Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Complaint: Caucus Hostile to Trans Newcomers
A Zoom meeting Tuesday night of the state DFL Feminist Caucus… did not go well. What began as a clash between generations apparently devolved quickly into cis women repeatedly, unapologetically, and perhaps intentionally misgendering trans participants and making hacky jokes about pronouns.
Dex Anderson, a nonbinary attendee of the meeting who uses they/them pronouns, filed a complaint with the DFL Conduct Committee today and posted the text online. Anderson says that "an illegal motion was made to just adopt an entire slate of leadership, despite there being challengers to those positions known to the caucus" and that when they corrected other attendees about their pronouns, they were "met with eyerolls and annoyance."
Late last night, Ward 9 City Council Member Jason Chavez called on the state DFL “to issue a public statement condemning what just happened at the DFL Feminist Caucus meeting.” While I haven’t seen video of the meeting, a live report from Bluesky user Luna Stargays corroborates Anderson's complaint.
Also, I’m just catching up on this, but did you know that outgoing caucus chair Cyndy Martin (who was a candidate for vice chair last night, and remains chair of the 8th Congressional District DFL and vice chair of the Itasca County DFL) is facing vehicular homicide charges? You can read that unpleasant story here.
That this all happened on the same day that the UCLA School of Law Williams Institute announced that Minnesota has the highest percentage of transgender people in any U.S. state is, depending on your perspective, ironic, frustrating, or just very fucking annoying.
Walz Aims for Threepeat?
Is the state of Minnesota ready for a third Tim Walz term? Well, ready or not… After a few months of will he/won’t he, the guv seems to have indicated Tuesday night to a select group of DFL donors at the Iron Ranger bar in St. Paul that he’s going for No. 3, as the Minnesota Reformer reports.
Per the Reformer, Walz “said something to the effect of ‘you’re all here making contributions, and you probably know I’m not going to run off to Mexico with your money, so look out for an announcement,’ according to a source who attended the fundraiser and whose account was confirmed by another person there.”
If Walz announces his candidacy, as expected, he will face Rep. Kristin Robbins (R-Maple Grove), whose current position as chair of the Minnesota House’s Fraud Prevention Committee poises her to act as a sharp critic of what the Reformer calls “a wave of fraud in public programs.” Also already in the ring are alleged physician Scott Jensen and health-care exec Kendall Qualls.
Now I am not a political analyst. In fact, I’ve been wrong so many times I’ve forbidden myself from making electoral predictions—a practice I strongly encourage others, especially those who are paid to speculate for a living, to adopt as well.
But a third Walz run will likely not go as smoothly as the others. Two terms of baggage is a lot to lug along on the campaign trail. In addition, third terms tend not to be popular with voters. As the Reformer points out, the last Minnesota governor to seek a third term was Rudy Perpich in 1990. He lost to future Racket contributor Arne Carlson.
Then again, I’m still reeling so hard from this rumor that David Brauer dropped on Bluesky last night that I can only be relieved that it’s not true.
Is This What Fateh Was So Worked Up About?
So, remember that angry social media post from state Sen. Omar Fateh last week about an upcoming Strib story that might damage his current campaign to Minneapolis's next mayor? Well, that story has yet to materialize (the paper of record had all hands on deck yesterday covering Target employees going back to the downtown offices), but KARE 11 posted a similar story Tuesday, and while it doesn’t exactly reflect well on Fateh’s judgment, it seems more smoke than fire.
The story concerns Housing Stabilization Services, a fraud-plagued state program funded by Medicaid. According to a trio of KARE bylines, Fateh endorsed legislation to speed up HSS approvals at the same time that his wife, Kaltum Mohamed, was listed as owner of a company that did business with HSS. KARE says there was no fraud, and Mohamed’s company received no money, but, according to every local journalist’s favorite go-to quote guy, David Schultz of Hamline University, these actions raised ethical concerns.
Unless the Strib has more than this in the tank, Fateh may have done himself a favor making this story sound like more of a neutron bomb than it was. I’m not even sure that All of Mpls or whatever the Frey-friendly PACs are calling themselves days can get much out of “David Schultz says Fateh's acts raised ethical concerns.”
The New Yorker Goes to the Fair
The New Yorker’s Hannah Goldfield visited our “twelve-day fête of starch and fat” and “smorgasbord of Proustian attachments” last month, as she newyorkerishly put it. After sampling the Fawaffle, the Somali Street Fries (respect for braving that line), and a dill-pickle iced tea, Goldfield tagged along with Martha Rossini of Sweet Martha’s Cookies (who speaks in "all long 'O's," dontcha know?) to see the fair through that entrepreneur's eyes. Not much here that's news to any of us, but overall a fairly unpatronizing glimpse at our pride and joy that outsiders might get something out of.
