It’s hard to tell these days whether or not the Minnesota Legislature is in session. Technically it is, except for the House, but it’s complicated and you can read a whole 1,500-word column on this topic and come out little-the-wiser. (Thank you for your service, Peter Callaghan.)

One thing’s for sure about going to the State Capitol: compared to six years ago, it’s easier to park your car. One blessing in disguise around the COVID aftermath is that, with the majority of government staff  at home, demand for parking is down. This is important because where you park is a badge of honor among State Capitol denizens. Proximity to power forms a hierarchy that comes with rank and/or seniority, and there are few more obvious displays of this power than car storage. 

This is probably one reason why state capitol areas have a bad urban design track record, offering acres of parking and poor land use. A video last year by urban journalist Ray Delahanty (aka City Nerd) ranked all 50 state capitols in terms of urban quality; St. Paul landed 10th from bottom. Delahanty’s video describes how the damage done by the government campus “is mitigated a bit by the I-94 spaghetti that blocks it off from downtown [but that the Minnesota Capitol area]  really demonstrates the corrosiveness of bad state capitol urban form.”

By contrast, great state capitol areas — Delahanty calls out Sacramento and Boston — are surrounded by destinations, neighborhoods, walkable streets and quality public space. I am partial to Madison, myself, but St. Paul’s Capitol area leaves a lot to be desired on all of those fronts (at least if you value public spaces that actually attract people).

The worst capitol areas are plagued by parking lots, often a challenge for state government because, for one thing, they’re almost always seasonal enterprises. (There are only nine full-time legislatures in the U.S.) For months they lie dormant, then burst into hyperactivity when sessions begin. Politicians, staff, lobbyists, constituents, and advocates of all stripes descend on the state capitols with their cars, all demanding convenient parking. 

Likewise, because they’re based on geography, political assemblies are inherently dispersed, with  officials coming from all corners of the state. (Fun fact: the best way to traverse the 400 miles to St. Paul from District 1, up in Kittson County, is to fly.) This is partly why the quest for parking has been a generational endeavor for politicians, staff, and the Department of Administration officials who oversee facilities. For example, before COVID, building a new $66 million parking ramp was a key Department of Administration request, but that has died down in an era when most state workers stay home most of the time. 

I reached out to both the state Department of Administration and Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board (CAAPB) staff to ask whether parking policies have changed in the post-pandemic era, but the answers seemed vague.

Erik Dahl, CAAPB executive secretary, is working on a “rule making process,” complex legal administration, to “update parking standards” in the area. According to Dahl, they are trying to encourage “the gradual return of workers at lower SOV split [and] seeing reduction of surface lots in favor of a structured approach, and increased use of transit.” In addition, CAAPB has been looking at “eliminating parking minimums, if the market demonstrates how car storage or mobility is handled with an innovative approach.”

Meanwhile, according to an Administration spokesperson, there are about 1,400 parking spaces currently on hiatus due that might one day return. According to communications director Julie Nelson, with lower daily demand, they have also  released 600 parking spots from daily contracts, converting them to meters or flexible arrangements.

On the ground, the most marginal surface parking lots around the Capitol have disappeared. Both Lot C and Lot X are now at least temporarily absent. (Lot X is part of the mystifying “Sears Site” situation, currently mothballed after being renovated as either a reality program production studio or the backdrop for a seasonal outdoor asian market.) Lot C, on the other hand, has been removed and subsumed by the demolition of the historic Ford Building, something of a historic preservation travesty along University Avenue.

That said, there are still plenty of surface ramps and garages to be found around University and Rice. In addition to the three large public, multi-story ramps, you’ll find lots Q, W, U, K F, and H waiting to take your money and offer your car temporary refuge. (This is not to mention the guarded lots for highest levels of staff and elected officials.)

Post-commuting plan needed

After a century of increasing demand, it would seem that there’s finally enough parking around the Capitol. I would hope this fact would help decision makers pivot to a different model of development in the area, one predicated on density and inter-connection rather than far-flung commuting. 

Indeed, if you look at the Capitol area plans, especially the (high quality) 2040 Capitol Area Comprehensive Plan, that’s the idea. Theoretically, the future of the Capitol area should be more integrated into the surrounding community, with more restaurant and commercial establishments to support the public space, filling into the old acres of surface asphalt.

That said, conflicting post-COVID trends make that reality hard to envision. Even more than downtowns, the Capitol area suffers from a lack of density and vitality. One state worker recently  told me about how, on returning to work after months away, they found that the coffee and vending machines had been removed. For most of the year, the Capitol area offers a lunch vacuum, at least for those unwilling to walk 2/3 of a mile into downtown.

This is a common catch-22 regarding  returning to the office. For people who actually go into work, there’s often little reward other than quietude. Thus many people go into the office to get away from people, precisely the opposite of the normal office rationale centering on networking and propinquity. This leads to a self-reinforcing cycle: fewer daily workers leads to fewer amenities, disinclining people to return to “in-person” work, leading to fewer amenities and so on. With government workplace tending  toward deference to employee demands, the already sparse State Capitol area in St. Paul has become a commercial desert. 

Of course, given the unpredictability of government these days, everything I’ve just written could turn out to be completely wrong. One of President Donald Trump’s first orders in office reads thus: “Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis.”

It’s difficult to believe this will actually occur, or that the rationale might be anything other than to demoralize federal staff, but it does illustrate the fragility of our assumptions about the future. In other words, stay tuned. Maybe government parking lots will make a comeback.

Bill Lindeke

Bill Lindeke is a lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Geography, Environment and Society. He is the author of multiple books on Twin Cities culture and history, most recently St. Paul: an Urban Biography. Follow Bill on Twitter: @BillLindeke.

