Daily Reformer: Fundamentals

By J. Patrick Coolican | Editor-in-chief

These are the kinds of fundamentals that typically determine elections. What about 2022, you ask? A good question, considering that President Joe Biden was in the cellar and gas prices (and inflation and crime vibes) were high. But then the U.S. Supreme Court saved the Democrats by overturning Roe v. Wade. Americans’ amnesia about Jan. 6 also hadn’t quite set in, and they punished some Republican extremists in places like Arizona and Michigan.  

And maybe Democrats’ failures of governance here are exceptional and will cause Minnesota voters to break with voters across the country.

Bottom line, however: There are more Democrats here than Republicans, which is why I continue to be surprised that GOP candidate for governor Lisa Demuth and U.S. Senate nominee Michele Tafoya are not creating significant distance between themselves and President Donald Trump. 

The only path to victory is to persuade swing voters and some Democrats that you’ll turn the page on Walz-Flanagan and that you’re a different kind of Republican. 

Maybe they just can’t quit him. 

To the Reformer:

By Alyssa Chen

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Christian Castro, who is accused of unjustifiably shooting Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis through the closed door of a north Minneapolis home in January, made his first appearance in Hennepin County District Court Thursday.

Minnesota prosecutors fought for months to get Castro into court, unsuccessfully suing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for blocking Castro’s extradition from Texas to Minnesota.

This week marks eight months into a winding saga that has involved four legal cases, including federal charges against the shooting victim and his roommate that were later dropped after prosecutors discovered Castro had lied about the incident; the extradition battle between Texas and Minnesota; and federal charges against Castro, who will make a federal court appearance Friday.

And, this morning, Castro appeared in federal court for charges related to alleged false statements to the FBI.

By Izzy Wagener

Minnesota faith leaders gathered Thursday at the State Capitol pledging to protect the right to vote and to have votes properly counted. 

“We protect our elections, and we make sure that we are clear that we’re going to act free in order to stay free in this state,”  

said JaNaé Bates Imari, the co-executive director of ISAIAH, a progressive ecumenical religious group. The phrase “act free to stay free” has become a rallying cry among Minnesota democracy defenders this year. It serves as the title of a memo written by Doran Schrantz — former ISAIAH executive director — that lays out the ongoing threats to a free and fair election and calls for specific steps to ensure votes are counted and winners seated. 

By Michelle Griffith

A federal judge who issued several critical rulings of the Trump administration during Operation Metro Surge last winter told The New York Times in a rare interview that the federal government’s actions during the crackdown “created a grave threat to the rule of law.”

The New York Times spoke to Judge Patrick J. Schiltz and six other members of Minnesota’s federal bench about the immigration sweeps that flooded the court with over 1,000 habeas corpus petitions and led to tensions between the U.S. Department of Justice and federal judges who are typically “partners” in the criminal justice system, Schiltz said.

Schiltz is a noted figure in conservative legal circles and clerked for the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Coolican: Judges don’t give interviews, so this is a big deal.

By Becky Rom

The national chair of Save the Boundary Waters traces the history of the actions that preserved a roadless wilderness. 

Long under the thumb of mining and logging companies owned by distant barons — “outsiders” — leaders viewed tourism as their economy, run by locals, that they could control. They thought that the proposed roads would be a major step to provide access to tourists to every corner of the North Woods.

But others took a longer view of canoe country management. The U.S. Forest Service’s first landscape architect, Arthur Carhart, paddled the canoe country many times during the period from 1919 to 1921. He saw the unique value of the canoe country of the Superior National Forest as a recreational wilderness area that excluded automobiles. 

Fascinating history illustrating how our actions now will influence people in a century.

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