MORNING EDITION

As we’ve got used to saying — a lot — there was no surprise in Gov. Dayton’s latest veto. This time it was the Voter ID bill. David Bailey of Reuters says: “Dayton cited a lack of broad bi-partisan support for the bill and its potential as a $23 million unfunded mandate on local governments in part for his veto. The Republican-led Legislature had sent the bill to him on Monday. Supporters had argued the bill would strengthen the integrity of the election system in Minnesota. Dayton said he did not believe voter fraud to be a significant problem in Minnesota and that the reason most often cited for requiring photo identification, felons voting, would not be resolved by the bill. ‘We have the highest voter turnout year after year and under intense, bipartisan scrutiny, the recent statewide recounts have highlighted how reliable the results are’, Dayton said in a letter notifying the Senate of his veto.”

KSTP-TV’s Tom Hauser adds: “Despite the governor's veto, it's likely that photo ID's will be required eventually. Republicans who control the House and Senate say they'll pass a bill that would put the issue on the 2012 ballot. According to our exclusive new SurveyUSA poll, 76% of Minnesotans say they'd vote in favor of voter ID. Only 18% oppose the idea.”

The Duluth News Tribune runs a letter from reader Rick Nelson who happened to be in Phoenix last week and attended Harmon Killebrew’s funeral. “I was truly overwhelmed by all that was said to honor Harmon. Blyleven’s request for us to imagine ‘Killer’ hitting his 574th home run brought a resounding standing ovation from the congregation — a memorable moment. But equally impressionable was Harmon’s oldest son, Cam. He hadn’t planned to speak; he thought it would be too difficult. But he got up and told the story of how he would often attend baseball games with his dad. After the game ended, he would wait for his dad and be anxious to go home — so that he could have his dad to himself. As they emerged to leave, fans would be waiting, hoping for autographs. Harmon would take his hand and say to him, ‘Son, do you see all those people waiting there? They have come from Sioux City, Iowa; Fargo, N.D., and all over the state of Minnesota.’ And he felt compelled to stay and sign autographs for them. Sitting at the service, I could not help but reflect on the significance of life, the importance of each day, and the impressions we leave with others. It was so obvious that what truly made Harmon Killebrew great was his love, compassion and caring for all people. And what a legacy for all of us to model our lives after.”

Paging Michael Jackson … an alert is out of skin-lightening creams laced with … mercury. Christopher Snowbeck’s PiPress story says: “The Minnesota Department of Health issued a warning Wednesday to consumers of skin-lightening products, saying several varieties of creams being sold locally contain hazardous amounts of mercury. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, meanwhile, issued a parallel request that consumers not simply throw away the products, but take them to a disposal site that accepts household hazardous waste. ‘Stop using these products,’ said Jeff Connell, manager of compliance and enforcement at the MPCA. ‘This information about mercury potentially being in cosmetics has been known. But we hadn't been able to identify it before in Minnesota.’" Really? From your face to a toxic waste dump? Really?

Did you catch the Strib’s Letter of the Day yesterday? Chad Filley of Cambridge writes of T-Paw’s candidacy: “You claim to have left the state in the black, but you did so on the backs of our state's education system. Your delaying payments to already strapped public schools is nothing more than a simple bait-and-switch to make yourself look good. Our schools are still waiting for the $1.9 billion allotted to us. You've often said that you favor a merit pay format for teachers. I wish something like this had been in place for you during your gubernatorial reign. Once the dust settles from your administration's quagmire, it would be interesting to see what kind of pay your performance would have merited.” It seems Mr. Filley did not get his ticket to The Truth Tour.

A Ramsey County jury has decided there’s a difference between blind drunk and mentally ill. Mara Gottfried and Emily Gurnon of the PiPress report: “[Fabrizio] Montermini, of Eden Prairie, was convicted Friday of the murder; if the jury had decided he suffered from ‘dissociative amnesia’ after the crash, he would have been found not guilty by reason of mental illness or mental deficiency. Montermini, who was 18 at the time of the Jan. 13, 2006, crash on Old Hudson Road, had been heading with a group of five other teenagers to a Maplewood nightclub. He started drinking at the Inver Grove Heights home of one of the teens and continued in the car, with a 32-ounce Gatorade that was one-quarter to one-half full of vodka. While searching for the nightclub, Montermini drove at speeds of up to 115 mph on Interstate 94.”

