https://www.madgettformn.com/blog Sourced research and positions on Minnesota law and policy by David J.S. Madgett: the "Minnesota by the Numbers" series, "Where Dave Stands" position pieces, and the arbitration and consumer-protection desk. Every claim sourced or omitted. en-us Sun, 06 Sep 2026 12:00:00 -0500 campaign@madgettformn.com (David J.S. Madgett) https://www.madgettformn.com/og-image.pnghttps://www.madgettformn.com/ https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-minnesota-the-ethical-ai-capital https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-minnesota-the-ethical-ai-capital Sat, 05 Sep 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Where Dave Stands 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 — around the thing the industry is most desperate for and least able to supply on its own: trust. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-child-care-is-infrastructure https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-child-care-is-infrastructure Sat, 05 Sep 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Where Dave Stands 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 — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-even-trump-says-credit-cards-are-a-scam https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-even-trump-says-credit-cards-are-a-scam Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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 — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-fix-the-traffic-stop-not-the-statute https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-fix-the-traffic-stop-not-the-statute Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Where Dave Stands 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-let-the-money-follow-the-reader https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-let-the-money-follow-the-reader Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Where Dave Stands 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 — not an exit from it. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-a-distributed-grid-is-national-security https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-a-distributed-grid-is-national-security Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Where Dave Stands 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 — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-weapon-turned https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-weapon-turned Wed, 02 Sep 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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 — and the agenda a state attorney general can actually run. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-right-to-earn-a-living https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-right-to-earn-a-living Wed, 02 Sep 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Where Dave Stands Occupational licensing is sold as consumer protection, and sometimes it is. Too often it's a guild — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-fund-results-not-the-nonprofit-industrial-complex https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-fund-results-not-the-nonprofit-industrial-complex Wed, 02 Sep 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Where Dave Stands 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 — treatment, case management — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-clause-that-deleted-your-jury https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-clause-that-deleted-your-jury Tue, 01 Sep 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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 — drawn from my book, The Rigged Court. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-a-duty-of-loyalty-to-the-twelve-year-old https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-a-duty-of-loyalty-to-the-twelve-year-old Tue, 01 Sep 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Where Dave Stands 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 — designed for the child's interest, not maximum engagement — enforceable by the Attorney General. We already impose that duty on everyone else entrusted with something precious. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-buy-health-care-like-the-giant-customer-we-are https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-buy-health-care-like-the-giant-customer-we-are Mon, 31 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Where Dave Stands Skip the single-payer-versus-free-market fight. The state already buys an enormous share of Minnesota's health care — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-where-corporate-wrongdoing-goes-to-hide https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-where-corporate-wrongdoing-goes-to-hide Sun, 30 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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 — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-bodies-that-move-your-packages https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-bodies-that-move-your-packages Sun, 30 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers Warehouse, meatpacking, and hospital work destroys bodies — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-impunity-is-the-real-crime-crisis https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-impunity-is-the-real-crime-crisis Sun, 30 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Where Dave Stands 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 — it's impunity. Fund investigation, measure cases solved, and the rest of the debate gets a lot smaller. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-floor-under-the-rideshare-driver https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-floor-under-the-rideshare-driver Sat, 29 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-make-it-affordable-to-say-yes-to-a-child https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-make-it-affordable-to-say-yes-to-a-child Sat, 29 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Where Dave Stands 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 — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-catch-the-fraud-cut-the-check https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-catch-the-fraud-cut-the-check Fri, 28 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Where Dave Stands 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-salary-has-to-be-in-the-ad-now https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-salary-has-to-be-in-the-ad-now Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers Minnesota now requires employers with 30 or more workers to put a real salary range in every job posting — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-independent-contractor-lie https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-independent-contractor-lie Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers Misclassification — labeling an employee a 'contractor' to dodge the obligations of employing them — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-local-police-work-for-minnesota https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-local-police-work-for-minnesota Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Where Dave Stands 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 — the neighbor who works, pays taxes, and raises kids here — we actively protect. That's a Minnesota value. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-you-own-the-home-but-rent-the-ground https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-you-own-the-home-but-rent-the-ground Wed, 26 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers Manufactured-home parks are some of the last naturally affordable housing in Minnesota — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-gun-deal-that-can-actually-be-won https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-gun-deal-that-can-actually-be-won Wed, 26 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Where Dave Stands 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-call-it-the-open-category https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-call-it-the-open-category Tue, 25 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Where Dave Stands The trans-athlete debate is two groups talking past each other — 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 — Open. Then decide the hard edges by age, stakes, and sport, not from the Capitol. