š£ļøTHIS IS WHAT INCLUSIVE, COMPASSIONATE DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE
Minnesota Dems enacted a raft of laws to make the state a trans refuge, and ensure people receiving trans care here canāt be reached by far-right governments in places like Florida and Texas. (link)
Minnesota Dems ensured that everyone, including undocumented immigrants, can get driversā licenses. (link)
They made public collegefree for the majority of Minnesota families. (link)
Minnesota Dems dropped a billion dollars into a bevy of affordable housing programs, including by creating a new state housing voucher program. (link)
Minnesota Dems massively increased funding for the stateās perpetually-underfunded public defenders, which lets more public defenders be hired and existing public defenders get a salary increase. (link)
Dems raised Minnesota education spending by 10%, or about 2.3 billion. (link)
Minnesota Dems created an energy standard for 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040. (link)
Minnesota already has some of the strongest election infrastructure (and highest voter participation) in the country, but the legislature just made it stronger, with automatic registration, preregistration for minors, and easier access to absentee ballots. (link)
Minnesota Dems expanded the publicly subsidized health insurance program to undocumented immigrants. This oneās interesting because itās the sort of things Dems often balk at. The governor opposed it! The legislature rolled over him and passed it anyway. (link)
Minnesota Dems expanded background checks and enacted red-flag laws, passing gun safety measures that the GOP has thwarted for years. (link)
Minnesota Dems gave the state AG the power to block the huge healthcare mergers that have slowly gobbled up the stateās medical system. (link)
Minnesota Dems restored voting rights to convicted felons as soon as they leave prison. (link)
Minnesota Dems made prison phone calls free. (link)
Minnesota Dems passed new wage protection rules for the construction industry, against industry resistance. (link)
Minnesota Dems created a new sales tax to fund bus and train lines, an enormous victory for the sustainability and quality of public transit. Transit be more pleasant to ride, more frequent, and have better shelters, along more lines. (link)
They passed strict new regulations on PFAS (āforever chemicalsā). (link)
Minnesota Dems passed the largest bonding bill in state history! Funding improvements to parks, colleges, water infrastructure, bridges, etc. etc. etc. (link)
Theyāre going to build a passenger train from the Twin Cities to Duluth. (link)
I canāt even find a news story about it but thereās tens of millions in funding for new BRT lines, too. (link)
A wonky-but-important change: Minnesota Dems indexed the state gas tax to inflation, effectively increasing the gas tax. (link)
They actually indexed a bunch of stuff to inflation, including the stateās education funding formula, which helps ensure that school spending doesnāt decline over time. (link)
Minnesota Dems made hourly school workers (e.g., bus drivers and paraprofessionals) eligible for unemployment during summer break, when theyāre not working or getting paid. (link)
Minnesota Dems passed a bunch of labor protections for teachers, including requiring school districts to negotiate class sizes as part of union contracts. (Yet another @SydneyJordanMN special here. (link)
Minnesota Dems created a state board to govern labor standards at nursing homes. (link)
Minnesota Dems created a Prescription Drug Affordability Board, which would set price caps for high-cost pharmaceuticals. (link)
Minnesota Dems created new worker protections for Amazon warehouse workers and refinery workers. (link)
Minnesota Dems passed a digital fair repair law, which requires electronics manufacturers to make tools and parts available so that consumers can repair their electronics rather than purchase new items. (link)
Minnesota Dems made Juneteenth a state holiday. (link)
They spent nearly a billion dollars on a variety of environmental programs, from heat pumps to reforestation. (link)
Minnesota Dems expanded protections for pregnant and nursing workers - already in place for larger employers - to almost everyone in the state. (link)
Minnesota Dems created a new child tax credit that will cut child poverty by about a quarter. (link)
Minnesota Democrats dropped a quick $50 million into homelessness prevention programs. (link)
And because the small stuff didnāt get lost in the big stuff, they passed a law to prevent catalytic converter thefts. (link)
Minnesota Dems increased child care assistance. (link)
Minnesota Dems banned ācaptive audience meetings,ā where employers force employees to watch anti-union presentations. (link)
No news story yet, but Minnesota Dems forced signal priority changes to Twin Cities transit. Right now the trains have to wait at intersections for cars, which, I can say from experience, is terrible. Soon that will change.
Minnesota Dems provided the largest increase to nursing home funding in state history. (link)
They also bumped up salaries for home health workers, to help address the shortage of in-home nurses. (link)
Minnesota Dems legalized drug paraphernalia, which allows social service providers to conduct needle exchanges and address substance abuse with reduced fear of incurring legal action. (link)
Minnesota Dems banned white supremacists and extremists from police forces, capped probation at 5 years for most crimes, improved clemency, and mostly banned no-knock warrants. (link)
Minnesota Dems also laid the groundwork for a public health insurance option. (link)
Iām happy for the people of Minnesota, but as a Floridian living under Ron DeSantis & hateful Republicans, Iām also very envious tbh. We know that democracy can work, and this is a shining example of what government could be like in the hands of legislators who actually care about helping people in need, and not pursuing the GOPās āculture warsā and suppressing the votes of BIPOC, and inflicting maximum harm on those who arenāt cis/het, white, wealthy, Christian males. BRAVO MINNESOTA. This is how you do it. ššæššæššæššæššæššæššæ
āFellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?
Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nationās sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nationās jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the ālame man leap as an hart.
But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.ā
This site is about as scatterbrained as I am these days. Lover of all things rock and metal with a desire to see the world. In my mid forties. Likes are sprinkled with NSFW, so youāve been warned.
