U.S. State Politics

Scott Walker takes shot at Dayton, proving that those in glass houses do throw stones

Thanks to Wisconsin's dismal job market, Scott Walker is in a glass house. But that isn't stopping him from throwing stones at Mark Dayton.SEE ALSO: Wisconsin Democratic spokesman loses job after comparing Scott Walker to Jeffrey Dahmer Today, Walker took to Twitter to lob a diss at Dayton for his p ... More >>

North Dakota moving to ban all abortions with "personhood" bills

North Dakota is establishing itself as the most anti-abortion state in the nation with "personhood" bills that are working their way through the GOP-dominated Legislature.SEE ALSO: North Dakota Capitol reporters repeatedly warned about wearing revealing clothing If either of the measures are ultimat ... More >>

Minnesota Republicans want Norm Coleman vs. Mark Dayton in 2014

With a 53 percent approval rating, Mark Dayton looks like he'll be tough to beat in 2014. But as of right now, polling indicates Norm Coleman has the inside track to become the Republican who gets a shot to knock him off.SEE ALSO: Minnesota Republicans want Michele Bachmann vs. Al Franken in 2014The ... More >>

Majority Leader-elect Bakk: "Some real liberal constituencies" pushing marriage equality bill

In 1997, the Minnesota Legislature passed a law banning same-sex marriage. Repeal of that bill would be the first step toward legalizing same-sex marriage here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.SEE ALSO: Marijuana legalization bill could come before DFL-controlled legislature this sessionMore than 4,000 h ... More >>

MNGOP's Dan Severson on election results: "I'm not a Minnesotan for long"

In the wake of last Tuesday's DFL-on-MNGOP beatdown, responses from various Minnesota Republicans have spanned the gamut -- from soul-searching introspection to denial to anger and everything in between.SEE ALSO: Andy Parrish on marriage amendment defeat: 'We won 74 out of 87 counties' But in an ele ... More >>

Michael Brodkorb files lawsuit against Minnesota Senate

See also:--The Amy Koch Affair--Michael Brodkorb created a hostile work environment, GOP senator says--Michael Brodkorb wants to settle invasion of privacy lawsuit with Senate--Michael Brodkorb's attorney "blindsided" by meeting with senators--Michael Brodkorb domestic dispute Minnesota Republicans' ... More >>

Tom Barrett bitch-slapped -- literally -- after conceding Wisconsin recall [VIDEO]

Last night, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett got bitch-slapped twice -- once by Scott Walker, and a second time by a supporter.Moments after Barrett conceded the recall election, an upset supporter let Barrett have it with an open palm to the face. Her beef? That Barrett conceded the election just after ... More >>

Dayton vetoes two abortion-restricting bills

Today, Gov. Mark Dayton announced he's vetoing a bill that would've banned so-called "telemedicine abortions" and required the physical presence of a doctor when an abortion is performed.Last Thursday, Dayton announced his veto of a separate bill that would've required abortion clinics to be license ... More >>

MNGOP: 'No state party may be in worse financial shape,' writes Politico

Late last year, the MNGOP announced that it was a whopping $2 million in debt.The party's dire financial predicament led to Tony Sutton's resignation as the chair of the party. Sutton was replaced by Pat Shortridge, but the damage was already done, according to a Politico analysis of the balance she ... More >>

Randy Hopper, former Wisconsin GOP senator, says drunk driving arrest politically motivated

​And we think Minnesota's politics are bitter...Randy Hopper, a former GOP state senator in Wisconsin from Fond du Lac, testified yesterday that he believes his October 2011 drunk driving arrest was a result of his support for Governor Scott Walker's effort to eliminate collective bargaining for p ... More >>

Gov. Scott Walker: Recall election is likely

It's been little more than two weeks since foes of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker began petitioning for a recall, and they've already surpassed 300,000 signatures -- more than half of the 540,000 needed by the January 17 deadline. If they keep progressing at this pace, a recall election will be inevit ... More >>