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Rural America faces many challenges that Congress and the federal government could help alleviate under the new Trump administration.

Rural hospitals and their obstetrics wards have been closing at a rapid pace, leaving rural residents traveling farther for health care. Affordable housing is increasingly hard to find in rural communities, where pay is often lower and poverty higher than average. Land ownership is changing, leaving more communities with outsiders wielding influence over their local resources.

As experts in rural health and policy at the Center for Rural and Migrant Health at Purdue University, we work with people across the United States to build resilient rural communities.

Here are some ways we believe the Trump administration could work with Congress to boost these communities’ health and economies.

1. Rural health care access

One of the greatest challenges to rural health care is its vulnerability to shifts in policy and funding cuts because of rural areas’ high rates of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries.

About 25% of rural residents rely on Medicaid, a federal program that provides health insurance for low-income residents. A disproportionate share of Medicare beneficiaries – people over 65 who receive federal health coverage – also live in rural areas. At the same time, the average health of rural residents lags the nation as a whole.

Rural clinics and hospitals

Funding from those federal programs affects rural hospitals, and rural hospitals are struggling.

Nearly half of rural hospitals operate in the red today, and over 170 rural hospitals have closed since 2010. The low population density of rural areas can make it difficult for hospitals to cover operating costs when their patient volume is low. These hospital closures have left rural residents traveling an extra 20 miles (32 km) on average to receive inpatient health care services and an extra 40 miles (64 km) for specialty care services.

The government has created programs to try to help keep hospitals operating, but they all require funding that is at risk. For example:

• The Low-volume Hospital Adjustment Act, first implemented in 2005, has helped numerous rural hospitals by boosting their Medicare payments per patient, but it faces regular threats of funding cuts. It and several other programs to support Medicare-dependent hospitals are set to expire on March 31, 2025, when the next federal budget is due.
• The rural emergency hospital model, created in 2020, helps qualifying rural facilities to maintain access to essential emergency and outpatient hospital services, also by providing higher Medicare payments. Thus far, only 30 rural hospitals have transitioned to this model, in part because they would have to eliminate inpatient care services, which also limits outpatient surgery and other medical services that could require overnight care in the event of an emergency.

Services for pregnant women have also gotten harder to find in rural areas.

Between 2011 and 2021, 267 rural hospitals discontinued obstetric services, representing 25% of the United States’ rural obstetrics units. In response, the federal government has implemented various initiatives to enhance access to care, such as the Rural Hospital Stabilization Pilot Program and the Rural Maternal and Obstetric Management Strategies Program. However, these programs also require funding.

Expanding telehealth

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth – the ability to meet with your doctor over video – wasn’t widely used. It could be difficult for doctors to ensure reimbursement, and the logistics of meeting federal requirements and privacy rules could be challenging.

The pandemic changed that. Improving technology allowed telehealth to quickly expand, reducing people’s contact with sick patients, and the government issued waivers for Medicare and Medicaid to pay for telehealth treatment. That opened up new opportunities for rural patients to get health care and opportunities for providers to reach more patients.

However, the Medicare and Medicaid waivers for most telehealth services were only temporary. Only payments for mental and behavioral health teleheath services continued, and those are set to expire with the federal budget in March 2025, unless they are renewed.

One way to expand rural health care would be to make those waivers permanent.

Increasing access to telehealth could also support people struggling with opioid addiction and other substance use disorders, which have been on the rise in rural areas.

2. Affordable housing is a rural problem too

Like their urban peers, rural communities face a shortage of affordable housing.

Unemployment in rural areas today exceeds levels before the COVID-19 pandemic. Job growth and median incomes lag behind urban areas, and rural poverty rates are higher.

Rural housing prices have been exacerbated by continued population growth over the past four years, lower incomes compared with their urban peers, limited employment opportunities and few high-quality homes available for rent or sale. Rural communities often have aging homes built upon outdated or inadequate infrastructure, such as deteriorating sewer and water lines.

One proposal to help people looking for affordable rural housing is the bipartisan Neighborhood Homes Investment Act, which calls for creating a new federal tax credit to spur the development and renovation of family housing in distressed urban, suburban and rural neighborhoods.

Similarly, the Section 502 Direct Loan Program through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which subsidizes mortgages for low-income applicants to obtain safe housing, could be expanded with additional funding to enable more people to receive subsidized mortgages.

3. Locally owned land benefits communities

Seniors age 65 and older own 40% of the agricultural land in the U.S., according to the American Farmland Trust. That means that more than 360 million acres of farmland could be transferred to new owners in the next few decades. If their heirs aren’t interested in farming, that land could be sold to large operations or real estate developers.

That affects rural communities because locally owned rural businesses tend to invest in their communities, and they are more likely to make decisions that benefit the community’s well-being.

Congress can take some steps to help communities keep more farmland locally owned.

The proposed Farm Transitions Act, for example, would establish a commission on farm transitions to study issues that affect locally owned farms and provide recommendations to help transition agricultural operations to the next generation of farmers and ranchers.

About 30% of farmers have been in business for less than 10 years, and many of them rent the land they farm. Programs such as USDA’s farm loan programs and the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program help support local land purchases and could be improved to identify and eliminate barriers that communities face.

We believe that by addressing these issues, Congress and the new administration can help some of the country’s most vulnerable citizens. Efforts to build resilient and strong rural communities will benefit everyone.

Randolph Hubach is a professor of public health at Purdue University. Cody Mullen is a clinical professor of public health at Purdue University.

This article is republished from The Conversation.

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As Minnesotans, we’re no strangers to innovation. From cutting-edge medical research to a thriving tech scene, our state has long been a hub for forward-thinking ideas. With the recent inauguration of President Donald Trump in January, it’s essential to consider how the new administration’s stance on AI regulation might impact our state’s innovators, businesses and residents.

