3CD DFL

Rep. Heather Edelson (HD49A) Update: February 1, 2021

Dear Neighbors,

I want to extend an invitation to you for a conversation in coordination with the League of Women Voters of Edina and LWV of Bloomington.

Join us for the first town hall of the 2021 Legislative Session in District 49. Please RSVP at the link here, and submit a question to be asked during the event. We will send out the Zoom link the day before. You can join on Zoom or watch it on my Facebook page live-streamed.

I am excited and looking forward to your engagement

Minnesota POCI Caucus Black History Month Statement

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – Today marks the beginning of Black History Month. The People of Color and Indigenous Caucus (POCI) released the following statement to commemorate Black History Month:

“It is important that we take this month to not only remember and celebrate the rich and meaningful history of Black people in our nation, but to take time to consider the future of Black lives. Black history is being written as we speak, from the incredible organization of Black voters in the 2020 election which resulted in the first female Vice President of color, to the ongoing cries for reform from the historic Black Lives Matter movement. There remains a harrowing distance between the level of Black excellence in this nation, and level of systemic racism that perpetuates cycles of discrimination and increased disparities. Let this be the Black History Month where we choose to elevate Black voices and value Black lives forever more. Let this month, and every month after, be the months where we fight to create a future where Black lives can be lived fully without the burden of oppression, racism, and inequity.”

The People of Color & Indigenous (POCI) Caucus includes Reps. Esther Agbaje (59B), Jamie Becker-Finn (42B), Cedrick Frazier (45A), Aisha Gomez (62B), Hodan Hassan (Vice- Chair 62A), Kaohly Her (64A), Athena Hollins (66B), Fue Lee (59A), Carlos Mariani (65B), Rena Moran (65A), Mohamud Noor (60B), Ruth Richardson (52B), Samantha Vang (Chair, 40B), Jay Xiong (67B), Tou Xiong (53B), and Senators Bobby Joe Champion (59), Omar Fateh (62), Melisa Franzen (49), Foung Hawj (67), Mary Kunesh (41), Patricia Torres Ray (Chair, 63)

DFL lawmakers introduce adult-use cannabis legislation

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA — Today, Majority Leader Ryan Winkler and DFL lawmakers introduced adult-use cannabis legislation that will address criminal justice inequities created by our current system and allow law enforcement to focus on more serious issues.

The adult-use cannabis bill is based on conversations with Minnesotans during the statewide “Be Heard on Cannabis” tour, which hosted town hall meetings in 15 communities spanning urban, suburban, and rural parts of the state; met with more than 30 organizations and associations; consulted with the Governor, Lt. Governor, and 13 state agencies; held 250 meetings with individuals and groups; and inspired legislators to work hundreds of hours to produce the bill.

“The failed criminalization of cannabis has resulted in a legacy of racial injustice that can no longer go unaddressed,” said Majority Leader Ryan Winkler, the bill’s chief author. “Adults deserve the freedom to decide whether to use cannabis, and our state government should play an important role in addressing legitimate concerns around youth access, public health, and road safety. Veterans and Minnesotans with serious illnesses like PTSD deserve better access to our medical program, which is not working well for most people. It’s time to legalize, expunge, and regulate.”

77 Days: Trump’s Campaign to Subvert the Election

Hours after the United States voted, the president declared the election a fraud — a lie that unleashed a movement that would shatter democratic norms and upend the peaceful transfer of power.

By Thursday the 12th of November, President Donald J. Trump’s election lawyers were concluding that the reality he faced was the inverse of the narrative he was promoting in his comments and on Twitter. There was no substantial evidence of election fraud, and there were nowhere near enough “irregularities” to reverse the outcome in the courts.

Mr. Trump did not, could not, win the election, not by “a lot” or even a little. His presidency would soon be over.

Allegations of Democratic malfeasance had disintegrated in embarrassing fashion. A supposed suitcase of illegal ballots in Detroit proved to be a box of camera equipment. “Dead voters” were turning up alive in television and newspaper interviews. Continue reading.

How Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, promoter of QAnon’s baseless theories, rose with support from key Republicans

As Marjorie Taylor Greene entered a runoff last year to be the Republican nominee for a U.S. House seat in Georgia, her opponent sounded the alarm. He warned top party officials that she had made several dangerous, baseless claims, and that she would tear apart the GOP if she won.

But Greene’s widely reported comments about the radical ideology of QAnon and other matters had not stopped a coterie of top Republicans from urging her to run for the seat representing a deeply conservative district in north Georgia, and then issuing fervent endorsements.

Greene was “exactly the kind of fighter needed in Washington to stand with me against the radical left,” declared Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a founding member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. Debbie Meadows, who ran an influential political action committee and whose husband, Mark Meadows, became Trump’s chief of staff, gushed, “We cannot wait to welcome her to Congress.” Continue reading.

