(jimmywayne22, Flickr)

North Dakota is on its way to becoming the first state in the country to have an operating health insurance exchange, which is required under the Affordable Care Act.

The Grand Forks Herald reports that North Dakota’s bill was drafted by a dedicated Health Care Reform Review Committee after the regular session ended.

Pam Sharp, director of the North Dakota Office of Management and Budget, said it will include a new website to allow residents to compare costs and benefits of health insurance plans.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a report (.pdf) earlier this summer that 39 states and the District of Columbia have introduced some form of legislation promoting exchange implementation.”

“Among the 34 states where the legislation would fully establish a state exchange program, ten states enacted such bills into law,” the group reports.

Most states should have some infrastructure in place by January 2013 for an exchange. Minnesota has yet to make the required adjustments, with Republicans in the legislature blocking legislation, leading Prof. Larry Jacobs of the University of Minnesota Humphrey Institute to conclude that “many Minnesotan Republicans appear to equate any action with political and constitutional abdication.”

Gov. Mark Dayton created two committees at the end of October that are charged with forging and implementing the state’s health exchange plan, according to Politics in Minnesota. But Republicans are questioning whether he has the authority to move without the legislature.

Only 11 states have not introduced any legislation to establish a state exchange program. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says that “Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, New Hampshire and Oklahoma reportedly will return exchange grant funds.”

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (PCA) is responsible for monitoring and enforcing environmental standards in the state. For the final quarter of 2010, the PCA had an accounts receivable balance of $8.2 million, with errors of $6.2 million.

Auditors found that the PCA hadn’t created adequate controls to monitor regulatory fines or penalties the agency received. Because the PCA didn’t safeguard or keep daily logs of receipts, auditors found that checks could have been lost or stolen without the agency’s knowledge.

The PCA also failed to “redact not public information, such as bank routing and account numbers.” The agency allowed employees without a business need to access the information, which auditors said employees could use to “commit fraud against the check writer.”

The PCA also neglected to safeguard non-public data, which was available for all agency employees to view, and which 52 employees could edit, auditors found.

The lax financial controls led to errors in the PCA’s quarterly report, the audit found.

“For the quarter ended December 31, 2010, the agency reported about $8.2 million of accounts receivable to the Department of Management and Budget; however, the report had significant errors and concerns, totaling about $6.2 million.”

Those errors included an overstatement of superfund receivables by $4.5 million, including $3 million where the agency had already either settled and failed to adjust the balance or didn’t post the payments to the debtor’s account.

The report concludes that the agency was ultimately unable to substantiate hundreds of thousands of dollars in regulatory penalties due to the lax controls.

Auditors recommend that the PCA institute safeguards for its accounts receivables, limit the workers who have access to view and edit non-public data and that Office of Management and Budget provide more oversight for all state agencies on dealing with account receivables.
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If you have any questions on where, when or how to vote, the League of Women Voters has information on how to register to vote, where to vote in your local area, what to bring to the polling place and all the relevant laws governing the process at Vote411.org.

In St. Paul, Tuesday’s election signals the city’s first use of ranked choice voting, which allows voters to pick a second choice that will be counted if the voter’s first choice is eliminated (more information on ranked voting is available at the Ramsey County election center).

Wherever you are in the state, if you run into any problems at the polling places tomorrow—long lines, not enough ballots, partisan attempts to intimidate voters—we encourage you to report that news to the world by using the Twitter hashtag #votingproblems and by emailing the Minnesota Independent at tips@minnesotaindependent.com.

Source: Gage Skidmore, Flickr

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul launched the Minnesota portion of his presidential campaign with a spirited rally at the St. Cloud Civic Center Saturday.

Paul’s speech in St. Cloud touched on issues like domestic economic policy, the drug war and foreign interventions.

“The country and the world is in a mess today, and I’m quite convinced that we know exactly how we get here and exactly what to do,” Paul told the crowd, “and one thing’s for sure is we don’t need more government.”

Paul blamed the Federal Reserve for helping to bring about the speculative bubbles that sunk the nation’s economy.

“It’s the Federal Reserve that by interfering in the monetary system, monkeying around with interest rates, they create the bubbles,” Paul said. “For a while they can create one bubble and patch it up again, but eventually the big bubble bursts.”

He also condemned government bailouts of big banks and companies.

“They said if we don’t bail out the system there would be a depression,” Paul said. “Guess where the depression would have been? It would have been on those who were receiving our money. Instead the depression was dealt to the people, the middle class, they lost their jobs and they lost their houses and we the taxpayer absorbed the debt.”

Paul also voiced support for abolishing the Department of Education and the federal income tax, condemned the drug war as a tragedy and worried about creation of a worldwide monetary currency.

He told supporters that the country is increasingly in agreement with their libertarian economic views.