Vikings stadium won't get a special session

This stadium will have to wait until the legislature's New Year's hangover wears off.​The Minnesota Vikings are, putting it kindly, not a very special football team right now. Fittingly, the team won't get a special session from the legislature to rule on its new stadium(s?), and will have to wait ... More >>

Rick Perry's "Texas miracle" is a fantasy

The GOP presidential candidate's claims don't hold up

Business as usual for state GOP during shutdown, including salaries

Tony Sutton will still get paid during the shutdown.​With Gov. Mark Dayton and a slew of legislators not taking their paychecks during the state government shutdown, City Pages thought it would check up on the state political parties. Eleven of the 14 state senators skipping their salary are Repub ... More >>

Mark Dayton's former home set on fire

​Instead of coming back from the long Fourth of July holiday weekend to find a renewed sense of respect among Minnesota's lawmakers seeking an end to the shutdown, we instead heard that someone tried to burn down Gov. Mark Dayton's former home near Lake Harriet. "To say that it's politically moti ... More >>

Minnesotans blame Legislature, Dayton equally for shut down

​Throwing cold water on claims of popular support by both the Republicans running the Legislature, and DFL Gov. Mark Dayton, Minnesotans in a new poll are blaming both sides equally for the budget battle that may force a state government shutdown. They also largely disapprove of the job the L ... More >>

Dayton wants 13,000 workers spared from shutdown

​The Legislature and Gov. Mark Dayton keep stumbling toward a possible government shutdown on July 1, and now the governor has submitted a list state services deemed essential--and who should keep working despite the shutdown. The list encompasses about 13,000 workers providing core services to 2 ... More >>

Countdown to government shutdown: Who's to blame?

Minnesota lawmakers have until July 1 to get it together.​As of today, the Minnesota Legislature is two-and-a-half weeks tardy in solving the state's $5 billion budget deficit. Unfortunately for everyone, there doesn't appear to be a budget deal in sight. If no agreement is made by July 1st, ... More >>

Wisconsin Republicans' fake Democrats exposed

Gov. Scott Walker's allies get caught in a dirty trick.​A number of Wisconsin Republicans are still trying to figure out how to survive the PR debacle birthed by their public employee union busting legislation earlier this year. One of the upshots is a series of recall drives being launched agains ... More >>

Watch Nick Ayers, Tim Pawlenty's presidential campaign manager, get arrested for DWI [VIDEO]

Nick Ayers as he would like you to see him.​It was well known, even before Tim Pawlenty hired him to manage his presidential campaign, that Nick Ayers was pulled over and arrested for DWI in 2006. What hasn't been available for the public to view, until now, is the dash cam video of that arrest. ... More >>

Most Wisconsin voters don't believe Gov. Scott Walker's union talk

Walker's even lost the zombie vote.​He's a hero to tea partiers, but Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker keeps getting bad news from statewide polls. The latest survey finds that just 31 percent of folks in Wisconsin have apparently bought into his line that he wants to strip public employees of thei ... More >>

Katherine Windels ordered to stop threatening Wisconsin Republicans

Katherine Windels got carried away.​There's no doubt that pro- and anti-union forces used almost every trick in the book during the assembly battle over Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's bill to strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights. But while there was a lot of shouting, scre ... More >>

Kathy Nickolaus refuses to resign over Wisconsin election screw up

Kathy Nickolaus admits she screwed up, but says she won't resign.​Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus appears to have been exposed as either a ham-fisted political hack, or simply incompetent. Or maybe it's both. But just because she flipped a much-watched Wisconsin Supreme Court election i ... More >>

Scott Walker wins: Wisconsin Republicans through union-busting bill [UPDATE]

Sue Peacock/FlickrLet the recall efforts begin.​Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly finally dropped all pretenses about Gov. Scott Walker's union-busting bill having anything to do with balancing the state's budget. Wednesday night, with 14 Democrats still on the lam trying to block a vote, the ... More >>

