Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Dec. 22
COVID relief bill comes just in time
It took until nearly the last moment, but Congress managed to come together and pass a $900 billion COVID-19 relief package that will quickly deliver much needed-aid.
Working Minnesotans could see $600 in direct relief checks as early as next week, while those unemployed will get an extension in the nick of time, continuing $300-a-week benefits that otherwise would have expired on Dec. 26. As a result of the give-and-take negotiations, that extension will last only last 11 weeks. That is a too-scant window for laid-off workers to get back on their feet. There is $25 billion in assistance for renters unable to make payments. That’s not enough, given that a Moody’s economic analysis that showed 12 million renters have fallen, on average, more than $5,000 behind on rent and utilities, but it will help.
Rural communities that have struggled to provide online learning for students will get funds for broadband. Small businesses will see a second round of forgivable loans through a resurrection of the Paycheck Protection Program, and there will be help for entertainment venues and news media outlets. There is money for reopening schools and nutrition assistance.
Vaccine distribution, along with testing and tracing programs, will get more than $90 billion - a much-needed boost for states dealing with strained health systems.
But that brings us to one of the biggest shortcomings of this compromise. Early on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell drew a bright line against relief to states that have juggled not only the costs of the pandemic, but the attendant recession that has sent tax revenue plummeting. Minnesota, like many states, is looking at serious projected shortfalls.
Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., an architect of the earlier bipartisan plan, said he was grateful for the compromise but pained at its shortcomings. In an interview with an editorial writer moments after he voted for passage, Phillips called the victory “bittersweet.”
While it will deliver help for many, he said, “This was so important and urgent and yet took far too long.” But, Phillips said, “we did show the country there are some here in Congress who maybe are not the flashiest, but who take joy in trying to help people.”
The bipartisan work should continue; there will be much to do when the 117th Congress convenes on Jan. 3. Economists have said that the states collectively face deficits of $170 billion - just a little more than the $160 billion in state and local aid that had been in the original bipartisan plan Phillips and others championed. That funding should never have been pitted against direct relief for individuals. Both were and are needed.
President-elect Joe Biden says he is committed to additional relief that will include aid for state and local governments - essential to forestall cuts to health care, education at the state level and police at the local level.
This bill, it should be noted, contains far more than COVID relief. It came wrapped in a mega-bill of $2.3 trillion, with $1.4 trillion to fund federal agencies through the end of the fiscal year to prevent a government shutdown, but it is poor governance to send legislators a bill of more than 5,500 pages just hours before a vote. Let’s hope Biden will be able to set a more productive tone in working with the next Congress.
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Mankato Free Press, Mankato, Dec. 21
States should continue ash borer fight
Minnesota has the most ash trees of any state at an estimated 1 billion.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently announced its deregulation of the emerald ash borer, meaning it will no longer strive to limit the spread of the invasive insect through use of quarantines, permits and compliance agreements that regulated the movement of wood that could be infested by the borer.
Essentially, the federal government cites that the pest is already in 30 states and has given up control of the fight. It’s good news, however, that the USDA will dedicate resources to biological control research, such as determining predators that destroy the borer.
We think it’s the right move that the Minnesota Department of Agriculture is going to continue regulating the pest to try to at least slow the spread as much as possible.
Even though 25 of Minnesota’s 87 counties are infested, the rate of spread across the state in 11 years is 60 percent slower than in most states that have the borer, according to Mark Abrahamson, director of the state ag department’s Plant Protection Division.
Slowing down the infestation gives the forest industry, plant nurseries, cities and home owners more time to come up with a plan of action for when the borer arrives. The state ag department recommends delaying treatment until the ash borer has been found within 15 miles of a particular property.
The city of Mankato alone has more ash trees than any other type, except for maples. That ash number is fluid now, however, as the city continues to replace the trees because infestation is inevitable. The borer is in Sibley, Martin, Scott and Steele counties already.
Minnesotans can do their part to slow the spread of the infestation by not moving firewood from place to place in the state or from out of state. The wood can easily harbor the borer and then introduce it to areas not yet infested.
The borer is inevitable, but the state should continue to do what it can to stop the spread.
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St. Cloud Times, St. Cloud, Dec. 18
Emmer has 1 last chance to get it right
There’s an old saying in politics: “When it’s clear you’ve lost, declare victory and depart the field of battle.”
That would have been easy for 6th District U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, because the National Republican Congressional Committee chairman had a lot of victories to declare after the nation’s votes were counted last month:
Republicans gained 13 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and might hold control of the Senate, depending on how Georgia votes in two runoffs Jan. 5.
