Good morning. Don’t get fooled again.

When Minnesota lawmakers return from recess next week, one item before them will be a bill proposing new mobile home park regulations. The bill would require park owners who want to sell to give residents a chance to make an offer to buy the park themselves. However, as Cait Kelley reports, the bill's most controversial provision would cap lot rent bumps to three percent annually, with some exceptions. Most manufactured home park residents own their homes but rent the land underneath. Sammi Silver, a realtor and property manager, lives in Cimarron Park in Lake Elmo. Silver said she’d never support rent control in traditional rental housing, but said manufactured housing is unique. Moving a mobile home can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Silver says she's being priced out of her home, but increasing rent makes it harder for her to sell and leave. "I actually want out of here next year,” Silver said. “I'm looking at the situation going, I'm either going to take a huge loss and sell at a loss just to get out of here, or I'm stuck here for the next Lord-only-knows how long." The bill stalled in the House but has bipartisan support in the Senate.

 

A criminal case involving a Republican state lawmaker will linger past the session’s adjournment. A June 10 court hearing has been set for Rep. Elliott Engen on three misdemeanor traffic violations , including two counts of driving under the influence. Engen has hired Excelsior attorney Chris Madel, a one-time GOP candidate for governor, to defend him against charges he was well beyond the legal limit when stopped in the wee hours following a long House floor session. A fellow Republican lawmaker, Rep. Walter Hudson, was also in the truck and in possession of a firearm when White Bear Lake police made the stop and searched the vehicle, also finding an open container. It’s still not known who the third passenger was. Engen and Hudson acknowledged poor judgment; neither has been accused of drinking in their offices or at the Capitol, which would be a violation of House rules.

Three quarters of the people arrested during the federal immigration surge had no criminal record. That statistic stands in stark contrast to public statements federal officials made during the surge that they targeted the “worst of the worst.” That’s just one takeaway from analysis done by MPR News and APM Reports on new data released through a federal lawsuit. Some other key numbers: Federal agents arrested more than 3,700 Minnesota residents this winter. Despite President Donald Trump’s focus on the Minnesotan Somali community, the vast majority of arrestees were from Latin America. 35 percent of arrests were "collateral" rather than targeted. That fits with anecdotal accounts of residents swept up by roving groups of federal agents at bus stops or on public sidewalks throughout the surge. About 30 of those arrested were 16 or younger and one arrest involved a child who was just 2 or 3 years old. Check out the full analysis here.

The Department of Public Safety is embarking on a study of the relatively new Minnesota law that allows temporary removals of guns from people in crisis. The agency’s Office of Justice Programs advertised last week for proposals from qualified research entities to examine the Extreme Risk Protection Order, or ERPO, law. The specifications call for a collection and review of “all ERPO petitions in the state since the implementation of the law” with a goal of identifying “trends, patterns and areas of improvement through quantitative and qualitative analysis of the ERPO petitions.” The end result would be recommendations for improving the law that took effect in January 2024. State officials expect to be able to use federal grant money to conduct the research. The contract would run from June through September 2027, with a one-year extension possible. The process for picking a researcher will move fast, with the solicitation calling for evaluation of proposals and selections being completed by May 18 — coincidentally the last day of the 2026 session.

Bruce Springsteen returned to the Twin Cities last night to launch a tour with a focus on politics and the immigration enforcement surge that rocked the state this winter. Springsteen played for a few hours, including seven encore songs. He played his new Minnesota-themed track early on, song titled “Streets of Minneapolis.” He wrote it following the fatal shootings of Minnesota residents Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti in January. His concert featured monologues about the direction of the country and his call for people to rise up. He’s due to stop in Portland and Los Angeles, two other cities that experienced ICE actions last year. He’ll wrap up later this spring in Washington, D.C., with a message for the Trump administration. Springsteen performed at the “No Kings” flagship rally Saturday in St. Paul. He lauded residents here for standing up to ICE. “This past winter, federal troops brought death and terror to the streets of Minneapolis. Well, they picked the wrong city. The power and the solidarity of the people of Minneapolis and of Minnesota was an inspiration to the entire country,” Springsteen said. “Your strength and your commitment told us that this is still America, and this reactionary nightmare and these invasions of American cities will not stand.”

 

Springsteen's music has been a source of Minnesota political attention for years. In 2004, then Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty criticized Springsteen's foray into politics when the singer railed against then President George W. Bush and joined concerts against his rival in that year's election, John Kerry. In 2011, Pawlenty was back aboard the Springsteen train. He was at a Springsteen concert in 2017 when he was his phone lit up with people nudging him to run for a suddenly open U.S. Senate seat. (He didn't.) Current Gov. Tim Walz is also a backer of The Boss, once declaring a day in Springsteen's honor when he was in town for a concert and also rubbing elbows with the rocker. His admiration for Springsteen was featured in his 2024 vice presidential run and Walz introduced the singer at a No Kings rally last weekend.