No local media outlets are good enough for Governor Dayton's radio show [UPDATE]

petroleumjelliffeDead air for Dayton.​Jesse Ventura had one. Tim Pawlenty had one. But Gov. Mark Dayton has decided that he won't have his own radio show, even after sending out a 16-page form to local media so they could bid on the project. Even reliably lefty AM950, where "what's left is th ... More >>

Scott Walker tanking in another Wisconsin poll [UPDATE]

Scott Walker is falling in the polls.​There's more bad poll news for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who insists he's going to stand firm in his budget battle to strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights. Rasmussen Reports is out with a new survey of Wisconsin voters showing that ... More >>

Scott Walker called to the border by 14 Wisconsin Democrats [UPDATE]

Mark RiechersIt's not dead yet.​Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has been invited to the Illinois state line for a face-to-face meeting with some of the 14 Democratic state senators who won't give Republicans the quorum needed to pass their union-busting bill. A showdown now that Walker's tanking in t ... More >>

Scott Walker defends union busting, gutting public school spending

Walker defends his budget.​Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker stood before Wisconsin lawmakers yesterday, defended his union busting tactics against public workers, and then announced he wanted to gouge $1.5 billion out of the state's public school and local government aid spending. If he keeps this ... More >>

Scott Walker: Wisconsin has buyer's remorse

Maybe Wisconsinites are embarrassed by Scott Walker's epic phone fail.​Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker gives his big budget address today in Madison, where he's expected to defend not just trying to neuter public employee unions, but also slashing funding for public education and local ... More >>

Wisconsin senate Democrats getting homesick, Republican says

Sen. Scott Fitzgerald says some of the 14 Democrats want to come home.​As long as 14 Wisconsin Senate Democrats stay on the lam, GOP Gov. Scott Walker can't push his controversial union busting bill through the Legislature. So he threatened again today to start laying off 1,500 public sector ... More >>

Tim Pawlenty second in Arizona tea party poll

Matt VisionquestTim Pawlenty, tea party hero​All his threats about pushing gays back into the closet, shutting down the federal government, busting unions, and insulting the president seem to finally be paying off for Tim Pawlenty. He keynoted a steeped-in-tea confab over the weekend in Arizona c ... More >>

Madison union supporters plan Minneapolis demonstration Monday afternoon

The rally starts at 4 p.m. Monday.​More than 1,000 people turned out on Saturday in St. Paul to demonstrate solidarity with union workers in Madison, and now a march has been scheduled for 4 p.m. today in downtown Minneapolis. A rally will begin at 4 p.m. at the Hennepin County Government Cen ... More >>

Mark Dayton promises no union-busting laws [UPDATE]

Mark Dayton supports unions in Wisconsin.​Gov. Mark Dayton told about 1,000 pro-union demonstrators in the Capitol Rotunda on Tuesday that he'd block any attempt by Republican legislators to pass a union-busting bill similar to the one raising a ruckus in Wisconsin. That bill, being pushed by ... More >>

Scott Walker phone fail: Wis. governor falls for prank call you wouldn't believe [AUDIO]

Scott Walker falls for a crank phone call that is so fake you wouldn't believe it.​Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has fallen for a prank phone call, and in the process spent 20 minutes revealing his secret union-busting plans to the opposition. The prank call was made by the alternative weekly ... More >>

Wisconsin 14 missing senator photos: Have you seen these politicians?

Gov. Scott Walker: Senate Democrats are MIA.​Fourteen Wisconsin state senators are on the lam, hiding from police trying to return them to Madison for a vote on a union-busting bill that none of them support. They were last seen hunkered down in an Illinois motel. Anyone with information as to t ... More >>

Surly asks fans for help changing laws

Surly asks for help to get dream brewery approval​When Surly Brewing Company announced plans for a new $20-million brewery complex last week the Twin Cities beer world exploded with excitement. This wasn't going to be just any brewery; this was going to be a "destination brewery" complete with ... More >>

Mark Dayton sworn in as governor today [UPDATE]

Mark Dayton will be the next governor of Minnesota.​Be careful what you wish for, the old saying goes. Mark Dayton took the oath of office as Minnesota's governor at noon, the first Democrat to hold that office in decades.

