Good morning. Some members of our politics team visited the world’s largest Dilly Bar on Wednesday. Worth it.

Surprise moves to weed out fraud took some of the wind out of the sails of Wednesday's House Fraud Prevention and Government Oversight Committee meeting. The House panel was scheduled to bring in Eric Grumdahl, the assistant commissioner of homelessness and housing supports, to testify on widespread misuse of Medicaid funds in Minnesota’s Housing Stabilization Services program. But just hours before, the chair, Rep. Kristin Robbins, said she was notified that Grumdahl had been let go from his position and wouldn’t be speaking. Our colleague Estelle Timar-Wilcox reports that members of the panel grilled Department of Human Services Commissioner Shireen Gandhi and DHS Inspector General James Clarke about the department’s efforts to stave off fraud in state programs. The pair said they were taking new actions to cut off payments to providers when credible reports of fraud are brought forward, something they’d been hesitant about previously because notifications of funding pauses could alert providers that they were under the microscope and impact law enforcement investigations. GOP leaders in the House said the firing was too little too late. “It is extremely disturbing that it took more than five years and countless warnings from legislative Republicans and administration whistleblowers for someone to be held accountable for enabling fraud,” House Speaker Lisa Demuth and GOP Floor Leader Harry Niska said. “Every dollar going out to fraud is a dollar that doesn't help someone who really needs it."

Questions also surfaced about whether the governor’s race is getting in the way of a clear discussion and reckoning around fraud or if it will cause conflicts of interest. Rep. Robbins said she would remain on as chair of the committee and didn’t feel that it was a problem to continue probing fraud in state programs while she runs for a higher office. Ahead of the Wednesday morning meeting, Gov. Tim Walz, who is running for a third term, announced that he’d issued an executive order directing state agencies to take additional steps to root out improper use of taxpayer funds. Robbins said the executive action and Grumdahl’s removal were positive steps but they came too late. “Our committee will continue pressing for accountability and real reforms to protect taxpayers and ensure state programs serve those truly in need,” she said. DFLers raised concerns about Robbins using the fraud committee as a campaign stage over the next year. Rep. Dave Pinto, a DFLer on the committee, said it has become “an exercise of campaign politics” and urged Republicans to rethink Robbins’ role. “Put simply: Rep. Robbins now seeks both to serve as chair of a committee whose sole use has been to investigate the executive branch and to run as a candidate against the person who leads that executive branch,” Pinto said in a news release. “The latter role can’t help but undermine the credibility of the former role.”

A gun violence working group coalesced around a proposal to offer additional funding to schools to post law enforcement officers in buildings but bypassed several measures aimed at restricting firearm purchases. The Senate panel met Wednesday to assess which proposals could pick up bipartisan support — something that will be key in the narrowly-split Legislature. The group was formed in the wake of the mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and School last month. Family members pleaded with lawmakers earlier this week to make changes to prevent future mass shootings. A slate of firearm restrictions that came before the working group failed to pick up bipartisan backing, seemingly stalling them ahead of a possible special legislative session. “We have to answer the ‘now what?’ question. How do we make sure that someone who’s gone around every law gets stopped from inflicting harm on our kids,” GOP Sen. Andrew Mathews said. The group also supported an effort to increase the penalty for impersonating a police officer. DFL Sen. Heather Gustafson said lawmakers should approve the funding for school resource officers and additional mental health supports, along with proposals to limit assault-style weapons and requiring safe storage of firearms. "We can do mental health and we can do school security, but we're not going to do those two without also addressing guns,” she said. Legislative leaders met privately with the governor Wednesday afternoon, but didn’t signal they’d reached a deal to call a special session.

Elected legislative leaders met again with Gov. Tim Walz regarding a special session around gun control.  They met for about an hour. Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth said an agreement would be important going into a special session. "I want to make sure that we're doing what Minnesota needs, and so whether it's a special session that has a full vetting in the committee process and open to the public, or if it is in February where we can fully work on these things. I'm open either way." DFL Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy didn’t sound so optimistic about an agreement ahead of a special session. “It has been our practice in Minnesota for many years now that we come into a special session with some framework or working agreement just in order to get the work done for the people of Minnesota in an orderly fashion. I'm not sure that that's going to happen.” Walz wants to call a special session in response to the mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and School. No date has been set. 

The soon-to-be-new Minnesota House member is raring to get to work.  DFLer Xp Lee, who won a special election this week, will fill the seat left open by the assassination of Rep. Melissa Hortman. Lee called his election “surreal” but stressed that he can’t fill the shoes of the longtime DFL caucus leader and former speaker. In speaking with MPR’s Sarah Thamer, Lee said, “I’m just hoping to follow in her footsteps and be able to continue to help keep the work going.” Lee is Hmong-American who was born in a refugee camp and came to the United States as a 10-month-old child. He became a U.S. citizen and later a former Brooklyn Park City Council member. He has worked in health equity for Minnesota state government. He said he will focus on education, public safety and clean energy among other priorities. His election returns a 67-67 party tie in the House. He will be sworn in once the results are certified, which should be a matter of days. You can find the conversation between Sarah and Rep.-elect Lee here.

The Minnesota Campaign Finance Board voted Wednesday to grant political parties more leeway to use campaign funds for candidate security at events.  The DFL Party had asked the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board to weigh in about whether money raised for political purposes could be used to pay for security services for candidates while campaigning and holding political party events. Political candidate safety has become a concern following the June assassinations of former House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark. The board adopted the opinion with some clarifying language. Members also approved a proposal that will pave the way for mental health training sessions for members of the Senate and staff without running afoul of gift-ban regulations.

The decision by Gov. Tim Walz to run for another term means that other statewide officeholders are probably staying put if they aren’t already moving on. Auditor Julie Blaha says she’s not going for another term in that job. We’re still waiting on formal word from Secretary of State Steve Simon and Attorney General Keith Ellison, both DFLers who were leaving their options open if Walz didn’t run. Ellison’s campaign issued a statement Tuesday with the attorney general praising Walz as a “confident, a colleague and a friend and he has my full support.” Ellison’s own decision seems imminent. "I love this job, such an honor to serve Minnesotans, there's more work to do, and I'll have more news soon,” he told MPR News through a spokesperson. Remember that Ellison had a barnburner of a race in 2018 and 2022. Republicans haven’t won the office in more than a half-century but expect them to field a prominent candidate or two.

The Walz campaign says he raised a lot of money in the 24 hours after the launch of the governor’s reelection campaign. The report is that he pulled in more than $1 million in the halo of the kickoff. There is no independent way to verify it because the next state-level campaign reports aren’t due out until early in 2026. GOP Rep. Kristin Robbins also reported having a big early days haul of $500,000 . Minnesota will have an expensive race for governor. The Democratic Governors Association and allied groups will spend big to keep hold of an office they’ve now had four straight terms (two Walz and two under DFL Gov. Mark Dayton). Republicans are coming hard out of the gate at the Walz bid, saying he doesn’t deserve a job extension. That said, groups on the right haven’t been able to muster as much money and the Republican Governors Association didn’t really invest all that much in the last two governor’s races here.