The Trump administration has signaled a preference for a deregulatory approach to AI. On Jan. 23, 2025, Trump signed an executive order titled “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence” that is aimed at fostering AI development “free from ideological bias.” This order revokes former President Joe Biden’s 2023 executive order, which had established safety guidelines for generative AI and required developers to share safety test results with the government before public release. The new directive mandates a review of all policies stemming from Biden’s order, with instructions to suspend any that do not align with goals of promoting human flourishing, economic competitiveness and national security. Additionally, it calls for the development of an AI action plan within 180 days, led by a select group of White House technology and science officials.

This deregulatory approach could have both benefits and drawbacks for Minnesota. On the one hand, a more relaxed regulatory environment could accelerate AI innovation in our state, potentially attracting new businesses and investment opportunities.

However, the removal of federal safety guidelines raises concerns about safety, ethics and public trust. Without adequate safeguards, AI technologies could be used to spread misinformation, compromise personal data or perpetuate biases. This could have serious consequences for Minnesotans — particularly in areas like healthcare, finance and education — where AI is increasingly being used to make critical decisions.

To address these concerns, Minnesota can take a proactive approach to establishing guidelines for AI development and deployment. Our state lawmakers can work with industry leaders, academics and consumer advocacy groups to develop regulations that promote innovation while protecting public interests.

One potential model for Minnesota to follow is the European Union’s AI Act, which establishes a comprehensive framework for AI regulation based on risk assessment. By adopting a similar approach, Minnesota can ensure that AI technologies are developed and deployed in a way that prioritizes safety, transparency and accountability.

Minnesota’s business community can also play a crucial role in promoting responsible AI development. By prioritizing ethics and transparency in their AI initiatives, companies can help build public trust and demonstrate the benefits of AI for Minnesota’s economy and society.

Furthermore, Minnesota can leverage its strong tradition of public-private partnerships to drive AI innovation and regulation. By fostering collaboration between industry leaders, academics and government officials, our state can develop AI solutions that address pressing societal challenges, such as healthcare disparities, environmental sustainability and workforce development.

Finally, as Minnesotans, we must remain vigilant and engaged in the conversation about AI regulation. We should demand that our elected officials prioritize a balanced approach to AI policy, one that fosters innovation while protecting public interests.

By working together, we can ensure that the benefits of AI innovation are shared by all Minnesotans while minimizing the risks and negative consequences. The future of AI in Minnesota is bright, but it’s up to us to shape it in a way that promotes prosperity, equity and social responsibility.

Manjeet Rege is a professor and the chair of the Department of Software Engineering and Data Science in the School of Engineering at the University of St. Thomas. He also serves as the university’s director of the Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence.

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The killing late last year of Brian Thompson, CEO of the Minnesota-based insurance company UnitedHealthcare – and subsequent reactions – sparked renewed discussion surrounding American frustration with the high cost of health care and unaffordable medical bills. 

High health care costs and associated medical debt in the U.S. are pressing social problems with an estimated 100 million Americans having some medical debt. The effects of medical debt can be numerous, including financial and household budget strain as well as delaying or forgoing seeking health care, with repercussions for health, mental health and well-being.

Looking across the U.S., rural residents are more likely to have medical debt in collections, and we find this is also true in Minnesota. According to our analysis of the Urban Institute’s Medical Debt in America data from 2022, across Minnesota, an average of 2.8% of residents have medical debt that has been sent to collections. For rural counties in Minnesota, the average is 2.9%, compared with an average of 2.6% in urban counties. There is wide variation across counties as well. Roseau County has the highest share of residents with medical debt in the state at 8.3% while Lake County has the lowest share at less than one percent. There is wider variation among rural Minnesotan counties, which range from 1.1% to 8.3% of residents with medical debt than among urban Minnesotan counties, which range from 0.97% to 5.5% residents with medical debt.

Several policies have been enacted to help ease medical debt; for instance some states, counties, and municipalities have initiated medical debt forgiveness using funds from the American Rescue Plan Act and have partnered with the non-profit, Undue Medical Debt (formerly RIP Medical Debt). Yet, these have been primarily enacted in urban areas, including St. Paul, leaving disproportionately impacted rural areas without similar relief policies. 

Minnesota has been successful in enacting statewide legislation to address this issue. The Minnesota Debt Fairness Act, which aims to help with the problems surrounding medical debt accrual, became effective in Minnesota on Oct. 1. Protections include not denying care due to unpaid bills, not transferring medical debt to one’s spouse, not reporting medical debt to credit agencies, and the establishment of several new medical debt collection rights. However, more may need to be done to ensure that rural Minnesotans do not continue to experience disproportionate impacts of health care costs.

To prevent medical debt in the first place, policy should also focus on making health care more accessible and affordable. Additional policies focusing on reducing income and economic inequality across all locations would help alleviate problems with medical debt and help people to afford needed health care. This is especially true for rural areas that have lower household incomes on average and whose residents face inequities in health, including higher rates of underlying health problems and chronic conditions. In addition, promoting access to affordable health insurance is key as rural residents have higher rates of uninsurance.

Rural residents also face unique health care access barriers, including limited public transportation, longer distances to medical facilities, shortages of medical providers, and facility closures. Improving rural access to health care is one avenue to reduce medical debt and promote equitable health outcomes for all. Minnesota has a long and proud history of promoting good health and health care, but work remains to ensure that no one is left out.

Alexis Swendener is a postdoctoral associate at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health within the Rural Health Research Center. Hannah MacDougall is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota School of Social Work. Carrie Henning-Smith is an associate professor in the University of Minnesota School of Public Health Division of Health Policy and Management and co-director of the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center.

