of manufacturer price information to the board and the decision to conduct a cost/affordability review (\u00a7 62J.90, as further affected by 2026 Minn. Laws ch. 124); and the severability clause covering \u00a7\u00a7 62J.85\u201362J.94 (\u00a7 62J.95). The board's authority to set upper payment limits for drugs found unaffordable is established by the balance of the chapter (\u00a7\u00a7 62J.91\u201362J.94). Several other states (including Colorado, Maryland, and Washington) have created similar prescrip"},{"u":"/blog-who-is-allowed-to-own-a-minnesota-farm","t":"In Minnesota, a Corporation Generally Can't Own a Farm. It's a Century-Old Idea Worth Defending \u2014 and It's Only as Strong as Its Enforcement.","d":"Minnesota is one of a handful of states that still bans most corporations and investment funds from owning farmland or farming it. The law exists to protect the family farm as the basic unit of rural life. The threats to it aren't foreign \u2014 they're the loopholes, the shell entities, and whether anyone is actually watching.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-21","b":"What the law says Why the idea still matters The honest weak points What we can do Sources In Minnesota, a Corporation Generally Can't Own a Farm. It's a Century-Old Idea Worth Defending \u2014 and It's Only as Strong as Its Enforcement. Elsewhere in this series I took apart the panic about foreign ownership of Minnesota farmland \u2014 it turned out to be a tiny sliver of our acres, and the xenophobic version of the story didn't survive the numbers. But there's a related question that's far more real, and far older: not which country owns our farms, but whether they should be owned by corporations and investment funds at all. On that, Minnesota has taken a clear stand for nearly a century, and it's a stand worth understanding. What the law says Minn. Stat. \u00a7 500.24 \u2014 \"Farming by Business Organizations\" \u2014 opens by telling you exactly what it's for. The Legislature \"finds that it is in the interests of the state to encourage and protect the family farm as a basic economic unit , to insure it as the most socially desirable mode of agricultural production , and to enhance and promote the stability and well-being of rural society in Minnesota.\" From that premise, the law does something most states don't: it generally prohibits corporations, limited liability companies, pension funds, and investment funds from farming or owning agricultural land in Minnesota. There are carefully drawn exceptions \u2014 the big one being the \" family farm corporation ,\" where the majority of the stock is held by people related within the third degree of kinship and at least one of them lives on or acti Minn. Stat. \u00a7 500.24 (Farming by Business Organizations), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the statement of purpose \u2014 to \"encourage and protect the family farm as a basic economic unit,\" \"insure it as the most socially desirable mode of agricultural production,\" and promote \"the stability and well-being of rural society\" (subd. 1); the definitions of \"farming,\" \"family farm,\" and \"family farm corporation,\" including the third-degree-of-kinship majority-ownership and resident/active-operator requirements and the prohibition on corporate shareholders (subd. 2). The section's general prohibition on corporate, LLC, and investment-entity ownership and operation of agricultural land, subject to the enumerated exceptions, and its annual reporting requirements, are established by the balance of \u00a7 500.24. Minnesota is one of a small group of (chiefly Upper Midwest and Plains) states r"},{"u":"/blog-they-cant-make-you-sit-through-it","t":"Your Boss Can No Longer Force You Into a Meeting About Politics or Religion \u2014 Including the Mandatory Anti-Union Meeting. Minnesota Banned the 'Captive Audience.","d":"Minnesota now makes it illegal to discipline or fire a worker for refusing to attend an employer meeting about the boss's political or religious opinions \u2014 the classic 'captive audience' meeting used to pressure workers during union drives. It's a free-speech-for-workers law, and it's being contested nationally on exactly that ground.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-19","b":"What the law does Why it's the right principle The honest other side What we can do Sources Your Boss Can No Longer Force You Into a Meeting About Politics or Religion \u2014 Including the Mandatory Anti-Union Meeting. Minnesota Banned the \"Captive Audience.\" There's a tactic that's been standard practice in American workplaces for generations, and most people have sat through it without knowing it had a name. Management calls an all-hands meeting, attendance mandatory, on the clock \u2014 and proceeds to lecture the assembled employees about the boss's opinions. Most often it happens during a union drive: the workers are marched into a room, the door effectively shut, and told at length why they shouldn't organize, with the unmistakable understanding that walking out could cost them their job. It's called a \"captive audience\" meeting , and the whole point is the captivity \u2014 you can't leave, you can't say no, and your paycheck is in the room. Minnesota made it illegal. What the law does Minn. Stat. \u00a7 181.531 says an employer \"must not discharge, discipline, or otherwise penalize or threaten to\" penalize an employee for declining to attend an employer-sponsored meeting \u2014 or declining to listen to employer communications \u2014 whose purpose is to \"communicate the opinion of the employer about religious or political matters. \" It also forbids retaliating against a worker who reports a violation. And \"political matters\" is defined to reach the thing this is really about: it explicitly includes the decision whether to join or support a labor union . So the mandatory anti-union meeting Minn. Stat. \u00a7 181.531 (Employer-Sponsored Meetings or Communication), enacted 2023 (2023 Minn. Laws ch. 53, art. 11; amended 2024 Minn. Laws ch. 110, art. 7), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the prohibition on discharging, disciplining, penalizing, or threatening an employee for declining to attend or listen to an employer-sponsored meeting or communication conveying \"the opinion of the employer about religious or political matters,\" and the anti-retaliation provision for good-faith reports (subd. 1); and the civil remedy \u2014 a district-court action within 90 days, with reinstatement, back pay, restored benefits, injunctive relief, and mandatory reasonable attorney fees and costs for a prevailing employee (subd. 2), plus the commissioner's notice poster (subd. 3). The statute's definition of \"political matters\" includes the decision whether to join or support a labor organizat"},{"u":"/blog-privacy-you-have-to-buy-a-lawyer-to-get","t":"Want the Flock Cameras to Stop Knowing Where You Go? Put Your Car in a Trust. Of Course, Only People Who Can Afford a Lawyer Get to Do That.","d":"There's a real trick to defeat license-plate surveillance: title your car to a trust or LLC, so a plate lookup returns the entity, not your name. The wealthy already do it. But it costs money most people don't have \u2014 which turns privacy into a luxury good. The answer isn't to make everyone hire a lawyer. It's to regulate the surveillance.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-19","b":"The trick And there's the problem The real fix isn't a trust \u2014 it's regulating the surveillance What we can do Sources Want the Flock Cameras to Stop Knowing Where You Go? Put Your Car in a Trust. Of Course, Only People Who Can Afford a Lawyer Get to Do That. Earlier in this series I wrote about Flock cameras \u2014 the automated license-plate readers now blanketing Minnesota's roads and suburbs, photographing every plate that passes, logging where and when, and feeding databases that get searched millions of times and, increasingly, sold and shared. Here's a follow-up that started as a piece of practical lawyer's advice and turned into an argument about fairness. Because there is a way to fight back against plate surveillance. It's just that, as things stand, only the well-off get to use it. The trick A license-plate reader captures one thing: your plate number and where it was. That's not very useful on its own. It becomes surveillance the moment it's connected to you \u2014 your name, your home address \u2014 and that connection is made by looking the plate up against the state's vehicle-registration records. Those records tie a plate to its registered owner. So here's the move the sophisticated already know: don't register the car in your own name. Title it to a revocable living trust , or to an LLC . Then when someone runs the plate, the registration comes back to \"The 1247 Oak Street Trust\" or \"North Star Holdings LLC\" \u2014 not to you. The camera still sees the car; it just can't easily connect the car to a human being. Celebrities do this. Wealthy people do this routinely, for their cars and their house Minn. Stat. \u00a7 168.346 (Privacy of Personal Information \u2014 vehicle registration data), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: registration data on an individual \"shall be treated as provided by United States Code, title 18, section 2721\" (the federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act) and \"disclosed as required or permitted by that section,\" including bulk disclosure to authorized recipients for the statute's permissible uses, and dealer and public-safety access provisions (subd. 1\u20132). The federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act, 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 2721 et seq., restricts disclosure of motor-vehicle records but contains broad permissible-use exceptions (including law enforcement, insurance, and licensed-investigator uses) and bulk-disclosure provisions. The classification of Department of Public Safety data appears at Minn. Stat. \u00a7 13.69. The lawfulness of titling a Minnesota vehicle to a rev"},{"u":"/blog-registered-unless-you-say-no","t":"You Renewed Your Driver's License. In Minnesota, You Probably Just Registered to Vote \u2014 Unless You Chose Not To.","d":"Minnesota's automatic voter registration flips the default: eligible people are registered when they interact with the DMV or state health programs, with citizenship verified, unless they opt out. It's a quiet, secure way to keep the rolls accurate and complete \u2014 and it deserves a fair accounting of both what it does and what critics fear.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-17","b":"What the law does Why it's good policy The honest concerns What we can do Sources You Renewed Your Driver's License. In Minnesota, You Probably Just Registered to Vote \u2014 Unless You Chose Not To. For most of American history, voter registration ran on friction. You had to know you needed to register, find the form, fill it out, get it in on time, and re-do the whole thing every time you moved. That friction was never neutral \u2014 it always fell hardest on people who move often, work multiple jobs, or don't have someone to walk them through the paperwork. Minnesota decided the default was backwards, and flipped it. What the law does Under Minn. Stat. \u00a7 201.161, an eligible person is automatically registered to vote when they complete certain routine government transactions \u2014 most commonly, applying for or renewing a Minnesota driver's license or ID card , or applying for MinnesotaCare or Medical Assistance , or dealing with other participating state agencies. The registration only happens if the records include documentation or verification of U.S. citizenship \u2014 the citizenship check is built into the trigger, not bolted on after. And it's not compulsory. It's \"automatic\" in the sense that registration is the default , but every person gets a mailed notice and a 20-day window to decline. Don't want to be registered? Say so, and you won't be. If you give a new name or address, your existing registration is quietly updated so the rolls stay current. Notices are provided with language access so the opportunity to decline is real for everyone. This pairs naturally  Minn. Stat. \u00a7 201.161 (Automatic Voter Registration), amended 2023 (2023 Minn. Laws ch. 34, art. 1) and 2025 (2025 Minn. Laws ch. 39, art. 8), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: automatic registration of eligible individuals (meeting the eligibility requirements of \u00a7 201.014) upon completing a qualifying application \u2014 a new or renewed Minnesota driver's license or ID card, an initial or renewal application for MinnesotaCare or Medical Assistance, or an application to a participating state agency \u2014 conditioned on documentation or verification of United States citizenship (subd. 1); the automatic update of name/address on the voter record (subd. 1(b)); and the mailed decline notice with a 20-day opt-out window and language-access requirements (subd. 2). Cross-reference to this series' article on restoration of voting rights. Administrative-error rates and audit findings for Minne"},{"u":"/blog-someone-is-finally-watching-the-servicer","t":"You Don't Get to Choose the Company That Handles Your Student Loans. Minnesota Now Makes Them Get a License to Do It.","d":"The student-loan servicer \u2014 the middleman who takes your payment and is supposed to get you into the right repayment or forgiveness plan \u2014 has a long record of misapplied payments and bad advice, and you never picked them. Minnesota's Student Loan Borrower Bill of Rights makes servicers get a state license and answer to the Commissioner of Commerce and the Attorney General.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-16","b":"What the law does Why a license matters The honest limits What we can do Sources You Don't Get to Choose the Company That Handles Your Student Loans. Minnesota Now Makes Them Get a License to Do It. Here's an oddity of American life that ought to bother people more than it does. You borrow money for college, and then a company you never chose, never interviewed, and can't fire is put in charge of your loan for the next twenty years. It's called a servicer \u2014 the outfit that takes your monthly payment, keeps your account, tells you which repayment plans you qualify for, and is supposed to guide you into forgiveness if you've earned it. You're stuck with whichever one you're assigned. And the track record of that industry is, to put it charitably, uneven: misapplied payments, borrowers steered into the wrong plans, forgiveness paperwork \"lost,\" years added to debts because of a servicer's mistake. Minnesota decided that a company with that much power over that many people ought to at least need a license. What the law does Under Minnesota's Student Loan Borrower Bill of Rights (Minn. Stat. ch. 58B), \"no person shall directly or indirectly act as a student loan servicer\" in Minnesota \"without first obtaining a license from the commissioner\" of Commerce (\u00a7 58B.03). To get and keep that license, a servicer has to show the Commissioner that its finances are sound, that the people running it are of good character, and that \"the applicant's business will be conducted honestly, fairly, equitably, carefully, and efficiently.\" The Commissioner can run criminal-histor Minn. Stat. ch. 58B (Student Loan Servicers / Student Loan Borrower Bill of Rights), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the license requirement \u2014 \"No person shall directly or indirectly act as a student loan servicer without first obtaining a license from the commissioner\" (\u00a7 58B.03, subd. 1); the licensing standards, including sound financial condition and that the business be \"conducted honestly, fairly, equitably, carefully, and efficiently,\" plus criminal-history checks and examination authority (\u00a7 58B.03, subd. 3\u20134); the exemptions for financial institutions, the University of Minnesota, and de minimis lenders (\u00a7 58B.03, subd. 2); and the definitions of \"borrower\" as a Minnesota resident, \"servicing,\" and \"student loan servicer\" including nonbank covered persons (\u00a7 58B.02). The Commissioner of Commerce administers the chapter; the Attorney General enforces Minnesota's cons"},{"u":"/blog-an-hour-for-every-thirty-you-work","t":"Since 2024, Every Worker in Minnesota Earns Paid Sick Time. Before That, Nearly a Million Had None.","d":"Minnesota's Earned Sick and Safe Time law gives every employee one hour of paid leave for every 30 hours worked \u2014 usable when you're sick, when your kid is sick, or when you're fleeing domestic violence. It's a quiet, sweeping change most people still don't know they're covered by. Here's how it works, including the part small businesses are right to find hard.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-15","b":"What you earn, and how Why it matters The honest hard part What we can do Sources Since 2024, Every Worker in Minnesota Earns Paid Sick Time. Before That, Nearly a Million Had None. There's a decision millions of workers used to make every winter: go to work with the flu, or lose a day's pay you can't afford to lose. For a huge share of Minnesotans there was no third option, because paid sick days simply weren't part of the job. As of January 1, 2024, that changed for essentially everyone who works in this state \u2014 and a remarkable number of the people it protects still don't know it exists. What you earn, and how Minnesota's Earned Sick and Safe Time law (Minn. Stat. \u00a7\u00a7 181.9445\u2013.9448) is simple at its core: you accrue one hour of paid leave for every 30 hours you work , up to at least 48 hours a year , and you can carry unused time forward up to a cap of 80 hours (employers can instead just hand you the hours up front). It's paid at your normal base rate. It starts accruing the day you're hired, and you can use it as you earn it. Who's covered is the striking part: any employer with even one employee , and any employee who's expected to work at least 80 hours in a year in Minnesota \u2014 full-time, part-time, temporary. This isn't a big-company benefit. It's a floor under every job. And note the word \"safe.\" You can use this leave not only when you or a family member is ill, but when you're dealing with domestic abuse, sexual assault, or stalking \u2014 to go to court, find housing, or get help. The law defines \"family member\" generously, too: not just kids and pa Minn. Stat. \u00a7\u00a7 181.9445\u2013181.9446, verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the accrual rate of one hour per 30 hours worked, the 48-hour annual minimum, the 80-hour carryover cap, and the front-loading alternative (\u00a7 181.9446); the definitions of covered \"employee\" (anticipated to work at least 80 hours per year, including temporary and part-time; narrow exclusions for certain independent contractors, on-call emergency personnel, elected officials, and short-term farm labor) and \"employer\" (any person with one or more employees, including state and local government), \"base rate,\" and the broad \"family member\" definition including one annually designated individual (\u00a7 181.9445); and the \"safe time\" coverage for domestic abuse, sexual assault, and stalking. Effective date January 1, 2024 (2023 Minn. Laws ch. 53, art. 12; amended 2024 Minn. Laws ch. 127). The pre-existing municipal ordi"},{"u":"/blog-the-right-to-fix-what-you-own","t":"You Bought It. You Own It. Minnesota Says You \u2014 or Anyone You Choose \u2014 Can Fix It.","d":"Minnesota's Digital Fair Repair Act, one of the first broad right-to-repair laws in the country, forces electronics makers to sell the same parts, tools, and manuals to you and your corner repair shop that they give their own authorized technicians. Here's what it covers, what it pointedly doesn't, and why the fight isn't over.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-14","b":"What the Digital Fair Repair Act does Why it's worth caring about The honest limits What we can do Sources You Bought It. You Own It. Minnesota Says You \u2014 or Anyone You Choose \u2014 Can Fix It. For years, fixing your own stuff quietly became illegal-in-practice. Not because a law forbade it, but because the manufacturers made it impossible: they wouldn't sell you the part, wouldn't give the independent shop the diagnostic tool, wouldn't publish the manual, and sometimes wrote software that \"paired\" a part to the device so a replacement you installed yourself simply wouldn't work. The result was a hidden tax on ownership \u2014 a cracked screen or a dead battery meant a trip back to the manufacturer, on the manufacturer's terms and at the manufacturer's price, or a landfill. Minnesota did something about it. What the Digital Fair Repair Act does Minn. Stat. \u00a7 325E.72, the Digital Fair Repair Act , says that if a company makes \"digital electronic equipment\" and provides parts, tools, and documentation to its own authorized repair providers , it must also make those same things available to you, the owner, and to independent repair shops \u2014 on \"fair and reasonable terms.\" Read the definition of \"fair and reasonable terms\" and you can see the law anticipating every dodge. Parts must be offered at costs \"fair to both parties,\" and \u2014 crucially \u2014 the manufacturer cannot require that a part be registered, paired with, or approved by the manufacturer before it works. That \"parts pairing\" trick, the thing that bricks a self-installed battery, is specifically targeted. Tools, software, and documentati Minn. Stat. \u00a7 325E.72, the Digital Fair Repair Act (2023 Minn. Laws), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the short title (subd. 1); the definitions of \"authorized repair provider,\" \"digital electronic equipment,\" \"documentation,\" and \"embedded software\" (subd. 2); and the \"fair and reasonable terms\" requirements for parts, tools, software, and documentation, including the prohibition on conditioning a part on registration, pairing, or manufacturer approval before it is operational. Minnesota is among the first states with a broad consumer-electronics right-to-repair law, following New York's Digital Fair Repair Act and preceding similar laws in California, Colorado, and Oregon; enforcement runs through Minnesota's deceptive-trade-practices framework and the Attorney General. The Act's full list of exclusions and its exact effective date were not pulled verbatim this pass; the c"},{"u":"/blog-fifty-percent-is-the-ceiling","t":"A Payday Loan in Minnesota Can't Legally Cost More Than 50% a Year \u2014 and the State Just Slammed the Door on the 'Rent-a-Bank' Trick Lenders Used to Dodge the Cap.","d":"In much of America a two-week payday loan carries an annual rate of 300%, 400%, even higher. Minnesota caps small payday loans at 50% APR, caps larger consumer loans at 36%, and \u2014 the sophisticated part \u2014 its 2023 anti-evasion law reaches through the 'rent-a-bank' schemes lenders use to pretend they're someone else. Here's how the protection actually works.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-12","b":"The cap The clever part: killing \"rent-a-bank\" The honest other side What we can do Sources A Payday Loan in Minnesota Can't Legally Cost More Than 50% a Year \u2014 and the State Just Slammed the Door on the \"Rent-a-Bank\" Trick Lenders Used to Dodge the Cap. The payday-loan business model is simple and brutal: lend a strapped person a few hundred dollars against their next paycheck, at a fee that works out to an annual rate no one would ever agree to if it were stated plainly, and count on them not being able to pay it back in one shot \u2014 so they \"roll it over,\" and the fees compound, and a $300 emergency becomes a $1,200 debt spiral. In states with no real cap, effective annual rates of 300 to 600 percent are routine and legal. Minnesota puts a ceiling on it. And in 2023 it did the harder thing: it closed the loophole lenders were using to climb over that ceiling. The cap Under Minn. Stat. \u00a7 47.60, a \"consumer small loan\" \u2014 a short-term payday-style advance of $350 or less , due in a single installment within 30 days \u2014 is capped at an annual percentage rate of 50 percent , and the statute is emphatic: \" No other charges or payments are permitted or may be received by the lender in connection with a consumer small loan.