Good morning. The stage is set for a Senate District 6 special election.

Keri Heintzeman won a special primary election in Senate District 6 and will now face DFL candidate Denise Slipy later this month. Heintzeman, the wife of state Rep. Josh Heintzeman, emerged from the eight-person field vying for the Republican Party nomination, our colleague Kirsti Marohn reports. Slipy ran unopposed in the DFL primary. The April 29 special election will fill the seat left vacant by former Sen. Justin Eichorn. The district has favored Republicans in recent elections, but Democrats say they’re hopeful that national trends in special elections this year could boost their candidate.

First quarter campaign finance reports show Senate candidates are building up their campaign coffers. Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan reported raising more than $450,000 in the three-month period compared to former Senate Minority Leader Melissa López Franzen’s $260,000 since she announced her bid in March. Potential candidate U.S. Rep. Angie Craig reported raising $1.2 million in the first quarter for her U.S. House campaign and that could roll over to a Senate campaign if she decides to join the race. On the Republican side, 2024 GOP Senate nominee Royce White reported that he’d fundraised $201,000 during the first quarter while Adam Schwarze netted $140,000 in that period.

Gov. Tim Walz says the state does not have the capacity to make up for potential federal cuts to Medicaid. Walz says the $880 billion in proposed cuts at the federal level will drastically hit Minnesota’s Medicaid program, known as Medical Assistance. Walz spoke at a roundtable in the Twin Cities alongside state health officials and Democratic U.S. Rep. Kelly Morrison. Walz noted Minnesota pays more to the federal government than it sees returned. “Those are our tax dollars that they're stealing,” Walz said “They deserve to come back to Minnesota to care for our people. If they want to do this, I would entertain — let's just not pay the federal government our share of the federal taxes if they're not going to give us anything back for it." The conversation was part of a series of listening sessions put on by the Department of Human Services. Minnesota’s Medicaid program costs around $18.5 billion per year and federal dollars pay for approximately two-thirds of the program costs.

Speaking of Medicaid, Republicans in Congress and several states like Iowa and Ohio are talking about pushing work requirements for nondisabled adults. Backers argue that a mandate would encourage enrollees to find jobs. NPR reports on how existing efforts to help Medicaid recipients get a job have seen limited success . The first Trump administration encouraged those work mandates, but many were struck down by federal judges who said they were illegal under federal law. 

Minnesota Republicans are pressing Attorney General Keith Ellison for answers after audio from a 2021 meeting between Ellison and a number of people later charged in the Feeding Our Future scandal was made public. Star Tribune reporter Deena Winter reports that the newspaper received audio of the conversation from an attorney who represented one of the people convicted in the case. In it, Ellison voiced sympathy for the individuals who said they were discriminated against as they faced scrutiny over how they administered the program to provide free meals for kids during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several of those people later gave financial contributions to Ellison’s political campaign. Ellison has said he didn’t do anything wrong and was hearing out his constituents. GOP lawmakers, meanwhile, said the recording is disturbing.

Walz and Senate Democrats are putting forward education budgets that zero out funding for private schools in the state. Star Tribune reporter Anthony Lonetree reports that the state has funded transportation for private school students for decades, along with other subsidies. But now, facing a slim surplus in the next budget and a possible deficit in the one that follows, DFL leaders say they need to prioritize public school funding. And private school leaders said losing the funding would deal them a significant blow. Legislative leaders and the governor continue work on budget targets and lawmakers are expected to cobble together an education spending plan that can appease both a DFL-led Senate and an evenly split House in the next month.

And a bit of a feel-good story to close us out today: a new program for Minnesota youth is helping them pinpoint issues that are close to home and take action to solve them. Our colleague Catharine Richert reports that the Pelican Rapids program Beyond Civics is inspiring young people to advocate for changes in their region that could make their lives better. She writes that a group of Pelican Rapids High School students is asking lawmakers to support funding for a community youth center since there’s not a designated space for young people to spend time together near them. Students in the program got to explore the Capitol and make their pitch to lawmakers earlier this year.

A quick programming note here: CapView will be taking a brief break starting Thursday, but we will be back in your inboxes Monday morning before lawmakers return from the legislative recess.