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For seniors like me, Medicare Advantage has been more than just health coverage — it’s been a lifeline. Medicare Advantage provides high-quality, comprehensive care without the high costs that often put health care out of reach for seniors on fixed incomes.

I spent more than two decades in health care in the Park Nicollet system in Minnesota. I have witnessed the benefits of this program first-hand for low-income communities and those with chronic conditions. With the cost of living continually rising, impacting essentials like groceries, utilities, and housing, affordable health care is not just a nice-to-have but a necessity. Medicare Advantage helps me keep my medical costs manageable, giving me peace of mind that, quite honestly, is priceless.

The benefits I receive through Medicare Advantage go beyond basic health care. I get access to services that are crucial as I age, like dental and vision care, all bundled into a plan with one low monthly premium. This combination is rare in today’s insurance landscape. For many of us, these added services prevent small health issues from becoming larger, more costly problems down the line. Yet Medicare Advantage does more than keep costs low; it also simplifies the complex web of health care services, ensuring that I receive coordinated care across my providers. This coordination means fewer administrative hassles, fewer gaps in care, and, ultimately, better health outcomes.

However, there’s growing concern about the impact of two years of cuts to Medicare Advantage, which are already causing reduced benefits, higher costs, and fewer choices for seniors. These cuts are alarming to those of us who rely on this program to stay healthy and financially stable. I can’t afford to lose the comprehensive coverage I’ve come to depend on, especially not when it includes those essential dental and vision benefits that Fee-For-Service Medicare doesn’t provide. The idea of returning to a fragmented, costly system is something that keeps me — and many seniors — up at night.

Medicare Advantage is a program that works, and it’s working for a large number of people right here in Minnesota. There are hundreds of thousands of us in this state alone who rely on it. Seniors are already facing higher expenses across the board, and the last thing we need is for our health care to become less affordable or less accessible. Any reduction in benefits or increase in costs would put additional strain on seniors, many of whom are already struggling to make ends meet.

Given the high stakes, we need our representatives in Congress to be champions for Medicare Advantage. I urge Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Reps. Angie Craig and Tom Emmer to prioritize this program and protect it from changes that could weaken it. Affordable health care should be a bipartisan priority; this isn’t a political issue, it’s a human one. People need to be able to access health care that won’t put them in financial jeopardy.

What’s especially important is that we keep Medicare Advantage a sustainable and viable option for the future. As more people age into Medicare, having a program like this — which provides high-quality, affordable care — is going to be increasingly vital to our health care system overall. Without it, we would face even greater burdens on hospitals and emergency services, as seniors delay care due to costs or lack of coverage. Medicare Advantage has proven itself by lowering costs and improving health outcomes through preventative and coordinated care, and preserving it would save money for everyone in the long run.

As seniors, we’ve paid our dues, and we deserve health care that supports us in our later years. Medicare Advantage has shown that it’s possible to offer quality care at a reasonable cost. Our elected officials have the power to protect this program and ensure it continues to serve not only us but future generations as well. I urge Sen. Klobuchar, Rep. Craig, and Rep. Emmer to make protecting Medicare Advantage a priority as they head back to Washington. This program is one that works — let’s keep it that way for everyone’s sake.

In a time when prices are climbing across the board, we need Medicare Advantage more than ever. Cutting back now would be devastating to so many seniors who rely on it, and it would ultimately cost our health care system more in the long run. Medicare Advantage is a program worth protecting, and I hope our leaders will stand with us to make sure it remains affordable, accessible, and as effective as it has proven to be.

Doug Stovall lives in Eagan and is a retired manager of patient financial services for Park Nicollet Home Care, Hospice, and Community Care

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Minnesota’s future is bright, full of potential to thrive as a vibrant, diverse state where every community prospers and plays a vital role in our shared success. Imagine a state where the next generation of entrepreneurs are leading businesses that not only create jobs but foster exciting innovations with benefits for and beyond Minnesota; where more families build generational wealth through homeownership and lay foundations for their families’ future; and where a growing middle class becomes a force for prosperity for all.

The GroundBreak Coalition is committed to creating this future, starting first with one often overlooked but powerful solution: investing in the Black middle class – because when we build Black wealth, we don’t only uplift Black families, we strengthen entire communities.

We need only look to metro regions like Atlanta, Georgia; Washington, D.C.; and Charlotte, N.C., to see how a robust Black middle class can contribute to a region where all families have opportunities to prosper. Indeed, national estimates from McKinsey and Company suggest that targeted investments in building Black wealth could raise GDP by up to $4,300 per capita in 2028. These regions have capitalized on the deep history of business ownership, land development, civic leadership and stewardship in Black communities to write a new story of shared prosperity as they grow the Black middle class. Today, we find ourselves with the opportunity to invest in the brilliance of our residents, which will attract new talent to a place where they see they can thrive.

Despite this immense opportunity, Black residents in Minnesota continue to face persistent disparities rooted in our nation’s history of systemic racism. The Twin Cities ranks 62nd out of 100 metropolitan areas in terms of how well Black Americans are faring economically. Just 28.8% of Black residents own homes, compared to 77% of white homeowners.

Much of America’s history of racial discrimination has been enshrined in our financial systems, where – for example – the legacy of redlining continues to appear in modern disparities in mortgage denial rates. The Center for Economic Inclusion and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis report that in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Black mortgage applicants were three times more likely to be denied than their white peers “even after accounting for credit scores and other detailed application characteristics.” These numbers tell a story of missed opportunities and constrained economic growth. We know our Black neighbors abound with talent, creativity, persistence, and innovation, but unfair historic and systemic practices have prevented Minnesota from bringing this genius to life —to everyone’s detriment.