After The Riot: Inside A Secret Militia’s Telegram Chat Room

When the FBI arrested Edward “Jake” Lang on Jan. 16 for his alleged role in the U.S. Capitol attack, court documents show agents had followed a seemingly straightforward trail from his public social media to collect evidence. “THIS IS ME,” Lang wrote over one video that showed an angry mob confronting police officers outside the Capitol. The same post showed him trashing a police riot shield.

The government charged Lang with committing assault and other crimes, but the account of his activities spelled out in court papers doesn’t mention how the 25-year-old spent the 10 days between the riots and his capture: recruiting militia members to take up arms against the incoming Biden administration by way of an invitation-only group on the messaging app Telegram.

“Everyone needs to get 5 patriots in this group tonight that’s the goal 🙌🏻🇺🇸🗽,” Lang wrote in a chat on Jan. 9, one of more than 2,500 messages obtained by ProPublica. “We need each person to go out and fight for new members of this Militia like our lives depend on it.” Continue reading.

‘It’s a mess’: Biden’s team exposes the chaotic Trump White House they inherited

President Joe Biden has been in office for 10 days and, already, his administration has uncovered a number of chaotic issues inherited from the Trump administration.

According to Politico, Biden’s team had a prioritized focus on combatting the raging coronavirus pandemic, but instead of completely focusing on their 200-page pandemic response plan, this week has been largely dedicated to “trying to wrap their hands around the mushrooming crisis — a process officials acknowledge has been humbling, and triggered a concerted effort to temper expectations about how quickly they might get the nation back to normal.”

While the Biden administration’s work should be well underway, they are still working to locate more than 20 million doses of coronavirus vaccines that have already been shipped to states. According to Biden’s administration, they inherited a deeply flawed for maintaining proper records and inventory of vaccine distribution. Continue reading.

Many of my fellow politicians won’t tell voters the truth. The result was Jan. 6.

Telling the public only what it wants to hear is no way to keep democracy going

In the fall of 2013, in the middle of what was at the time the second-longest government shutdown in American history, Republican leaders in Congress kept asking each other one question: “How did we end up here?” That is also the question I have had in recent weeks, especially as I witnessed the violent attack on our Capitol and our democracy on Jan. 6.

The answer is the same in both cases: an unwillingness to speak truth to power. In businesses, employees speak truth to power when they deliver unwelcome facts to their bosses. In government, appointed officials do that when they tell elected leaders something they don’t want to hear. But in a democracy, the people are the ultimate source of power. Our elected officials work for us, and they fail us when they decline to tell us truths that we, the people, don’t want to hear. Even worse, they fail us when they set up false expectations we desperately want to believe.

Back in 2013, the expectation was that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives could force the Democratic-controlled Senate to pass — and compel President Barack Obama to sign — a repeal of his signature health-care initiative. This false narrative started with a few outside groups like Heritage Action and Tea Party Express arguing that the barrier to repealing Obamacare wasn’t the president; it was elected Republicans who were unwilling to fight hard enough. These groups purposely ramped up expectations, overpromising, even knowing that the end result would under-deliver. Continue reading.

After Record Turnout, Republicans Are Trying to Make It Harder to Vote

The presidential election results are settled. But the battle over new voting rules, especially for mail-in ballots, has just begun.

WASHINGTON — In Georgia, Arizona and other states won by President Biden, some leading Republicans stood up in November to make what, in any other year, would be an unremarkable statement: The race is over. And we lost, fair and square.

But that was then. Now, in statehouses nationwide, Republicans who echoed former President Donald J. Trump’s baseless claims of rampant fraud are proposing to make it harder to vote next time — ostensibly to convince the very voters who believed them that elections can be trusted again. And even some colleagues who defended the legitimacy of the November vote are joining them.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, state legislators have filed 106 bills to tighten election rules, generally making it harder to cast a ballot — triple the number at this time last year. In short, Republicans who for more than a decade have used wildly inflated allegations of voter fraud to justify making it harder to vote, are now doing so again, this time seizing on Mr. Trump’s thoroughly debunked charges of a stolen election to push back at Democratic-leaning voters who flocked to mail-in ballots last year. Continue reading.

In the Know: February 2, 2021

DFL Party News
DFL Party Statement on Black History Month, MN DFL
DFL Party Ramps Up Year-Round Organizing Capacity, MN DFL

Governor Tim Walz
Gov. Tim Walz proposes automatic college acceptance for qualifying Minnesota high school seniors, Star Tribune
Preparing For Re-Election Push, Walz Campaign Announces It’s Hiring Staff, Breaking Fundraising Records, WCCO
After slow start, Minnesota governor rolls out plan to ‘jumpstart’ COVID vaccinations for seniors, ABC

Minnesota Legislature
DFL-ers reintroduce cannabis legalization bill, WDIO
Lawmakers renew push for recreational pot, Kare 11
Page Amendment backers renew push for constitutional fix to school equity gap, Star Tribune
Minnesota House Democrats push to legalize recreational marijuana, Pioneer Press

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