“We’re witnessing the end of an economic era,” Paul said. “This is a tremendous opportunity for those of us who believe in liberty to get this message out.”

Paul’s foreign policy stances have drawn jeers from some Republican crowds at debates, but he continues to advocate for neutrality and condemn the United States’ assassination of American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, saying that ”what we must worry about is the rule of law because the rule of law protects us.”

Organizers put the turnout for the Republican candidate at about 2,500. Paul has trailed in most polls, but has captured a number of high-profile straw poll victories.

“You can not stop an idea whose time has come and the idea of liberty’s time has returned,” Paul said of his supporters. “We don’t have to understand each little issue, all we have to do is legalize freedom.”

In a sign that the campaign season has truly started, Pres. Barack Obama’s campaign will open an office just outside the University of Minnesota campus Monday.

The office will be located at 2722 University Avenue S.E., in Minneapolis. An invitation sent to supporters invites them to meet fellow activists and learn about the campaign’s “grassroots strategy for re-electing the president.”

“One year isn’t so far away, and we have to build for the long term and strengthen this movement today. Come on Monday to see how you can be involved and how together we will re-elect the President and reclaim the basic values that make our country great.”

Obama’s Republican rivals are currently focusing their resources on early primary states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

The campaign board is proposing changes to its recently released guidance documents. Those documents tell political committees and other groups that get involved in the ballot campaigns how to account for political donations and political expenditures.

The board is considering dropping a section that directed the board’s staff to look into donations that don’t fit neatly into the disclosure requirements.

Already the board has set up disclosure requirements for money spent “that expressly advocates the adoption or defeat of a ballot question measure” or communications that are “susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a ballot question measure.”

But there may be campaign activity that isn’t as cut and dry. The board had included a provision for fundraising appeals that were more ambiguous:

The Board recognizes that communications beyond express advocacy or its functional equivalent may be communications to promote or defeat a ballot question. Staff is directed to provide further research and options for language to extend the definition of ballot question expenditure to these communications.

But at Tuesday’s meeting, the board is considering dropping that provision and that is a problem for government transparency groups like Common Cause Minnesota.

“The staff recommendation could allow millions of dollars of undisclosed money to flow into the ballot campaign in Minnesota,” Mike Dean, the group’s executive director, said in an email to the Minnesota Independent. “At the June 30 meeting, the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board took an important position to protect Minnesotans right to know what special interest are funding the ballot amendment campaigns. Since then the board has begun to reverse that decision because of threats and intimidation from organizations that want to keep Minnesotans in the dark.”

Though two sides of the debate over the anti-gay marriage amendment will be subject to the board’s guidance, only one side has threatened not to follow the rules.

Earlier this month, Minnesota for Marriage said it would not comply with any of the new guidance set forth by the board opting only to follow older rules set up well before the Legislature created a new campaign finance reporting system in 2010. The group is urging Minnesotans to support the constitutional amendment.

Minnesota for Marriage is a partnership between the Catholic bishops, the Minnesota Family Council and the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). NOM and groups affiliated with it have attempted to shield donors and supporters by challenging existing public disclosure laws in almost a dozen states. It has also lost in almost every state the group has launched a challenge.

The board will take up a recommended changes at its meeting on Tuesday which will also include some language tweaks.

The board is dropping its plan to research when and how an organization might be given a waiver that would allow them to opt out of disclosing their donors or expenditures. The board is also proposing changes to language regarding implied fundraising pleas.

Dean said those changes could have serious consequences and that campaign finance loopholes can add up.

“Experience at the federal level has shown this approach creates a huge loophole,” Dean said. “For example, Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, a Section 501(c)(4) organization that reported over $16 million in independent campaign expenditures during the 2010 congressional campaign, disclosed none of its donors because none of its contributions were expressly earmarked for political ads.”

Dean added, “This recommendation will only further erode public confidence in government by allowing special interests to hide behind the loopholes created by the board.”

Source: Flickr, David_Shankbone

Activists in Duluth plan to occupy a site in the city’s downtown in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street actions in New York, which have sparked occupations across the country, including in Minneapolis.

A Facebook page run by the group lists a general assembly meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday, where protesters will decide which site to occupy.

The Duluth News Tribune reported that the most likely site, Minnesota Power Plaza, had “no trespassing” signs posted on Wednesday morning. The plaza is owned jointly by the city and Minnesota Power. The power company’s spokesman, Amy Rutledge, told the Duluth News Tribune that the company wasn’t trying to take away protesters’ free speech rights.

“I think we’re treating it differently in that we’ve never necessarily had this kind of an event before,” Rutledge said. “Given how the events have played out in other areas where there’s talk about camping out, we are treating it a little differently. They’re talking about camping out, and we’re not comfortable with that happening on private property.”