In the midst of partisan attacks that seek to divide us and are even causing some to retreat from their commitments to build a country where every person has the opportunity to prosper, the GroundBreak Coalition remains resolute. We are working hard to collectively rewrite the rules of these financial systems, ensuring they work for all our communities today, strengthen our state’s business sector, and position Minnesota for sustainable prosperity and growth.  Coalition members are creating and deepening access to financial tools and resources designed first to build Black wealth and then benefit multiple communities. GroundBreak members are leading the charge by providing accessible capital and resources to support entrepreneurs, homebuyers, community-oriented developers and families as they invest in their futures and contribute to the local economy.

The benefits are clear: by generating Black wealth, we set the stage for a more prosperous, inclusive future that benefits everyone. The leadership, creativity and innovation that Black communities bring to the table can transform our economy for the better, and it’s time for us to fully embrace this potential. Let’s build Black wealth today so we can build a more equitable, prosperous tomorrow — for all.

Tawanna Black is the founder and CEO of the Center for Economic Inclusion and Living Truth Enterprises, Inc., and serves on the GroundBreak Coalition Executive Council. Erin Imon Gavin is the director of strategic initiatives for the Office of the President at the McKnight Foundation and serves as acting project director for the GroundBreak Coalition.

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Progress is not always linear, and sometimes it keeps going in circles. Just ask Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who were booked in June 2024 on what they thought was a week-long trip to the International Space Station. To this day they are stuck in a high-speed version of Groundhog Day, zipping around Earth and seeing the sun rise and set 16 times in 24 hours — with no clear end in sight. Meanwhile, NASA keeps talking about the importance of putting the first woman on the moon by way of their Artemis space program, which is also plagued by epic delays. I bet those two astronauts on the ISS would be thrilled if NASA paid as much attention to providing safe rides home as it does to increasing lunar diversity.

I don’t recall anyone being offended when the plaque on Apollo’s lunar lander was revealed to read, “We came in peace for all mankind.” But that’s because gender neutral language hadn’t been invented yet and people in 1969 had far more important things to worry about, like whether the Beatles would break up or not.

Toxic masculinity wasn’t a thing back then either, and so, nobody was alarmed that in addition to the Apollo 11 crew, the fourth man to come along in peace was President Richard Nixon. His was the 4th signature on the plaque, under a message that makes him sound like a champion of inclusivity. It was the middle of the Cold War after all. Doing something for “all mankind” in 1969 meant that you did it for the Soviet Union and North Vietnam, too.

Today we are surprised and deeply touched by the fact that Nixon’s signature has a reasonable font pitch, not the fat, king-size Sharpie look that we are currently seeing again on countless executive orders held into cameras in the Oval Office. I’m pretty sure, however, that before signing, Trump in 1969 would have insisted on changing the plaque’s sentiment to something snappier like, “We beat you to it, losers.” OK, before I get completely carried away with nostalgia for Richard Nixon’s big heart, let’s spend a little more time on NASA’s “Fly #MeToo the Moon” mission — and the fact that it’s been already accomplished, sort of:

Many of those watching the all-male crew of Apollo 11 blasting off in July 1969 were old enough to remember that the first woman had been sent to the moon a long time ago — not by NASA, but by Fritz Lang. The famous Austrian-born German-American director known for expressionist films such as “Metropolis” and “M” had checked the gender diversity box for space travel 40 years earlier in his movie “Frau im Mond.” And he did it without fanfare or dramatic scenes of breaking glass ceilings. Apparently, and in contrast to today’s America, progressives in Weimar Germany weren’t of the preachy kind. The “Woman in the Moon” certainly wasn’t, which was, of course, massively helped by the fact that she was cast in one of the last silent films. There is only so much proselytizing you can do with subtitles. But you can use them to invent the countdown, which is what Lang did in 1929 by projecting the remaining seconds before lift-off on the screen. NASA happily admitted that they took the idea from Lang, invited him to attend rocket launches in the 1960s and appointed him honorary father of rocket science.

So far NASA hasn’t admitted that lunar diversity was also invented by Fritz Lang. Maybe it’s because it took Lang less than three hours to put a woman on the moon, and NASA’s Artemis program has been struggling to do the same since 2017. You might of course argue that Fritz Lang’s moonshot wasn’t real, but somehow it feels real enough in our post-truth society.

Henning Schroeder is a professor emeritus who taught in the College of Liberal Arts (German Studies) and the School of Pharmacy at the University of Minnesota. His email address is schro601@umn.edu and his Twitter (X) handle is @HenningSchroed1.

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President Donald Trump has begun to radically change how the U.S. government handles immigration, from challenging long-held legal concepts about who gets citizenship to using the military to transport migrants back to their countries of origin.

Trump’s administration is doing more than reshaping the approach of the federal government toward migrants: It has now ordered state and local officials to comply with all federal immigration laws, including any new executive orders. It has warned that if those officials refuse, it may criminally prosecute them.

The specter of a federal prosecutor putting a city’s mayor or a state’s governor in jail will raise what may be the greatest source of conflict in the U.S. Constitution. That conflict is how much power the federal government can wield over the states, a long-standing and unresolved dispute that will move again to the front and center of American politics and, in all likelihood, into American courtrooms.

Investigate for potential prosecution

Besides the avalanche of executive orders remaking the federal government’s policies for the nation’s borders, a new directive from the Department of Justice provoked political backlash. Legal action may very well follow.

In the Jan. 21, 2024, memo, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, one of Trump’s former private attorneys, directs federal prosecutors to “investigate … for potential prosecution” state and local officials who “resist, obstruct, or otherwise fail to comply” with the new administration’s immigration orders.

The memo lists multiple federal statutes that such conduct could violate, including one of the laws used to charge Donald Trump related to the Jan. 6, 2021, violence at the U.S. Capitol.