\" After maturity the rate can't exceed 2.75 percent a month. And a lender can't let you paper over one of these loans with another from the same lender \u2014 the churning that turns a one-time loan into a permanent debt is specifically prohibited. Fifty percent is still high \u2014 I'll come back to that \u2014 but set it against the 400 percent that's legal a few state Minn. Stat. \u00a7 47.60 (Consumer Small Loans), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the definition of a consumer small loan (a single-installment advance of $350 or less, term no more than 30 days \u2014 subd. 1); the 50 percent APR cap and the rule that \"No other charges or payments are permitted or may be received by the lender,\" the 2.75-percent-per-month post-maturity limit, and the anti-churning prohibition (subd. 2); the cross-reference requiring loans above 36 percent APR to comply with \u00a7 47.603; and the anti-evasion \"true lender\" provisions treating a person as the lender where they hold \"the predominant economic interest, risk, or reward\" or where the \"totality of the circumstances\" shows the transaction is structured to evade the section, including indemnifying the nominal lender, controlling the lending activity, or holding the brand and underwriting (subd. 8). The 36 percent "},{"u":"/blog-the-vote-comes-back-at-the-prison-gate","t":"In Minnesota, You Get Your Vote Back the Day You Walk Out of Prison \u2014 Not Years Later. The Court Let the Law Stand, but Left the Big Question Unanswered.","d":"The 2023 Restore the Vote Act re-enfranchised more than 50,000 Minnesotans by restoring the vote the moment a person leaves incarceration, instead of making them finish years of probation first. Challengers said it violated the state constitution. The Minnesota Supreme Court left the law in place in 2024 \u2014 but on standing, without deciding the constitutional question.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-12","b":"What the law does The court fight \u2014 and what it did and didn't decide Why re-enfranchisement is the right call The honest other side What we can do Sources In Minnesota, You Get Your Vote Back the Day You Walk Out of Prison \u2014 Not Years Later. The Court Let the Law Stand, but Left the Big Question Unanswered. For most of Minnesota's history, a person convicted of a felony couldn't vote again until they'd finished everything \u2014 not just prison, but the whole tail of probation or parole that can stretch for years, sometimes decades, after release. So you could be living at home, holding a job, raising kids, and paying the taxes that fund the government, while being told you had no say in choosing it. In 2023, Minnesota changed that. What the law does Under Minn. Stat. \u00a7 201.014, subd. 2a \u2014 enacted by the 2023 Restore the Vote Act \u2014 a person \"has the civil right to vote restored during any period when the individual is not incarcerated.\" Put simply: the vote comes back at the prison gate. The day you're released, you can register. If you're on probation, parole, or supervised release but living in the community, you vote. If you're never incarcerated in the first place \u2014 a sentence of probation only \u2014 you never lose it. The right is lost again only if you're actually locked up for the offense. The practical effect was immediate and large: more than 50,000 Minnesotans who were living and working in their communities regained the ballot at a stroke. This wasn't a fringe population; it was tens of thousands of neighbors, disproportionately from communities that have always had to fight hardest for the vote. The court fight \u2014 and what it Minn. Stat. \u00a7 201.014, subd. 2a (Felony conviction; restoration of civil right to vote), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the civil right to vote is \"restored during any period when the individual is not incarcerated for the offense,\" and is lost only during a period of incarceration (with work-release and similar statuses treated as not incarcerated). Enacted by the Restore the Vote Act / Re-Enfranchisement Act, Act of Mar. 3, 2023, ch. 12, 2023 Minn. Laws 64. Litigation: Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Hunt, No. A23-1940 (Minn. Aug. 7, 2024), read on CourtListener \u2014 the Minnesota Supreme Court (Hudson, C.J.) affirmed dismissal, holding the taxpayer-plaintiffs and their association lacked standing (\"a taxpayer cannot manufacture standing by pointing to expenditures that are incidental to implementing the law\") and therefore did not reach the merits of the challenge under Minn. "},{"u":"/blog-your-noncompete-is-probably-void","t":"If You Signed a Non-Compete in Minnesota, It's Almost Certainly Void. Most Workers Have No Idea.","d":"Since July 1, 2023, Minnesota law makes nearly every employment non-compete 'void and unenforceable.' It's one of the strongest worker-freedom laws in the country \u2014 one of only a few states to ban them outright \u2014 and the federal government just tried and failed to do the same. Here's what it does, and the loophole it leaves open.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-10","b":"What the statute actually says Why this matters more than it sounds The honest limits What we can do Sources If You Signed a Non-Compete in Minnesota, It's Almost Certainly Void. Most Workers Have No Idea. Here's a piece of Minnesota law that could change your life and that almost nobody I talk to knows about. If you signed an employment agreement promising not to go work for a competitor after you leave \u2014 a \"non-compete\" \u2014 and you signed it on or after July 1, 2023, it is, in the words of the statute, \"void and unenforceable.\" Not \"unenforceable if unreasonable.\" Not \"enforceable for a year but not two.\" Void. What the statute actually says Minn. Stat. \u00a7 181.988 is refreshingly blunt: \"Any covenant not to compete contained in a contract or agreement is void and unenforceable.\" It sweeps in not just W-2 employees but independent contractors too \u2014 including the increasingly common trick of making a worker form an LLC as a condition of the gig. And it adds a second protection people miss: an employer can't force a Minnesota worker, as a condition of the job, to litigate their claims in another state or under another state's law. Minnesota keeps its own workers under Minnesota law. There are only two narrow exceptions, and they're sensible: you can still agree to a reasonable non-compete when you sell your business (the buyer deserves protection from the seller reopening across the street) or when partners dissolve one. Outside those, the non-compete is dead. The statute even lets a court award an employee attorney fees for enforcing these rights. Why this matters more than it sounds N Minn. Stat. \u00a7 181.988 (2023), verified verbatim against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: subd. 2 (\"Any covenant not to compete contained in a contract or agreement is void and unenforceable\"), the sale-of-business and dissolution exceptions, the inclusion of independent contractors (subd. 1), the choice-of-law and venue protections (subd. 3), and the attorney-fee provision. The law applies to contracts and agreements entered into on or after July 1, 2023 (2023 Minn. Laws ch. 53). The federal comparison: the FTC's Non-Compete Clause Rule (issued April 2024) and its being set aside by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Ryan LLC v. FTC (August 2024) before its effective date. The \"roughly one in five workers\" figure reflects widely cited Bureau of Labor Statistics and economic-literature estimates of non-compete prevalence. The precise share of Minnesota workers histor"},{"u":"/blog-twenty-weeks-starting-in-january","t":"In January, Minnesota Starts Paying People to Take Family and Medical Leave. Here's What's Actually Coming.","d":"Beginning January 1, 2026, nearly every Minnesota worker is covered by state-run paid family and medical leave \u2014 up to 20 weeks a year for a new baby, a serious illness, or caring for a dying parent. It's a state stepping in where the country never has. Here's how it works, what it costs, and why the rollout deserves both support and scrutiny.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-10","b":"What the program does What it costs Why it belongs in a series about Minnesota governing itself The honest concerns What we can do Sources In January, Minnesota Starts Paying People to Take Family and Medical Leave. Here's What's Actually Coming. The United States is the only wealthy country on earth with no national paid family leave. A new mother in Denmark gets close to a year; a new mother in much of America gets whatever unpaid time she can afford before the rent is due. Federal law (the FMLA) guarantees only that certain workers can take leave without being fired \u2014 it doesn't pay them a dime, and it doesn't even cover employees at small companies. For most people, \"family leave\" has meant going without income at the exact moment life gets most expensive. Starting January 1, 2026 , Minnesota stops waiting for Washington. What the program does Minnesota's Paid Family and Medical Leave program (Minn. Stat. ch. 268B) is, in effect, a state insurance system for the biggest predictable disruptions of a working life. Once benefits begin, a covered worker can receive wage-replacement payments \u2014 not just job protection, actual money \u2014 while on leave for: - a serious health condition of their own; - bonding with a new child by birth, adoption, or foster placement (available up to 12 months after); - caring for a family member with a serious health condition; - safety leave for domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking; and - a military-family qualifying exigency . The total is up to roughly 20 weeks in a year combined (with separate medical and family caps). There's a seven-day qualifying event requirement for  Minn. Stat. ch. 268B, verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the covered leave reasons and eligibility, including the serious-health-condition, bonding (available up to 12 months after birth or placement), family-care, safety-leave, and qualifying-exigency categories, and the seven-day qualifying event that is \"a retroactively payable period, not an unpaid waiting period\" (\u00a7 268B.06); financial-eligibility and benefit determination (\u00a7 268B.04); the premium structure, under which premiums are paid quarterly by employers and \"employers must pay a minimum of 50 percent of the annual premiums,\" with the employee share by wage deduction (\u00a7 268B.14); and the approved private-plan option (\u00a7 268B.10) and optional coverage for the self-employed (\u00a7 268B.11). The program's benefits begin January 1, 2026; the up-to-20-weeks combined annual cap, the progressive wage-replacement schedule, and th"},{"u":"/blog-the-ag-gets-a-look-before-the-merger-closes","t":"When Two Hospital Systems Want to Merge in Minnesota, the Attorney General Now Gets to Look Under the Hood First. Here's the Job I'm Running For.","d":"A 2023 law requires big Minnesota health-care mergers to be reported and reviewed \u2014 and routes the largest deals to the Attorney General before they close. In a state where hospital consolidation keeps driving up prices and closing rural services, that's a real lever. The question is whether the person holding it will use it.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-06","b":"What the law does Why this is a real lever, not a formality The honest limit \u2014 and why the person matters What we can do Sources When Two Hospital Systems Want to Merge in Minnesota, the Attorney General Now Gets to Look Under the Hood First. Here's the Job I'm Running For. Somewhere in this series I documented what hospital consolidation is doing to Minnesota: fewer, bigger systems; higher prices; rural service lines quietly closed after the deal is done and the press release has faded. For a long time the state found out about these mergers roughly the way you find out your neighbor sold their house \u2014 after the sign came down. By then it's too late to ask the questions that matter: What's going to close? Who gets laid off? What happens to prices in a town that now has one hospital instead of two? A 2023 law changed the timing, and it put the Attorney General in the room. Since this is the office I'm running for, let me show you a concrete tool it now holds. What the law does Minn. Stat. \u00a7\u00a7 145D.01\u2013.02 \u2014 the Health Care Entity Transactions law \u2014 says that when hospitals, hospital systems, large physician group practices, or medical foundations do a big transaction (a merger, or a transfer of 40 percent or more of a health-care entity's assets, ownership, or control), the deal has to be disclosed and reviewed before it closes, not after. There are two tracks by size. Mid-sized deals \u2014 entities with average revenue between $10 million and $80 million a year \u2014 must report detailed data to the Commissioner of Health at least 30 days out: what services each side provides, what they plan to close, how many  Minn. Stat. \u00a7\u00a7 145D.01\u2013145D.02 (Requirements for Certain Health Care Entity Transactions; Data Reporting), enacted 2023 (2023 Minn. Laws ch. 66; amended 2024 Minn. Laws ch. 85), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the definition of a covered \"transaction\" (a merger or exchange, or the sale/lease/transfer or grant of a security interest in, or transfer of ownership of, 40 percent or more of a health-care entity \u2014 \u00a7 145D.01, subd. 1(j)); the definitions of \"health care entity,\" \"hospital system,\" \"health care provider group practice,\" and \"medical foundation\"; the provision that \"the attorney general may determine that control exists in fact\" (\u00a7 145D.01, subd. 1(d)); and the Commissioner of Health data-reporting track for entities with average revenue between $10,000,000 and $80,000,000, the pre-closing notice timeline, the required disclosures (including plans to close facilities"},{"u":"/blog-the-insulin-the-state-made-free","t":"A 26-Year-Old Died Rationing Insulin. Minnesota Passed a Law Making It Free in an Emergency \u2014 and the Drug Companies Sued, Claiming Their Property Was Being Taken.","d":"The Alec Smith Insulin Affordability Act guarantees a Minnesotan in urgent need a 30-day insulin supply for a $35 co-pay, and a longer safety net for the low-income uninsured. The insulin makers went to federal court arguing the mandate is an unconstitutional 'taking' of their property. The case is still unresolved \u2014 and the program is still saving lives.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-06","b":"What the law guarantees Then the manufacturers sued The honest hard part What we can do Sources A 26-Year-Old Died Rationing Insulin. Minnesota Passed a Law Making It Free in an Emergency \u2014 and the Drug Companies Sued, Claiming Their Property Was Being Taken. Alec Smith turned 26, aged off his mother's health insurance, and \u2014 facing insulin that cost him roughly $1,300 a month out of pocket \u2014 did what too many diabetics do when the price is impossible: he rationed. He died in 2017, alone in his apartment, before his next paycheck. Insulin has existed for a century. Its inventors sold the patent for a dollar because they thought no one should profit from a molecule people need to live. Alec Smith died anyway, because of what it costs. Minnesota's answer bears his name. What the law guarantees The Alec Smith Insulin Affordability Act , Minn. Stat. \u00a7 151.74, builds two safety nets and puts the obligation on the manufacturers who make the product. The urgent-need program : if you're a Minnesota resident with less than a seven-day supply and no affordable way to get more, you fill out a one-page form, take it and your prescription to a pharmacy, and the pharmacist must dispense a 30-day supply \u2014 with your co-pay capped by statute at no more than $35. The manufacturer, not the pharmacy, eats the cost. You can't be turned away in a crisis for inability to pay. The continuing safety-net program : for lower-income Minnesotans who are uninsured or underinsured, the manufacturers must provide insulin through their patient-assistance programs for up to a year at a time, with an ind Minn. Stat. \u00a7 151.74, the Insulin Safety Net Program (the Alec Smith Insulin Affordability Act), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the urgent-need program (subd. 2\u20133), including the 30-day supply and the statutory co-pay cap of no more than $35; the continuing safety-net program and manufacturer patient-assistance obligations (subd. 5), with the Board of Pharmacy review panel; and the small-manufacturer and low-cost-insulin exemptions (subd. 1). Litigation: Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America v. Williams, 64 F.4th 932 (8th Cir. Apr. 3, 2023), read in full on CourtListener \u2014 the Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal for lack of standing and rejected the sovereign-immunity bar, while expressly declining to decide the merits of the Takings Clause claim (\"We decline PhRMA's invitation to decide the merits of their claim\") and remanding; the plaint"},{"u":"/blog-what-they-cannot-take-from-you","t":"If You Go Bankrupt in Minnesota, the Law Lets You Keep a $10,000 Car and $1,500 of 'Anything Else.' It's Time to Raise the Floor.","d":"Minnesota's homestead exemption is generous. Its everyday-property exemptions \u2014 the car, the tools of your trade, the bank-account 'wild card' \u2014 are thin and lag inflation. This is the companion argument to the homestead series: an exemption too low doesn't collect more debt, it just strips a struggling family of the things it needs to recover and get back to work.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-04","b":"What you actually get to keep Why the numbers keep falling behind The one place Minnesota does well \u2014 wages The economic case (it's the same as the homestead case) What we can do Sources If You Go Bankrupt in Minnesota, the Law Lets You Keep a $10,000 Car and $1,500 of 'Anything Else.' It's Time to Raise the Floor. I wrote earlier in this series about Minnesota's homestead exemption \u2014 the rule that protects your home from creditors \u2014 and argued we should push it back toward the unlimited protection our own state offered for its first 135 years. This is the companion piece, because a home isn't the only thing a creditor can come for, and here Minnesota is a good deal stingier than most people realize. When someone falls behind \u2014 a medical crisis, a job loss, a divorce \u2014 the law decides how much of their remaining life a creditor gets to strip. Those rules are the exemptions , and in Minnesota they're frozen thin. What you actually get to keep Under Minn. Stat. \u00a7 550.37, here's the protected list for an ordinary Minnesotan: - One motor vehicle: $10,000. (More only in narrow cases \u2014 up to $12,500 if the car is a tool of your trade, or higher if it's specially modified for a disability.) - Household goods and electronics: $12,150 total. - Tools of your trade: $13,500. Farm machinery: $13,000. - Jewelry: $3,308. Household tools like a lawnmower and snowblower: $3,000. - Retirement accounts: $81,000 of present value, plus more if \"reasonably necessary\" for support. - And in a bankruptcy , a \"wild card\" \u2014 any property you choose, including cash in the bank \u2014 of just $1,500. Read that last one again. If you file bankruptcy in Minnesota, the amount of plain cash or mi Minn. Stat. \u00a7 550.37 (Property Exempt), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: motor vehicle exemption of $10,000, with $12,500 for a trade vehicle and higher amounts for disability-modified vehicles (subd. 12a); household goods and consumer electronics of $12,150 and jewelry of $3,308 (subd. 4); tools of the trade $13,500 (subd. 6) and farm machines $13,000 (subd. 5); retirement/employee-benefit plans to a present value of $81,000 plus amounts reasonably necessary for support (subd. 24); household tools and equipment $3,000 (subd. 27); the bankruptcy \"wild card\" of $1,500 (subd. 28); and the inflation-adjustment mechanism operating in 10-percent increments in even-numbered years (subd. 4a). Minn. Stat. \u00a7 571.922 (Limitation on Wage Garnishment), verified against raw text: the 25 percent / 15 percent / 10 percent garnishment tiers by income and the exemption floor tied to 40 times "},{"u":"/blog-what-the-uniform-teaches-a-prosecutor","t":"What the Uniform Teaches a Prosecutor \u2014 and Why Anders Folk's Service Matters Now","d":"Anders Folk went on active duty as a Marine judge advocate after September 11th. I was an Air Force JAG officer. Here is what that training does to a lawyer, why I weigh Folk's military service so heavily for Hennepin County Attorney, and why the federal relationships it built are exactly the kind of connection Minnesota needs in times like these.","l":"From Dave","dt":"2026-08-04","b":"What the training actually does Folk's record is the argument The relationships matter now \u2014 maybe more than ever Let me be precise about one thing Sources What the Uniform Teaches a Prosecutor \u2014 and Why Anders Folk's Service Matters Now In the fall of 2001, a law student in Minneapolis who had already accepted a Marine Corps commission watched the towers come down and went on active duty. Anders Folk spent the next four years as a judge advocate \u2014 prosecuting Marines, defending Marines, and learning the hardest lesson the military legal system teaches: that the person across the table from you is entitled to the whole law, not the convenient part of it. I know that lesson because I learned it in the same schoolhouse, in a different uniform. I served as a Captain in the United States Air Force JAG Corps, and I was a base Chief of Justice. So when I tell you Folk's service is a real qualification and not a line on a r\u00e9sum\u00e9, understand that I am telling you what it did to me. What the training actually does Civilians tend to imagine military law as summary justice. It is closer to the opposite. A court-martial is a criminal trial run in front of people who outrank you, under a code that gives the accused rights, in a system where the commander who convened the proceeding is watching. Three things get built into you there, and they are exactly the three things a county attorney or an attorney general needs: You learn to deliver an unwelcome answer to a powerful person. In the JAG Corps you will, sooner or later, walk into a colonel's office and tell him that the thing he wants to do is unlawful, or that the case he wants charged ca Folk's Marine Corps judge advocate service, 2001\u20132005, active duty entered after September 11, 2001, prosecuting and defending service members in courts-martial: Jones Day attorney biography; andersfolk.com \"About\"; Veterans Defense Project board profile. Navy Commendation Medal and admission to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces: Jones Day biography (firm biographies are self-reported). Assistant U.S. Attorney, D. Minn., including al-Shabaab recruitment investigations and July 2011 congressional testimony; First Assistant U.S. Attorney 2018\u20132021; Acting U.S. Attorney March\u2013November 2021; senior counsel to the Deputy Attorney General of the United States: Jones Day biography; Star Tribune (March 2021). Federal civil-rights indictment of Derek Chauvin and three former officers, and the opening of the pattern-or-practice investigation of the Minneapolis Police Department during"},{"u":"/blog-the-debt-that-follows-you-for-a-decade","t":"Seventy Percent of Debt Lawsuits Are Won Without the Person Ever Showing Up. Then the Judgment Follows Them for a Decade.","d":"A debt buyer pays four cents on the dollar for your old account, sues, wins by default because you didn't know to show up, and gets a judgment that lasts ten years \u2014 renewable to twenty. Minnesota actually fixed some of the worst parts. Here's what it got right, and the gap that's left.