Ewald at the Capitol

Minnesota Legislature at the State Fair

Each year, the Legislature takes part in the Minnesota State Fair. Both the Senate and the House have booths in the Education Building, organized by nonpartisan staff and assisted by partisan staff and legislators. The House booth is running its annual opinion poll, but the Senate has a comment card this year instead.

The House poll asks a series of questions on preferences regarding Minnesota policy and the results are fed into a functioning ballot box. The annual poll is intended to simply be a fun State Fair tradition, and is not used in any legislative decision-making.

Some of this year’s poll questions include:

If a peacetime emergency lasts more than 30 days, should the Legislature have the power to terminate any rule or order issued by the governor during the emergency?
Should people without proof of legal residence in the state be allowed to obtain a driver’s license or identification card?
Should K-12 students be required to wear masks in school during the upcoming school year?

Capitol Fence Returns

The Capitol building will once again be enclosed by an 8-foot-tall chain link fence, less than three months after the previous fence was taken down. The fence that was removed in June of this year had been up since May 2020 due to security concerns because of civil unrest.

It is expected that a couple of larger-scale protests on heated topics will occur at the Capitol complex, so again, the fence was put up for safety and property damage prevention.

There are no current publicly shared plans for a tear-down date. The last fence cost the state approximately $200,000.

Legislative Auditor to Retire

The state’s Legislative Auditor, Jim Nobles, is retiring after serving the state for over 49 years. Nobles began his career as an intern for the Minnesota House of Representatives and worked his way up to becoming the Legislative Auditor in 1983.

The Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) is a nonpartisan department that is tasked with conducting financial audits and program evaluations of state programs as well as auditing local governments. The OLA is highly respected by both sides of the aisle and the greater legislative community as a whole.

Senator Zach Duckworth Deploying

Minnesota State Senator Zach Duckworth of Lakeville will soon deploy to the Middle East. He has previously served in Kuwait and Iraq as part of the Minnesota Army National Guard. Sen. Duckworth has two children and his wife Carly is pregnant with their third (due in November).

“It’s an honor to serve our state in times of need and I’m proud to wear the uniform when our country calls. Thank you to everyone who supports our service members and their families during deployments. My wife Carly is a remarkably strong person and I’m very grateful for the love and support she and our kids are receiving,” said Sen. Duckworth in a statement.

He expects that he will return home in time for the start of next year’s legislative session.