Reformer Radio

Jim Nobles spent nearly four decades uncovering fraud, waste and malpractice in Minnesota state government as the nonpartisan Legislative Auditor. He oversaw literally hundreds of investigations over his time, from police abuses of power to child care fraud to mistreatment of the mentally ill. It often took his office months to complete its work, issuing reports that were incredibly detailed and sometimes damning. The job made him new friends and enemies with each report, but even so, Nobles managed to be widely respected by members of both parties, who appointed him six times. Nobles retired earlier this month and spoke with us about his career, including three of the most significant reports his office issued.

Mary Moriarty spent her entire career trying to keep people out of prison as a public defender. After being ousted as Hennepin County's Chief Public Defender, she's now running to be county attorney to transform an agency she spent decades fighting against. If Moriarty wins, Minneapolis and its suburbs would follow cities like San Francisco and Philadelphia in electing a defense attorney who promise to remake the prosecutor's office — replacing a tough on crime agenda with one of criminal justice reform.

The Minnesota Legislature hasn't successfully redrawn legislative and congressional districts on time without intervention by the courts in 140 years. This time around looks to be no different. For the past 50 years, the courts have taken to drawing them when the Legislature reliably fails to agree to new boundaries. The courts don't do this unprompted — a private citizen must file a lawsuit to ensure Minnesota residents have equal representation in the Legislature and Congress. Peter Wattson, a retired attorney for the Minnesota Senate, took up the mantle of suing the state this year after the 2020 census. He explains Minnesota's 140 years of redistricting failure, his idea for a better way and the problem with relying on the courts.

The Minnesota Republican Party needs a new leader. But it's a job few people want. The federal indictment of a major Minnesota GOP donor on charges of sex trafficking minors set in motion a series of events that led to the ouster of party chair Jennifer Carnahan. The crisis in leadership comes on top of persistent financial troubles and a 15-year losing streak in statewide elections. Reformer reporter Ricardo Lopez explains how Carnahan lost her grip on power and what's next for the Minnesota Republican Party.

Minnesota can't fill thousands of job vacancies for home care workers — the people who help the state's disabled and growing elderly population bathe, get dressed, eat, exercise and otherwise enjoy dignified lives. The cause of the shortage is easy to identify: The job is physically grueling with high rates of workplace injury, while low wages keep people on the edge of being able to pay their bills. Nearly half of home care workers in Minnesota receive some form of public assistance. The shortage has dire consequences for people who can't find reliable care, while it also has ripple effects throughout the labor market. Due to the shortage of home care workers, people are increasingly having to quit their jobs to become personal care aides for their loved ones. This week, the stories of two personal care aides.

Since chronic wasting disease was first found in wild deer in Minnesota in 2010, it's shown up in more deer and in more places across the state. Preventing the so-called Zombie Deer Disease from spreading is especially difficult because the vector — a folded protein called a prion — can contaminate plants and soil for years. But stopping the spread is just as much a political problem as it is a scientific one, and the disease has pitted two industries against each other. Hunters point at captive deer and elk farms, which have been linked to numerous CWD outbreaks, as a threat to wild herds across the continent. But the deer farm industry has successfully warded off the tougher regulation from the Department of Natural Resources. No humans are known to have been infected with CWD. But experts worry it could jump species like “mad cow disease,” which is also spread by a prion, and hunters are advised not to eat contaminated meat. The disease's spread poses a significant threat to the 12,000 jobs, $93 million in taxes and $417 million in salaries and wages that the state's half-a-million hunters support. Rep. Jamie Becker-Finn, DFL-Roseville, is a lifelong hunter who's taken up CWD as one of her top legislative priorities. She explains what she thinks the state has done to control the spread and what she thinks it still needs to do.

When Tiffany Irvin lost her five children to child protective services, she was at the height of her addiction to opioids. It took her two years to get them back, an agonizing period made longer she says by not having any support to get sober. Irvin is now seven years into her recovery and leads a team of “peer recovery coaches” who have also overcome their own addictions and now help others looking for recovery. Unlike traditional treatment programs that stress abstinence, Irvin's team at Minnesota Recovery Connection helps people achieve a recovery they define for themselves. With no easy and effective treatment for substance use disorder, policy makers are increasingly looking beyond abstinence-focused programs to confront a disease that afflicts millions of Americans. This week, Irvin shares her own story and explains how peer recovery coaches “honor all pathways to recovery.”

It was once called a “beat the odds” school. It achieved higher math scores than any other school with such a high percentage of students in poverty in the Twin Cities. It represented the promise of charter schools to provide high-quality education to students of color. But in less than a decade, proficiency in reading and math plummeted, school directors came and left with alarming regularity, and eventually the organization overseeing the school decided the best way to fix it was to shut it down. The Cedar Riverside Community School's fate is not unique: Since Minnesota became the first state to allow public charter schools in 1991, one-third of the charter schools started in the state are already gone. The Sahan Journal's Becky Dernbach charts the rise and fall of the Cedar Riverside Community School, the fifth charter school in the country, and how its failure affected the students who went there.

