Oh for the evangelical certainty of an engineer!

January 30, 2019

And who is Dennis Martenson, anyway?

2018 American Community Survey Form

A look at the updated American Community Survey numbers for Minnesota

January 23, 2019

At the beginning of the year the United State Census Bureau released updated results from the American Community Survey, a massive continuous survey project the bureau undertakes between censuses. With redistricting coming up in 2021 it’s perhaps worth checking in on the updated ACS numbers to see what’s been going on in Minnesota and how […]

If you pay the gas tax, at least you own a car

January 20, 2019

Bad ideas never die

Minnesota Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk has one priority for 2021: Gerrymandering Minnesota

January 16, 2019

This is a paragraph from a recent J.Patrick Coolican piece in the StarTribune: Indeed, at a Chamber of Commerce dinner last week, Bakk said redistricting is his reason for running for re-election in 2020. This must sound strange to a layman’s ears, who might guess that a lawmaker would want to craft education or health […]

Minnesota Senate District 11 Bonus Election Preview

January 9, 2019

On Thursday January 3rd Governor-elect Tim Walz announced the appointment of now former State Senator Tony Lourey as the commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Services. Within 24-hours five candidates had jumped into the race to succeed him in the State Senate with another two joining the following week. Of the seven, two are […]

Dispatches from the War on Christmas

December 16, 2018

Take that, Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter

The picture becomes clearer . . .

December 13, 2018

The reprint of a story on Professor Mark Osler’s blog – Osler’s Razor

2018 Minnesota Election Round-up

December 3, 2018

Observations concerning the recent election

Mary Christine Bader wins the coveted Spotty ™

December 1, 2018

Regular readers here know that a Spotty™ is awarded to the writer of a letter to the editor, an op-ed piece, or a blog post or comment that I wish I had written myself. I started to write a piece with the sentiments expressed by Mary Christine Bader, but even if I had finished it […]

Considering Amy

November 23, 2018

Professor Mark Osler tagged me in a Facebook post linking to his opinion piece in The Hill advancing the idea that Sen. Amy Klobuchar should run for president in 2020. Perhaps the tag was to invite comments from me; I hope so, because I have some. They aren’t the same as the professor’s, though. Summarizing […]

Sen. Tom Bakk

DFL probably would have won the Minnesota Senate this year too

November 20, 2018

But it would have been close

How the new DFL House majority compares to the old DFL House majority

November 15, 2018

The 2018 election represents the second time the DFL has won the State House majority under the district maps implemented in 2012. The path to a DFL majority in 2018 was quite a bit different than the path in 2012 however and the differences in the two elections underline what has become the most obvious recent trend in […]