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-08-02","b":"What Minnesota got right \u2014 and it's a lot The gaps that are left Why this is a fairness problem, not just a debtor's problem What we can do Sources Seventy Percent of Debt Lawsuits Are Won Without the Person Ever Showing Up. Then the Judgment Follows Them for a Decade. Here's how the machine works, and I've watched it run from the debtor's side of the table for twenty years. A company you owed money to a decade ago charged the debt off and sold it \u2014 as part of a portfolio, for about four cents on the dollar. The buyer, who paid two hundred dollars for a five-thousand-dollar account, sues you. You may not recognize the company's name; you may not get the notice; you may not know that not showing up means you automatically lose. So you don't show up. And nationally, that's how it goes: more than 70 percent of debt-collection lawsuits end in a default judgment \u2014 a win for the collector because the person on the other side never appeared. Then the judgment attaches to your life. In Minnesota it lasts ten years , becomes a lien on your home, enables garnishment of your wages, and can be renewed for another ten \u2014 twenty years or more of a debt someone bought for pennies. That's the grim version. Now let me tell you the part that's genuinely good news, because Minnesota did something a lot of states haven't. What Minnesota got right \u2014 and it's a lot I came into this expecting to write that Minnesota lets debt collectors run wild. The statutes say otherwise, and I'm going to report that honestly, because a series that only tells you what's broken isn't credible when something works. Minnesota bars the zombie itself. In most of t Minnesota judgment and debt statutes, verified verbatim against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the ten-year life of a judgment and its lien (Minn. Stat. \u00a7 548.09); the ability to bring a new action on a judgment within ten years of entry, enabling renewal (\u00a7 541.04); judgment interest for consumer judgments of $50,000 or less at the one-year Treasury rate or four percent, whichever is greater, as simple interest (\u00a7 549.09); the six-year statute of limitations on contract debt (\u00a7 541.05); the 2013 prohibition on reviving time-barred consumer debt by payment, partial payment, or reaffirmation (\u00a7 541.053); the requirement that a debt buyer prove a valid and complete chain of assignment, the original contract, an accurate charged-off balance, and a 14-day notice before obtaining a default judgment (\u00a7 548.101); and the income-based garnishment tiers (\u00a7 571.922). The 2024 Debt Fairness Act (2024 "},{"u":"/blog-who-owns-minnesota","t":"Who Owns Minnesota? The Honest Answer Is Less Scary and More Interesting Than the Slogans.","d":"Foreign investors hold 1.9 percent of Minnesota farmland \u2014 below the national average, and Chinese holdings total 442 acres. But we have a 1977 law against it that has apparently never been enforced, a half-built steel mill that taught us what leverage looks like, and a states'-rights toolbox most politicians treat as a bumper sticker. The verified ledger.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-31","b":"The farmland number, deflated The law we already have \u2014 and apparently never use The half-built steel mill that taught us what leverage looks like States' rights is a toolbox, not a bumper sticker What we can do Sources Who Owns Minnesota? The Honest Answer Is Less Scary and More Interesting Than the Slogans. \"Foreign interests are buying up Minnesota\" is a great applause line, and I'm not going to give it to you, because the numbers don't. What the numbers do support is more useful \u2014 and, frankly, more damning about how our own government does its job. So let's read the actual ledger. I care about this for a plain reason. A state that doesn't know who owns it can't protect itself, and a state that exaggerates the threat can't be trusted when the threat is real. Both failures are avoidable. Both require the same thing: counting honestly. The farmland number, deflated Per the U.S. Department of Agriculture's most recent report, foreign investors held 603,699 acres of Minnesota agricultural land as of the end of 2024 \u2014 1.9 percent of the state's privately held farmland. That is below the national average of 3.6 percent, and well below neighbors like Michigan at 8.8 percent. The \"China is buying our food supply\" version is smaller still. In all of Minnesota, Chinese-owned agricultural holdings total 442 acres \u2014 two parcels owned by a seed company, in Clay and Goodhue counties. The largest foreign holders here are, in order, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Italy. If you're picturing a foreign flag over the family farm, the flag is mostly the Union Jack, and it's over about one acre in fifty. I'll give the honest caveat, because it cuts the other way: this data is self-reported. The federal discl USDA Farm Service Agency, Foreign Holdings of U.S. Agricultural Land through December 31, 2024 (posted January 2026), read directly from the report PDF \u2014 Minnesota's 603,699 foreign-held acres (1.9 percent of privately held agricultural land), the national 3.6 percent average, the two-year change, the country-by-country breakdown led by the United Kingdom, Canada, and Italy, the 216,659 acres of foreign-held forest land, and the 442 acres of Chinese-held land (Syngenta Seeds parcels in Clay and Goodhue counties); the report's self-reported nature and acknowledged data-quality limits are noted. Minn. Stat. \u00a7 500.221 (the 1977 restriction on foreign ownership of agricultural land and the commissioner of agriculture's investigation and enforcement authority), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov; no reported Minnesota decision enforcing it and no public record of"},{"u":"/blog-the-9000-dollar-fee-hiding-in-your-solar-loan","t":"That '0% Solar Financing' Isn't Free. There's a Fee of Up to 50% Hidden in the Loan \u2014 and You'll Never See It on the Paperwork.","d":"The panels are fine. The financing is the scam. Federal regulators found solar 'dealer fees' of 10 to 50 percent baked invisibly into the loan, so a financed buyer pays thousands more than a cash buyer for the identical system. Minnesota already gives you a 3-day right to cancel a door-to-door solar sale. Here's how to use it.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-30","b":"The $9,000 you can't see When the company vanishes and the loan doesn't Federal enforcement \u2014 and one Minnesota-specific caution The protection Minnesota already gives you What we can do Sources That \"0% Solar Financing\" Isn't Free. There's a Fee of Up to 50% Hidden in the Loan \u2014 and You'll Never See It on the Paperwork. Let me be clear about what this article is and isn't. It is not against solar. Minnesota's clean-energy goals are good, rooftop solar is a legitimate product, and plenty of Minnesotans have installed it and been glad they did. This is about the sales and financing \u2014 the door-knock, the pitch, and a fee so well-hidden that most people who pay it never know it exists. I've spent my career reading the fine print that companies write knowing you won't. This is one of the cleverest hiding jobs I've seen. The $9,000 you can't see Here's how solar financing actually works, straight from a federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau investigation in 2024. When you finance a solar system \u2014 and most people do; loans were 58 percent of the residential-solar market \u2014 the lender charges the installer a \"dealer fee\" for offering the low advertised interest rate. That fee, the CFPB found, \"typically ranges from between 10 to 30 percent of the cash price but can exceed 50 percent.\" And it gets baked invisibly into the amount you finance. The Bureau's own worked example: a system that costs $30,000 in cash carries a 30 percent dealer fee of $9,000 \u2014 so the loan is written for $39,000. The lender pays the installer the $30,000 and keeps the $9,000. And here's the trick: because it's structured as part of the price rather than a finance charge, it never shows up as th Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, \"Issue Spotlight: Solar Financing\" (Aug. 7, 2024), read from the CFPB materials: the finding that hidden dealer fees \"typically range from between 10 to 30 percent of the cash price but can exceed 50 percent\"; the worked example of a $30,000 cash system financed at $39,000 after a $9,000 (30 percent) dealer fee not disclosed as a cost of credit; loans as 58 percent of the 2023 residential-solar market; and the finding that 2.8 million of 8.4 million solar advertisements over 2021\u201323 targeted older adults. FTC enforcement: United States v. Solar Xchange LLC (FTC Matter 2223063; D. Ariz. No. 2:23-cv-01387, filed July 18, 2023), naming Vision Solar LLC, Solar XChange LLC, and Mark Getts, part of \"Operation Stop Scam Calls,\" resulting in a $13.8 million partially suspended civil penalty over tens of millions of calls to Do Not Call-listed numbers. The Su"},{"u":"/blog-the-oldest-sovereignty-in-minnesota","t":"If You Believe in States' Rights, You Should Understand the Oldest and Strongest Sovereignty in Minnesota \u2014 the Eleven Nations Within It.","d":"Minnesota's eleven tribal nations aren't a subcategory of state government; they are separate sovereigns that predate the state and, in law, outrank it. They opened the first legal cannabis dispensaries two years before the state market, hold treaty rights the Supreme Court has upheld, and are getting land back. A respectful, accurate accounting.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-30","b":"Eleven nations, not one story What sovereignty actually looks like in practice Why it legally outranks the state The relationship is actually improving What we can do Sources If You Believe in States' Rights, You Should Understand the Oldest and Strongest Sovereignty in Minnesota \u2014 the Eleven Nations Within It. This campaign talks a lot about self-government \u2014 that power belongs closest to the people, that Minnesota shouldn't outsource its decisions to Washington. If you actually believe that principle, then intellectual honesty requires understanding the truest example of it in this state, one that predates Minnesota itself: the sovereignty of the eleven tribal nations within our borders. I want to write about this carefully and without romanticizing it, because both the sentimental version and the dismissive version get it wrong. Tribal sovereignty is not a cultural courtesy or a historical footnote. It is a legal fact, older than the state and, in the constitutional hierarchy, above it. Eleven nations, not one story Minnesota is home to eleven federally recognized tribal nations \u2014 seven Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) and four Dakota. The Ojibwe: Bois Forte, Fond du Lac, Grand Portage, Leech Lake, Mille Lacs, White Earth, and Red Lake. The Dakota: Lower Sioux, Prairie Island, Shakopee Mdewakanton, and Upper Sioux. They are not a bloc; they are distinct governments with distinct histories. Red Lake stands apart even among sovereigns. It is the only fully \"closed\" reservation in the United States \u2014 its land is held in common by the whole nation, never allotted to individuals. Red Lake resisted the federal allotment policy that broke up most reservations, re The eleven federally recognized tribal nations in Minnesota (seven Ojibwe \u2014 Bois Forte, Fond du Lac, Grand Portage, Leech Lake, Mille Lacs, White Earth, Red Lake \u2014 and four Dakota \u2014 Lower Sioux, Prairie Island, Shakopee Mdewakanton, Upper Sioux), per the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council; Red Lake's status as the only fully closed/unallotted reservation, its rejection of allotment and of the 1934 reorganization, its hereditary-chief governance, and its 2020 population and land base. Gaming: the Shakopee Mdewakanton Community's Mystic Lake as a leading Scott County employer, its national philanthropy to Indian Country, and its lending to other tribes (specific dollar and revenue figures were flagged for verification and are described in general terms). Cannabis: adult-use legalization effective August 1, 2023; Minn. Stat. \u00a7 3.9224 (2023 Minn. Laws ch. 63), verified against raw text at revi"},{"u":"/blog-the-county-with-no-lawyer","t":"Five Minnesota Counties Have Almost No Lawyers. One Couldn't Field a Candidate for County Attorney Because Nobody Qualified Lives There.","d":"Minnesota has 4.6 lawyers per 1,000 people statewide \u2014 but 9.2 in the metro and 2.3 outside it, with five northern counties in true 'legal desert' territory. Meanwhile 92 percent of low-income Americans' civil legal problems get no real help. The shortage, and the recruitment model that's actually working next door.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-28","b":"The map of the desert The bigger gap: justice most people can't afford What works \u2014 and it's working right next door What we can do Sources Five Minnesota Counties Have Almost No Lawyers. One Couldn't Field a Candidate for County Attorney Because Nobody Qualified Lives There. Here is a sentence that should not be possible in 2026, and it's true: in Red Lake County, Minnesota, no one is running for county attorney \u2014 because not a single attorney lives there. Minnesota law requires the county attorney to reside in the county. Red Lake County has no resident lawyer eligible to hold the job. When the last one retired in 2023, the county board had to appoint attorneys from a neighboring county to cover it. As a lawyer, I find that a professional failure of my own profession. As someone who wants this state to actually function, I find it a warning about a much bigger gap. The map of the desert Minnesota looks fine on the statewide average \u2014 about 4.6 attorneys per 1,000 residents, seventh-highest in the country. But the average hides everything. In the Twin Cities metro it's 9.2 per 1,000. Outside the metro it's 2.27. And in five northern counties \u2014 Red Lake, Marshall, Norman, Clearwater, and Roseau \u2014 it drops below one attorney per thousand residents, the threshold researchers use to define a \"legal desert.\" And it's getting worse, because the rural bar is aging out. As one of the attorneys now covering Red Lake County put it: \"The attorneys that we have in this area are aging out.\" When the current generation retires, there's often no one behind them. A county without a lawyer isn't just missing a prosecutor \u2014 it's  The Red Lake County lead: KAXE reporting (Aug. 17, 2026), \"No one is running for Red Lake County attorney. Because not a single attorney lives there,\" including the five northern \"legal desert\" counties (Red Lake, Marshall, Norman, Clearwater, Roseau) below one attorney per 1,000 residents; the statewide figure of 4.6 attorneys per 1,000 (seventh-highest nationally), the Twin Cities metro figure of 9.21, and the outside-metro figure of 2.27; the county-attorney residency requirement and the appointment timeline (retirement 2023; out-of-county appointments in 2023 and July 2026); and the quoted attorney's observation that the local bar is \"aging out.\" Civil justice gap: Legal Services Corporation, \"The Justice Gap\" (April 2022) \u2014 92 percent of low-income Americans' civil legal problems receive no or insufficient help, and 74 percent faced at least one civil legal problem in the prior year"},{"u":"/blog-twelve-minutes-per-client","t":"A Minnesota Public Defender Handles Roughly 280 Cases a Year. The National Standard Says That's About Three Times Too Many.","d":"Public defenders represent 80 to 90 percent of everyone charged with a crime in Minnesota \u2014 the constitutional guarantee from Gideon made real. They do it about 150 attorneys short of national standards, for $20,000 less than the prosecutors across the aisle, while cases in some counties now take a year to reach a first hearing.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-27","b":"The promise, and who keeps it The standard says that's about triple what one lawyer can do right What too many cases actually does The pay gap that bleeds the talent And a coverage gap above the line What we can do Sources A Minnesota Public Defender Handles Roughly 280 Cases a Year. The National Standard Says That's About Three Times Too Many. I've stood on both sides of a criminal courtroom. As an Air Force JAG officer I prosecuted cases; in civilian practice I've watched the machinery from the defense side. So let me tell you something the public rarely hears said plainly: the right to a lawyer when the government accuses you is not a technicality or a favor to the guilty. It's the difference between a justice system and a conviction machine. And in Minnesota, the people who deliver that right are drowning. The promise, and who keeps it In 1963, in Gideon v. Wainwright , the Supreme Court held that if you're too poor to hire a lawyer and the state is trying to put you in prison, the state must give you one. That promise, in Minnesota, is kept by the Board of Public Defense \u2014 and it's kept at enormous scale. Public defenders represent 80 to 90 percent of everyone charged with a crime in this state. The overwhelming majority of criminal defendants in Minnesota are represented by a public defender, not a private attorney. This is not a niche program. It is the criminal justice system, for most of the people in it. The Board fields roughly 590 attorneys and handles over 150,000 cases a year. Do the arithmetic and each assistant public defender carries something on the order of 280 cases a year \u2014 and that's cases opened, not weighted by how hard they are. The standard says that's about triple wha Minnesota Board of Public Defense figures from the Board's \"About Us\" page (pubdef.state.mn.us), stated as FY 2024: approximately 590 attorneys, 530 assistant public defenders, over 150,000 cases handled per year across ten judicial districts, and an FY 2024 budget of $154 million (the roughly 280-cases-per-attorney figure is this article's arithmetic from those totals and is cases opened, not weighted). National Public Defense Workload Study, RAND (RRA2559-1, 2023), with the American Bar Association and defense-bar collaborators \u2014 the empirically derived hours-per-case standards (about 248 hours for murder, 57 for a mid-severity felony, 14 for a low-severity misdemeanor), replacing the 1973 National Advisory Commission standards criticized as outdated and undifferentiated. The \"upwards of 150 lawyers short\" characterization, the prosecutor pay gap (top assistant "},{"u":"/blog-the-drone-over-your-neighborhood","t":"Minnesota Police Flew Drones 9,080 Times Last Year. We Know That \u2014 Because Minnesota Wrote a Law That Works.","d":"Most surveillance happens in the dark. Minnesota's drone law forces every department to report every flight, and the state publishes it. That transparency is a model worth defending \u2014 and it's also how we can see that a 'warrant required' law now runs on 9,080 warrantless flights a year, just as the company behind the license-plate cameras starts selling drones that launch on 911 calls.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-26","b":"A law built on sunlight What the receipts show The gap even a good law is starting to leave What we can do Sources Minnesota Police Flew Drones 9,080 Times Last Year. We Know That \u2014 Because Minnesota Wrote a Law That Works. Here's a number no one in most states can tell you: exactly how many times their police departments flew surveillance drones last year, why, and what it cost. In Minnesota, I can tell you, because Minnesota did something rare and smart. It wrote a surveillance law that produces public receipts. After the Flock license-plate scandal in this series \u2014 where the transparency law was the thing that exposed the abuse \u2014 I want to hold up the drone law as the version done right, and then show you the gap that even a good law is starting to leave open. A law built on sunlight Minnesota's law-enforcement drone statute (Minn. Stat. \u00a7 626.19) sits not in the aviation code but in the criminal-procedure and privacy chapter \u2014 because it's about surveillance, not flying. Its structure is genuinely good: - A warrant is the default for using a drone to gather information. - Weapons are banned. Facial recognition is banned without a warrant. Surveilling a protest is banned without a warrant. - Data must be destroyed within 7 days unless it's evidence. - Every use gets a documented, unique case number. - Before an agency can even buy a drone, it has to hold public comment and publish a written policy. - And the heart of it: every agency must report every warrantless flight to the state each year \u2014 the purpose and the cost \u2014 and the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension compiles it and publishes Minnesota's law-enforcement unmanned-aerial-vehicle statute, Minn. Stat. \u00a7 626.19, verified verbatim against raw text at revisor.mn.gov (enacted 2020 ch. 82; amended 2025 ch. 35, art. 5, effective July 1, 2025): the warrant default (subd. 2); the eleven authorized-use exceptions (subd. 3); the prohibitions on weapons, warrantless facial recognition, and warrantless protest surveillance (subd. 4); documentation with a unique case number (subd. 5); the 7-day data-destruction requirement (subd. 6(c)); the suppression remedy (subd. 7) and civil cause of action (subd. 8); the public-comment and published-policy requirements before purchase (subds. 9\u201310); and the annual public-reporting mandate under which agencies report warrantless uses and cost to the Commissioner of Public Safety and the BCA compiles and publishes an agency-by-agency report (subd. 12). Reporting figures from the BCA's comp"},{"u":"/blog-minnesota-privacy-law-turned-one","t":"Minnesota Passed One of America's Strongest Privacy Laws. In Its First Year, We Can't Find a Single Enforcement Action.","d":"The law gives Minnesotans a right most states don't have \u2014 to demand why an algorithm decided against you, and the list of every company your data went to. But only the Attorney General can enforce it, there's no private right of action, and other states with weaker laws are bringing cases while ours stays silent.