Minnesota House Republicans introduced a bill Monday that would prevent cities, counties and other local governments from making laws related to immigration enforcement. St. Paul, Minneapolis and Worthington have ordinances on the books that direct city employees to check the immigration status of their residents only in certain instances and instead leave immigration enforcement to federal officials. These “sanctuary cities” are the target of HF348, which would invalidate those local ordinances.

The bill, introduced by Republican Reps. Bob Barrett of Shafer, Mike Benson of Rochester, Steve Drazkowski of Mazeppa and Glenn Gruenhagen of Glencoe, also contains language that would prohibit local governments from providing immigration data to the Department of Homeland Security.

St. Paul has chosen to direct its public safety resources away from immigration enforcement, although its ordinances say it will enforce those laws where appropriate.

“The city works cooperatively with homeland security, as it does with all state and federal agencies, but the city does not operate its programs for the purpose of enforcing federal immigration laws,” the ordinance reads. “Homeland security has the legal authority to enforce immigration laws in the United States, in Minnesota and in the city.”

The ordinance continues, “It is the policy of the city to respect the role of homeland security by avoiding pro-active enforcement of civil immigration laws. This chapter is not intended to limit the proper enforcement of generally applicable laws. It is the policy of the city that all residents are equally entitled to protection and that all residents should be able to access city services to which they are entitled, without regard to their immigration status under federal law.”

The text of the GOP bill says, “Notwithstanding any other state or local law, no political subdivision, whether acting through its governing body or by an initiative, referendum, or any other process, shall enact any ordinance, regulation, or policy that limits or prohibits a criminal justice agency, peace officer, or official or employee of the political subdivision from communicating or cooperating with federal officials with regard to (1) information concerning the immigration status of any person within Minnesota or (2) the enforcement of federal immigration laws and regulations.”

Drazkowski is also the author of another immigration-related bill this session, one which would limit government services only to those who speak English.

Minnesota Public Radio’s Bob Collins took note of a sign

The Star Tribune‘s Jim Gehrz took this picture on Saturday. The arrow is courtesy of Bob Collins.

Marcus Bachmann at Minnesota's observation of the National Day of Prayer. Photo: Andy Birkey

About 100 people turned out Thursday for Minnesota’s National Day of Prayer event at the state Capitol, and many politicians were there to take part. Rep. Michele Bachmann sent a message by way of her husband, Marcus; a Secretary of State candidate said the military helps bring people to Christ; and an absent Gov. Tim Pawlenty gave his seal of approval for the event by way of an official proclamation.

Striking a recurring theme at the event, Rep. Dan Severson, the GOP-endorsed candidate for Secretary of State, told the crowd that Minnesota had to move back to biblical principles.

“We live in a blessed land that was formed on a Constitution, that was based on biblical principles and principles of a belief in God and a belief that the truth will set men free,” he said.

He prayed for the nation’s men and women serving in the armed forces and spoke about the important work they do.

“And for America, that importance is that every man woman and child would have the opportunity to receive Jesus Christ as their personal savior,” he said. “So we want to lift up these men and women who are committed to this country.”

Rep. Dan Severson

Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau read a proclamation from Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who did not attend the event as he has in previous years.

“Now therefore, I, Tim Palwenty, Governor of Minnesota, do hereby proclaim Thursday, May 6, 2010, as day of prayer in the State of Minnesota and humbly encourage citizens of faith to turn to God as their understanding and beliefs direct, that we may open our hearts in thanksgiving for the blessings we received and to seek strength, wisdom, and encouragement to build a better Minnesota for all.”

Marcus Bachmann read a letter from Rep. Bachmann, but before he did, he gave his own remarks.

“Today is the day that the Lord hath made, let us rejoice! And let us be reminded that one day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

He then read a letter from his wife, whom he called his “beloved.”

“Our country has a rich Christian history and was founded upon the principle of biblical freedom. What a gift it is to know that God has blessed us with the right to pray, teach and practice our beliefs in this great country,” she wrote.

“May we continue to stand boldly against tyranny,” she said. “We will work to restore our land to its foundations of religious freedom. We must never forget that these rights are given by God and that they are hated by unfaithful men.”

Pastor Peggy Johnson then conducted a fiery “laying on of hands” for Marcus Bachmann.

“He is Lord over Minnesota,” she said. “He is Lord over this nation. He is Lord! And so we declare it today,” she shouted as the crowd swayed, eyes closed and arms out-stretched. “Lord, we pray a protection around [members of Congress]. And Lord we pray for divine protection around these leaders. We ask you would give them divine revelation from your throne room.”