The COVID-19 pandemic erased hundreds of thousands of jobs in Minnesota and only about 65% have returned. But there's also a bright side: Low-wage workers are seeing meaningful increases in their paychecks and the number of new businesses created over the past year has increased by 30%. Department of Employment and Economic Development Commissioner Steve Grove surveys the wreckage of the past year and explains how the state is helping people get back to work, transition to better paying careers and start new businesses. Grove, a former Google executive, makes the pitch for start-ups and venture capital to come to Minnesota and talks about how the state can remain economically competitive in the years ahead.

Republicans haven't won a statewide race in Minnesota in 15 years. Now, as they look to the midterms, they must confront the lasting influence of Trump and Trumpism, which continues to divide the GOP. Representative Jordan Rasmusson, R-Fergus Falls, looks like he could be the future of the party: a 28-year-old Harvard graduate hand-picked by his predecessor. But he sounds a lot like the party's past: appealing to moderate suburban and rural voters with promises of tax cuts and deregulation. This week, Rasmusson talks about his path to the Legislature and his vision for the divided party he's poised to inherit.

For six years, environmentalists and Native tribes have been trying to stop the Canadian company Enbridge from building a new oil pipeline through northern Minnesota. So far, Enbridge has been winning, with another recent victory this week in the Minnesota Court of Appeals. Despite the blow, activists say a long summer of opposition to Line 3 is just heating up. Opponents continue chaining themselves to equipment and facing arrest in an effort to slow construction while Enbridge races to finish the project in the coming months. This week, Reformer reporter Rilyn Eischens explains the history of Line 3 and the future of its replacement.

High demand and record-low supply are pushing housing prices to new heights in the Twin Cities. And developers aren't building enough homes that most people can afford. The Twin Cities has historically had among the highest rates of homeownership in the country, but that rate is falling. At the same time, the region confronts a widening racial gap in homeownership, one of the largest in the nation. If it's bad now, what will it be like in 20 years? Libby Starling talks about the present and future of homeownership in the Twin Cities metro. She is the director of Community Development and Engagement at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Previously, she led the development of the Metropolitan Council's most recent long-range plan for the Twin Cities.

Facing an existential threat to his department, Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo found support among a group of vocal, concerned citizens. A pro-police grassroots movement? Not entirely. Hundreds of emails obtained by the Reformer show Arradondo coordinated closely with a start-up group called Operation Safety Now devoted to swaying public opinion and showing strong support for a larger police budget. A city council member called the relationship “unprecedented” and the group's leader doesn't appear to even live in the city.

127 days ago the Teamsters Local 120 called a strike at the Marathon oil refinery in St. Paul Park alleging unsafe working conditions and unfair labor practices. Some 200 workers haven't returned since. Marathon says it has rigorous health and safety standards and an exemplary record. Workers say a disaster is all but certain. This week, a 22-year veteran of the refinery explains why he's so worried and what will get him back to work.

U.S. Representative Betty McCollum is a fierce and longtime critic of Israel's military occupation and human rights abuses. It was once a lonely and politically precarious stance in Congress, before her position was bolstered by a new generation of Democratic lawmakers. After the latest conflict left at least 230 Palestinians and 12 Israelis dead, we talk to McCollum about her advocacy for Palestinians including a bill she introduced earlier this year that would prohibit Israel from using U.S. aid for its settlement expansions or the detention of Palestinian children.

It was supposed to be one of the most consequential legislative sessions in nearly a decade. But after debating tax hikes, police reform, COVID-19 precautions, the governor's executive powers, vehicle emissions standards, marijuana legalization, voter ID, rent control, abortion clinic licensing and other thorny political issues, lawmakers adjourned with only a “numbers only” budget agreement that still needs to be crafted and passed by June 30. This week, senior political reporter Ricardo Lopez runs down the inflection points of the four-and-a-half month-long session and its anti-climactic finish.

Sammy McDowell didn't set out to create anything more than a restaurant. But Sammy's Avenue Eatery has become ‘the Cheers bar' for people of all walks of life in north Minneapolis. Sammy talks about making it through a year that has been ruinous for restaurants, small businesses and Black-owned businesses. He weathered COVID-19 shutdowns and the civil unrest, with neighbors turning his cafe into a hub for donations and volunteer security operations. And, he talks about becoming an accidental bridge builder when he opened a second location in a predominantly white neighborhood.

Gov. Tim Walz has promised more police reform after Daunte Wright was killed, but he'll have to beg and barter to get it through a divided Legislature. Walz explains what he wants passed and reflects on the state's largest police response to protests since last year's unrest — what went wrong in Brooklyn Center and what's his plan for the next time police kill someone. And, nearly a year after George Floyd was killed by police, forcing the national reckoning on racial inequities, Walz confronts disparities that have only grown wider during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Each week, Reformer Radio goes deep with people at the center of important stories from around our state. We bring you context and analysis to explain not just what happened, but why it happened, who is responsible, and what it means for Minnesota.