Weekend Reformer: Schiltz doubles down

At a Friday MPR News debate with Democratic Attorney General Keith Ellison, Republican candidate Ron Schutz committed to giving up control of his stock portfolio and divest from any companies that are currently in litigation with the state. The promise comes after Max Nesterak looked at Schutz’s stock holdings earlier this week and found that Schutz has over $1.74 million in individual stocks, including in companies currently being sued by the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office. One legal expert called it a “clear and present conflict.” 

Max wrote up other takeaways from the Friday AG debate, where Schutz and Ellison talked fraud, the Trump administration, pardons and prediction markets. 

Also this week, the U.S. Department of Justice accused all but one of Minnesota’s federal district judges of unethical conduct, stemming from interviews given by the judges to the New York Times about the government’s actions during Operation Metro Surge.

In the Times article, U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz, who twice clerked for the late conservative icon Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and was appointed by George W. Bush, said what happened in Minnesota federal court during the surge “created a grave threat to the rule of law.”

On Friday, Schiltz spoke at a symposium on state law remedies for federal lawlessness at the St. Thomas School of Law, where he said he didn’t violate any ethics rules and publicly recounted the challenges of administering justice during the surge. Madi reports here.

The family of Renee Good filed a pair of lawsuits against the federal government and top Trump administration officials, seeking compensation and a trial to determine the liability of several federal officials in Good’s killing, Madi reported. Becca Good, Renee Good’s wife, made her first public appearance at a press conference announcing the lawsuits. 

The Minnesota Truth Council, which is tasked with documenting the harms of Operation Metro Surge, held its final public meeting on Tuesday. Madi reported from Rochester, where the hearing featured testimony from former federal officials, legal experts, immigrant support groups and immigrants affected by Operation Metro Surge. 

The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office has stopped classifying deputies as “undercover” to shield their body camera footage from the public, following a campaign by public defenders for more than a year and rebukes from at least three judges, Max reported. 

Individual and small group health insurance plans — like the kind families buy on MNsure — will be 17% more expensive next year, affecting hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans, I reported. 

Minnesota home insurance rates also rose steeply in the first six months of 2026, up 13% from the end of 2025, I reported. It’s the largest increase of any state in those months. 

Brian Martucci reported that Xcel Energy’s billing practices are causing financial and logistical headaches for Minnesota residents, businesses and even municipalities, according to complaints filed with the state utility regulator this year. 

I recently attended a Minnesota Department of Health working group meeting and learned that several Minnesota hospitals have private insurance prices that are over three times as much as Medicare prices for the same services, a result of the opaque bargaining process between hospitals and insurers. The data comes from 2022, but is probably the most comprehensive and updated publicly available data on the subject, so I wrote up some main findings. 

Fewer than half of Minnesota students who take the state’s standardized test are able to read and do math at grade-level expectations, I reported. You can also look up the scores at your kid’s school here. 

The Minneapolis City Council voted 7-4 to advance a proposal to require human “safety monitors” earning minimum pay rates in the drivers’ seats of autonomous robotaxis like Alphabet’s Waymo and Amazon’s Zoox, Max reported. Mayor Jacob Frey announced he’ll veto the measure, the council doesn’t appear to have the votes to override.

The University of Minnesota announced $225 million in budget cuts over two years beginning in July 2027. Dylan Young, a Humphrey School of Public Affairs student and former student body president, argued that the U needs to establish a democratic process in deciding how to address the budget issues. 

Patrick Hamilton, a fellow with the Science Museum of Minnesota and with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, likens Earth to a leaky ship requiring great and urgent maintenance from us. 

Genevieve Vavreck, the founder of MN Plant-Based Kids, argues that Minnesota’s universal school meals program should offer better options for students, or parents of students, who want access to plant-based options.

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