Minnesota Democrats reject GOP amendments to prevent fraud in state

programs.

“The Democrats voted against my amendment to prevent people associated with any type of fraud, especially welfare fraud, from becoming vendors in this expanded program. Whenever you have a giant government program that requires a lot of different vendors, you will have fraud. Whenever government provides things for ‘free,’ there is tremendous waste. This program is likely to result in both,” Drazkowski said in a newsletter.

Drazkowski explained that he wanted to prevent a repeat of the Feeding Our Future scandal, which involved at least 60 Minnesotans defrauding the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Child Nutrition Programs of at least $250 million. The National School Lunch Program is also part of the Child Nutrition Programs. The two programs targeted by fraudsters were the Child and Adult Care Food Program and the Summer Food Service Program.

Sauce: https://alphanews.org/democrats-reject-amendments-to-prevent-fraud-in-state-programs/

(Daily Caller News Foundation) — A Minnesota Democratic state

representative called the past alleged sexual assault of a minor at the hands of a nonprofit employee “irrelevant” during a Minnesota committee meeting to consider funding to display artifacts from Honor the Earth, an indigenous group that brings awareness to environmental issues.

HB 2091 would allocate $200,000 to Honor the Earth and other organizations that would be used to curate and display their collections in a Minnesota museum over two years, according to the bill. Michael Dahl, a central community organizer for Honor the Earth, was accused in 2015 of assaulting a teenage boy during the 1990s, according to a lawsuit filed by former employee Margaret Campbell, but one legislator said those allegations were “irrelevant” to the current legislation.

“That lawsuit is irrelevant,” Democratic state Rep. Leigh Finke said to the Legacy Finance Committee in Minnesota on Friday.

Sauce: https://alphanews.org/sex-abuse-allegations-surrounding-nonprofit-are-irrelevant-says-minnesota-dem/

As ranked-choice voting (RCV) races ahead in Minnesota, we pause to

follow the Money.

The bill to implement RCV in state and federal elections (HF 2486/SF 2270) has passed through committees in both the state House and Senate.

The group promoting the measure in the state goes by the name FairVote MN. The organization has been around for a while, originally incorporated back in 1998.

As is standard for such things, the nonprofit has a 501(c)(3) unit (FairVote Minnesota Foundation), a 501(c)(4) (FairVote Minnesota) and a political arm (FairVote MN Action Fund).

The most recent tax returns publicly available for these entities date from 2019. At that time, each nonprofit had revenues in the range of $500,000 per year.

In their state lobbying reports, FairVote MN reports spending a total of $1.7 million over the past four years (2019 through 2022). The group currently has 14 lobbyists registered to represent it.

Sauce: https://alphanews.org/ranked-choice-voting-push-bankrolled-by-former-enron-executive-in-texas/