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-26","b":"What the law actually gives you (and it's more than you'd guess) The two words that hollow it out: \"Attorney General\" Other states with weaker laws are actually bringing cases And the blind spot it can't reach at all What we can do Sources Minnesota Passed One of America's Strongest Privacy Laws. In Its First Year, We Can't Find a Single Enforcement Action. On July 31, 2025, Minnesota's Consumer Data Privacy Act took effect, and it is genuinely one of the best in the country. It gives Minnesotans rights most Americans don't have. A year later, the honest question is the one this series always asks: is anyone actually using it? As best I can determine from the public record, the answer so far is no. And that gap \u2014 between a powerful law and an invisible enforcement record \u2014 is the whole story. What the law actually gives you (and it's more than you'd guess) Most state privacy laws hand you the familiar basics: see your data, correct it, delete it, opt out of its sale. Minnesota's law (Minn. Stat. \u00a7\u00a7 325M.10\u2013.21) does all that, and then does two things almost no other state does. You can interrogate the algorithm. If a company uses automated profiling to make a decision about you with legal or similarly significant effects \u2014 a loan, an apartment, a job screen \u2014 Minnesota gives you the right to question the result, be told the reason it came out the way it did, and be told what you might have done differently. You can review the data that fed the decision, and if it was wrong, have it corrected and the decision reevaluated. Think about how radical that is: the black box has to open and explain itself, in Minnesota, on your request. You can get the list of who has your data. Under the same law, you can demand the s Minnesota Consumer Data Privacy Act, Minn. Stat. \u00a7\u00a7 325M.10\u2013.21, verified verbatim against the official Minnesota Statutes 2025 text at revisor.mn.gov \u2014 including the consumer rights at \u00a7 325M.14 (access, correction, deletion, portability, and opt-out at subd. 1(b)\u2013(f)); the Minnesota-distinctive right to question and reevaluate a profiling decision at subd. 1(g); the right to a list of specific third parties at subd. 1(h); the universal-opt-out-signal requirement at subd. 3; data minimization, the data-inventory duty, and sensitive-data consent (including precise geolocation and immigration status as sensitive data) at \u00a7\u00a7 325M.16 and 325M.11; the privacy-officer and assessment duties at \u00a7 325M.18; the Attorney-General-only enforcement, the $7,500-per-violation penalty, the express absence of a private right of action, and the 30-day cure period t"},{"u":"/blog-the-pension-promise-minnesota-kept","t":"You've Heard That Public Pensions Are a Time Bomb. Minnesota's Are Among the Healthiest in the Country \u2014 and the State Is Now *Raising* Benefits.","d":"The scary national story about public pensions mostly isn't Minnesota's story. The state's largest fund is 95% funded and climbing, the actuary uses conservative assumptions on purpose, and Minnesota is confident enough to be increasing retiree COLAs. This is what it looks like when a state fixes a problem before it becomes a crisis \u2014 with one real pressure point left to watch.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-23","b":"The numbers are good, and they got better again The state is confident enough to be increasing benefits The assumptions are conservative on purpose \u2014 the honest critic's point, answered The one real pressure point \u2014 and I won't wave it off Why did Minnesota end up in good shape while other states didn't? What we can do Sources You've Heard That Public Pensions Are a Time Bomb. Minnesota's Are Among the Healthiest in the Country \u2014 and the State Is Now Raising Benefits. There's a familiar national horror story about public pensions: bankrupt promises, cities like Detroit and states like Illinois drowning in unfunded liabilities, teachers and troopers who'll retire to find the money gone. It's a real story in some places. It is mostly not Minnesota's story \u2014 and the gap between the scary headline and the Minnesota numbers is worth understanding, because it's one of the clearest examples in this whole series of the state doing something right . I went to the primary source for this \u2014 the official July 1, 2025 actuarial valuations that the state's actuary files with the Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement. Here's what they actually say. The numbers are good, and they got better again Minnesota's public retirement money sits mostly in three systems: MSRS (state employees), PERA (local government and county workers), and TRA (teachers). Their funded ratios as of July 1, 2025: - MSRS General \u2014 95.0% funded. The state-employee fund is nearly fully funded, on the smoothed actuarial basis, and on market value it's about 98%. - PERA General \u2014 87.6% funded , up from 86.7% the year before. - TRA (teachers) \u2014 81.6% funded , up from 79.9%. - PERA Police & Fire \u2014 88.6% funded. Every one of those four big plans improved from 2024 to 2025. And the trend is not a one-year blip. The MSRS state-employee fu All funded ratios, liabilities, contribution rates, assumption figures, and the benefit-increase and investment-return data are from the official July 1, 2025 actuarial funding valuations prepared by Gabriel, Roeder, Smith & Co. (GRS) for the Minnesota Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement (LCPR), at lcpr.mn.gov: the MSRS General State Employees Retirement Fund valuation (funded ratio 95.0% AVA / 98.4% MVA; the 2016\u20132025 funded-ratio history table showing 81.6% in 2016, 88.8% in 2018, 99.9% in 2022, 95.0% in 2025; the July 1, 2025 plan-provision changes raising the post-retirement increase from 1.50% to 1.75% effective January 1, 2026 and the benefit multiplier from 1.70% to 1.90% for service after July 1, 2025; the 7.0% pre-retirement interest ass"},{"u":"/blog-the-forever-chemical-bill","t":"3M Made 'Forever Chemicals' in Minnesota and Paid Us $850 Million. The State's Own Books Already Show It Won't Be Enough.","d":"PFAS have contaminated the drinking water of Minnesota's east metro. 3M's landmark settlement is funding the cleanup \u2014 but the state's own spending reports show the money running short, with a cost-overrun reallocation already planned. Minnesota also passed one of the strongest PFAS bans in the country. What it does, and who pays next.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-23","b":"The contamination, and the settlement The books already show it's not enough Minnesota's answer: stop making the problem The parts still unresolved What we can do Sources 3M Made \"Forever Chemicals\" in Minnesota and Paid Us $850 Million. The State's Own Books Already Show It Won't Be Enough. They're called forever chemicals because that's roughly how long they last. PFAS \u2014 the family of compounds used in nonstick pans, stain-repellent fabric, firefighting foam, and a thousand other products \u2014 don't break down in the environment or in your body. They build up. And they were invented, and manufactured for decades, right here in Minnesota. This is a Minnesota story from beginning to end, and it's got a genuine villain, a genuine reform, and a bill that isn't fully paid. The contamination, and the settlement 3M made PFAS at its plant in Cottage Grove and disposed of the waste around the east metro for decades. The result is contaminated groundwater across Washington and Dakota counties \u2014 the drinking water of roughly a dozen communities. By the end of 2021 the state had issued more than 1,451 private-well advisories for PFAS. Minnesota sued, and in February 2018, 3M agreed to pay $850 million \u2014 one of the largest environmental settlements in state history, roughly $720 million after legal fees, jointly managed by the state's pollution-control and natural-resources agencies to fund clean drinking water in the affected area. It was a real win, and Attorney General Lori Swanson deserved the credit she got for it. The books already show it's not enough Here's the part that matters for anyone who thinks $850 million closes the book. It doesn't, and the The 3M PFAS settlement: the $850 million agreement (Feb. 20, 2018; suit filed 2010) resolving claims over east-metro groundwater contamination in Washington and Dakota counties, jointly administered by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and the Department of Natural Resources, with roughly $720 million net after fees \u2014 per the state's 3M settlement site (3msettlement.state.mn.us); the settlement conceptual spending plan (capital ~$317 million, operation and maintenance ~$115 million, protection ~$70 million, contingency ~$183 million, administration ~$15 million) and the fiscal 2025 spending report showing about $91.3 million spent, the capital account fully committed, $162.5 million of the $183 million contingency committed, and a roughly $26 million reallocation planned for fiscal 2026 due to cost overruns, read from the primary spending PDF. More than 1,451 private-well advisories"},{"u":"/blog-the-homestead-papers","t":"Minnesota Protected the Family Home Without Limit for 135 Years. Then One Bankrupt Doctor Changed the Law. It's Time to Change It Back.","d":"From 1858 to 1993, no creditor could take a Minnesota family's homestead no matter its value \u2014 and our own Supreme Court held that was constitutional. Then a physician tried to shelter $700,000 on the eve of bankruptcy, and the Legislature capped everyone. The federal fix that makes the abuse impossible today, the economics on both sides, and why Minnesota should return to its own tradition.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-20","b":"We had unlimited homestead protection for 135 years The one doctor who changed the law for everyone The abuse objection is already dead \u2014 Congress killed it in 2005 Who this actually protects \u2014 and it's not who you think The economics, honestly, both ways What we can do Sources Minnesota Protected the Family Home Without Limit for 135 Years. Then One Bankrupt Doctor Changed the Law. It's Time to Change It Back. I have spent most of my career on the debtor's side of the table \u2014 the side where a garnishment notice arrives, a judgment follows a family for a decade, and a medical crisis becomes a financial one. So when people ask why I care about something as dry as bankruptcy exemptions, the honest answer is that I've watched what happens to Minnesotans without them, and I've watched what the law protects when it works. Here's the question a friend of the campaign put to me, and it's the right one: Florida and Texas protect a family's home from creditors without any dollar limit at all. Why should we do less for the people of Minnesota? The answer turns out to be more interesting than either of us expected \u2014 because Minnesota didn't always do less. For most of our history, we did exactly what Texas does. We just forgot. We had unlimited homestead protection for 135 years From statehood in 1858 until 1993, a Minnesota family's homestead was exempt from creditors regardless of its value. A judgment creditor could not take your home to satisfy a debt, whether the home was worth ten thousand dollars or ten million. This wasn't an oversight. It was a deliberate 19th-century promise, rooted in the same populist, agrarian conviction that built the homestead exemption across the frontier: that a family's roof is not a creditor's collateral, and that a person w Minnesota homestead exemption: Minn. Stat. \u00a7\u00a7 510.01\u2013510.02 and the personal-property exemptions at \u00a7 550.37 (including the $10,000 motor-vehicle exemption added by the 2024 Debt Fairness Act and the 160-acre agricultural homestead limit after the half-acre urban limit was repealed in 2007), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov; the current dollar figures \u2014 $540,000 general and $1,350,000 agricultural, effective July 1, 2026 \u2014 from the Minnesota Department of Commerce biennial adjustment notice published in the State Register (50 SR 1156\u201357, Apr. 27, 2026), which supersedes the $510,000/$1,275,000 figures printed in the 2025 Statutes edition. The history of Minnesota's unlimited homestead exemption (1858\u20131993) and its constitutionality: In re Haggerty , 448 N.W.2d 363 (Minn. 1989); the \"reasonable amou"},{"u":"/blog-where-the-opioid-money-went","t":"Minnesota Is Getting $633 Million From the Opioid Settlements. Some of It Bought Police K-9s. Here's the Ledger.","d":"Minnesota promised to publicly report 100 percent of its opioid-settlement spending \u2014 one of only 20 states to do so, and a real bright spot. But the receipts already show drift: money meant to save lives spent on drug dogs and a debunked fentanyl-detection device. What works, what doesn't, and why the tracking matters.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-20","b":"The accountability bright spot The drift the receipts already show The outcomes \u2014 genuinely hopeful, with an asterisk What works \u2014 and Minnesota knows it What we can do Sources Minnesota Is Getting $633 Million From the Opioid Settlements. Some of It Bought Police K-9s. Here's the Ledger. The companies that fueled the opioid epidemic are paying for it \u2014 more than $50 billion nationally, across settlements with the distributors, Johnson & Johnson, the pharmacy chains, and the Sacklers behind Purdue. Minnesota's running share is about $633 million so far , arriving in installments over roughly two decades. That money is supposed to do one thing: repair the damage the epidemic did, and stop it from doing more. Whether it actually does depends entirely on whether anyone is watching where it goes. So let's watch. The accountability bright spot I'll lead with what Minnesota got right, because it's real and it's rare. Nationally, the great scandal of the opioid settlements is that about a third of the money is untrackable \u2014 states and counties took the cash with weak strings, and much of it vanished into general budgets, or bought things that have nothing to do with treating addiction. Minnesota did better. It committed to publicly report 100 percent of its settlement spending \u2014 one of only about 20 states to do so. Counties are required to report to the state. There's a dedicated fund (the Opiate Epidemic Response Account) and an advisory council that's supposed to steer the money toward evidence-based uses, using the frameworks that experts at Johns Hopkins and RAND developed for exactly this. On the architecture, Minnesota is a model. One correction wor Minnesota opioid-settlement figures per the Minnesota Attorney General's office (ag.state.mn.us/opioids) and Minnesota Reformer reporting (Nov. 20, 2025) putting the running Minnesota total at about $633 million: the distributors and Johnson & Johnson (~$300 million over 18 years), Teva/Allergan/Walmart/CVS/Walgreens (~$243 million), Purdue/Sackler (~$59 million), and an eight-manufacturer settlement (~$9 million); the 75-percent-local / 25-percent-state split under the Minnesota opioid memorandum of agreement; the Opiate Epidemic Response Fund and advisory council (Minn. Stat. \u00a7\u00a7 256.042 and 256.043). Accountability comparison: Christine Minhee's opioidsettlementtracker as cited by the Reformer, identifying Minnesota as one of about 20 states committed to reporting 100 percent of spending, and KFF reporting that roughly a third of national settlement money is untrackable, that more than"},{"u":"/blog-keeping-the-lights-on-through-2040","t":"Minnesota's Law Requires 100% Carbon-Free Power by 2040. The Same Law Has an Off-Ramp Most People Have Never Heard Of.","d":"The reliability fight over Minnesota's clean-energy mandate is louder than it is honest. The 2040 law contains a mandatory off-ramp: the PUC 'shall' delay the standard if reliability is at risk. Minnesota is already 51% carbon-free. The real question isn't the deadline \u2014 it's transmission and what happens on the coldest night of the year.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-18","b":"The off-ramp nobody mentions Where Minnesota actually is The two real challenges \u2014 and they're not the deadline What works \u2014 and some of it is being built here What we can do Sources Minnesota's Law Requires 100% Carbon-Free Power by 2040. The Same Law Has an Off-Ramp Most People Have Never Heard Of. The argument over Minnesota's clean-energy law usually runs at two volumes: \"the mandate will freeze us in the dark\" and \"reliability worries are just fossil-fuel propaganda.\" Both are louder than they are accurate. Let me turn the volume down and read the actual statute, because it settles more of this fight than either side admits. January in the Minnesota woods. Winter is when the grid is asked to do the most, and it is the season every plan on this page has to survive. Photo: Dave Madgett • Long Lake The off-ramp nobody mentions Minnesota's 2040 law (Minn. Stat. \u00a7 216B.1691) does require electric utilities to reach 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2040 \u2014 with an 80-percent milestone by 2030 for the big utilities. That part everyone knows. Here's the part that almost never makes the debate. The very same statute, in subdivision 2b, says the Public Utilities Commission \"shall modify or delay\" the standard when doing so is in the public interest \u2014 and it specifically directs the commission to weigh \"the reliability of the electric system,\" rate impacts, transmission constraints, and technical feasibility. That's not a loophole someone has to sue for. It's a mandatory, built-in reliability off-ramp, written into the law by the same legislature that set the deadline. So the honest framing of the 2040 law is: it's an ambitious target with a legal saf Minnesota's carbon-free standard, Minn. Stat. \u00a7 216B.1691, verified verbatim against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the 80-percent-by-2030 (public utilities) and 100-percent-by-2040 (all utilities) carbon-free standards (subd. 2g), and the mandatory off-ramp under which the Public Utilities Commission \"shall modify or delay\" the standard when in the public interest, weighing reliability, rate impacts, transmission constraints, and technical concerns (subd. 2b). Generation mix from U.S. Energy Information Administration 2024 data (released September 2025), parsed from the EIA data file: total generation 58,595,222 MWh; natural gas 27.1 percent, wind 25.2, nuclear 20.2, coal 19.5, solar 3.9 \u2014 carbon-free (nuclear, wind, solar, hydro) totaling 50.8 percent. Reliability: NERC 2024 Long-Term Reliability Assessment (read from the report PDF) rating MISO at elevated risk (originally rated high ris"},{"u":"/blog-the-cameras-that-follow-you-home","t":"A Cop in Texas Searched 83,000 Cameras Nationwide for a Woman Who Had an Abortion. Some of Them Were in Minnesota's Suburbs.","d":"Thirty agencies searched Twin Cities suburbs' license-plate cameras for immigration enforcement. Fridley's cameras were searched 390,000 times in a month. Minnesota has one of the strongest ALPR laws in the country \u2014 and it's how we found out. The gaps, and the fix.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-17","b":"What happened in our own suburbs Why Minnesota's law is the hero and the map at the same time The company, and the scale What Minnesotans did about it \u2014 this is the encouraging part The data-broker shadow behind all of it Minnesota's other new tool \u2014 and its blind spot What we can do Sources A Cop in Texas Searched 83,000 Cameras Nationwide for a Woman Who Had an Abortion. Some of Them Were in Minnesota's Suburbs. Start with the sentence that should stop you cold. In May 2025, a Texas sheriff's office searched the data of more than 83,000 automatic license-plate cameras across the country \u2014 looking for a woman who had allegedly ended her own pregnancy. The network it used reaches into states where abortion is legal. It reaches into Minnesota. That is not a dystopian hypothetical. It is a logged search, uncovered through public records, reported by 404 Media. And it is the clearest possible illustration of what these camera networks actually are: not a tool your town controls, but a door your town leaves open to every other jurisdiction in America. Then it came home. And here is the part I want you to sit with, because it cuts against the easy story: the reason we know what happened in Minnesota is that Minnesota has one of the strongest surveillance-transparency laws in the country. The problem and the proof come from the same statute. What happened in our own suburbs In July 2026, the Star Tribune requested the audit logs that Minnesota law requires every police department to keep for these cameras. What those logs showed: about 30 state, county, and federal agencies searched license-plate data in at least eight Twin Cities suburbs for immigration enforcement between November and March \u2014 during Operation Metro Surge, the winter ICE crackdown documented earlier i Minn. Stat. \u00a7 13.824 (Minnesota's automatic license-plate-reader law: the 60-day destruction requirement, the logged-justification and reasonable-suspicion requirements, the ban on a central state repository, the biennial audits, and the public agency list), verified verbatim against raw text at revisor.mn.gov; the BCA's published list of agencies using license-plate readers under subdivision 8. Minn. Stat. \u00a7\u00a7 325M.10\u2013.21, the Minnesota Consumer Data Privacy Act (effective July 31, 2025; the government-entity exemption at \u00a7 325M.12, the consumer rights and profiling-question right at \u00a7 325M.14, the data-inventory and sensitive-data-consent duties at \u00a7 325M.16, the AG-only enforcement and no-private-right-of-action at \u00a7 325M.20, and the January 31, 2026 sunset of the cure period), verified agains"},{"u":"/blog-target-needs-your-consent-the-police-dont","t":"To Scan Your Face, Target Needs Your Consent. The Police Need Nothing.","d":"Minnesota's new privacy law makes your face 'sensitive data' a company can't use without permission. Then it exempts the government entirely. So the mall that scans you must ask; the police running facial recognition on the same face don't. The gap, the wrongful arrests, and the fix.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-16","b":"Who's actually scanning faces in Minnesota Why this is dangerous even if you've done nothing wrong What works \u2014 and Minnesota knows it, because it did it for consumers What we can do Sources To Scan Your Face, Target Needs Your Consent. The Police Need Nothing. Minnesota just did something genuinely good and genuinely strange in the same law. The good part: as of July 31, 2025, Minnesota's Consumer Data Privacy Act treats your biometric data \u2014 your faceprint \u2014 as \"sensitive data\" that a business cannot process without your consent. If a retailer wants to run facial recognition on you as you walk the aisles, it has to get permission first. That's real protection, and most states don't have it. The strange part: the same law exempts government entities entirely. So the private company at the mall needs your consent to scan your face \u2014 but the police department running facial recognition on that identical face need nothing at all. The strongest face-privacy right Minnesota has ever passed stops precisely at the government's door, which is exactly where the most consequential face-scanning happens. I'm a consumer-protection lawyer, and I'll tell you plainly: that's backwards. The entity that can arrest you should be more constrained than the entity that can sell you a sweater, not less. Who's actually scanning faces in Minnesota This isn't hypothetical. The documented users: - The Minneapolis Police Department and the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office have both used Clearview AI \u2014 the company that scraped billions of photos off the internet to build a face-search engine. - The Minnesota Commerce Fraud Bureau tested Clearview. - The Mall of America switched on mall-wid Minnesota Consumer Data Privacy Act, Minn. Stat. \u00a7\u00a7 325M.10\u2013.21, verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: biometric data as \"sensitive data\" requiring consent (\u00a7\u00a7 325M.11 and 325M.16(d)); the government-entity exemption (\u00a7 325M.12); Attorney-General-only enforcement with no private right of action (\u00a7 325M.20(d)). Minnesota facial-recognition users as documented: Minneapolis Police Department and Hennepin County Sheriff's Office use of Clearview AI, and the Minneapolis City Council's 13\u20130 vote (Feb. 12, 2021) barring city use \u2014 with the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office not covered by the city ban \u2014 per TechCrunch reporting; the Minnesota Commerce Fraud Bureau's testing of Clearview; Mall of America's activation of facial recognition (June 26, 2024). Bias data: NIST Interagency Report 8280 (Dec. 19, 2019), finding false-positive rates 10 to 100 times higher for Asian and African Americ"},{"u":"/blog-the-75-dollar-surcharge","t":"Minnesota Stopped Taking People's Licenses Over Unpaid Fines. It Still Adds $75 to Every Conviction \u2014 Even a Petty Ticket.","d":"In 2021 Minnesota did the right thing and ended debt-based license suspension. But a flat $75 surcharge still lands on every conviction down to a petty misdemeanor \u2014 where it can dwarf the fine itself \u2014 and court debt as small as $25 triggers a tax-refund seizure. How the system makes being poor expensive.