Minnesota

Al Franken, calling himself “the next senator from Minnesota,” said Monday afternoon he is ready to go to Washington to get to work just as soon as possible.” MORE »

“The deficit is so overwhelming that it’s hard to even think about what the other issues would be,” said Senator Sandy Pappas (D-St. Paul), expressing what might be the only easy consensus about the legislative session that begins January 6. From higher education to green jobs to child care to roads and bridges, the deficit looms over all other issues. MORE »

During the era of “no new taxes,” Minnesota is primarily addressing rising budget shortfalls by cutting much-needed aid to local governments and jacking up regressive fees on Minnesota families. Relying on these policies alone to resolve the $5.5 billion deficit would have disastrous repercussions for our state. MORE »

The Minnesota Supreme Court issued an order late Monday morning (pdf) denying an emergency motion from the Norm Coleman campaign to stop the State Canvassing Board from certifying the vote in the statewide Senate recount. That clears the way for the canvassing board to certify this afternoon that Al Franken received the most votes in the Nov. 4 election as determined by the recount that followed.

MORE »

Two opportunities to speak out on budgets, local and state:

The Minnesota Coalition for a People’s Bailout and the Welfare Rights Committee are organizing a campaign to demand a “People’s Bailout” of increased and extended aid to the poor, protection of public education funding, and no layoffs. The campaign kicks off with a protest at the state capitol on Tuesday, January 6 at noon, during the opening session of the state legislature. MORE »

You could be forgiven for thinking fonts aren’t fun. An ancient and esoteric craft, typography exemplifies the hard ideals of clarity and consistency, imbuing the printed word with authority and stripping it of the messy irregularity of handwriting. MORE »

The Minnesota Supreme Court ordered (pdf) Friday afternoon that the campaign of Al Franken respond by 9 a.m. Saturday to U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman’s Dec. 31 petition to start over on the current court-ordered effort to count wrongfully rejected absentee ballots. The justices also directed seven Minnesota counties to tell the court whether they reviewed additional rejected absentee ballots the rival campaigns want counted — and if not, why. (In regional meetings this week, Sherburne County officials, for example, refused to consider three additional ballots the Coleman campaign asked them to review.) MORE »

A documentary look at the Representative Journalism (RepJ) Project, a pioneering citizen journalism initiative in Northfield, Minnesota. Funded by the Harnisch Family Foundation, the RepJ project is a joint initiative of Leonard Witt, a professor of journalism at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia, and LocallyGrownNorthfield.org, a citizen journalism blog in Northfield, Minnesota.

MORE »