My apologies for missing Dennis Lien’s PiPress story on the freshmen GOP legislators from Thursday. The new guys are upset with being called “extremists” by Gov. Mark Dayton. The story is pretty good stuff. “‘We're not being unreasonable; we're not being extreme,’ said Sen. Ted Lillie, R-Lake Elmo. ‘We're being mainstream.’ Lillie and seven other freshmen Republican senators challenged Dayton's recent comments that extreme ‘right-wing Republicans,’ many of them freshmen, have played a big role in driving the state to its budget impasse. Emphasizing his own willingness to compromise and calling them ‘intransigent’ on budget talks, Dayton has vetoed almost all Republican budget bills, saying they don't demonstrate a balanced approach. That has set the stage for a special legislative session and a possible government shutdown. At two recent press events, he said the freshmen ‘seemingly understand little about government and care even less.’ But at Wednesday's Capitol news conference, the freshmen senators highlighted their ‘average’ backgrounds, said they came to the Capitol to instill solid family and business approaches, and chided Dayton for his ‘divisive’ words. ‘It's up to the governor to lead and stop name-calling,’ said Sen. Roger Chamberlain of Lino Lakes. Playing political games hasn't been part of their strategy, they added. The freshmen gathered Wednesday said that, like businesses that grow or contract depending on the economy, government must understand it cannot simply expand. And reining it in when necessary, they added, doesn't mean they're anti-government. ‘We do not hate government,’ Lillie said. ‘Government does vital things that the people of Minnesota want us to do....But we need to live within our means. We need to do this at a level that is sustainable.’" And if it drowns in the bathtub…well, you know, stuff happens.

Since you, me and everyone we know thinks we’re great drivers, it comes as a disappointment that Minnesotans are considered only the fourth best wheel men (and women) in the country. Hart Van Denburg at City Pages writes: “As bad as the drivers around us seem to be, they're smarter than those in 46 other states and the District of Columbia, at least according to the GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test, which ranks Minnesota drivers 4th in the nation for driving knowledge. The test also shows that there really are a lot of idiots on the road: GMAC figures that 20 percent of all Americans would fail to meet the basic requirements to get a driver's license — that's roughly 36.9 million American drivers. The northeast is worst driving region in the country, while the Midwest is the best. One out of three drivers in New York and Washington, D.C., failed the test, although New York is now longer ranked bottom in the survey. That honor goes to our nation's capital. And in a finding sure to ignite plenty of sexist jokes and domestic squabbles, GMAC also found that American men are generally better drivers than women: One in four women failed the test, and men out-performed women on the test with an average score of 80.2 percent versus 74.1 percent for females.” I am not touching that one.

Also at City Pages, Nick Pinto follows up on Sally Jo Sorensen’s Bluestem Prairie blog story about “The Rev.” Bradlee Dean’s people soliciting contributions from a card table in front of a Hutchinson Walmart. “We checked in with Walmart headquarters to ask if they knew they were playing host to a guy who says gay folks should be thrown in jail and has praised religious extremists who execute suspected homosexuals. Walmart spokeswoman Ashley Hardie said Walmart didn't know — because the ministry lied to them. ‘They registered their request to solicit outside the store using a false name,’ Hardie said. ‘As soon as we learned the group's true identity, they were asked to leave.’

And just as Kurt Zellers promised ‘That type of person will never, ever be allowed on this House floor again,’ Hardie said the ministry's hateful message has earned them a permanent ban from operating on Walmart property. ‘Due to their actions towards our customers, we will no longer allow them to solicit outside our stores,’ Hardie said. Will the Walmart ban be a setback for Dean? In his ministry's tax filings, Dean claims that his ‘street teams’ raised $446,126 last year, working six days a week.” On the bright side for the good reverend, there’s really only uphill after you’ve been caught lying to solicit in front a Walmart.