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-16","b":"The $75 that lands on everything What happens when you can't pay And the jail nobody was sentenced to What we can do Sources Minnesota Stopped Taking People's Licenses Over Unpaid Fines. It Still Adds $75 to Every Conviction \u2014 Even a Petty Ticket. Let me start with credit where it's earned, because Minnesota got a big one right. For years, across most of the country, if you couldn't pay a traffic fine, the state took your driver's license. Which meant you couldn't legally drive to the job you needed to earn the money to pay the fine to get the license back. It was a debt trap dressed up as public safety, and it caught about 11 million Americans at its peak. In 2021, Minnesota ended it. State law now flatly prohibits suspending a license \"based solely on\" failure to pay a fine or surcharge, and bars suspension for failing to appear on a petty-misdemeanor citation. Suspension is now reserved for what it should be \u2014 dangerous driving, DWI, injury crashes. Minnesota was ahead of most of the country here; twenty-six states have since made similar reforms. That's the good news. Now the part that's still a poverty tax. The $75 that lands on everything Every criminal conviction in Minnesota \u2014 felony down to petty misdemeanor \u2014 carries an automatic $75 surcharge on top of the fine. Read that again: it applies to a petty misdemeanor, an offense that by definition isn't even a crime and carries a maximum fine of a few hundred dollars. On a low-level offense, the surcharge can be larger than the underlying penalty itself. And it stacks. Minnesota law is explicit that the surcharge sits on top of the fine and a Minnesota statutes verified verbatim against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the prohibition on suspending a driver's license based solely on failure to pay a fine or surcharge and on failure to appear for a petty-misdemeanor citation (Minn. Stat. \u00a7 171.16, subds. 3 and 3a, enacted 2021 First Special Session, ch. 5, art. 4), and the safety-based suspension grounds that remain (\u00a7 171.18); the $75 surcharge on every conviction from felony to petty misdemeanor with its indigency waiver/community-service provision (\u00a7 357.021, subd. 6) and the rule that surcharges stack on fines and restitution (\u00a7 609.101); the Hennepin/Ramsey county law-library fee (\u00a7 134A.09); the tax-refund intercept for court debt as low as $25 (Revenue Recapture Act, \u00a7 270A.03); mandatory referral to the Department of Revenue at 121 days past due and to private collection agencies with added collection costs (\u00a7 16D.04), and "},{"u":"/blog-the-companies-that-know-youre-depressed","t":"There Are Companies That Know You're Depressed, Diabetic, and Behind on Your Bills \u2014 and Sell It for 12 Cents. Minnesota Can't Make Them Stop.","d":"Data brokers hold thousands of data points on nearly every American, sort us into segments like 'Rural and Barely Making It,' and sell mental-health and military-personnel data for pennies. California built a one-button 'delete me from all of them.' Minnesota's new privacy law forgot to.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-12","b":"What they actually have This isn't hypothetical \u2014 the harm is on the record Washington tried, then quit California built the button Minnesota forgot And there's a national-security angle even skeptics should hear What we can do Sources There Are Companies That Know You're Depressed, Diabetic, and Behind on Your Bills \u2014 and Sell It for 12 Cents. Minnesota Can't Make Them Stop. You've never heard of most of them, you never agreed to anything with them, and they know an astonishing amount about you. They're called data brokers, and the scale of what they hold is genuinely hard to believe until you see the numbers the companies themselves gave Congress. What they actually have One major broker, Acxiom, told a Senate committee it holds data on approximately 700 million consumers worldwide and maintains over 3,000 \"propensities\" for nearly every U.S. consumer \u2014 3,000 predicted traits about you. Another gave Congress a list of about 75,000 individual data elements it collects. The Federal Trade Commission, studying nine brokers, found one holding 700 billion data elements and another adding 3 billion new data points every month. And it's not just your zip code and your car. The categories they sort and sell are intimate and predatory. The FTC documented brokers selling segments built around health conditions \u2014 depression, diabetes, ADHD, cancer \u2014 and around financial vulnerability , with segment names like \"Rural and Barely Making It\" and \"Credit Crunched: City Families.\" A Duke University study in 2023 found data brokers openly selling mental-health data \u2014 lists of people with depression and anxiety \u2014 for about $275 per 5,000 records. Another Duke study found brokers selling data on U.S. military service members  Scale and categories: U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, \"A Review of the Data Broker Industry\" (Dec. 18, 2013) \u2014 Acxiom's approximately 700 million consumers and over 3,000 propensities per U.S. consumer, and a broker's roughly 75,000 data elements; FTC, \"Data Brokers: A Call for Transparency and Accountability\" (2014) \u2014 a broker holding 700 billion data elements and 1.4 billion consumer transactions, another adding 3 billion data points monthly, and the health and financial-vulnerability segments including \"Rural and Barely Making It.\" Sensitive-data sales: Duke University (Joanne Kim, Feb. 2023) on brokers selling mental-health data (11 of 37 brokers; about $275 per 5,000 records); Duke University (Justin Sherman, Nov. 2023) on brokers selling U.S. military-personnel data for as little as $0.12 per record. FTC enforcement: FTC v. Kochava (Aug. 2022"},{"u":"/blog-the-subscription-you-forgot-youre-paying-for","t":"You Think You Spend $86 a Month on Subscriptions. It's $219. Minnesota Just Made It Legal to Get Out.","d":"A federal court that covers Minnesota struck down the FTC's 'click to cancel' rule six days before it took effect. But Minnesota passed its own \u2014 and it's strong. What the law actually requires, the retention-gauntlet tactics it bans, and the one weak spot that keeps it from having teeth.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-11","b":"The federal rule died \u2014 in the court that covers us What Minnesota's law actually requires The tactics it bans are real, and measured The honest weakness \u2014 and why I'd fix it What we can do Sources You Think You Spend $86 a Month on Subscriptions. It's $219. Minnesota Just Made It Legal to Get Out. Ask people what they spend on subscriptions and they'll guess about $86 a month. When researchers had them actually add it up, the real number was $219 \u2014 a blind spot of roughly $1,600 a year. And 42 percent admitted they were still paying for something they'd stopped using and forgotten about. That gap is not an accident of human forgetfulness. It's the business model. Auto-renewal is a machine for converting your inertia into somebody's revenue, and the whole game is friction: sign-up takes one click, cancellation takes a phone tree, a \"are you sure,\" a \"here's 30% off to stay,\" and a chat window that opens only during business hours in a time zone that isn't yours. The industry even has a name for it \u2014 the \"roach motel.\" Easy in, engineered to be hard out. Here's the good news most Minnesotans missed: as of January 1, 2025, that's illegal in Minnesota. And the story of how we got there is a small master class in why state law matters. The federal rule died \u2014 in the court that covers us In October 2024, the Federal Trade Commission finalized a national \"click to cancel\" rule: if you could subscribe online, you had to be able to cancel online, just as easily. It was set to take effect in the spring of 2025. It never did. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals \u2014 the federal court whose jurisdiction includes Minnesota \u2014 struck the rule down on July 8, 2025, six days before its co Minnesota's automatic-renewal law, Minn. Stat. \u00a7\u00a7 325G.56\u2013325G.63, verified verbatim against raw text at revisor.mn.gov \u2014 including the up-front clear-and-conspicuous disclosure and affirmative-consent requirements (\u00a7 325G.57), the prohibition on abusive tactics to delay cancellation and the once-per-attempt limit on retention offers (\u00a7 325G.58, subd. 4), the online \"termination election\" requirement and its checkbox/button standard (\u00a7 325G.60), the requirement that cancellation be as easy and accessible as sign-up (\u00a7 325G.57, subd. 2), the free-trial reminder window and the annual continuous-service notice, the unconditional-gift remedy (\u00a7 325G.61), the exemptions (\u00a7 325G.62, which do not cover streaming, gyms, software, or subscription boxes), and the good-faith safe harbor that is the chapter's only internal enforcement provision (\u00a7 325G.63); the January 1, 2025 effective date per 202"},{"u":"/blog-the-slow-flip","t":"He Sold the Same Houses Over and Over to Somali Families. A Jury Just Called It What It Was.","d":"A contract for deed can strip a family's entire investment after one missed payment \u2014 no foreclosure, no redemption, no surplus. One Minnesota seller ran that play on about 160 Muslim buyers, marketing it as 'sharia-compliant.' A jury found him liable this June. And in 2024 Minnesota finally rewrote the law.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-11","b":"The slow flip Why it hits the families it hits What Minnesota did in 2024 \u2014 and it's substantial What we can do Sources He Sold the Same Houses Over and Over to Somali Families. A Jury Just Called It What It Was. Most Minnesotans have never heard of a contract for deed, and that's exactly what makes it dangerous. It looks like buying a house. It is legally almost the opposite. In a contract for deed \u2014 sometimes called the \"poor man's mortgage\" \u2014 you make a down payment and monthly payments to a seller, but you don't get the title, and you build no real ownership, until you've paid the entire thing off , often after a balloon payment years down the road. Miss a payment along the way and the seller doesn't have to foreclose. Under Minnesota law, they serve a notice, wait out a short cure period, and then keep the house and every dollar you ever paid. No foreclosure sale. No six-month redemption period like a mortgage gets. No surplus returned to you. It just reverts, and your investment evaporates. I've spent my career on the wrong end of transactions like that, so let me show you what it looks like when someone builds a business on it. The slow flip Between roughly 2017 and 2022, a Minnesota seller named Chadwick Banken sold about 160 homes on contracts for deed , marketing them specifically to Somali Muslim buyers as \"sharia-compliant\" \u2014 an alternative to interest-bearing mortgages that many observant Muslims won't take. Here's how a 2022 ProPublica and Sahan Journal investigation documented it working: inflated prices well above what the homes were worth, large down payments, roughly six perc Minnesota contract-for-deed statutes verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the out-of-court cancellation remedy and cure period (Minn. Stat. \u00a7 559.21), under which a seller who cancels keeps the property and prior payments with no foreclosure sale or redemption, contrasted with the mortgage redemption period (\u00a7 580.23); the 2024 reforms enacted as 2024 Minn. Laws ch. 123, art. 16, which amended \u00a7 559.21 (longer cure period for investor sellers; bars on cancellation of family-member and unrecorded contracts) and created the new chapter 559A (buyer disclosures with a 10-day cooling-off period, disclosure of the seller's own acquisition price, balloon and interest and amortization disclosure, a churning prohibition, and a two-year private right of action to rescind). The documented abuse: ProPublica and Sahan Journal investigation (2022) of Chadwick Banken's approximately 160 contrac"},{"u":"/blog-minnesota-sealed-1-9-million-records","t":"Under the Old System, It Would Have Taken 173 Years to Clear Minnesota's Eligible Records. The New One Did 1.9 Million in About a Year.","d":"For years, only 5 percent of eligible Minnesotans ever cleared a record that was blocking their job and their housing \u2014 because you had to hire a lawyer and petition. Minnesota made it automatic. This is what a government program looks like when it actually delivers \u2014 and the one gap that still lets old records haunt people.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-10","b":"The problem the old system created What Minnesota did \u2014 and what it delivered Why it matters \u2014 the economics are not close The gap that's left \u2014 because the record doesn't fully die What we can do Sources Under the Old System, It Would Have Taken 173 Years to Clear Minnesota's Eligible Records. The New One Did 1.9 Million in About a Year. This series has spent a lot of articles documenting Minnesota laws that sit unused. Here is the opposite \u2014 a Minnesota law that worked, at scale, fast. I'm going to give it the same scrutiny I give the failures, because a program that delivers deserves to be recognized exactly as clearly as one that doesn't. The problem the old system created An old criminal record \u2014 even a dismissed charge, even a decades-old low-level conviction you long ago moved past \u2014 quietly blocks people from jobs, apartments, and loans for the rest of their lives. Minnesota law let you clear an eligible record. But you had to know you qualified, hire a lawyer or navigate the petition process yourself, pay the fees, and wait. So almost nobody did. Research on Minnesota's \"second chance gap\" found that of roughly 470,000 Minnesotans with records eligible to be cleared, only about 5 percent ever got them cleared \u2014 a few thousand a year. At that rate, clearing the backlog of people already eligible would have taken about 173 years. Meanwhile that gap was costing Minnesotans an estimated $2.4 billion a year in lost earnings, and it fell hardest on Black and Native residents. A right that 95 percent of eligible people never exercise isn't really a right. It's a maze most people never find the entrance to. What Minnesota did \u2014 and what it delivered The Clean Slate Act (Minn. Minnesota Clean Slate Act, Minn. Stat. \u00a7 609A.015 (\"Automatic Expungement\"), verified verbatim against raw text at revisor.mn.gov \u2014 the three eligibility categories, the waiting periods, the BCA as the administering engine, and the retroactivity clause; created by 2023 Minn. Laws ch. 52, art. 7, \u00a7 12, effective January 1, 2025. Delivery figures from the BCA's \"Expungements\" data page as of July 14, 2026 \u2014 approximately 2,026,769 potentially eligible records, 1,888,375 expunged (about 98 percent), and the remainder in Judicial Branch review, with sealing beginning June 2025. The \"second chance gap\": Paper Prisons Initiative, \"Minnesota Second Chance Expungement Gap\" (Chien et al.) \u2014 roughly 470,000 eligible Minnesotans, about 5 percent uptake, roughly 2,700 clearances a year, an estimated 173-year backlog, an estimated $2.4 billion in annual lost earnings, and documented racial disp"},{"u":"/blog-five-billion-in-pull-tabs","t":"Minnesotans Wagered $4.9 Billion on Pull-Tabs Last Year. The Charities Kept 20 Cents on the Dollar. The State Kept More Than They Did.","d":"Minnesota has the largest charitable-gambling industry in the country, and it's booming. But the state's own numbers show taxes taking a bigger slice than the charitable missions the whole thing is supposed to fund \u2014 while $200 statewide went to problem-gambling programs against $195 million in gambling tax.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-08","b":"The state out-earns the charities The problem-gambling number that should end the conversation The slot-machine question and the stadium What we can do Sources Minnesotans Wagered $4.9 Billion on Pull-Tabs Last Year. The Charities Kept 20 Cents on the Dollar. The State Kept More Than They Did. Walk into a Minnesota bar, a VFW post, or a church fundraiser and you'll find the tablets and paper tickets \u2014 pull-tabs, e-tabs, the games that fund the youth hockey team and the food shelf. It feels local, small, charitable. The numbers are anything but small, and where the money actually ends up will surprise you. In fiscal 2024, Minnesotans wagered $4,935,680,755 through charitable-gambling organizations \u2014 nearly five billion dollars, up 8 percent in a year and growing at nearly 14 percent annually for a decade. It is, by the state Gambling Control Board's own account, the largest charitable-gambling industry in the nation. Pull-tabs are 95 percent of it, and electronic pull-tabs \u2014 the tablet games \u2014 are the rocket fuel. So who wins? Let's follow the money, using the state's own report. The state out-earns the charities Of every dollar wagered, about 85 cents goes back out as prizes \u2014 that's the nature of gambling. It's the remaining slice, the \"net receipts,\" where the real story is. Here's how the Gambling Control Board's FY2024 report breaks down that net: - Taxes \u2014 state, federal, and local \u2014 took 28.0 percent. The single biggest slice. - The actual charitable missions got 18.0 percent. Read that again. The charities' taxes and fees ($207 million) exceeded the money they kept for their own missions ($139 million) by $67 million. The sta Minnesota Gambling Control Board, FY2024 Annual Report (published April 2, 2025), read from the report PDF: gross receipts of $4,935,680,755 (up 8 percent; 13.8 percent average annual growth since FY2015); the characterization of Minnesota's as the nation's largest charitable-gambling industry; pull-tabs as roughly 95 percent of receipts; net receipts of about $712 million with roughly $4.22 billion (about 85.6 percent) paid in prizes; the allocation of net receipts showing taxes at 28.0 percent versus charitable-mission spending at 18.0 percent; organizations' taxes and fees of $207 million exceeding retained mission funds of $139 million by $67 million; approximately 20 cents of each net-receipt dollar reaching charity and 83 organizations under 10 cents; and the $200 statewide charitable-purpose spending on compulsive-gambling programs against $195 million in state gambling tax. The 2"},{"u":"/blog-minnesota-wage-theft-law-barely-used","t":"Minnesota Made Wage Theft a Felony in 2019. Prosecutors Have Charged It Twice.","d":"Stolen wages cost American workers more than all robbery, burglary, and car theft combined. Minnesota passed one of the toughest wage theft laws in the country \u2014 and got its first conviction six years later, against a painting contractor who underpaid five workers on a publicly funded job.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-07","b":"The scale Minnesota wrote a strong law. Then left it in the drawer. The case that finally worked, and how long it took The civil side works better. It is still glacial. The auditor already told us why this fails What works \u2014 and the irony at the center of it What we can do Sources Minnesota Made Wage Theft a Felony in 2019. Prosecutors Have Charged It Twice. Steal a $200 television from a Minneapolis store and you will be arrested, booked, and prosecuted, probably within the month. Steal $2,000 from the paycheck of the man who stocked that television, and the realistic worst case is that you eventually pay it back. That is not a metaphor. It is the documented state of Minnesota law enforcement, and the numbers behind it are worse than most people assume. The scale The Economic Policy Institute studied a single, narrow form of wage theft \u2014 employers paying less than the legal minimum wage \u2014 in the ten most populous states. It found 2.4 million workers underpaid , losing an average of $64 a week, about a quarter of their earnings . Extrapolated nationally, minimum-wage violations alone come to more than $15 billion a year. Then EPI put that number where it belongs, and I'd ask you to sit with the comparison: \" this number, $15 billion, exceeds the value of property crimes committed in the United States each year : according to the FBI, the total value of all robberies, burglaries, larceny, and motor vehicle theft in the United States in 2015 was $12.7 billion.\" That is EPI's own comparison, and the years line up: an estimated $15 billion in stolen wages against $12.7 billion in reported property-crime losses. On those numbers, more money is taken from American workers by their employers than by every robber, burglar, and car thief in the country combined Cooper & Kroeger, Employers steal billions from workers' paychecks each year , Economic Policy Institute (2017) \u2014 minimum-wage violation totals, the $64/week figure, and the verbatim comparison to FBI property-crime values for 2015. Barnes, Galvin, Round & Fine, Minimum Wage Non-Compliance in Minneapolis , Workplace Justice Lab@RU, Rutgers University (Nov. 2023) \u2014 the ~$90 million annual metro estimate, 32,000 workers, ~$2,700 per worker, the 2021 peak of $144.5 million, the conservative-estimate caveat, and the investigator-to-worker ratio; the study covers minimum-wage violations only and excludes the Wisconsin portion of the metro. Minnesota's 2019 wage theft law and related provisions verified at revisor.mn.gov (criminal theft grading; Minn. Stat. \u00a7\u00a7 181.03, 181.032, 177.27, 181.171, and \u00a7 181.165 gene"},{"u":"/blog-minnesota-roads-and-the-money","t":"Minnesota's Roads Are in Good Shape Today. The State's Own Projections Show Them Falling Apart by 2035.","d":"MnDOT beats every current pavement and bridge target \u2014 and projects the share of state highways in poor condition rising tenfold in a decade. A $15\u201320 billion gap, a delivery fee that raised $19.9 million, a light-rail line that went from $1.25 billion to $2.86 billion, and the safety number nobody expected.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-06","b":"The cliff The gap, and what the 2023 taxes actually raised The politics are not what you think The transit line everyone points at The number nobody expected What we can do Sources Minnesota's Roads Are in Good Shape Today. The State's Own Projections Show Them Falling Apart by 2035. Most infrastructure articles open by telling you the roads are crumbling. Minnesota's own data won't support that, so I won't write it. MnDOT currently beats every one of its pavement and bridge condition targets. If your commute feels rougher than it did, that is real, but it is mostly happening on county and city roads rather than state highways. The story is in the projections, and it is worse than a complaint about potholes. The steel underside of a Mississippi River bridge in Minneapolis. Minnesota inspects every bridge on a fixed cycle; the money to fix what the inspections find is what runs out. Photo: Dave Madgett • Minneapolis The cliff From MnDOT's own 2025 performance report: the share of non-Interstate state highway pavement rated poor goes from 1.4 percent in 2024 to 14.9 percent in 2035 \u2014 roughly a tenfold increase, blowing past the state's own 8 percent target. Bridges follow the same shape: the poor share on the National Highway System dips to 4.7 percent by 2029, then climbs to 10.1 percent by 2035. One detail from that dataset stayed with me. The Blatnik Bridge \u2014 the Duluth-Superior high bridge \u2014 was removed from the projection data. Not because it improved. Because it is being replaced, and a bridge in that condition distorts the average. The engineers' scorecard tells the same story from outside. The American Society of Civil Engineers' 2026 Minneso MnDOT, 2025 Transportation System Performance Report \u2014 current pavement and bridge condition against targets, and the 2035 projections for non-NHS state highways (1.4% to 14.9% poor) and NHS bridges (4.7% in 2029 to 10.1% in 2035), including the exclusion of the Blatnik Bridge from projection data; MnDOT's Minnesota State Highway Investment Plan (MnSHIP, 2023\u20132042) for the $36.7 billion revenue estimate against $52\u201357 billion in needs, the statement that construction cost inflation has exceeded 4 percent over the long run, and the 2042 deterioration projections for culverts and signals. American Society of Civil Engineers, 2026 Minnesota Infrastructure Report Card \u2014 grades and bridge counts, including the increase in bridges rated fair. Gas tax rates and indexing schedule (28.5\u00a2 through Dec. 31, 2024; 31.8\u00a2 effective Jan. 1, 2025; 32.6\u00a2 in 2026; 32.8\u00a2 in 2027; the 3 percent annual cap be"},{"u":"/blog-minnesota-two-sets-of-books","t":"Minnesota Keeps Two Sets of Books. Only One of Them Has to Balance.","d":"The state projects a $377 million surplus for 2028\u201329 \u2014 and a $2.05 billion structural deficit for the same years. Both are official. Both are correct. Here's why, what the record surplus actually was, and the honest version of an argument both parties are half-right about.