Several of Trump’s executive orders, across a range of policy areas, have already provoked lawsuits. One was declared “blatantly uconstitutional” by a federal district court judge just three days after it was signed. Others fall easily within the bounds of presidential power.

But the Department of Justice memo is different.

By ordering federal prosecutors to potentially arrest, charge and imprison state and local officials, it strikes at a fundamental tension embedded in the nation’s constitutional structure in a way that Trump’s other orders do not. That tension has never been fully resolved, in either the political or legal arenas.

Bulwark against tyranny

Recognizing that division of power was necessary to prevent government tyranny, the nation’s founders split the federal government into three separate branches, the executive, legislative and judicial.

But in what, to them, was an even more important structural check, they also divided power between federal and state governments.

The practicalities of this dual sovereignty – where two governments exercise supreme power – have had to play out in practice, with often very messy results. The crux of the problem is that the Constitution explicitly grants power to both federal and state governments – but the founders did not specify what to do if the two sovereigns disagree or how any ensuing struggle should be resolved.

The failure to precisely define the contours of that partitioning of power has unfortunately generated several of the country’s most violent conflicts, including the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement. The current Justice Department memo may reignite similar struggles.

As Bove correctly noted in his memo, Article 4 of the U.S Constitution contains the supremacy clause, which declares that federal laws “shall be the supreme Law of the Land.”

But Bove failed to mention that the Constitution also contains the 10th Amendment. Its language, that “(a)ll powers not granted to the federal government are reserved to the states or to the people, respectively,” has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to create a sphere of state sovereignty into which the federal government may not easily intrude.

Known as the “police powers,” states generally retain the ability to determine their own policies related to the health, safety, welfare, property and education of their citizens. After the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health removed federal protection for abortion rights, for instance, multiple states developed their own approaches. Marijuana legalization, assisted suicide, voting procedures and school curriculum are additional examples of issues where states have set their own policies.

This is not to say that the federal government is barred from making policies in these areas. Indeed, the great puzzle of federalism – and the great challenge for courts – has been to figure out the boundaries between state and federal power and how two sovereigns can coexist.

If it sounds confusing, that’s because it is. The country’s best legal minds have long wrestled with how to balance the powers granted by the supremacy clause and the 10th Amendment.

Push and pull

Reflecting this tension, the Supreme Court developed a pair of legal doctrines that sit uneasily alongside each other.

The first is the doctrine of “preemption,” in which federal law can supersede state policy in certain circumstances, such as when a congressional statute expressly withdraws certain powers from the states.

At the same time, the court has limited the reach of the federal government, particularly in its ability to tell states what to do, a doctrine now known as the “anti-commandeering rule.” Were the Trump administration to go after state or local officials, both of these legal principles could come into play.

The anti-commandeering rule was first articulated in 1992 when the Supreme Court ruled in New York v. United States that the federal government could not force a state to take control of radioactive waste generated within its boundaries.

The court relied on the doctrine again five years later, in Printz v. United States, when it rejected the federal government’s attempt to require local law enforcement officials to conduct background checks before citizens could purchase handguns.

In an opinion authored by conservative icon Antonin Scalia and joined by four other Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices, the court held that the Constitution’s framers intended states to have a “residuary and inviolable sovereignty” that barred the federal government from “impress[ing] into its service … the police officers of the 50 States.”

“This separation of the two spheres is one of the Constitution’s structural protections of liberty,” Scalia wrote. Allowing state law enforcement to be conscripted into service for the federal government would disrupt what James Madison called the “double security” the founders wanted against government tyranny and would allow the “accumulation of excessive power” in the federal government.

Justice John Paul Stevens dissented, pointing out that the 10th Amendment preserves for states only those powers that are not already given to the federal government.

What happens at the Supreme Court?

The anti-commandeering and preemption doctrines were on display again during the first Trump administration, when jurisdictions around the country declared themselves “sanctuary cities” that would protect residents from federal immigration officials.

Subsequent litigation tested whether the federal government could punish these locales by withholding federal funds. The administration lost most cases. Several courts ruled that despite its extensive power over immigration, the federal government could not financially punish states for failing to comply with federal law.

One circuit court, in contrast, formulated an “immigration exception” to the anti-commandeering rule and upheld the administration’s financial punishment of uncooperative states.

The Supreme Court has never directly ruled on how the anti-commandeering rule works in the context of immigration. While the Printz decision would seem to bar the Justice Department from acting on its threats, the court could rule that given the federal government’s nearly exclusive power over immigration, such actions do not run afoul of the anti-commandeering doctrine.

Whether such a case ever makes it to the Supreme Court is unknown. Recent events, in which a Chicago school’s staff denied entry to people they thought were immigration agents, seem to be heading toward a federal and state confrontation.

As a court watcher and scholar of judicial politics, I will be paying close attention to see whether the conservative majority on the court, many of whom recently reiterated their support for the anti-commandeering doctrine, will follow Scalia and favor state sovereignty.

Or will they do an ideological about-face in favor of this chief executive? It would not be the first time the court has taken this latter option.

Claire B. Wofford is an associate professor of political science at the College of Charleston.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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For the last two years, I’ve been watching the rise of a six-story apartment building a few blocks from my house. Now called “The Nine,” the mixed-use building boasts 309 new apartments, now leasing with rents ranging from an income-restricted studio for $995 to $2,375 for a two-bedroom. The black-and-white building occupies a spot along Lexington and University that’s been vacant since at least the 1960s, so to me it’s a sign of progress. 

