Situational awareness: This weekend brings us to the 100-day point in campaign 2024. It might seem like the race for president is getting a fresh start. Former President Donald Trump swings through Minnesota this weekend and it probably won’t be long before Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee, shows up again. We have a special podcast-only Politics Friday episode waiting for you that recaps the topsy-turvy month we all just endured.
The vice presidential watch is at full attention. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is viewed as a short-lister on a list that we think has a half-dozen or more candidates. Walz is out there making a case for himself and so are others propping him up. The decision will fall to the nominee, which at this point is all but certain to be Harris. We’ve put together a collection page to get a sampling of the Walz coverage over the years. Check it out.
Over the years, getting some information out of the Walz administration hasn’t been that easy. We found that he had a coded email account but requests for access to the contents haven’t revealed much. Torey Van Oot of Axios tried to unlock Walz text messages and was told there wasn’t anything responsive despite the fact we see the governor pecking away at his phone often. We also tried early in his term to
get access to his full meeting schedule and were told only selective things would be released.
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon’s office says it has traced the recent spread of misinformation about the state’s presidential ballot to social media platform X’s AI chatbot. The Star Tribune’s Briana Bierschbach reports
that screenshots began circulating on social media showing the chatbot (called Grok) responding to a question about whether states’ presidential ballot deadlines had passed after President Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the race. Grok said nine states, including Minnesota, had presidential ballots that were “locked and loaded” for the presidential election. Simon rebuked the misinformation. Minnesota’s deadline to finalize presidential ballots isn’t until Aug. 26, which should give the Democratic Party plenty of time to sort out the ticket. In fact, no state’s deadline for locking in its presidential ballots has passed.
The U.S. House voted to form a task force to investigate the shooting at a Trump rally. The legislation passed by a vote of 416-0
, outlining the widespread bipartisan outrage over the shooting at a campaign rally in Butler, Penn. The task force will be composed of 13 members and is expected to include seven Republicans and six Democrats tasked with determining what went wrong on the day of the attempted assassination and will make recommendations to prevent future security lapses. The task force will issue a final report before Dec. 13 and has the authority to issue subpoenas.
Supreme Court Justice Sarah Hennesy took the oath of office and officially joined the Minnesota Supreme Court bench yesterday.
The ceremony was attended by members of Minnesota's courts and executive branch, lawyers and family. Hennesy previously served as chief judge of the Seventh Judicial District in Stearns County and also worked as a staff attorney at Mid-Minnesota legal Aid in St. Cloud. “The reality is that the legal system is an institution that is built upon a foundation of inequality by people who were themselves biased,” Hennesy said at the ceremony. “Despite the fact that we call it a justice system, far too often, it is not just. She is replacing Justice G. Barry Anderson, who retired in May. With Hennesy's arrival to the bench and other newly-appointed Justice Theodora Gaïtas, all seven
members of the court have been appointed by DFL governors.
It’s been a year since marijuana has been legalized and people still aren’t sure where they can smoke it. MPR’s Dan Kraker reports that the legislation is somewhat hazy on where else it’s allowed outside of specific events, private residences and private property not accessible to the public (with consent from the owner). State Sen. Lindsey Port, DFL-Burnsville and the chief senate author of the cannabis legalization bill, says that haziness is partly by design to minimize the opportunity for re-criminalization in different ways. Learn more about where you can — and can’t — smoke cannabis
here.