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-06","b":"The two numbers What the record surplus actually was The reserve \u2014 and the thing that just changed The federal wildcard, sized honestly What we can do Sources Minnesota Keeps Two Sets of Books. Only One of Them Has to Balance. Minnesota's constitution requires a balanced budget. Minnesota is also projecting a multi-billion-dollar deficit. Both of those sentences are true right now, at the same time, and the reason is a piece of accounting almost nobody outside the Capitol understands. Once you see it, most of the shouting about the state budget resolves into something clearer \u2014 and less flattering to everyone. The two numbers For the 2028\u201329 biennium, Minnesota Management and Budget publishes: - A budgetary balance of positive $377 million \u2014 a surplus. - A structural deficit of $2.05 billion \u2014 $3.11 billion once you account for inflation. Both official. Both correct. The difference is that budgetary balance counts money carried forward from the previous biennium; structural balance does not. Structural balance asks one question: in these two years, does the money coming in cover the money going out? The Legislature's own nonpartisan fiscal staff explain why the distinction matters, and I'd frame it on the wall of every budget hearing room: \" Carryforward resources are one-time and can mute the overall estimates of the budget picture, inflating a budget's closing balance. \" Here is the part that should bother you regardless of party. Minnesota's constitutional balanced-budget requirement is satisfied by the budgetary test \u2014 the one that carryforward can paper over. The state measures the structural number, publishes it honestly, and Minnesota's Preliminary Official Statement for its August 2026 general obligation bond sale \u2014 prepared by Minnesota Management and Budget and the only source reflecting the 2026 session \u2014 for the FY2028-29 budgetary balance (+$377 million), the post-session structural deficit (\u2212$2.052 billion; \u2212$3.108 billion with inflation), reserve balances and the recommended target, the hospital stabilization reserve and its projected effect on the budget reserve, federal funding totals, CMS deferral amounts, and the SNAP cost-share trigger. Minnesota Senate Counsel, Research and Fiscal Analysis, Fiscal Review , ch. 1 \u2014 the budgetary-versus-structural definitions, Charts 8a and 8b (revenues, appropriations, and structural balances by biennium), and the analysts' quoted caveat on the one-time nature of the FY2024-25 imbalance. February 2023 MMB forecast for the $17.5 billion projected balance and the "},{"u":"/blog-minnesota-medical-debt","t":"A Nurses' Union Bought $2.6 Million of Hospital Debt for $28,000. That's What Your Medical Bill Is Actually Worth.","d":"One cent on the dollar. Meanwhile Minnesota now has 0.25 percent of consumers carrying medical debt in collections against a national 3.22 percent \u2014 one of the clearest policy successes in the state. Here's what actually caused it, what a federal court undid, and the honest evidence on debt relief.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-03","b":"First, the good news \u2014 and Minnesota has earned it Why the credit-reporting piece matters more than it sounds What still isn't fixed What we can do Sources A Nurses' Union Bought $2.6 Million of Hospital Debt for $28,000. That's What Your Medical Bill Is Actually Worth. In 2017, the Minnesota Nurses Association spent $28,000 to purchase and forgive $2.6 million in medical debt owed by about 1,800 families \u2014 debt originating with the hospital system the nurses had struck against the year before. Do the arithmetic: roughly one cent on the dollar. That is the market value of the bill that is destroying somebody's credit, garnishing their wages, and keeping them out of a doctor's office. To the hospital's collections partner it's worth a penny. To the family it's worth everything. That gap is the entire subject of this article. First, the good news \u2014 and Minnesota has earned it I've spent twenty-four articles being hard on this state's follow-through. Here is a place where Minnesota is genuinely, measurably ahead. As of the most recent data, 0.25 percent of Minnesota consumers have medical debt in collections on their credit records, against 3.22 percent nationally. That is roughly a thirteenfold difference in Minnesotans' favor, and it is one of the strongest state-level outcomes in the country. Now the honest part, because the temptation is to hand a Minnesota law full credit and the data won't support it. Nationally, the share of consumers with medical collections on their credit reports fell from about 14 percent to about 5 percent between March 2022 and June 2023 \u2014 before Minnesota's statute existed \u2014 because the three credit b Minnesota Nurses Association purchase and forgiveness of approximately $2.6 million in medical debt for about 1,800 families at a cost of roughly $28,000 (2017), with contemporaneous comment from then-Attorney General Lori Swanson. Urban Institute Debt in America data \u2014 the share of consumers with medical debt in collections in Minnesota (0.25 percent) against the national figure (3.22 percent), same data vintage. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Apr. 29, 2024) \u2014 the national decline in consumers with medical collections on credit records from approximately 14 percent to approximately 5 percent between March 2022 and June 2023, attributable to the credit bureaus' voluntary changes rather than to any state statute. Minnesota Debt Fairness Act, 2024 Minn. Laws ch. 114 \u2014 the medical-debt credit-reporting prohibition (Minn. Stat. \u00a7 332C.03), the interest and spousal-transfer bans, the p"},{"u":"/blog-when-the-insurer-says-no","t":"Minnesota Gives You a Right to Sue Your Roofer. It Gives You Almost Nothing Against Your Insurer.","d":"State Farm paid a $5,000 penalty for failing to handle auto glass claims on time. Minnesota's bad-faith statute caps recovery at $250,000, can't be pleaded in the complaint, excludes health insurers entirely, and makes the state's own findings inadmissible. What the law actually gives a policyholder \u2014 and what it doesn't.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-01","b":"What the bad-faith statute actually does And the enforcement that replaced your lawsuit The denial numbers, and the Minnesota-sized hole in them One correction I owe you, because the standard runs both ways What we can do Sources Minnesota Gives You a Right to Sue Your Roofer. It Gives You Almost Nothing Against Your Insurer. Let me start with a comparison that I think tells you everything, and that I have never seen made in a Minnesota campaign. If a roofing contractor mistreats you after a storm, Minnesota law hands you an express private right of action \u2014 you can sue, in your own name, under a statute written for exactly that purpose. If your insurance company mishandles the same claim on the same roof, you have no such right. Minnesota's Unfair Claims Practices Act sets standards for how insurers must handle your claim \u2014 but our Supreme Court held decades ago that you cannot sue to enforce them , and the Legislature wrote that bar into the statute itself. Only the Commerce Department can act on those standards. Two parties to the same storm. One is suable by you. The other is not. What the bad-faith statute actually does Minnesota does have an insurance bad-faith statute, Minn. Stat. \u00a7 604.18, passed in 2008. Consumers hear \"bad faith\" and picture the movie version. Here is the real machinery, from the text: - The remedy is capped at $250,000, plus up to $100,000 in attorney fees. - What you recover is denominated \"taxable costs\" \u2014 not damages. - You cannot plead it in your complaint. You must move the court for leave to add it later. - It does not apply to health insurers at all. If your health plan denies your claim in bad faith, this statute is not available to you. - It disappears if the dispu Minn. Stat. \u00a7 604.18 (bad-faith standard, the $250,000 and $100,000 caps, taxable-costs remedy, the motion-to-amend requirement, the health-carrier exclusion, appraisal and arbitration limits, and the inadmissibility provision at subd. 4(d)); Minn. Stat. \u00a7 72A.201, subd. 1 (codifying the bar on private enforcement of claim-practices standards); Minn. Stat. \u00a7 325E.66, subd. 2 (private right of action against residential contractors); Minn. Stat. \u00a7 62Q.73, subd. 10 (external review data available upon request); and the 2026 act prohibiting AI-only denials, adding Minn. Stat. \u00a7 62M.09, subd. 3(f), effective Jan. 1, 2027 \u2014 all verified against raw statutory text at revisor.mn.gov. Morris v. American Family Mutual Insurance Co. , 386 N.W.2d 233 (Minn. 1986), read in full, restating the rule from Haagenson v. National Farmers Union Property & Casualty Co. , 277 N"},{"u":"/blog-iron-range-jobs-and-permits","t":"650 Iron Range Miners Were Laid Off. Their Benefits Ran Out in May. Everyone Is Still Arguing About a Different Mine.","d":"Taconite production fell six million tons in a year, two plants idled, and extended unemployment expired on May 24. Meanwhile the copper-nickel fight enters its second decade. The numbers on both, and the arguments from both sides in their own words \u2014 including labor's, and a DFL senator's.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-01","b":"The crisis that actually occurred Where the copper-nickel projects actually stand Both arguments, fairly The part a DFL candidate is supposed to skip The diversification promise, audited What we can do Sources 650 Iron Range Miners Were Laid Off. Their Benefits Ran Out in May. Everyone Is Still Arguing About a Different Mine. Minnesota has been having the copper-nickel argument for more than a decade. In that time it has become less an argument about a mine than a loyalty test \u2014 say the word \"PolyMet\" and a room sorts itself. I'm going to try to do something less satisfying and more useful: report what has actually happened, let both sides speak in their own words, and be honest about the part almost nobody is discussing. Because while that argument ran, something concrete happened on the Iron Range. And it had nothing to do with copper. The crisis that actually occurred Minnesota taconite production fell from 34.6 million tons in 2024 to 28.55 million tons in 2025. At the Minorca mine, output collapsed from 2.6 million tons to 550,000 . In March 2025, Cleveland-Cliffs announced idles at Hibbing Taconite and Minorca \u2014 by the company's own letters, 230 union and 25 salaried workers at Hibbing, 300 union and 42 salaried at Minorca , effective that May. A further 45 jobs went in February 2026. A company vice president said of the idles: \"we cannot predict their length.\" They still haven't restarted. On its first-quarter 2026 earnings call, Cleveland-Cliffs forecast its best quarter in two years and did not mention either mine by name. The Legislature did respond \u2014 a year of unemployment benefits in a 2025 deal, then a six-month extension. That extension expired on May 24, 2026. For ro Production and layoffs: Mesabi Tribune production tables (2024\u20132025, statewide and by plant); Cleveland-Cliffs notification letters and company statements on the March 2025 idles at Hibbing Taconite and Minorca effective May 2025, and the February 2026 reduction; Cleveland-Cliffs first-quarter 2026 earnings call. Unemployment: Minnesota Reformer (May 23, 2025) on the year of benefits in the legislative deal; Northern News Now (Feb. 18, 2026) on the six-month extension; Mesabi Tribune confirming expiration May 24, 2026, with United Steelworkers District 11 quotations. NorthMet: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit file 1999-05528-WMS (July 2026 reapplication; comment period closing Sept. 12, 2026); the Minnesota Supreme Court decision of Aug. 2, 2023 reversing and remanding the water permit; administrative law judge recommendation (Nov. 2023) and stay (Nov. 2024); the company's "},{"u":"/blog-minnesota-long-term-care-crunch","t":"Minnesota Has Lost a Third of Its Nursing Home Beds. The Age Wave Arrives in Four Years.","d":"Thirty-eight thousand beds became twenty-five thousand. Red Lake County has none at all. Hospitals report 195,000 patient-days a year for people who are well enough to leave and have nowhere to go \u2014 $487 million of unpaid care. And the state agency that pays for it says it does not know whether these facilities are losing money.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-07-01","b":"The beds are gone, and most of them aren't coming back Why the beds closed: the arithmetic of the job The number that should end the argument about money What actually works What we can do Sources Minnesota Has Lost a Third of Its Nursing Home Beds. The Age Wave Arrives in Four Years. Somewhere in Minnesota tonight, a person is lying in a hospital bed who does not need to be in a hospital. They are medically ready to go. There is nowhere to send them. This happens about 195,000 patient-days a year \u2014 roughly one in every six days of hospital care in this state \u2014 and the hospitals absorb about $487 million in costs nobody pays them for. That is the Minnesota Hospital Association's own accounting, and it is the clearest single measurement of a system that has quietly broken. The beds are gone, and most of them aren't coming back Since 2005, Minnesota has lost about a third of its nursing facility beds \u2014 from roughly 38,000 to about 25,000, confirmed by the Health Department's own licensing data. The losses fall hardest exactly where the population is oldest. In entirely rural counties, 41 percent of beds are gone. Red Lake County has zero. Cass County went from 489 beds to 33. And here is the detail that makes this different from an ordinary market adjustment: 58 percent of the rural bed loss came from outright closures , not from facilities shrinking. A closed nursing home does not reopen when demand returns. The building gets sold, the staff scatters, the license lapses. That capacity is simply gone. Now set that against the demand curve. Minnesota's 65-and-over population has roughly doubled since 2010, and by 2030 more than one in five Minnesotans will be 65 or older  Minnesota Hospital Association (Jan. 31, 2024) \u2014 approximately 195,000 avoidable patient-days annually, roughly one in six days of hospital care, and $487 million in unreimbursed costs; the same reporting notes 67 percent of Minnesota hospitals operating at a loss. Center for Rural Policy and Development (Nov. 2024), analyzing Minnesota Department of Health licensing data \u2014 the 33 percent statewide decline in nursing facility beds since 2005 (approximately 38,000 to 25,000, independently confirmed by MDH), the 41 percent decline in entirely rural counties, county-level figures including Red Lake and Cass, the finding that 58 percent of rural bed loss came from closures, and projected peak demand of 37,234 in 2047 with regional peaks in 2025\u20132030. Minnesota State Demographic Center on the 65-and-over population, the crossover past school-age children around 2020, and the projection that m"},{"u":"/blog-minnesota-enrollment-cliff","t":"Minnesota's Largest Graduating Class in History Is This Year's. It's Downhill From Here.","d":"The class of 2026 is the peak \u2014 67,286 seniors \u2014 and the number falls for fifteen years after. Meanwhile tuition is about to overtake state support for the first time, a free-tuition program served five times its projection, and the Legislature just repealed the requirement to measure whether it worked.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-06-28","b":"We are already losing the ones we have Meanwhile, the price went up and the state's share went down The free-tuition program worked. Then we repealed the way to know. What the degree is actually worth \u2014 and where What we can do Sources Minnesota's Largest Graduating Class in History Is This Year's. It's Downhill From Here. The seniors who started classes in Minnesota high schools this week are part of the biggest graduating class this state will ever produce: 67,286 in 2026. That is the peak. Every projection after it points down \u2014 to 58,295 by 2041 , a 13.4 percent decline \u2014 with most of the drop landing between 2035 and 2041. This is not a forecast that can be wrong in the usual way. Those children are already born. You can count them. Minnesota's colleges, its employers, and its legislature are about to spend fifteen years competing for a shrinking pool of eighteen-year-olds, and almost nothing in the current debate is organized around that fact. We are already losing the ones we have Of Minnesota residents starting college for the first time, 14,676 of 40,172 \u2014 about 37 percent \u2014 enrolled outside the state , per federal enrollment data. Minnesota has the sixth-largest net outflow of students in the country , about 7,393 more leaving than arriving. A note on numbers, because this series doesn't paper over conflicts: the State Demographic Center, using Minnesota's own student-tracking data, put the out-of-state share at 31 percent for 2022 high school graduates who enrolled in college that fall. The federal figure is 37 percent of resident first-time undergraduates. Different denominators, same direction. I've used both elsewhere in this series and I'm flagging the difference rather than quietly picking t WICHE, Knocking at the College Door , 11th edition (Dec. 2024) \u2014 Minnesota's projected peak of 67,286 high school graduates in 2026, declining to 58,295 by 2041. NCES IPEDS residence-and-migration data (Fall 2022, Table 309.20) \u2014 14,676 of 40,172 Minnesota resident first-time undergraduates enrolling out of state, and Minnesota's net outflow ranking; the Minnesota State Demographic Center's April 2024 migration report, using state student-tracking data, separately reports 31 percent of 2022 Minnesota high school graduates who enrolled in college doing so out of state \u2014 the two measures use different denominators and both are reported here. University of Minnesota Board of Regents dockets \u2014 fiscal 2026 and 2027 tuition rates by campus, cost of attendance, and the flat state appropriation; University disclosures on terminated federal awards ($22.3 milli"},{"u":"/blog-immigrants-and-the-minnesota-economy","t":"Minnesota's Immigrants Are 8.4% of the People and 10.8% of the Workforce. Here's the Rest of the Math.","d":"The workforce numbers, the $6.2 billion in taxes, what a single enforcement operation cost Lake Street businesses, and the part nobody covers: immigrant Minnesotans are among the most defrauded consumers in this state, and the law meant to protect them is barely used.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-06-28","b":"The workforce arithmetic Why this is a workforce story, not an ideology story What disruption costs, in dollars The part nobody covers: these are the most defrauded consumers in Minnesota Minnesota already has the law. It just doesn't use it enough. What we can do Sources Minnesota's Immigrants Are 8.4% of the People and 10.8% of the Workforce. Here's the Rest of the Math. There is no subject in American politics where people are more confident and less numerate. So let's do this one the way we've done the rest of the series: with the data, the dollar figures, and the parts that are inconvenient for everybody. I'm going to end somewhere you may not expect \u2014 with fraud. Because the story I know best from twenty years of consumer-protection work is not the one either party tells, and it starts with a $4.5 million judgment. The workforce arithmetic Per the American Immigration Council's analysis of Census data for 2023, Minnesota is home to 482,367 immigrants \u2014 8.4 percent of the population. But they make up 10.8 percent of the labor force : 339,138 workers. That gap between 8.4 and 10.8 isn't an accident of ambition. It's demography. 82.9 percent of Minnesota's foreign-born residents are between 16 and 64 \u2014 prime working age \u2014 against 60.5 percent of the native-born. Only 10.6 percent are 65 or older, versus 18.5 percent of U.S.-born Minnesotans. And their participation is rising: Minnesota Compass finds 77 percent of foreign-born Minnesotans are working, up from 70 percent a decade ago. Where do they work? Transportation and warehousing (16.1 percent of that workforce), manufacturing including food processing (15.7), professional and administrative services (12.1), health care and social assistance (11.7). They are 14.5 percent of Minnesota's S American Immigration Council, Map the Impact \u2014 Minnesota profile (dataset retrieved Sept. 1, 2026; data year 2023): population and labor-force shares, age structure, industry concentrations, STEM and health-aide shares, tax contributions, spending power, entrepreneurship, underemployment. Minnesota Compass (immigration topic page): labor-force participation trend and foreign-born share. U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 State Population Estimates (NST-EST2025-ALLDATA, components of change \u2014 international migration of +33,360 in FY2024 and +12,486 in FY2025; net domestic migration +8,300), retrieved and computed directly for this series. Workforce context from earlier articles in this series: MN DEED Job Vacancy Survey and Minnesota Chamber Foundation projections. LeadingAge Minnesota news item on Employment Authoriz"},{"u":"/blog-nobody-reads-the-fine-print","t":"Nobody Reads the Contract. The Law Pretends You Did. Everyone Knows It's a Joke.","d":"One or two people out of a thousand open the terms. The average sign-up contract is written above a college sophomore's reading level. And when researchers measured what disclosure actually accomplishes, the answer was $71 million a year against $11.9 billion from simply banning the fees. The receipts on America's most convenient legal fiction.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-06-26","b":"One or two people out of a thousand It isn't laziness. It's unreadable, and it's on purpose. \"But there are disclosures.