House passes historic health care reform

Despite an audience sprinkled with supporters, a bill that would have made it possible for undocumented immigrants to receive driver’s licenses was tabled in the state House Thursday.

Rep. Michele Bachmann has missed about four times more votes than her colleagues Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democrat, and Rep. Erik Paulsen, a Republican, on the House Financial Services Committee, her only committee assignment. Three quarters of votes at which Bachmann wasn’t present happened on days she had national cable news appearances.

Quietly, free of headlines and fanfare, the Obama White House is toning down the bellicose “war on drugs” position that’s defined the country’s narcotics policy for the last 25 years. Instead, the focus is on tackling addiction as an illness to be treated.

At an event in Minneapolis last month, Rep. Keith Ellison went toe-to-toe with former Black Panther Dhoruba Bin Wahad, eventually promising the crowd he’d consider a congressional resolution questioning the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal — who was convicted of murdering a Philadelphia policeman in 1982, although supporters say he didn’t receive a fair trial.

Tea party protests on Capitol Hill are getting smaller and more pessimistic as activists realize the U.S. House of Representatives may well pass the health care reform bill.

Legislation to reform the program designed to provide assistance to nuclear workers suffering illnesses related to exposure to radiation and toxic substances continues to languish in the U.S. Senate.

Before a crowd holding signs that read “Damn this federal government to hell” and “The citizens must declare war on their immoral, corrupt, Marxist government,” Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann addressed around 1,000 people Saturday at a “Kill the Bill” rally against Democrats’ health care reform measures at the State Capitol.

Expressing “deep concern” that the number of young farmers is dwindling, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack asked a panelists of farmers at Friday’s DOJ/USDA antitrust workshop to tell him what else needs to be done to ensure the future of rural America.

An often rambunctious town hall event outside Des Moines last night gave small and family farmers an opportunity — largely unavailable at a joint U.S. Department of Justice and USDA antitrust workshop on Friday — to express their opinions on the agricultural industry. And it had one overarching message: “Bust up big ag.”

Three bills that would assist same-sex couples in the event of one partner’s death were passed by the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. Legislators recalled stories of couples who underwent hardships because of inequality in the law, while Tom Prichard of the Minnesota Family Council called the bills “discriminatory” and said they are “unfair to married couples.”

On issues as diverse as health care and student lending, provisions designed to rein in deficit spending have all run smack into the ubiquitous inclination of lawmakers to protect their home turf from the scalpel of budget cuts. Their message is familiar: Congress must do something to get its fiscal house in order, just don’t do it in my back yard. And party affiliation is largely irrelevant.

When a stubborn government official refuses to release public information as required under Minnesota law, a costly and lengthy lawsuit is often a citizen’s only recourse. But state Rep. Gene Pelowski, DFL-Winona, has authored a bill that will simplify, cheapen and shorten the process used by citizens and the media to gain access to public government information.

Five Minnesota lawmakers — four Democrats and a Republican — are proposing legislation they hope will reduce sexual assault in Minnesota. The bill, introduced Feb. 25, would give preference when planning taxpayer-funded events to hotels and meeting facilities that do not show violent or exploitative pornography.

State Sen. Mee Moua said some who testified at a Mar. 2 hearing on gay marriage were so “fixated on the sex-making aspects” that they missed the spirit of the bill. But here’s another aspect of recent hearings on the topic that hasn’t been examined: Tuesday’s statement by Janet Boynes was nearly identical to one by Barb Davis White. One difference: Boynes didn’t repeat White’s claim that “Rosa Parks didn’t move to the front of the bus to support sodomy.”