Briana Bierschbach covered the Minnesota Legislature for MinnPost.
The focus on sexual harassment at the Minnesota Capitol has been encouraging for women who work in politics, but more than a few wonder whether more training and a few new policies will fix anything.
The contests to replace state Sen. Dan Schoen and Rep. Tony Cornish will be quick and expensive — and offer an important window into voter sentiments less than a year ahead of the state’s next major election.
Schoen, a first-term senator from St. Paul Park who previously served two terms in the House, is leaving office because the allegations against him made it impossible for him to be “effective,” his attorney said Wednesday.
The breadth and speed with which the story has spread means that many questions remain unanswered, including: How many more allegations are out there? And did those in power know what was going on?
Attorney Paul Rogosheske scheduled a news conference to announce Schoen’s resignation on Wednesday afternoon. In a statement, Cornish said he plans to step down December 1.
The decision reversed a lower court ruling, and did little to quell the ‘toxic’ feud between Minnesota’s legislative and executive branches.
Ellen Anderson, a DFL staff member at the Capitol, reported the incident to Senate Human Resources on Tuesday.
The state has a ‘zero tolerance’ sexual-harassment policy, but leaves it up to individual departments to decide how to enforce it.
Women who work at the Legislature — a place long dominated by men where effectiveness is built on relationships — say they feel particularly vulnerable speaking out about sexual harassment.
Schoen, a first-term senator from St. Paul Park who previously served in the House, said in a statement the allegations are “either completely false or have been taken far out of context.”
After being told of the allegations and talking with Schoen, DFL Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk called for the St. Paul Park lawmaker to resign.
Winners in Minneapolis’ mayoral race — as well as the six most-contested city council elections — are expected to be announced by the end of Wednesday.
Even as Democratic gubernatorial candidates push back on the idea that there’s a deep divide between urban and rural voters, their GOP counterparts have made it a main talking point of the their campaigns.
As one of the state’s foremost health care policy experts, Godfrey had dedicated much of his life to making sure nobody fell through the cracks. Then he fell himself.
In recent years, the union has become a highly visible force at the Capitol and in city halls throughout Minnesota. And it’s expecting to play a big role in upcoming elections.
“Steel sharpens steel,” Peppin says of his approach, which even he admits has rubbed both friends and foes the wrong way over the years. “If there are multiple candidates in there, everybody is going to get better.”
Walz’s ability to appeal to progressives while still winning in a rural district was seen as a formula for statewide success. But that calculus has gotten more complicated.
The case, Gill v. Whitford, is the first time the nation’s highest court could strike down the role partisanship plays in the process of drawing political maps.
Criminologists, law professors and civil liberty groups have urged the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case, in part because of MSOP’s standing as one of the most punitive programs in the nation.
The impasse has left plenty of questions, not only about what led to the latest meltdown but how anything is going to be resolved anytime soon.
