Olson’s Cheers & Jeers: Walz skips the sweet stuff for law school grads

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of commentary online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

Cheers to Gov. Tim Walz for skipping the feel-good bromides at the University of Minnesota Law School graduation and serving up reality about the state of our legal system under President Donald Trump. “This is what the crumbling of rule of law looks like in real time. And it’s exactly what the founders of this nation feared: A tyrant, abusing power to persecute scapegoats and enemies,” Walz said at the graduation a week ago. Walz acknowledged the speech was more political than is standard on such occasions. More of this, please, governor.

Jeers to legislators for doing their work behind closed doors and taking hours, if not days, to release the results. At midafternoon Wednesday, we learned a conference committee had reached agreement on the Commerce Department bill. Legislators and Commerce Commissioner Grace Arnold posted a self-congratulatory photo on social media. Yet a day later, we had not learned whether the committee had actually dispensed with an ill-considered 2023 provision in state law that amounts to a ban on key production in Minnesota. Will the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency start enforcing the lead ban soon and force the industry out of the state? Who knows.

Cheers to the House-Senate Tax Conference Committee, the one panel at the Capitol that consistently provides notice of meetings and does its work in public. The committee is making high-impact decisions about taxes on data centers and aid to cities and schools throughout the state. Come for the spreadsheets and swarm of big-time lobbyists digging hungrily through the bills; stay for the cheap thrill of hearing a lobbyist in violation of the silent phone rule when his ringtone erupted in Blondie’s “The Tide Is High.” The tax committee is the best show at the Capitol this time of year.

Jeers to the Legislature for attempting to increase the cannabis tax before the industry is up and running in Minnesota. The 2023 Legislature legalized recreational cannabis with a 10% tax on sales. A global budget agreement, which remains in limbo as the Legislature’s 2025 work is undone, would increase the tax to 15%. Former state House DFL Majority Leader Ryan Winkler sarcastically and accurately called the tax increase before the launch a “noteworthy commentary on competence in state government.”

Cheers to Don Gemberling, who is still pushing for public access to government proceedings years after retiring as director of the state’s Data Practices Office. Gemberling denounced the epidemic of closed-door negotiating sessions happening at the Capitol. When private deals are cut, the results are presented to the public as a fait accompli, leaving both policymakers and the public without a clear understanding of how they reached consensus. “I think a lot of legislators don’t know what’s in the bills,” Gemberling told reporter Nathan Minor. That’s not a comforting thought.

Jeers to the outrage over Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s description of the city’s “bourgeois liberal mentality” in a New York Post story. Big whoop. The chief’s allowed to express his opinion. Wouldn’t it be swell if his remarks prompted self-reflection among the citizenry and a more expansive public dialogue instead of the knee-jerk backlash so common from certain corners of Minneapolis? O’Hara’s not even the first to say something like this. Back in 2020, former DFL Mayor Betsy Hodges wrote in a New York Times piece that, “White liberals, despite believing we are saying and doing the right things, have resisted the systemic changes our cities have needed for decades.” Don’t back down now, Chief O’Hara; let’s keep the conversation going.

Cheers to six of eight mallard hatchlings who survived the EagleCam nest. Colleague Aaron Brown recently wrote about mama mallard’s courageous incubation journey with a predator perched nearby. Hours after the ducklings’ emergence from their shells, six of eight managed to jump the nest and soldier on. Alas, two did not make the leap and were last seen in the yellow talons of an awaiting eagle. The state Department of Natural Resources posted a video of the ducklings’ demise with a warning about the graphic depiction of predator and prey. The ducklings were immeasurably adorable, but in the enduring words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature is reckless of the individual. When she has points to carry, she carries them.”

Jeers to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, former governor of South Dakota, for her lack of clarity on the nation’s foundational principle of habeas corpus. In a Senate hearing, she defined it as “a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country and suspend their rights.” Chilling that Noem was so blasé while being utterly incorrect. Habeas corpus is bedrock legal principle requiring the government provide a public reason for arresting and detaining people. Noem should bust open a law book and cultivate a shred of compassion for her fellow human beings — and pets.

Cheers to Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier and multiple Grammy winning artist Bon Iver for their first-of-its-kind partnership to advance gender equity through sports and music. They say they’ll bring awareness to domestic and sexual violence, sex trafficking, health care disparities and educational and leadership barriers. They’re committed to helping several organizations in Minnesota and Bon Iver’s native Wisconsin, including the Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition, Esperanza United, Tubman, the Family Support Center in Chippewa Falls, Wis., and Turningpoint in River Falls, Wis. As if Collier and Bon Iver don’t have enough to do in their day jobs, their leadership on these matters is a beacon and an inspiration.