U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany says he was returning from the La Crosse County Lincoln Day Dinner when the light aircraft lost power as it approached Wausau Downtown Airport.
Voters who have made up their minds can turn in their ballot Friday. Absentee voting is a go this week. As Cait Kelley reports, ballots will begin to be mailed to voters who request them and select early voting locations will be open for in-person absentee voting. The Minnesota secretary of state’s website
is the one-stop-shop for all things voting. That’s where voters can request mail-in ballots, track their mail-in ballots, register to vote, find their polling location and more. If you vote early but later change your mind about candidates you supported, you can claw back your ballot. However, you have a limited window to do that. You have to contact your local election office by the close of business on the 19th day before the election, which this year is Oct. 15. Counties and cities across the state are also in the process of hiring party-balanced election judges, so if you’re raring to go this election season, voting isn’t the only way you can participate!
Gubernatorial candidate Amy Klobuchar says she won’t run for president if Minnesotans elect her this fall. The DFL U.S. senator told the Star Tribune
that her full focus would be on running the state. “I’m not going to run for president when I’m going to be the governor and we have so much work to do,” Klobuchar told reporter Ryan Faircloth. “It is not what I’m doing. I’ve decided that I want to make things better here and bring us to a better place.” Klobuchar ran for president in 2020 before ultimately dropping out of the race and supporting Joe Biden. Republican Lisa Demuth has said the governor’s office would be a political stepping stone for Klobuchar as she mulls a bid for a higher office.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz lashed out at the Trump administration during a Democratic Governors Association press conference. Responding to the Republican midterm convention last week, Walz joined DGA chair Andy Beshear
in Louisville, Kentucky, along with the governors of Kansas, Washington and Delaware. Walz talked about the struggle Midwest farmers are facing, with diesel prices over $6 per gallon and propane costs up. "Here's the real kicker on this - you do all that work to try and feed the world – 30 percent of those corn exports go to Canada, which is no longer able to accept some of these." Walz said instead of helping states, "we see a president who wakes up one morning and decides to pick a fight with our leading trading partner. Canada is by far Minnesota's leading trading partner."
Also in the Star Tribune this weekend was an extensive lookback at how the Walz administration approached fraud as the extent of it was becoming known. The newspaper's Ryan Faircloth compiled
congressional testimony and interviews with key officials to conclude that signals were missed and early reports weren't taken seriously, but that later meetings led to quicker action to choke off questionable spending. Fraud will be a defining feature of the Walz legacy and continues to be a potent campaign issue.
School board members in Minnesota are moving out of their roles after shorter tenures than previous generations of local leaders and partisan politics are creeping into the contests. Our colleague Elizabeth Shockman reports about the dozens of school board contests
set to be decided in November. And she notes that there’s been a generational shift when it comes to the candidates vying for the positions that shape school budgets, curriculum and staffing decisions in Minnesota’s K-12 schools. Kirk Schneidawind, executive director of the Minnesota School Boards Association, said where previous cohorts of school board members would serve between 12 and 16 years on average, current ones are sticking around for eight years or less. And that turnover can lead to a loss of institutional memory.
Now that the kids are back in school, it’s time to organize those receipts for possible tax benefits from school-related purchases. Minnesota has a pair of programs that help families write down the costs of K-12 education expenses
when filing yearly income tax forms. One is an income-limited program that allows parents to claim credits for what they spend on certain textbooks, field trip fees or musical instrument rentals. There is also a non-income limited subtraction that can be as much as $2,500 per child. Some afterschool program fees could also qualify if they are academic in nature. As always, consult the Department of Revenue or a tax professional if you have specific questions or scenarios.
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