By Max Nesterak | Deputy Editor
Good morning, Reformers.
Happy Mother’s Day to the mothers and Happy Fishing Opener to the fishers. Gov. Tim Walz will be fishing in Stillwater on the St. Croix River.
We anticipated this legislative session would be much ado about nothing due to election year politics and the evenly divided House, and lawmakers have proven us right, with a few exceptions (see below).
That said, they have some important work to do, especially in the effort to help Hennepin County Medical Center stave off financial calamity.
Our editor argues today they should also do something on housing reform, but that seems like a tough lift given opposition from local electeds. They have fewer than 10 days to go.
To the news:
Photo courtesy of Minnesota House Public Information Services.
By Michelle Griffith
The Minnesota House on Thursday passed bipartisan legislation to create an independent office of inspector general to oversee the state’s public dollars and investigate allegations of fraud.
The office of inspector general bill is a marquee fraud-prevention bill this legislative session, which ends on May 17. Other fraud measures being considered this session include a bill to tax money stolen through fraud; expanding the Minnesota Attorney General Office’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit; and strengthening state agencies’ ability to stop payments when fraud is suspected.
The inspector general would be appointed by the Minnesota governor, but a bipartisan group of legislators will vet and forward a slew of candidate recommendations from which the governor can choose. The Senate passed its own version, so there’s still some work to do, but this is likely to hit the governor’s desk.
By J. Patrick Coolican
Editor J. Patrick Coolican writes in support of a bipartisan proposal at the Legislature to limit — slightly — the ability of cities to block new housing construction. While it has the backing of business, labor and housing advocates, it’s unsurprisingly facing fierce opposition from city governments who by-and-large want to retain the right to block new housing construction (and affordable housing construction in particular).
The stakes are too high to surrender to the NIMBYs, Patrick argues. These exclusionary policies are pushing the American dream out of reach of more Minnesotans. Rents are rising and middle-income Minnesotans trying to buy a home have to confront nightmare bidding wars.
What’s more, it’s fueling the resegregation of our schools, which is bad for kids of color and white kids, alike.
IN OTHER NEWS
Another court ruling blocks Trump’s wide-ranging tariffs | Reformer via States Newsroom
What is 340B, and why does it matter for Minnesota hospitals? | Rochester Post Bulletin
Report warns of growing housing shortage | Axios Twin Cities
OH BY THE WAY
I’ve been sick the past few days with a nasty daycare bug, although I’m not sure what exactly. My husband texted me a screenshot of the AI overview for hantavirus and asked “Do you think you have this? Someone at work is convinced they have it, so didn’t know if it’s going around. Never heard of it.”
I had to laugh. No, I was pretty sure I didn’t have the latest viral virus that’s killed three people on a Dutch-owned cruise ship traversing the Atlantic Ocean. Though the symptoms of fever, achiness and gastrointestinal issues matched what I was feeling.
His co-worker turned out to be trolling him, but the hantavirus outbreak is worrying people around the world about another pandemic. Breaking news reports about passengers stuck on a cruise ship because of a serious pneumonia-like infection are uncannily similar to the start of COVID. The name “Diamond Princess” is seared in my memory.
But as Dylan Scott explains in Vox, experts are far less concerned about hantavirus because it doesn’t rapidly spread between humans. It’s mostly spread by close contact with rodent feces or urine. Though it is still possible for it to get worse. Public health workers are trying to track down everyone who was on the ship and everyone they came in contact with.
The hantavirus discourse resurfaced a story from 2025 that I had completely missed: CDC's cruise ship inspectors laid off amid bad year for outbreaks.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. — who promoted ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for COVID and called the vaccine the “deadliest ever made” — cut all of the CDC’s full-time employees investigating cruise ship disease outbreaks even though their salaries were paid for by cruise ship companies — not taxpayers.
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