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie

Many Democratic members of the legislature turned out to greet the crowd as well. House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher declined to pray, instead asking all members of the legislature present to stand and be recognized. Sen. Terri Bonoff took to the mic to offer a Jewish prayer, in what would be the only non-evangelical Christian prayer of the day. (In past years, the event hasn’t included any non-evangelical speakers.)

“I’m Jewish so I offered to do a Hebrew prayer so that we could all be included,” she told the crowd.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has attended the event for years. He used the opportunity to remember Sgt. Joe Bergeron, a Maplewood police officer who was killed in the line of duty over the weekend.

“Prayer can bring us comfort, especially in times of loss,” he said. “The funeral this morning for Sgt. Bergeron’s family — of the meaning and the words and the prayers that were given, I was most touched by his nephew. His nephew said that Joe didn’t become a hero in his death; he was a hero by how he lived his life.”

“And my prayer today,” Ritchie added, “is that we be heroes in our lives.”

This year’s prayer day follows an April ruling by a federal judge in Wisconsin deeming the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional. The Minnesota event’s coordinator, Sharon Auldrich, told the Minnesota Independent last month that the state prayer day “draw[s] a line in the sand.”

“Those who say they believe in God and say they have biblical values will have to step forward and prove it.”

“This law sets a dangerous example for the rest of the country. It will create a culture where racial profiling is acceptable, and will create a dangerous wedge between police officers and the communities they serve,” said Coleman. “We are a country of immigrants — and SB 1070 is an affront to our constitution and the values we hold dear as Americans. It’s not worthy of who we are as a people — and it’s certainly not worthy of the investment of any city dollars being spent in Arizona.”

The No Bad Ballots Committee filed a complaint with the Office of Administrative Hearings over the endorsement claims at the end of October, then followed it up days later with a second complaint. At issue were listed endorsements of the voting system by the League of Women Voters, John McCain and Barack Obama. Under state election law, a campaign cannot claim the support of an individual unless that person has provided written permission.

“I was surprised that Santa Claus and Jesus Christ weren’t on the list,” Chuck Repke of No Bad Ballots told the Minnesota Independent last month. “You can’t be more deceptive than to claim the endorsement of the President of the United States when you don’t have it. I’m just flabbergasted.”

The ruling doesn’t affect the city’s implementation of IRV, scheduled to begin in 2011. Attorney Jay Benanav, who represents the Better Ballot Campaign, tells the Star Tribune the group could appeal the decision but hasn’t decided whether it will yet.

The Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch hotel in Beaver Creek, Colo., site of a $113,753 Xcel board of directors retreat

DENVER — With St. Paul–based Xcel Energy on pace to disconnect power to some 70,000 Coloradans this year for nonpayment, energy activists there are openly questioning why ratepayers should pick up the tab for lavish executive board-member dinners, hotel and spa retreats and luxury box tickets to professional sports games. But those who want the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to establish a firm policy cracking down on such excesses likely won’t get their wish anytime soon, according to a commission spokesman.

The PUC is set to begin final deliberations on Xcel’s latest rate-increase request — its second in the last year — on Dec. 3, but PUC spokesman Terry Bote said the commissioners will probably only consider the merits the of the $136 million rate hike and not delve into rule changes for travel and entertainment expenses.

“The commission can’t set a rule by deliberation in a rate case, so if they were going to make a rule, they would have to go into a rule-making proceeding to do that,” Bote told the Colorado Independent. “If they choose to, they can put language in the order that says, ‘We don’t expect these types of expenses to be included in future rate cases,’ but that’s not binding, obviously.”

The issue first came up during testimony in the nearly $180 million rate case in Denver earlier this month (Xcel has since reduced that amount in a settlement with consumer groups by nearly $44 million). Clean energy and consumer advocates pointed out Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson had a serious problem with excessive Xcel travel and entertainment charges last summer.

Some of those charges included a $113,753 Xcel board of directors retreat at the ultra-luxury Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch hotel near Beaver Creek in Colorado’s Eagle County — of which Xcel tried to pass $36,149 on to Minnesota ratepayers, according to testimony by the state AG’s office. Other items included first-class airline tickets and luxury hotel stays for top Xcel executives during conferences in Europe.

That testimony prompted Xcel, which provides power to 5 million customers in eight states, including Colorado, to trim $3.9 million in travel and entertainment expenses from its $132 million rate case in Minnesota last summer. Regulators ultimately allowed for an overall $91 million increase in that state.

