Ewald at the Capitol/June 5

George Floyd Legislative Response

The tragedy of George Floyd’s death is polarizing an already divided political scene on a local, state and national level. In response, the Minnesota Legislature’s People of Color and Indigenous Caucus (POCI) announced that they will offer initiatives to create change through legislation.

A portion of a long list of possibilities under consideration for new legislation include:

Move primary investigation and prosecution of officer-involved deaths to the Minnesota Attorney General’s office;
Modify use-of-force laws;
Create a new crime for “unjustified use of force that results in death or great bodily harm”;
Strengthen independence of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) and design an alternative independent body to their jurisdiction;
Conduct a review of Medical Examiners to ensure independence and timely action;
Establish law enforcement-citizen oversight councils;
Reform the Peace Officer Standards Training (POST) Board to increase oversight of officer licensure and training;
Expand training in de-escalation, mental health crisis intervention and responding to people with disabilities;
Provide new resources to increase diversity in police forces;
Create a legal duty for officers to intervene in the wrongful use of force by fellow officers.

The death of George Floyd will certainly be on the minds of all legislators as they enter special session, and the POCI caucus will be working to make these reforms a top priority both now and moving forward. The House plans to hold a hearing on some of these proposals soon.

Candidate Filings Close

The 2020 campaign season officially kicked off as the filing period for candidates closed this week. In addition to previously announced legislative retirements, there were a couple surprise retirements as well. Rep. Linda Runbeck (38A) and Rep. Sandy Layman (5B) both announced that they have rescinded their previously filed candidacies.

There are no Senate candidates running unopposed; however, a few House candidates have no opponent and have effectively won their elections already:

Rep. Dean Urdahl (18A)
Rep. Gene Pelowski, Jr. (28A)
Rep. Heather Edelson (49A)
Rep. Mohamud Noor (60B)

Special Session

Next week, the Legislature will be called in for a special session. There are numerous unresolved issues from the 2020 Legislative Session including an extension of the governor’s peacetime emergency, bonding, some form of a tax bill, POCI caucus legislation mentioned above, and various other bills and bill packages.

It seems that this special session has the potential to last longer than one day, which would usually be the case when all sides pre-negotiate what will be accomplished. Gov. Walz alluded to a longer special session after calling on the legislature to take action regarding the death of George Floyd during a press conference this week.

While only the governor has the authority to call a special session, only the legislature has the authority to adjourn a special session.

“You’re going to get to see an opportunity next week, how serious people are about getting this done. Because I will guarantee you, there will be bills put on the floor and put to a vote. Yes or no, put your money where your mouth is and send it forward,” said Gov. Walz.

June 1 Partial Openings

Restaurants, hair salons, barbershops, nail salons, tattoo parlors and campgrounds are all allowed to partially re-open to varying degrees this week. Some business owners have stated that this phase of loosening up on restrictions does not do enough to sustain business, while others believe it is too much too soon and are not opening yet.

The restaurant industry has been faced with the unique challenge of adhering to an outdoor-only policy for customers wishing to dine on premises. Some cities have been able to work through loosening regulations so that outdoor seating can be expanded or in some cases, created, for restaurants that had none in the first place.

There is no word on what the next phase of reopening officially entails, nor when it might begin.