Tom Emmer concedes governor's race to Mark Dayton [UPDATE]

Tom Emmer says it's time to move on.​Given the steady drip, drip, drip of his failed ballot challenges and dead-end legal maneuvers since Election Day, it almost seems anticlimactic that Republican Tom Emmer has finally concluded that his race for governor is lost. A lot of GOP insiders, and ... More >>

Tom Emmer quitting race. Mark Dayton will govern Minnesota

Mark Dayton will be the next governor of Minnesota.​It's over. Republican candidate for governor Tom Emmer will concede the race to Democrat Mark Dayton in an official announcement at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow in his hometown of Delano. Emmer decided to quit his recount battle against Dayton just h ... More >>

Fair-y Tales

Jeremy Giefer, accused child molester, got Pawlenty pardon to open childcare center

City PagesJeremy Giefer, the sex offender now accused of molesting his daughter, was pardoned by Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.​Jeremy Giefer served time in jail in 1994 for having sex with a 14-year-old girl. But you wouldn't know it to look at the record of the man now charged with sexually mo ... More >>

Mark Dayton vs. Tom Emmer: The recount timeline

The goal: Dec. 14.​Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has published his proposed timeline for the recount process in the governor's race. Hopefully he ran all this by Heidi Collins over at Fox9, just to make sure she's OK with the planning. Wouldn't want her going off again.

Tom Emmer's seven mortgages unearthed by blogger

Who's a regular Minnesotan?​Score one for the blogosphere. Last month, Sally Jo Sorensen posted on her Bluestem Prairie site that Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer had taken out seven mortgages on his Delano home since 2002. Today, the Minnesota DFL gave that tidbit a much bigger m ... More >>

Margaret Anderson Kelliher no longer to be unemployed

Nick VlcekMAK attack on the technology industry.​Margaret Anderson Kelliher will not be unemployed come January. The outgoing Minnesota House Speaker landed a job as president of the Minnesota High Tech Association, a non-profit that advocates for the state's technology industry.

Tom Emmer again trails Democrats, this time in Star Tribune poll

Mark Dayton showed the widest lead over Tom Emmer in the Star Tribune poll​Republican candidate for governor Tom Emmer has again come up with the short end of the stick in a statewide poll compared to his Democratic rivals. A Star Tribune poll released over the weekend shows Mark Dayton, Marga ... More >>

Slug endorses Matt Entenza for governor

The Matt Entenza gubernatorial campaign has been full of WTF moments. Remember, this is the guy who picked a FOX 9 news anchor/jewelry entrepreneur to be his running mate. Then there was that false report that the Minnesota faction of the National Organization for Women endorsed Entenza over Marga ... More >>

Satveer Chaudhary stripped of DFL backing over fishy vote

Photo: Minnesota SenateThe senator won special fishing protections for a lake at which he owns a cabin​So state Sen. Satveer Chaudhary gets language inserted into an omnibus game and fish bill in the waning days of the legislative session in St. Paul; he wants additional measures to protect th ... More >>

Susan Gaertner endorses Matt Entenza for governor

Sisterhood only goes so far​So much for the sisterhood. When DFLer Susan Gaertner dropped out of the governor's race, she said that one of her reasons was to try and clear a path for rival Margaret Anderson Keliher to make some history. "This is the closest Minnesota has yet to come to elec ... More >>

Drinking Liberally pairs progressive politics and a social hour

Minnesota's chapter meets weekly and launched in 2004

Busted: Rybak used mayoral campaign funds for gubernatorial run

Rybak used mayoral campaign funds in May to conduct a poll about his strength to run for governor.