The Nine marks the first market-rate apartment project in greater Frogtown for at least a half-century, meaningful because it can be hard to be the “first” development in a long neglected area. (See also: Minneapolis’ Seward neighborhood.) The housing also reflects the kind of change that many city leaders had hoped might be a fundamental part of transit investment in St. Paul, new housing catalyzed by the Green Line light rail investment along the long-neglected University Avenue corridor.

The other big takeaway around the building’s completion is that it takes an awfully long time to build new housing in this country. I first heard about this project in 2019 when it was just receiving grant funding from the Met Council, money that was later refused by the city due to anti-housing neighborhood advocacy. As I wrote in 2020, it was hardly smooth sailing from there. 

The project (then known as Lexington Station) was one the last contentious cases in my nine years on the city Planning Commission, which denied it in 2021 (despite my objections) before the City Council also denied approval. Mayor Melvin Carter then vetoed the denial, allowing the building to move forward, though by that point the original financing was in jeopardy. The eventual resolution over approval for the apartments revealed how tortured local control can become. (The project was merely a  site plan review decision!) To me, it marked the beginning of a turn away from pro-housing politics in St. Paul. 

Fast-forward four years, and things look a bit different. In 2021, Saint Paul approved (and then modified) a strict rent stabilization policy, and has since struggled to attract housing investment. Minneapolis passed an initial approval of a theoretical rent stabilization regulation that same year. There are many possible reasons for this, but enough time might have passed to allow the data to suggest a few trends.

Steep decline in housing

I ran the numbers from the Department of Housing and Urban Development database, analyzing housing production for every Midwestern* city over 120,000. I calculated the increases and declines in housing production from a post-COVID 2020-2022 average for 60 municipalities and was surprised to see that the city of Minneapolis has the largest drop-off in the entire dataset. Its 2024 housing numbers represented a decline of over 88% from its previous three-year average, and St. Paul is just behind, ranking #7 on the list with a 81% drop-off.

(I used my subjective geographic definition here, but also threw in Portland, Seattle, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo as useful Twin Cities’ ‘comparable’ cities for good measure. Another caveat is that HUD housing data for late 2024 is preliminary, and can be revised upward in the future.)

The idea that core-city housing is slowing down should not come as a shock. (See also my story a month ago on Met Council demographic data.) Earlier this year, Libby Starling, the Minneapolis Federal Reserve’s senior community development advisor, released a worrying report about the slow pace of housing construction in the Twin Cities and how it augurs trouble for housing affordability. The Fed’s research found that 2023 was the first time in years that housing supply goals had not been met, and 2024 data looks to be much worse. 

Locally, most conversations I’ve had around housing have pointed to national economic dynamics like high inflation and housing costs, while also mentioning the lack of rent growth in the Minneapolis market (an admittedly good outcome). But that does not seem to explain the whole picture, where Minneapolis and St. Paul show declines even relative to similarly-positioned cities.

From one perspective, it should be surprising that Minneapolis and St. Paul should show the largest housing construction declines, as both cities have been national leaders in zoning code reform. The (now officially unchallenged) Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan reforms were legitimately groundbreaking, and theoretically allow for an easier path toward approval for new construction than you find in many other cities (at least in ones in “blue states”). St. Paul’s reforms, passed a year later, were arguably more sweeping in loosening restrictions around single-family-only zoning.

By contrast, cities like Denver, Seattle and Milwaukee haven’t made these kinds of zoning reforms. For example, they all still have parking minimums on the books, probably the reform with the easiest “bang for the buck” of anything cities can do. St. Paul and Minneapolis got rid of theirs years ago, removing one costly requirement from the books.

The most obvious culprit to me is that both St. Paul and Minneapolis have enacted (or taken steps toward enacting) rent stabilization policies. This was an issue that I argued about back in 2021, writing that the policy proposal appearing on the referendum would amount to St. Paul “redlining itself” when it came to attracting housing investment. The bigger surprise is that Minneapolis seems to also have been affected by concerns about rent stabilization, even though they haven’t actually enacted any actual policy.

The reason why rent stabilization (or the threat of it) affects construction lies in the risk analysis of housing lenders. While I don’t know much about the opaque world of development financing, but I can tell you that many sources of money are national in scale, and investors can easily “shop around” between cities that offer the easiest path to a return on their investment. Most developers will tell you that rent control is a fiscal red flag, and a significant percentage of investors will simply not deal with cities where rent stabilization is a possibility. 

Admittedly, there are other concerns about investing in Minneapolis or St. Paul. What you think those issues happen to be reveals a lot about your politics, and it’s worth pointing out that the rapid pace of housing construction from roughly 2018-2021 in both cities (especially Minneapolis) created a rent bubble and led to a decrease in rent growth.

To my eye, none of those explanations account for why the drop-off has been so stark in Minneapolis and St. Paul compared to other midwestern cities, each of which has its own unique political, economic and COVID-related problems. Given the Twin Cities’ strong regional economy, steady investments in transit, pro-housing zoning changes, and record levels of low unemployment, there’s no reason why Minneapolis should be building fewer new homes than Des Moines, Little Rock, Cleveland, Tulsa or Fargo.

How should the cities respond?

Especially given the lack of actual pro-renter outcomes in either core city, from a policy perspective the best thing to do would be for both cities to repeal their rent stabilization programs. (They should do this “in fact” in St. Paul’s case, and “in spirit” over in Minneapolis.) But given the contentious nature of both referendums — a requirement of an onerous state law — that path seems politically impossible. It would likely take another referendum to remove rent stabilization from the books in St. Paul.  

Barring a clean break with rent stabilization, passing something along the lines of Mayor Carter’s reforms to the new construction exemption seems like a smart move for St. Paul, in the hopes of avoiding the watering down of the city’s investment ambitions. The recent de facto downzoning at the Ford Site/Highland Bridge is a troubling sign.  