Protesters note that the signs were removed by Wednesday afternoon.

The original meeting of Occupy Duluth happened Monday, more than 70 people showed up, according to the News Tribune.

Protesters plan to join a labor demonstration before the general assembly Wednesday afternoon, some union leaders have voiced support for the occupation.

Earlier this morning, President Obama announced a set of criteria for states to opt out of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law following a long period of dissatisfaction with the 9-year-old national education policy.

During the indoor media event, the president said, “despite the good intentions of some, Congress has not been able to fix these laws so far…Our kids only get one shot at a decent education. So given that Congress isn’t acting, I am acting.”

The president stood with U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan and various state government and education leaders. Underlying the bipartisan collaboration the administration has fostered on the state level, Gov. Bill Haslam (R-Tenn.) introduced Obama, stating he looks forward “to the federal government narrowing its role in education.” Haslam added: “Education decisions are best made at the state and local level.

Under the 2002 legislation, students are permitted to transfer to new schools if their current schools fail to meet state proficiency two years in a row. Even more costly, 20 percent of an under-performing school’s federal dollars is redirected to fund tutoring services for low-income students after three years of missing state standards. The build up of high-stakes testing that determine whether the state is meeting proficiency benchmarks — called Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) — was established by the federal law but allowed for states to craft the specifics.

Though the president’s remarks were light on the details — having his administration staff lay out the terms in a closed session with journalists Thursday — education policy analyst Ulrich Boser of Center for American Progress said the live event demonstrates his commitment to education policy.

“The president has the bully pulpit … in light of the impending United Nations vote on Palestinian statehood and a looming government shutdown,” Boser said,” this is significant from a policy and political perspective that he did speak about it.”

During a briefing to reporters Thursday, senior administration officials laid out the White House’s expectations before granting states the option to opt out of the punitive portions of NCLB, calling it the “flexibility package.”

Broadly, states would need to develop a set of instructional standards that are college- and career-ready. They asked to adopt School Improvement Grant provisions like turning around the bottom five percent of schools in terms of performance while having plans in place to improve schools with low graduation rates and subsets of the student body that are considerably behind their peers.

Kristen Amundson, head of communications at education think tank Education Sector based in Washington, D.C., said the emphasis on flexibility, and by extension, the dearth of expected quantifiable outputs, is intentional. “The department seems very sincere in laying out general parameters for improving systems without hard numbers. I would be surprised if they did,” she said.

For a full look at what the White House is asking from states in exchange for issuing waivers from the federal education law, read The American Independent’s breakdown here.

Minnesota’s unemployment rate remained at 7.2 percent, slightly less than the nation’s average of 9.1 percent, according to data released by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) Thursday.

Source: Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development

The lackluster numbers were “skewed by the “smoothing” of data that understated the impact of thousands of state employees returning to work en masse,” according to DEED.

But the state did add around 5,800 jobs in the private sector in August, much of the gain coming in the construction industry.

“We have seen state manufacturers, construction companies and other private businesses add more than 42,000 jobs in the past four months,” DEED Commissioner Mark Phillips said in a statement.

Losses in areas like the hospitality industry, which dropped 3,300 jobs last month, evened out the unemployment rate for August.

The state has lost about 2,600 government jobs as local governments tightened their belts. The Mankato area has shown the most job growth in the state this year.

Miriam Jordan of The Wall Street Journal reports on a pseudonymous couple who illegally entered the U.S. from Mexico to settle in Minneapolis. They held jobs paying well over the minimum wage, plus benefits, before the Obama Administration began cracking down on employers. Both of them now work lower-paid jobs and work for less than the minimum wage.

More about the audits:

The audits, started by the Obama administration in 2009, put the onus on business to police workers, requiring companies to turn over employee records to federal agents. If the papers aren’t in order, the workers are quietly let go without penalty while the companies are punished.

The audits, conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, were initially hailed by some immigrant advocates as more humane because they eliminate deportation raids, the norm during the Bush administration.

But it has become increasingly clear that the policy is pushing undocumented workers deeper underground, delivering them to the hands of unscrupulous employers, depressing wages and depriving federal, state and local coffers of taxes, according to unions, companies and immigrant advocates.

It’s not clear whether their employer, ABM, looked the other way or the couple simply provided false documents. Employers are required to accept documents for an I-9 form or else be open to charges of employment discrimination. Either way, they were treated well — the husband made up to just over $14 an hour, and both entitled to paid vacation and sick days.

Minnesota required the use of E-Verify for state employees and contractors doing more than $50,000 in business with the state from 2008 until 2011, when Gov. Mark Dayton reversed the executive order of Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

With the recession and increased immigration enforcement, it’s unlikely that the couple will find other jobs that pay well above minimum wage and include benefits.