Democrat stalwart Collin Peterson was ousted in favor of Republican Michelle Fischbach, a move that stripped the U.S. House of 30 years of Democratic seniority and flipped a large swath of Minnesota to red.
And maybe least noticed but most important to the party, the GOP performance in downballot races nationwide means it will be in the driver’s seat in redistricting decisions that will control 188 congressional seats - 43% of the House of Representatives - according to Nathaniel Rakich and Elena Mejía of fivethirtyeight.com. Democrats will control redrawing of no more than 73 congressional districts in the once-a-decade process.
The consensus among political watchers was that Nov. 3 was a very good day for Republicans, even if the White House prize was lost.
“Declare victory and depart the field of battle.”
Instead, powers on the right decided to play to the base through the non-mainstream media, using partisan “news” outlets to spread mistruths and conspiracies about how the Dems were stealing the White House.
The insane rhetoric ranged from leading people to believe that random members of the public should be allowed to storm into vote-counting venues (pro-tip: access is limited to election workers and designated poll-watchers precisely to prevent shenanigans) to seeing fraud in every large jump in results (which happens in every election, but people have usually gone to bed before they see it because the race isn’t close).
Where allegations of election problems appeared remotely credible, they were investigated down to the Sharpies or litigated in more than 50 lawsuits to date. In front of Republican election officials, judges appointed by Republicans, and famously before some appointed quite recently to the Supreme Court by President Trump himself, the GOP lawyers couldn’t make their cases.
Despite all the cries that they had incontrovertible proof of fraud, they didn’t.
It would have been easy for our representative to stay quiet. It would have been hard, but encouraging, for Emmer to have come out on the side of common sense, the will of the people and plain good sportsmanship by stating the obvious when it became just that - obvious: Joe Biden had won the election.
Instead, he and 125 other members of Congress, including Minnesota Reps. Jim Hagedorn and Pete Stauber, shamefully doubled down on the falsehood that something was vastly wrong with this vote. Emmer lent his name, and Minnesota’s, to promote an unbelievably laughable lawsuit in Texas that sought to invalidate the votes of citizens of Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Not coincidentally, those four states represent 62 Electoral College votes for Joe Biden.
The Supreme Court had no time for it. None. That’s how completely without merit the case was.
“Declare victory and depart the field of battle.”
It again would have been easy for Rep. Emmer to say: “I’m a fighter, and, although I had misgivings, I needed to stick with my team through the end.” That would have been understandable, even if not a path to absolution.
We expect politicians to fight, after all. But we expect them to fight fair. This was not that. Also, he did not say that.
Mr. Emmer is instead choosing the hard route. He’s telling any reporter who asks, including ours, that there is “a process” to resolving election disputes, and that process was just being played out with the inexplicable Texas lawsuit. Nothing to see here.
He’s not technically wrong, even if he is using that fact as a gaslight: Taking concerns about the security of voting processes and veracity of vote counts to court is exactly how it should work.
However, we know the representative is a smart man, smart enough to read the preceding 49 or so court cases as ample evidence that, despite all the people blowing smoke about massive, widespread fraud, there simply was no fire.
He is also smart enough to know that the Constitution gives state legislatures wide latitude in setting and administering election law. And he knows the Constitution doesn’t outline a process for Texas to invalidate the ballots of other states, its delusions of grandeur aside.
And the 6th District representative is certainly aware that public discourse in this nation is becoming dangerously divorced from reality. Anyone, particularly any leader, who reinforces damaging, high-stakes, known falsehoods in order to energize the party base is committing an unforgiveable act of radicalization.
The Minnesota DFL party called Emmer’s throwing in with the Texans “the closest thing to a coup that our republic has seen in living memory.”
Commentators without number have called the act of Emmer and the 125 other representatives “sedition” and “treason.”
Even the former state Republican chair of New Hampshire, Jennifer Horn, called it “dismantling democracy” and an attempt to “overthrow the lawful government of the United States” in a scathing USA Today op-ed before promptly resigning from the party.
“Declare victory and depart the field of battle.”
There were so many chances for Emmer to do that. He missed them all.
On Jan. 6, when Congress takes up its normally-invisible role in finalizing the election results, he has one more chance to do the right thing: validate Joe Biden as the rightful winner - even Mitch McConnell has called him president-elect - and help preserve the shreds of our democracy for future elections.
“Declare victory and depart the field of battle.”
One more chance to do the right thing. We hope he takes it.
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