\" Here's what disclosure is actually worth. The scholars got there first, and they were blunt about it And what it buys the company: a clause you never saw, waiving a right you didn't know you had Minnesota already tried. Our law has never produced a single reported decision. What we can do Sources Nobody Reads the Contract. The Law Pretends You Did. Everyone Knows It's a Joke. Here is a claim I will make without hedging, after twenty years of consumer-protection law: there is not one person in America who reads their entire cell phone contract. Not one. And the person who did read it start to finish and then signed it anyway would be a fool, because the terms are not negotiable \u2014 the only choice on offer is take it or go without a phone. Yet in a courtroom, you are presumed to have read every word. That presumption is treated as ordinary, unremarkable law. It is a fiction, everyone in the building knows it is a fiction, and almost nobody in a position to say so will say it out loud. So let's say it out loud, with the data. One or two people out of a thousand Researchers at NYU tracked the actual browsing behavior of 48,154 monthly visitors to the websites of 90 software companies \u2014 not what people said they did, what they did. The finding: only one or two out of every thousand shoppers even clicked to open the license agreement. And the ones who opened it? Median time on the page: 34 seconds. Average, 59 seconds. Nearly half spent under 30 seconds. The agreements themselves averaged 2,277 words \u2014 eight or nine minutes of honest reading. So the \"informed minority\" that the entire legal defense of boilerplate depends on \u2014 the idea that a few careful shoppers police the terms for everyone else \u2014 is, empirically, two people in a thousand giving it half a minute. A separate Yannis Bakos, Florencia Marotta-Wurgler & David R. Trossen, Does Anyone Read the Fine Print? Consumer Attention to Standard-Form Contracts , 43 J. Legal Stud. 1 (2014) \u2014 the 48,154-visitor browsing study and the one-to-two-per-thousand access rate. Jonathan A. Obar & Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch, The Biggest Lie on the Internet , 23 Info., Commc'n & Soc'y 128 (2020) \u2014 the NameDrop experiment, reading times, agreement rates, and the planted clauses (the \"first-born child\" term was a research instrument in a fictitious service's terms, not a real company's). Uri Benoliel & Shmuel I. Becher, The Duty to Read the Unreadable , 60 B.C. L. Rev. 2255 (2019) \u2014 readability testing of the 5"},{"u":"/blog-minnesota-cannabis-three-years-in","t":"Minnesota Legalized Cannabis. Then Charged 3,500 People Under a Law Almost Nobody Was Told About.","d":"Sixteen licensed retailers. Twelve social-equity licenses out of 506 applicants. And more than 3,500 charges for cannabis in a car since legalization \u2014 under a traffic provision that appears nowhere in the cannabis act, with 42 percent of those charged in Hennepin County being Black in a county that is 13 percent Black.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-06-24","b":"The rollout, by the state's own scoreboard The money Two court decisions worth knowing What other states learned, in numbers What we can do Sources Minnesota Legalized Cannabis. Then Charged 3,500 People Under a Law Almost Nobody Was Told About. Start with the number that should be a scandal and isn't. Since Minnesota legalized adult-use cannabis in August 2023, prosecutors have brought more than 3,500 charges and obtained more than 1,200 convictions for having cannabis in a car \u2014 under a provision of the traffic code , Minn. Stat. \u00a7 169A.36, that appears nowhere in the cannabis act and is not mentioned on the state cannabis office's own consumer page. In Hennepin County, 42 percent of the people charged were Black , in a county whose population is about 13 percent Black. Edina brought more of these charges than Minneapolis did. I want to be careful about what that does and does not prove. Open-container-style rules for cannabis are defensible policy; a state can legalize a product and still say you may not have it loose in the passenger compartment. Reasonable people wrote that rule for reasonable reasons. But here is the part that isn't defensible. Minnesota told its citizens, in a statute and a public campaign, that this conduct was now legal \u2014 and then enforced a separate rule, in a different chapter, that the state's own consumer-facing materials never explained. A member of the state's Cannabis Expungement Board has said so publicly. Thirty-five hundred people found out about Minnesota's cannabis law from a squad car. If you want to know why I keep writing about the gap between what a law says and what a citizen ca Minnesota Office of Cannabis Management license data as published August 24, 2026 \u2014 total licenses issued by type, applicant counts, the retailer count against the statutory cap, social-equity retailer applications, lottery outcomes, and licenses issued; and hemp-derived edible (lower-potency hemp edible) license counts. Minnesota Reformer (Dec. 9, 2025) \u2014 more than 3,500 charges and more than 1,200 convictions under Minn. Stat. \u00a7 169A.36 since legalization, the Hennepin County racial breakdown, the Edina-versus-Minneapolis comparison, and on-the-record comment from a member of the Cannabis Expungement Board; \u00a7 169A.36 verified at revisor.mn.gov, and its absence from Minn. Stat. ch. 342 and from the Office of Cannabis Management's consumer materials noted as reported. Sales and tax figures: calendar-year 2025 combined adult-use and hemp sales exceeding $210 million with approximately $27"},{"u":"/blog-keeping-the-next-generation-home","t":"Minnesota's Real Brain-Drain Problem Is 18 Years Old and Picking a College","d":"The state's own demographers say Minnesota loses 8,800 teenagers a year \u2014 mostly to border-state colleges \u2014 while actually gaining college graduates on net. The workforce math, the honest strengths ledger, and the retention playbook that the data supports.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-06-23","b":"Who actually leaves Now the part that will surprise you The workforce math The strengths ledger \u2014 because recruiting requires a pitch What the data says actually works Sources Minnesota's Real Brain-Drain Problem Is 18 Years Old and Picking a College Everyone in Minnesota politics has a story about \"young people fleeing the state.\" Almost nobody has read the state's own 30-page migration analysis, published by the State Demographic Center in April 2024. It's the best document on this subject anyone has produced, and it tells a much more specific \u2014 and much more fixable \u2014 story than the one you've heard. Who actually leaves The gross flows are enormous and nearly balanced: in a typical recent year about 120,500 people moved into Minnesota and 124,300 moved out. The long-run net loss to other states is under 5,000 people a year \u2014 the demographers call it \"a stable, long-term demographic feature of the state,\" and most Frost Belt states run worse. But the net hides the story, because the loss is concentrated in exactly one place: ages 15 to 19, where Minnesota loses 8,800 young people a year \u2014 and 89 percent of the 18- and 19-year-olds who leave are leaving for college. Net, we lose about 8,300 college students a year, and nearly two-thirds of them go to four neighboring states \u2014 2,800 a year to North Dakota, 2,000 to Wisconsin, 1,500 to Iowa. Of Minnesota's 2022 high-school graduates who enrolled in college, 31 percent \u2014 about 11,300 kids \u2014 enrolled out of state , per the state's own student-tracking data. (Federal enrollment data, counting resident first-time undergraduates rather than recent high-school graduates, puts the share at about 37 percent Minnesota State Demographic Center, An Analysis of Migration Trends and Patterns in Minnesota (April 2024 \u2014 retrieved in full; all age-group, college-flow, return-migration, and labor-ledger figures); Wisconsin Policy Forum, Brain Drain Erodes State's Talent Potential (Aug. 2026) with WPR and Urban Milwaukee coverage; Census PSEO graduate-retention data via the SDC report; MN DEED Job Vacancy Survey (2024) and CareerForce health-care workforce analyses; BLS labor-force participation via FRED (verified by CSV download, through July 2026); Minneapolis Fed articles of Feb. 3, 2025, Dec. 15, 2025, and Feb. 2, 2026 (retrieved in full \u2014 the \"tight\"/\"no longer tight\" quotes are from the same DEED research director across the two conferences); MN Chamber Foundation, Minnesota 2030 ; Census CPS median household income via FRED (verified by CSV download); Fortune 500 counts per 2025\u201326 list covera"},{"u":"/blog-who-owns-minnesotas-rentals","t":"Who Owns Minnesota's Rentals? Increasingly, Someone in Another State","d":"Out-of-state ownership of Twin Cities rental homes went from under 3 percent to one in five. Eviction filings are running at record pace. Here's the Federal Reserve's ownership data, the University of Minnesota's eviction research, the AG enforcement docket \u2014 and the rights renters got in 2023-24 that most don't know they have.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-06-22","b":"The new ownership map The eviction ledger What enforcement has actually done \u2014 the receipts The rights most renters don't know they have What we can do Sources Who Owns Minnesota's Rentals? Increasingly, Someone in Another State Roughly three in ten Minnesota households rent. For most of the state's history, their landlord lived across town \u2014 a retiree with a duplex, a tradesman with three houses. That's still the biggest single category. But the ownership map has been quietly redrawn, and the best data on it comes not from activists but from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, which mapped every parcel in the seven-county metro. The new ownership map The Fed's findings, from 2022 parcel data: investors owned about 54 percent of Twin Cities single-family rentals , and the share held by very large investors \u2014 fifty or more properties \u2014 had nearly tripled since 2014, to about one in five investor-owned homes. Before 2008, that category barely existed here. The four biggest players \u2014 Home Partners of America, Invitation Homes, Progress Residential, and Bridge Investment Group \u2014 are headquartered in Chicago, Dallas, Scottsdale, and Salt Lake City, and controlled roughly 3,000 Twin Cities houses worth part of a combined portfolio near $1.4 billion. Out-of-state ownership of investor-owned rental homes went from under 3 percent in 2006 to one in five by 2022 , and more than half of the big investors' growth came from buying homes that had been owner-occupied \u2014 houses that would otherwise have been somebody's starter home. Does ownership structure change how tenants are treated? The University of Minnesota's CURA researchers tested ex Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Ky & Starling, \"Very large investors increase their share of the Twin Cities rental-home market\" (Dec. 6, 2023 \u2014 parcel-data figures, big-four portfolios, out-of-state shares); CURA (Damiano & Goetz), \"Understanding the Impact of Investor Strategies in Single-Family Rentals\" (2024, Journal of Urban Affairs \u2014 eviction-rate differentials); Family Housing Fund/CURA tenant surveys; Census Housing Vacancies & Homeownership via FRED (homeownership and vacancy series, retrieved Aug. 2026); MMG Real Estate Advisors 2025 Twin Cities Forecast (rents, occupancy, construction cliff); Minnesota Housing Partnership 2025 State Housing Profile; NLIHC \"The Gap\" and \"Out of Reach\" (via HOME Line's Tenant Bill of Rights); HOME Line eviction-filing tracking (June 2025 CLE slides; Q1, April, and May 2026 updates; KSTP on the 2025 record), with the counting-methodology cav"},{"u":"/blog-minnesota-main-street","t":"Minnesotans Started a Record 73,000 Businesses Last Year. Here's What It Costs Them to Stay Open.","d":"Business formation is at a record high, small firms produced 88.7 percent of Minnesota's net job growth \u2014 and swipe fees, new payroll mandates, and one-in-three empty downtown offices are squeezing the margin. Main Street economics, with both sides on the record.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-06-20","b":"The good news is real The cost stack What we can do Sources Minnesotans Started a Record 73,000 Businesses Last Year. Here's What It Costs Them to Stay Open. I run a small business. Not a metaphor \u2014 a law firm, with payroll to make, a card processor taking its cut of every payment, and the same insurance renewals landing on my desk that land on yours. So let me write this one from inside the problem, with the government's own data. The good news is real Minnesotans filed 73,307 business applications in 2025 \u2014 the highest in the Census Bureau's series \u2014 after 69,283 in 2023 and 67,708 in 2024, against 46,284 in 2019. Through July, 2026 is running about 8 percent ahead of last year's record pace. Whatever else is true, the impulse to build something is alive here. And those businesses carry the state. Per the U.S. Small Business Administration's Minnesota profile: 547,493 small businesses \u2014 99.5 percent of all Minnesota businesses \u2014 employing 1.2 million people, 45.4 percent of the state's workforce. In the most recent measured year, small businesses generated a net 44,328 jobs: 88.7 percent of all net job growth in Minnesota. Women own 42 percent of Minnesota businesses; veterans own 5.6 percent. And 86 percent of the state's identified goods exporters are small firms. One honest caveat inside the good news: the subset of applications most likely to become employer businesses \u2014 the ones that hire \u2014 has been flat since 2023, at roughly 22,000 a year. Plenty of people are starting something; fewer are starting something that grows. The c Census Bureau Business Formation Statistics for Minnesota via FRED (series BABATOTALSAMN and BAHBATOTALSAMN; annual sums computed from monthly seasonally adjusted data through July 2026); U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, 2024 Small Business Profile: Minnesota (firm counts, employment share, net job growth from BLS Business Employment Dynamics, ownership demographics, exporter data); Merchants Payments Coalition statements on 2025 swipe-fee totals and the settlement (merchant-side advocacy, attributed); CNBC (Nov. 10, 2025) and Payments Dive on the revised Visa/Mastercard settlement terms, objectors, and Judge Cogan's preliminary approval (June 9, 2026); Electronic Payments Coalition's contrary characterization; Hospitality Minnesota, 2026 State of Hospitality Report (swipe fees on tax and tip; wholesale price pressure); Minnesota Paid Leave (DEED) premium-rate and s"},{"u":"/blog-rural-minnesota-economy","t":"Nobody Is Running for County Attorney in Red Lake County. No Lawyer Lives There.","d":"Farm income fell 88 percent in two years before a partial rebound. Minnesota lost 1,300 farms in one year. Chapter 12 bankruptcies quadrupled. And yet rural Minnesota is gaining people. The honest ledger on Greater Minnesota's economy \u2014 and what actually works.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-06-19","b":"The farm ledger: brutal, then partly better The infrastructure ledger Now the surprise What works Sources Nobody Is Running for County Attorney in Red Lake County. No Lawyer Lives There. That is a real headline from this month, and it is the most compact description of rural Minnesota's problem I have seen. An entire county \u2014 with crimes to prosecute, child-protection cases to file, and a courthouse to advise \u2014 has no resident attorney to run for the job. As a lawyer, I find that a professional embarrassment. As someone who wants this state to work, I find it a warning. But if you think that's the whole story of Greater Minnesota, you're about to be surprised twice. The farm ledger: brutal, then partly better Minnesota's median net farm income, from the University of Minnesota's FINBIN database \u2014 the best farm-finance dataset in the country: - 2022: about $180,000 - 2023: $44,719 \u2014 down 76 percent - 2024: $21,964 \u2014 the lowest this century - 2025: $66,518 \u2014 a real rebound, still below long-run averages Underneath the median, the divergence is stark. In 2024 the median crop farm cleared $2,371 \u2014 down 95 percent from 2022 \u2014 and the researchers stated plainly that without federal payments, crop farms would have lost money outright. In 2025, corn growers on rented land lost money despite yields ten percent above the ten-year average , and sugar beet growers lost roughly $500 an acre as sugar prices collapsed. Meanwhile cow-calf operators had their best year on record , over $600 a head, and dairy and hogs were strongly profitable. When someone tells you \"farmers are doing fine\" or \"fa Farm income: University of Minnesota FINBIN/Center for Farm Financial Management and U of M Extension annual reports (Apr. 8, 2024; Apr. 3, 2025; Apr. 1, 2026) with Agweek and Morning Ag Clips coverage; 2024 FINBIN report (crop-farm median, federal-payment dependence) via the Minnesota Corn Growers summary and the report PDF. Bankruptcies: American Farm Bureau Federation Market Intel (Feb. 9, 2026) using U.S. Courts data; Minneapolis Fed (Sept. 24, 2025). Lender conditions: Minneapolis Fed agricultural credit conditions surveys, Q2 2025 through Q1 2026 (May 18, 2026). Farm and herd counts: USDA NASS, Farms and Land in Farms 2025 Summary (Feb. 13, 2026) and Milk Production (Feb. 20, 2026). Commodity prices: USDA WASDE (Aug. 2024; Aug. 12, 2026). Rural health: MDH hospital closure/curtailment hearing docket (Oct. 2023\u2013Aug. 2026) and Minn. Stat. \u00a7 144.555; UMN Rural Health Research Center d"},{"u":"/blog-minnesota-property-tax-surge","t":"Why Your Property Taxes Keep Jumping \u2014 and Where the Money Actually Goes","d":"Minnesota's 2026 levies rose $873 million \u2014 the sharpest climb since 2008 \u2014 and Minneapolis has proposed 11.3% for 2027. The documented drivers: federal cost shifts, personnel and insurance inflation, and empty office towers pushing the burden onto homeowners. Plus the relief programs most eligible Minnesotans never claim.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-06-18","b":"The numbers The documented drivers \u2014 it's not one villain The relief you may already be owed What we can do Sources Why Your Property Taxes Keep Jumping \u2014 and Where the Money Actually Goes Open your proposed-tax statement this November and you'll see it again: another increase, bigger than your raise. You are not imagining it, and you deserve better than slogans about it. Here are the numbers from the Department of Revenue's own certification data, the documented reasons, and \u2014 because this site deals in fixes, not just complaints \u2014 the relief programs most Minnesotans don't know they're owed. The numbers Certified 2026 property tax levies statewide: $13.78 billion, up $873 million \u2014 6.8 percent \u2014 over 2025. Cities up 7.7 percent, counties 7.6, schools 5.6. The local-government associations themselves \u2014 the League of Minnesota Cities, the county associations \u2014 told the House Taxes Committee this spring it was the largest increase since 2008 . And it stacks: 2025's levies rose 5.6 percent, 2024's proposed increases ran 7.3. The big jurisdictions tell the story. Minneapolis adopted +8.0 percent for 2026 \u2014 about $242 more in city tax on a median home \u2014 and Mayor Frey has already proposed +11.3 percent for 2027 , the largest since at least 2000, alongside cutting a hundred city jobs. Hennepin County: +7.79 percent, a levy now over $1.13 billion. Ramsey County: proposed 9.75, landed at 8.25. St. Paul's school district jumped 14.9 percent \u2014 though that one, at least, was democracy in action: 65 percent of St. Paul voters approved the operating levy at the ballot box last November, choosing it ov MN Department of Revenue, Certified 2026 Property Tax Levies (updated Feb. 27, 2026) and Preliminary 2026 Levies release (Nov. 13, 2025); MN DOR preliminary-levy release for 2024 (Nov. 16, 2023); League of MN Cities/Association of MN Counties/MICA joint letter to the House Taxes Committee as reported by the Mesabi Tribune (Apr. 22, 2026); Star Tribune on the Minneapolis 2026 adoption (Dec. 9, 2025); AP on Mayor Frey's 2027 proposal (Aug. 12, 2026); City of Saint Paul budget release (Dec. 3, 2025); Hennepin County levy bulletin (Sept. 25, 2025) and KSTP (Dec. 2025); Ramsey County releases and Pioneer Press (Dec. 2025); MyVillager on the SPPS levy and the Nov. 4, 2025 referendum (Dec. 5, 2025); FOX 9 interviews with the League of MN Cities and Association of MN Counties (Nov. 19, 2025); the 98-mayors letter as reported Dec. 22, 2025; Council Member Conrad Zbikowski's published analysis of "},{"u":"/blog-minnesota-crime-numbers","t":"Is Crime Up or Down in Minnesota? Both Sides Are Wrong \u2014 Here Are the Numbers","d":"Murders down three straight years from the 2021 peak. Carjackings down 45 percent. Fraud offenses now outnumber all violent crime combined \u2014 with single-digit clearance rates. Minnesota public safety by the actual data, plus the strategies with proven results.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-06-18","b":"The violent-crime trend is real, and it's down The carjacking story: what happened when everyone did their job The uncomfortable numbers: staffing and fraud What demonstrably works What we can do Sources Is Crime Up or Down in Minnesota? Both Sides Are Wrong \u2014 Here Are the Numbers Crime is the topic where our politics is proudest of not reading the report. One side needs a hellscape; the other needs a mission accomplished. I was a military prosecutor \u2014 a base Chief of Justice \u2014 and the first rule of that job applies here: you don't get an opinion until you've read the file. So here's the file: Minnesota's own Bureau of Criminal Apprehension data, the cities' year-end numbers, and the federal reports, with every figure sourced. The violent-crime trend is real, and it's down Start with the worst number Minnesota has produced this decade: 201 murders in 2021 , the modern record. Then the BCA's own annual reports: 182 in 2022, 181 in 2023, 170 in 2024 \u2014 three consecutive declines, about 15 percent off the peak. Statewide violent crime overall fell 8.6 percent in 2022, another 6.9 percent in 2023, and held flat in 2024. Larceny hit its lowest count in 56 years. The cities' 2025 numbers kept the direction. Minneapolis closed 2025 with 64 homicides \u2014 down from 77 in 2024 and 96 in 2021 \u2014 with gunshot victims down 18 percent and robberies half their 2021 level, per the police department's year-end data. St. Paul's turn is even more striking: 15 homicides in 2025, its lowest total in about a dozen years , and nonfatal shooting injuries down from 181 in 2022 to 73. Honesty requires the caveats. Rape reports rose 5 percent in 2024 \u2014 and nearly 40 percent of victims were minors, a number Minnesota BCA Uniform Crime Reports and press releases for 2022 (Sept. 11, 2023), 2023 (Aug. 15, 2024), and 2024 (Oct. 16, 2025 \u2014 report PDF read directly, including the law-enforcement employment and fraud-offense tables; statewide 2025 data is not yet published); Minneapolis Police Department 2025 year-end data as presented by Chief Brian O'Hara (FOX 9, Jan. 6, 2026); MPR News on St. Paul's nonfatal-shooting unit and 2025 declines (Oct. 10, 2025); Star Tribune reporting on 2025 Minneapolis crime amid mass shootings; Minn. Stat. \u00a7 609.247 (verified at revisor.mn.gov; enacted 2023); MN Attorney General press release on the 35-state Hyundai/Kia settlement (Dec. 16, 2025) and MPR News coverage; MPD staffing series per Star Tribune/Police1 (May 23, 2025) and City of Minneapolis releases (BCA-reported employment counts differ from MPD's own tallies; each series is cited to its source); "},{"u":"/blog-minnesota-reading-scores-and-the-workforce","t":"Half of Minnesota's Kids Can't Read at Grade Level. Here's What the Data Says About Fixing It.","d":"Third-grade reading proficiency has fallen four years running, to 45.9 percent. One in four students is chronically absent. But Mississippi went from 49th to 9th in fourth-grade reading \u2014 and Minnesota just adopted the same playbook. The numbers, the economics, and the honest scorecard.