The Minnesota rate case caught the attention of Colorado energy activists who tried earlier this month to introduce the Minnesota AG’s testimony into the Colorado rate-case docket. The Colorado PUC rejected that move but did request more information from Xcel on whether similar charges were being included the Colorado rate case. Xcel introduced an exhibit on the final day of testimony detailing more than $120,000 in expenses.

The tab included dinner bills in excess of $10,000 and board retreats at luxury spas in Boulder for more than $40,000. Xcel immediately offered to remove those expenses from its rate-increase request.

“The commission has never disallowed these sorts of expenditures in the past and the company finds that these occasional expenses are a reasonable cost of business, but offered to remove the costs from its historic test year during the hearings,” a company spokesman said. “The company will offer to remove the same amount from its forecasted test year, meaning that customers in Colorado will not be paying for these types of expenses.”

However, attorney Dennis Kelly, an “intervener” in the rate case on behalf of a grassroots Arapahoe County group called the ArapaHOPE Community Team, said his organization and others fought hard to get the Minnesota case into the record because they want the Colorado PUC to establish a firm policy on exorbitant travel and entertainment expenses.

“One of the reasons we really wanted to get this into the docket is because I don’t think that these costs had ever really been reviewed by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, and I don’t think they really have set guidelines on any of this,” Kelly said.

Now activists in Minnesota are calling out Xcel for its annual $5.8 million corporate aviation budget, according the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The company maintains two eight-passenger Learjets — which cost about $1,200 an hour to fly – mostly for company executives to travel between Minneapolis and Denver, its two largest markets.

David O. Williams writes for the Colorado Independent, sister site to the Minnesota Independent.

The board announced the rulings today, but reached its decisions at a meeting on Thursday — the same day Rybak registered a gubernatorial campaign committee. He won re-election to a third term as mayor on Tuesday. The rulings were prompted by complaints filed by the Republican Party of Minnesota.

The board also heard evidence about Rybak driving to events around the state meant to showcase candidates for governor — with mileage costs that Rybak bore personally but that the Minnesota GOP said constituted an in-kind gift.

But it was the survey costs that the board focused on, and they didn’t buy Rybak’s defense that the polling work was on behalf of his mayoral campaign against much lesser-known challengers:

The response on behalf of Mayor Rybak contends that the survey was to support a re-election bid for Mayor of Minneapolis. But this response does not persuasively explain why a survey to support the Mayor’s re-election would have a geographic calling area that included metro area residents that are not eligible to vote in Minneapolis.

The board found the survey questions revealing:

As an example, the survey asks if the respondent voted in 2006, (the last time the office of Governor was on the ballot), and if the respondent intends to vote in 2010. The office of Governor is on the ballot in 2010, the office of Mayor of Minneapolis is on the ballot in odd numbered years (2005 and 2009).

The board ordered Rybak to form a gubernatorial campaign committee (which he did), which must transfer to his RT for Minneapolis mayoral campaign the cost of the conducting the survey last May.

The board also ruled (pdf) on whether St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman violated state statute by failing to register a fundraising committee while exploring a bid for governor. The complaint from the Minnesota GOP noted that Coleman had participated in gubernatorial forums with other candidates and openly discussed his plans for the state if elected to the office. The board determined that Coleman was indeed a candidate for governor earlier this year and spent personal funds in excess of $100 to support his campaign.

The Board considered possible reasons why Mayor Coleman would travel to locations throughout the state to participate in gubernatorial candidate forums and present information on what actions he would do if elected Governor. In the Board’s view the only reasonable explanation for those actions is that Mayor Coleman was seeking nomination or election to the office of Governor.

But the board also ruled that Coleman did not improperly use funds from his mayoral campaign to support a gubernatorial bid. Coleman has since announced that he will not be running for governor, but the board stated that that decision did not alter its findings in the matter. The administrative body ordered Coleman to submit a detailed accounting of his expenditures on behalf of his gubernatorial campaign by February 1, 2010.

In the waning days of the campaign, the No Bad Ballots Committee filed a pair of grievances with the Office of Administrative Hearings charging that IRV supporters were using false claims to bolster their electoral prospects. Specifically, the group took issue with claims that the DFL party, the St. Paul League of Women Voters and President Obama, among others, supported the adoption of instant-runoff voting.

“They knew they were going to lose if they didn’t deceive the voters of St. Paul,” says Chuck Repke, co-chair of the No Bad Ballots Committee.