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-deepfake-law-and-its-first-amendment-problem https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-deepfake-law-and-its-first-amendment-problem Mon, 24 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-rent-control-that-rewards-building https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-rent-control-that-rewards-building Mon, 24 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Where Dave Stands Hard rent caps choke the new housing that actually lowers rents — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-board-that-can-cap-a-drug-price https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-board-that-can-cap-a-drug-price Sat, 22 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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 — and the statute even includes a severability clause, because everyone knew the lawsuits were coming. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-who-is-allowed-to-own-a-minnesota-farm https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-who-is-allowed-to-own-a-minnesota-farm Fri, 21 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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 — they're the loopholes, the shell entities, and whether anyone is actually watching. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-privacy-you-have-to-buy-a-lawyer-to-get https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-privacy-you-have-to-buy-a-lawyer-to-get Wed, 19 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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 — which turns privacy into a luxury good. The answer isn't to make everyone hire a lawyer. It's to regulate the surveillance. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-they-cant-make-you-sit-through-it https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-they-cant-make-you-sit-through-it Wed, 19 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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 — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-registered-unless-you-say-no https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-registered-unless-you-say-no Mon, 17 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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 — and it deserves a fair accounting of both what it does and what critics fear. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-someone-is-finally-watching-the-servicer https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-someone-is-finally-watching-the-servicer Sun, 16 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers The student-loan servicer — the middleman who takes your payment and is supposed to get you into the right repayment or forgiveness plan — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-an-hour-for-every-thirty-you-work https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-an-hour-for-every-thirty-you-work Sat, 15 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers Minnesota's Earned Sick and Safe Time law gives every employee one hour of paid leave for every 30 hours worked — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-right-to-fix-what-you-own https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-right-to-fix-what-you-own Fri, 14 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-vote-comes-back-at-the-prison-gate https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-vote-comes-back-at-the-prison-gate Wed, 12 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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 — but on standing, without deciding the constitutional question. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-fifty-percent-is-the-ceiling https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-fifty-percent-is-the-ceiling Wed, 12 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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 — the sophisticated part — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-twenty-weeks-starting-in-january https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-twenty-weeks-starting-in-january Mon, 10 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers Beginning January 1, 2026, nearly every Minnesota worker is covered by state-run paid family and medical leave — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-your-noncompete-is-probably-void https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-your-noncompete-is-probably-void Mon, 10 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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 — one of only a few states to ban them outright — and the federal government just tried and failed to do the same. Here's what it does, and the loophole it leaves open. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-insulin-the-state-made-free https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-insulin-the-state-made-free Thu, 06 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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 — and the program is still saving lives. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-ag-gets-a-look-before-the-merger-closes https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-ag-gets-a-look-before-the-merger-closes Thu, 06 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers A 2023 law requires big Minnesota health-care mergers to be reported and reviewed — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-what-the-uniform-teaches-a-prosecutor https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-what-the-uniform-teaches-a-prosecutor Tue, 04 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett From Dave 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-what-they-cannot-take-from-you https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-what-they-cannot-take-from-you Tue, 04 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers Minnesota's homestead exemption is generous. Its everyday-property exemptions — the car, the tools of your trade, the bank-account 'wild card' — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-debt-that-follows-you-for-a-decade https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-debt-that-follows-you-for-a-decade Sun, 02 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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 — renewable to twenty. Minnesota actually fixed some of the worst parts. Here's what it got right, and the gap that's left. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-who-owns-minnesota https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-who-owns-minnesota Fri, 31 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers Foreign investors hold 1.9 percent of Minnesota farmland — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-oldest-sovereignty-in-minnesota https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-oldest-sovereignty-in-minnesota Thu, 30 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-9000-dollar-fee-hiding-in-your-solar-loan https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-9000-dollar-fee-hiding-in-your-solar-loan Thu, 30 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-county-with-no-lawyer https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-county-with-no-lawyer Tue, 28 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers Minnesota has 4.6 lawyers per 1,000 people statewide — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-twelve-minutes-per-client https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-twelve-minutes-per-client Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers Public defenders represent 80 to 90 percent of everyone charged with a crime in Minnesota — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-minnesota-privacy-law-turned-one https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-minnesota-privacy-law-turned-one Sun, 26 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers The law gives Minnesotans a right most states don't have — 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. https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-drone-over-your-neighborhood https://www.madgettformn.com/blog-the-drone-over-your-neighborhood Sun, 26 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0500 David J.S. Madgett Minnesota by the Numbers 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 — 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.