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-06-15","b":"Where we actually stand The economics \u2014 why this is a jobs story The proof that this is fixable: Mississippi Minnesota already passed the law. Now comes the part that matters. What we can do Sources Half of Minnesota's Kids Can't Read at Grade Level. Here's What the Data Says About Fixing It. Let me start where this article is not going. Not one number below is a teacher's fault. I've watched Minnesota educators buy their own classroom supplies and stay past dark for kids who aren't theirs. This is a story about systems, curriculum decisions, and a state that took too long to follow the evidence \u2014 and about the fact that Minnesota has finally started to. Now the numbers. Where we actually stand On Minnesota's own state tests in 2025: 49.5 percent of students proficient in reading, 45.0 percent in math \u2014 both roughly ten points below where the state stood in 2019. The single most important number in the set is third-grade reading, because third grade is when children stop learning to read and start reading to learn. Minnesota's third-grade reading proficiency: 55.7 percent in 2018 \u2192 45.9 percent in 2025 , a fourth consecutive annual decline. More than half of our third graders are not reading at grade level. The national test tells the same story with more precision. On the 2024 NAEP, Minnesota's fourth-grade reading score was statistically identical to the national average \u2014 for a state that spent decades in the top tier. Thirty-nine percent of Minnesota fourth graders scored below NAEP Basic in reading , up from 33 percent in 1998. Our eighth-grade math is still above the national average at 282, but below Minnesota's own 2000 score of 287. And the gaps are the part tha Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment results, 2019\u20132025, from Minnesota Department of Education data as reported across multiple independent carriers (Star Tribune, Pioneer Press, Patch, Marshall Independent, Center of the American Experiment \u2014 an advocacy outlet, cited only as a carrier of MDE figures); NCES 2024 NAEP State Snapshot Reports for Minnesota, grades 4 and 8, reading and mathematics (primary PDFs), and the corresponding 2013 and 2024 Mississippi reading snapshots; Mississippi ranking and gains per NCES snapshots and the governor's Jan. 29, 2025 statement, with researcher caveats per Chalkbeat (July 18, 2023) and subsequent \"fade\" critiques; READ Act provisions per Minn. Stat. \u00a7 120B.123 and appropriations per 2023 Minn. Laws ch. 55, art. 3, and 2024 Minn. Laws ch. 115, all verified at revisor.mn.gov; MDE READ Act implementation guidance; chronic-absence figures from MDE Report"},{"u":"/blog-are-high-earners-leaving-minnesota","t":"Are Minnesota's High Earners Leaving? What the Data Actually Shows","d":"We pulled the IRS's own migration files and the Census Bureau's own population estimates. The honest answer: yes, Minnesota lost high-income households for years \u2014 and the story just changed. Here's what the numbers say, both sides of the argument, and what would actually help.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-06-14","b":"What's true: Minnesota lost high-income households, year after year What's also true: the story just turned The argument over why \u2014 attributed, because nobody actually knows The one tax where the evidence is strongest What we can do: compete on value, and deliver it Sources Are Minnesota's High Earners Leaving? What the Data Actually Shows Ask this question at a Minnesota dinner table and you'll get two answers, both shouted. One side says the wealthy are stampeding for Florida and taking the tax base with them. The other side says tax flight is a myth invented by people who want tax cuts. Almost nobody in the argument has read the actual files. We did. Not a think tank's summary of the data \u2014 the data. The IRS publishes state-to-state migration statistics built from actual tax returns, and the Census Bureau publishes annual population estimates. For this article we pulled those primary files and did the arithmetic ourselves. Here is what they say \u2014 all of it, including the parts each side would rather skip. What's true: Minnesota lost high-income households, year after year From 2018 through 2023 \u2014 the most recent year the IRS has released \u2014 Minnesota lost tax filers to other states on net every single year. Measured by the adjusted gross income of the people moving, the net loss was about $917 million in 2018\u201319, worsening to a peak of $2.19 billion in 2021\u201322 , then improving to $1.47 billion in 2022\u201323 . And the losses are not evenly spread. They are concentrated at the top. In 2022\u201323, households reporting $200,000 or more accounted for a net loss of 1,773 returns \u2014 about 4,460 people \u2014 and roughly $1.12 billion of that year's income loss. That's about 74 percent of the total, from a single income bracket. Meanwhile Minnesota actually gaine Primary data (downloaded and computed for this article): IRS Statistics of Income, state-to-state migration files, 2018\u201319 through 2022\u201323 (irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-migration-data); U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 State Population Estimates (NST-EST2025-ALLDATA); Bureau of Labor Statistics LAUS series (MN and U.S. unemployment and labor-force participation, through July 2026); Census ACS median household income via FRED; Minnesota Department of Revenue, 2026 Tax Incidence Study (Mar. 5, 2026); Minnesota House Research, \"The Minnesota Estate Tax\" (Nov. 2025). Interpretations, attributed above: John Phelan, Center of the American Experiment (Mar. 24, 2026 and related posts); Tax Foundation, State Income Tax Rates and Brackets 2025 and 2026 State Tax Competitiveness Index; Cristobal Young, The Myth of the M"},{"u":"/blog-minnesota-healthcare-consolidation","t":"Who Decides If Your Hospital Survives? Minnesota's Consolidation Wave, By the Numbers","d":"Fourteen closure or cutback hearings in under three years. Premiums up 21 percent in one year. A 20 percent claim-denial rate that fewer than 1 percent of patients appeal. What's happening to Minnesota healthcare \u2014 and the legal tools the state just started using.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-06-13","b":"The wave Meanwhile, the bills The denial machine What we can do Sources Who Decides If Your Hospital Survives? Minnesota's Consolidation Wave, By the Numbers Three days ago, on August 28, the Minnesota Attorney General's office announced that Sanford Health's acquisition of North Memorial could proceed \u2014 under a ten-year oversight agreement requiring $500 million for Maple Grove Hospital, $100 million for Robbinsdale, preservation of the Level 1 trauma center, no material service cuts for a decade, and the elimination of employee noncompetes. Whatever you think of the deal, notice what just happened: a health-care merger in Minnesota came with enforceable, public strings attached. That's new. And it matters, because the rest of this story is a consolidation wave that has mostly rolled over communities without anyone holding the strings. The wave Start with the deal that didn't happen. In 2022, South Dakota-based Sanford moved to absorb Fairview \u2014 which would have put the University of Minnesota's teaching hospitals under out-of-state control. The AG's office ran four public meetings from Worthington to Bemidji, reviewed 300,000-plus pages, and took thousands of comments; the Legislature passed a law barring out-of-state or for-profit control of the U's facilities without an AG public-interest determination. In July 2023 the merger died. Three years later, the U and Fairview signed a ten-year peace: $1 billion of investment in the medical center, with the U's flagship staying put. Now count what has happened since, from the state Health Department MN Attorney General's Office: Sanford/North Memorial oversight agreement release and transaction page (Aug. 28, 2026 \u2014 commitments itemized), \"Requirements for Certain Health Care Entity Transactions\" guidance, Proposed Hospital System Transactions page (Sutter/Allina, definitive agreement May 21, 2026), Sanford-Fairview review releases (Nov. 22 and Dec. 19, 2022), Allina billing investigation release (Aug. 18, 2023), PBM releases (Apr. 15, 2025; June 10, 2024); KSTP, MPR News, and WDIO on the Fairview-Sanford collapse (July 27, 2023); Twin Cities Business on the UMN-Fairview ten-year agreements (June 9, 2026); MDH hospital closure/curtailment hearing docket, Oct. 2023\u2013Aug. 2026 (fourteen hearings incl. Fosston, New Prague, Fairmont, Faribault L&D) and Minn. Stat. \u00a7 144.555 (182-day notice; no blocking authority); UMN Rural Health Research Center data via Post Bulletin (Feb. 10, 2024); M"},{"u":"/blog-your-electric-bill-and-the-data-centers","t":"Your Electric Bill, the Data-Center Boom, and Who Pays for What","d":"Data centers wanting as much power as every Minnesota household combined are coming. Minnesota passed a first-in-the-nation ratepayer-protection law \u2014 here's what's actually in it, what the rate cases show, and the one deadline that decides whether your bill is protected.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-06-12","b":"The rate-case receipts: showing up works Now the boom The law Minnesota passed \u2014 and its fine print The grid behind the bill What we can do Sources Your Electric Bill, the Data-Center Boom, and Who Pays for What Two things are true at once about your electric bill. First: the process that sets it actually works better than most people think \u2014 when someone shows up to fight. Second: the biggest new demand on Minnesota's grid in a generation is arriving right now, and whether it lands on your bill depends on a rate-class definition due at the Public Utilities Commission by December 15, 2026. Most Minnesotans have never heard of it. Let's fix that. St. Anthony Falls from above: the lock, the dam, and the mill district that made Minneapolis a milling city. The river was the first answer to where the power comes from. The question never went away. Photo: Dave Madgett • Minneapolis The rate-case receipts: showing up works Watch what happens when a utility asks for money and regulators, the Attorney General's office, and the Citizens Utility Board push back: - Xcel's last case: asked for $490.7 million \u2014 a 13.2 percent increase over two years . After the fight, the PUC's final decision in June 2026 approved about $210 million \u2014 2.3 percent, then 3.4 percent \u2014 more than 60 percent below the ask, roughly $5.59 a month for a typical home, with a refund (plus interest) because interim rates had over-collected. The commission also slashed late-payment fees by two-thirds. - Minnesota Power: asked 12 percent; settled \u2014 with the Commerce Department and the AG's office at the table \u2014 at about 4.9 percent for residential customers,  MN PUC Xcel electric rate case (Dockets E-002/GR-24-320/321) and Citizens Utility Board case tracking (final decision June 2026: ~$210M vs. $490.7M requested; $5.59/mo; refund; late-fee cuts); Sahan Journal on the prior Xcel case (June 8, 2023); Minnesota Power press releases (May 3 and Oct. 24, 2024 \u2014 settlement and 4.9% approval); MN PUC newsroom and Otter Tail Power filings on the pending 2025 case (17.69% ask; 11.34% interim, Jan. 1, 2026); Star Tribune reporting on Meta Rosemount, Microsoft Becker, Amazon Becker, and \"Mega data centers are coming to Minnesota\" (Jan. 2025 \u2014 load projections and the 2.3-million-household comparison); Xcel Energy newsroom on the Google Pine Island partnership (Feb. 24, 2026); Fresh Energy data-center inventory (Feb. 5, 2026); 2025 Minn. Laws, 1st Spec. Sess., ch. 12, read at revisor.mn.gov, with MN House summaries and vote counts; MN Dept. of Revenue o"},{"u":"/blog-minnesota-seniors-fraud-doubled","t":"Minnesota Seniors Lost $111 Million to Fraud Last Year \u2014 Double the Year Before","d":"FBI data show reported internet-fraud losses by older Minnesotans jumped from $52 million to $111 million in a single year. Here's who's taking the money, how the scams actually work, and the protection playbook with proven results \u2014 including the crypto-ATM ban that just took effect.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-06-11","b":"How the money actually leaves Minnesota just did something about it \u2014 and the story is instructive The playbook that provably works What we can do Sources Minnesota Seniors Lost $111 Million to Fraud Last Year \u2014 Double the Year Before Two numbers, both straight from the FBI's annual internet-crime reports. In 2024, Minnesotans age 60 and older reported $52.3 million in fraud losses. In 2025: $111.4 million . That is a 113 percent increase in a single year \u2014 and those are only the losses people reported . The FTC, modeling how few victims ever come forward, estimates the true national cost of fraud to older Americans in 2024 at somewhere between $10 billion and $81 billion . I've sat across the table from fraud victims for twenty years. The money is only half the injury. The other half is the shame that keeps people from telling their own children \u2014 which is exactly what the scammers count on. So let's put the whole playbook in the open, with the government's own numbers attached. How the money actually leaves Nationally, complainants 60 and older reported $7.7 billion in losses to the FBI in 2025, up 59 percent. The biggest bucket by far is investment scams \u2014 $3.5 billion , nearly tripled in two years \u2014 followed by tech-support scams ($1 billion), romance scams ($584 million), and government impersonation ($413 million, up 47 percent per the FTC, led by crooks posing as the Social Security Administration and the FTC itself). The FTC's data spotlight on big-dollar imposter scams reads like a script, because it is one. The call opens with one of three lies: someone is using your accounts , your identity is being used in crimes ,  FBI IC3 2025 Internet Crime Report (released Apr. 2026) and 2024 Internet Crime Report \u2014 national and Minnesota tables (the one-year doubling is computed from the two reports' state pages); FTC, Protecting Older Consumers 2024\u20132025 (Dec. 1, 2025), including the $10.1\u2013$81.5 billion underreporting-adjusted estimate; FTC Data Spotlight, \"False alarm, real scam\" (Aug. 2025); FBI IC3 PSA on cryptocurrency-kiosk complaints by state (May 15, 2026); Minn. Stat. \u00a7 53B.75 and Minn. Stat. ch. 45A, verified at revisor.mn.gov; Star Tribune (May 7, 2026) and MPR News (July 28, 2026) on the kiosk ban, including MN Commerce complaint and recovery figures and the BCA superintendent's letter; MN Senate vote (Apr. 9, 2026) per League of Minnesota Cities; MN House vote (Apr. 23, 2026) per House Session Daily; FINRA Rule 2165; AARP BankSafe research report (2019); DOJ E.D. Mo. gold-bar indictment (Feb. 4, 20"},{"u":"/blog-what-fraud-costs-minnesota","t":"What Fraud Actually Costs Minnesota \u2014 and What a Dollar of Oversight Buys","d":"The court-established numbers, the disputed estimates, the audit warnings that went unheeded, and the documented return on real enforcement \u2014 $4.64 back for every dollar spent. The full accounting of Minnesota's fraud crisis, sourced end to end.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-06-10","b":"The honest scale: what's proven, what's estimated, what's disputed The warnings were in writing What a dollar of oversight actually buys The new Inspector General \u2014 and the standard it has to meet What we can do Sources What Fraud Actually Costs Minnesota \u2014 and What a Dollar of Oversight Buys On May 21, 2026, a federal judge sentenced Aimee Bock, the founder of Feeding Our Future, to 500 months \u2014 more than 41 years \u2014 for leading a $250 million theft from a federal program that existed to feed children. \"This was a fraud vortex,\" Judge Nancy Brasel told her, \"and you were at the epicenter of it.\" At least 79 defendants have been charged, 70 convicted so far, per the Department of Justice. Those numbers are court-established fact. Almost every other number in Minnesota's fraud debate is contested \u2014 and this article is going to treat you like an adult about which is which, because the difference between proven, estimated, and invented is exactly what our politics keeps blurring. The honest scale: what's proven, what's estimated, what's disputed Proven: the $250 million Feeding Our Future scheme, whose federal reimbursements exploded from $3.4 million in 2019 to nearly $200 million in 2021 while more than 250 \"meal sites\" opened across the state. Estimated \u2014 and hotly disputed: on December 18, 2025, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson told a Minneapolis news conference that fourteen \"high-risk\" state-run Medicaid programs had billed roughly $18 billion since 2018 and that the fraudulent share was, in his words, \"on the order of half or more\" \u2014 the origin of the $9 billion figure you've heard. That was a prosecutor's early estimate, not an audit. Governor Walz called it \"sensationalized\";  DOJ Office of Public Affairs, Feeding Our Future ringleader sentencing release (May 22, 2026) and Minnesota Health Care Fraud Takedown release (May 21, 2026 \u2014 program-growth figures, HSS shutdown, first ICS/IHS prosecutions); DOJ USAO-D. Minn. and IRS-CI releases on defendant counts (through the 70th conviction, July 2026); MPR News on the Bock sentencing (May 21, 2026); FOX 9 on recoveries (Sept. 26, 2024); CBS Minnesota (Dec. 18, 2025 \u2014 the Thompson news conference, quotes) and Minnesota Reformer (Dec. 18\u201319, 2025 \u2014 the $9B estimate and the Walz/DHS responses); KTTC fact-check (Feb. 25, 2026); Office of the Legislative Auditor: CCAP special reviews (Mar. 13 and Apr. 10, 2019 \u2014 PDFs read directly), the June 13, 2024 report on MDE oversight of Feeding Our Future, and the Mar. 17, 2026 report on DHS kickback authority; Star Tribune, \"'An open secret'\" (May 2026 report"},{"u":"/blog-minnesota-affordability-squeeze","t":"The Affordability Squeeze: Five Bills Eating the Minnesota Paycheck","d":"Housing, childcare, health insurance, utilities, and home and auto insurance \u2014 the documented numbers on what life in Minnesota actually costs now, and the fixes with real evidence behind them.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-06-07","b":"Bill one: the house Bill two: childcare Bill three: health insurance Bills four and five: keeping the lights on and the roof insured Meanwhile, the paycheck What actually works \u2014 the receipts Sources The Affordability Squeeze: Five Bills Eating the Minnesota Paycheck Politicians say the word \"affordability\" so often it has stopped meaning anything. So let's skip the word and look at the bills \u2014 the five big ones that land on a Minnesota kitchen table, with the actual numbers from the actual sources. Bill one: the house The Twin Cities median home sale price hit a record $410,000 in June 2026 , per Minneapolis Area Realtors; statewide, Minnesota Realtors put 2025's median at $355,000. Against those prices, the Housing Affordability Institute \u2014 a homebuilder-affiliated research group, so weigh the source \u2014 calculates that about 56 percent of Minnesota households cannot afford the median existing home , and roughly three-quarters can't touch the median new one. Nationally, first-time buyers fell to 21 percent of purchases \u2014 the lowest share in the 44-year history of the Realtors' survey \u2014 and the median first-time buyer is now 40 years old. Underneath it all is arithmetic nobody has repealed: Minnesota Housing, the state's own agency, estimates we are short roughly 65,000 housing units . For the lowest-income renters it's worse \u2014 about 41 affordable and available homes for every 100 extremely-low-income renter households, per the National Low Income Housing Coalition's Gap analysis. Bill two: childcare Child Care Aware of America's affordability analysis prices full-time, center-based infant care in Minnesota at $20,421 a year \u2014 the 11th least affordable state, at 14.3 perce Minneapolis Area Realtors monthly indicators (June\u2013July 2026) and Minnesota Realtors 2025 annual data via MPR News (Feb. 2, 2026); Redfin Minnesota market data (Aug. 2026); Housing Affordability Institute, \"Minnesota's Homeownership Challenge\"; NAR first-time-buyer data via MPR/Housing First MN; Minnesota Housing, 2026\u20132027 Affordable Housing Plan draft (Aug. 21, 2025); NLIHC \"The Gap\" 2026 via Minnesota Housing Partnership; Child Care Aware of America, 2024 Price of Care Affordability Analysis; EPI infant-care rankings via MPR News (Mar. 18, 2025); MN Dept. of Commerce approved 2026 and proposed 2027 individual-market rates and news releases (Oct. 1, 2025; Aug. 2026); KFF enhanced-premium-tax-credit calculator; MN PUC Xcel electric rate case (final approval July 31, 2026) and Citizens Utility Board summary; CenterPoint settlement coverage (2025); Insurify Minnesota homeowners report an"},{"u":"/blog-the-650-dollar-tax","t":"The $650 Tax You Never Voted For","d":"Junk fees, credit-report errors, and debt collectors chasing debts people don't owe \u2014 the everyday economics of consumer harm in Minnesota, what the federal retreat of 2025 changed, and the receipts showing that enforcement pays for itself.","l":"Minnesota by the Numbers","dt":"2026-06-07","b":"The everyday economics of getting taken 2025: the federal floor gave way Minnesota built its own floor Enforcement pays \u2014 literally What we can do Sources The $650 Tax You Never Voted For There's a tax you pay every year that never appeared on any ballot. The White House Council of Economic Advisers put it at roughly $90 billion a year nationally \u2014 about $650 per household \u2014 and it's collected in $4.95 increments at the bottom of receipts: the \"convenience\" fee, the \"service\" charge, the resort fee for a hotel with no resort, the processing fee for a ticket you printed yourself. I've spent nearly twenty years as a consumer-protection attorney, so let me tell you what I've learned about that tax: it is not an accident, it is a business model. And it's only the entry fee. Here's the fuller bill, straight from the government's own data. The everyday economics of getting taken Your credit report is probably wrong. The FTC's landmark accuracy study found one in five consumers had an error on at least one of their three credit reports, and about 5 percent had errors serious enough to change the terms of a loan \u2014 that's roughly ten million Americans quietly paying more for cars and mortgages because a database is sloppy. Complaints about credit reporting have exploded: the CFPB logged about 5.8 million of them in 2025 \u2014 88 percent of everything the agency heard \u2014 with \"incorrect information on your report\" the most common problem. Debt collectors chase debts people say they don't owe. Of roughly 207,800 debt-collection complaints to the CFPB in 2024 \u2014 nearly double the prior year \u2014 45 percent were about a debt the consumer said wasn't White House CEA junk-fee estimate (Mar. 2023) and White House fact sheet (Oct. 11, 2023); CFPB overdraft/NSF data spotlight (Jan. 2024) and late-fee rule (Mar. 5, 2024); N.D. Tex. consent judgment vacating the late-fee rule (Apr. 15, 2025, per Holland & Knight and Ballard Spahr summaries); Congressional Review Act repeal of the overdraft rule (signed May 9, 2025; CRS IN12513); FTC Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, 16 C.F.R. Part 464 (effective May 12, 2025); FTC credit-report accuracy study (Feb. 2013) and follow-up (Jan. 2015); CFPB Consumer Response Annual Reports for 2024 (May 2025) and 2025 (Mar. 2026); CFPB FDCPA Annual Report 2025 (Nov. 2025); FTC Structure and Practices of the Debt Buying Industry (Jan. 2013); FTC Consumer Sentinel Data Book 2024 and press release (Mar. 10, 2025); KTTC (May 29, 2025) and FOX 9 on Minnesota's per-capita fraud rank; Minn. Stat. \u00a7 325D.44, subd. 1a ("}]}