Meanwhile, it seems like rent stabilization (and even the threat of it) have led to an alarming drop-off in housing production, which means that a well-meaning policy has backfired and is worsening the housing crunch for renters. Others may have other opinions, but if the Twin Cities wants to maintain its economic and climate momentum, something has to change. Given the long-term nature of housing construction permitting, I predict that next year’s housing decline will be even steeper.

Bill Lindeke

Bill Lindeke is a lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Geography, Environment and Society. He is the author of multiple books on Twin Cities culture and history, most recently St. Paul: an Urban Biography. Follow Bill on Twitter: @BillLindeke.

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On Jan. 27, 1945, the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland was liberated from Nazi control by the Soviet Red Army.

The United Nations designates every Jan. 27, the day of liberation at Auschwitz, as International Holocaust Remembrance Day to memorialize the six million Jews and millions of other victims of Nazi persecution. This day was chosen not to commemorate the liberation. It was chosen because that was the day on which the horrors of the Holocaust became inescapable for the Allies. And the horrors are magnified because Jan. 27 was not a day of liberation for too many, even for those who were alive the day before, on Jan. 26.

Why wasn’t this a day to celebrate liberation? It was because of the depths of evil that humanity is capable of – and that evil became brutally obvious on that day.

Auschwitz is perhaps the most notorious of all the concentration camps, which numbered 42,500 throughout occupied Europe: camps for transit, slave labor and death. Auschwitz was one of six camps built solely to exterminate innocent people.

Between 1940 and 1945, more than 1.3 million Jews and others were deported to Auschwitz and at least 1.1 million Jews were murdered – men, women and children.

What did it mean to be “liberated”?

When we think of the liberation of all those concentration camps, many people have an image of gates being unlocked and prisoners joyfully streaming out to return to their homes and their villages.

This is not true.

As Allied forces were approaching, the Germans and their collaborators began another step in persecution – death marches. They wanted to obliterate any traces of what they had done in these hell-like places. Death marches were massive forced transfers of prisoners from one camp to other locations. Hundreds of thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, were moved to camps inside Germany, away from the oncoming Allied forces.

The largest death march took place in January 1945 at Auschwitz. Nine days before the Soviet Army arrived at Auschwitz, the Germans marched 56,000 of the prisoners toward a train station 35 miles away to be transported to other camps. Fully 15,000 prisoners died along the way.

When the Soviet Army arrived at Auschwitz, only 7,000 prisoners remained at the camp, mostly those who were too weak, ill, and too near death to leave. Another 600 had been shot by the fleeing SS soldiers.

The Red Army troops were shocked at the extent of the atrocities that they discovered.

About 232,000 children had been sent to Auschwitz, 216,000 of them Jewish children. Only 700 were alive there in January 1945.

Prisoners at Auschwitz were tattooed with an ID number. This tattooing happened only at Auschwitz – and even children had permanent numbers inked onto their small forearms.

A photo in a CNN archive shows the rescue of a 15-year-old boy who became insane from the conditions he was forced to endure.

Most of the liberated child prisoners were sent to charitable institutions or orphanages. Only a few were able to be reunited with their parents, nearly all of whom were dead. The majority of the children, who were Jewish, spent many years – usually until they reached age 18 – in orphanages, children’s homes and children’s villages in various countries.

The very first transport of Jews to Auschwitz was 997 teenage girls. Few of the girls survived. Female prisoners at Auschwitz survived only half as long as male prisoners because they were subjected to brutal medical experiments, particularly forced sterilization and to sexual violence.

The liberators found huge warehouses of prisoners’ personal belongings. Everything was taken from them to be shipped back to Germany – glasses, clothing, prosthetic devices, even 1,500 pounds of human hair from 140,000 exterminated people, to be used as an industrial material.

The liberators found mass graves at Auschwitz.

There were many trials after the war to prosecute those who were most responsible for the horrors at Auschwitz. The Auschwitz museum documents, however, that only 789 individuals of the approximately 8,200 surviving SS personnel who served at Auschwitz were ever tried. Only 750 received sentences. That’s 9%.

Many of the Auschwitz survivors had nowhere to go because they were the only ones remaining in their entire extended family. Survivors who returned to their villages often encountered rabid antisemitism. Their homes and belongings had been stolen, and many were beaten and even killed in local outbreaks of antisemitic violence.

Survivors were sent to Displaced Persons (DP) camps, which were temporary facilities in Germany, Austria, and Italy. DP camps were frequently located in former concentration camps and conditions were generally deplorable. Many survivors spent years in these camps until they were able to emigrate.

For many survivors, liberation wasn’t freedom; it was the beginning of a life-long journey to reclaim the humanity that had been stripped from them. And for those who had endured the horrors of the Holocaust, most of them never became fully liberated from traumas that haunted the rest of their lives. In many cases, those traumas were passed on to their children and their grandchildren.

For the liberators as well, the images and horrors of what they had seen remained indelible throughout their lifetimes.

The pathway from victim to survivor to thriver depends on many factors, most of which are not within any individual’s control.

 We wish and hope for strength to be liberated from past terrors to a present and a future of peace and safety for all people, everywhere.

 World Without Genocide will hold a public webinar, “The International Criminal Court: Cases and Policies,” tomorrow from 7 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. The program will also commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Continuing education credits are available for Minnesota lawyers, teachers, nurses, and social workers. Register at www.worldwithoutgenocide.org/briefing.

Ellen J. Kennedy, Ph.D., is founder and executive director of World Without Genocide. Anantanand Rambachan is Professor Emeritus of Religion, Philosophy, and Asian Studies at St. Olaf College. Rabbi Adam Stock Spilker is the senior rabbi at Mount Zion Temple in St. Paul, where he has served since 1997.

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