The St. Paul Better Ballots Campaign, which spearheaded the IRV campaign, has denied any wrongdoing. The ballot measure, which asked voters if they wanted to adopt instant-runoff voting for municipal elections, passed by a 52-48 percent margin. Minneapolis utilized the new voting system, whereby voters rank candidates in order of preference, for the first time on Tuesday and experienced few difficulties.

A phone hearing on the grievances is set for 4 p.m. today. An administrative law judge will determine if there is sufficient evidence of wrongdoing to proceed to a formal hearing. Repke wants the result of the ballot measure tossed out.

“I think we win this in court quite easily,” he says.

“Our work is not done here,” Coleman told supporters gathered in a ballroom at the St. Paul Hotel shortly after the polls closed. “We’re on the verge of something great here in old St. Paul.”

Coleman’s margin of victory was almost identical to four years ago, when he ousted incumbent Randy Kelly. Ng was endorsed by the Republican party — a mark of dubious distinction in a town dominated by Democrats.

Coleman openly flirted with a run for governor next year. But he surprised supporters and political observers last month when he announced that he would not seek the state’s top post.

In St. Paul’s school board contests, incumbent Elona Street-Stewart was the top vote-getter, with support from 22 percent of voters. She’ll be joined by fellow Democrat John Brodrick and newcomer Jean O’Connell. Incumbent Tom Goldstein fell fewer than 400 votes short of retaining his post. O’Connell was the only candidate in the field to be endorsed by the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, a distinction that likely helped put her over the top.

In the contest to fill a two-year post on the school board created by the departure of Tom Conlon midway through his term, Democrat Vallay Moua Varro defeated Republican Pat Igo by a 59-40 percent margin.

St. Paul residents narrowly voted to adopt instant-runoff voting for municipal elections. The ballot measure drew support from 52 percent of voters. Given how contentious the contest was between the pro- and anti-IRV advocates, it seems likely that the result will be challenged. Minneapolis utilized the instant-runoff system, whereby voters rank candidates in order of preference, for the first time on Tuesday.

At issue is a mailing that the Saint Paul Better Ballot Campaign, which is running the pro-IRV campaign, has sent out to potential voters. It claims a wide array of supporters for the ballot measure, from President Obama to the Star Tribune to the Minnesota DFL party.

But Chuck Repke, co-chair of the No Bad Ballots Committee, charges that the claims are patently false. Under state election law, a campaign cannot claim the support of an individual unless that person has provided written permission. Clearly President Obama, Repke notes, hasn’t taken time out from his schedule to provide written support for the local ballot initiative.

“I was surprised that Santa Claus and Jesus Christ weren’t on the list,” Repke says. “You can’t be more deceptive than to claim the endorsement of the President of the United States when you don’t have it. I’m just flabbergasted.”

Repke is particularly peeved that the pro-IRV group is claiming DFL support. He notes that at the St. Paul DFL convention in March, a resolution to support the ballot measure was explicitly voted down by party activists. And in a town dominated by Democrats, the party’s purported backing could carry weight with voters.

“They cannot claim DFL endorsement,” Repke says. “These people know that. They were at the convention. I saw them there. They were standing next to me.”

Jeanne Massey, executive director of FairVote Minnesota, which is helping run the pro-IRV campaign, insists that any violations of campaign laws are simply innocent technicalities. She points out that the state DFL party added support for IRV to the party platform last year and that President Obama is a well known supporter of the voting system — even if he hasn’t explicitly endorsed the St. Paul referendum.

“If they are complaining about the word ‘endorse,’ then let them complain,” she says. “Our intent is to convey to the public that they support the concept of instant-runoff voting.”

Minneapolis will utilize instant-runoff voting, whereby voters rank their candidates in order of preference, for the first time on Tuesday. At the same time, St. Paul voters will determine whether to adopt a similar system.

Last week, Repke filed an initial complaint with the Office of Administrative Hearings claiming that supporters of the ballot measure were falsely advertising support from the League of Women Voters. But the Better Ballot Committee insists there’s no merit to his charge.

“The facts alleged by Repke are patently false based on previous actions taken by the League of Women Voters,” writes attorney Jay Benanav, who is representing the pro-IRV group, in responding to the complaint.

But Repke is unimpressed by suggestions that any campaign violations were committed out of innocence rather than malice. He believes the alleged infractions should be vigorously prosecuted.

“Karl Rove wouldn’t pull crap like this,” he says. “I’ve never seen a more evil campaign than this and I’ve done politics for 30-some odd years in this town.”