The pillars of my civic faith are under fire

I have sympathy for my long-suffering civics teachers who had tried unsuccessfully to help me understand things like strong versus weak mayors or unicameral and bicameral (and no, that’s not one-hump or two-hump camels). But I have been able to distill my civics down to two unalterable truths that I depend on:

One, I have the right of the vote, and two, I trust in the protections of the Constitution.

Now we have had our share of scalawags and misfits in positions of power, but our institutions remain strong due to the guide rails of our Constitution and the corrective power of the ballot.

But these pillars of my civic faith are now under fire.

I see an unchecked masked militia operating with a total disregard of the Bill of Rights and I hear of a credible threat to our free and fair elections. The threat is of intimidation at polling sites by the same militia now violating our civil rights. All under the spurious guise of protecting us from voting fraud. I’m a worried man.

Bob Emery, Mendota Heights

 

We’ll not forget what we have seen

The recent article describing life in the Twin Cities two months into the federal immigration crackdown should unsettle every Minnesotan, regardless of political affiliation. What was being described is not simply a policy dispute — it is a humanitarian and civic crisis unfolding in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces and places of worship.

As a longtime Minnesotan, I recognize the strain our state has carried before. But the fear, grief and hypervigilance voiced by residents in this article — including U.S. citizens, legal immigrants, and lifelong community members — signal a troubling breakdown of trust between government power and the people it serves. When parents are afraid to send children to school, when workers with legal status disappear from jobs, when neighbors organize warning systems just to feel safe leaving their homes, something fundamental has gone wrong.

Many Minnesotans hold nuanced views: Borders matter, laws matter, and violent crime must be addressed. But sweeping enforcement tactics that rely on fear, racial profiling and overwhelming force are neither just nor effective. Public safety is undermined, not strengthened, when enforcement itself becomes a source of trauma.

What struck me most was how widely this pain is felt — across race, class and political identity — and how familiar it feels to those who have lived through other moments when Minnesota was forced to confront the consequences of unchecked authority. We should not need another death, another vigil or another investigation to remember that human dignity and the rule of law are not opposing values.

Leadership is tested not by how forcefully it acts, but by whether it listens, corrects course and reduces harm while protecting communities. Minnesotans are paying close attention. And we will not forget what we have been witnessing.

Jane White Schneeweis, Mahtomedi

 

Hard to believe, this behavior

I commend the hard-hitting journalism of Jack Brook, Michael Blessecker, Jim Mustian and Cedar Attanasio in their article Sunday, Feb. 8, “His skull was broken…” presenting Alberto Castaneda Mondragon’s horrifying treatment at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I wept at this story because I cannot believe that members of our federal police would beat and permanently harm a man who, as it turned out, had no reason to be arrested in the first place.

One cannot turn away from the truth of what has been happening with some of our neighbors who have been traumatized, ill treated, beaten and even killed. I cannot believe that Donald Trump, Kristi Noem and Kash Patel would allow these atrocities against people in our country. We cannot turn away from what is happening in our America today, so tragically reminiscent of Germany during the rise of Hitler and the Nazis.

Donna Isaac, Inver Grove Heights

 

His legacy

At the annual National Prayer Breakfast keynote speaker Donald Trump exposed himself for his lack of Christian conviction. He chose to pass on sincere prayer for others and the country, choosing to use the forum for a political rally. He mocked individuals, told lies, minimized Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s religious conviction and made light of meal-time devotions. Though we might expect more of a president, one sincere prayer would be nice, we know Donald Trump as a narcissist who wishes to be served by religion rather than practice its principles. After all, he uses the Bible as a prop when convenient, sells them to grift Americans and has little understanding of the contents.

To the point, Donald Trump has proven through his words and actions to be the antithesis of the Good Samaritan by berating third-world countries, mercilessly trashing immigrants and eliminating humanitarian relief. His cuts to Medicaid and SNAP reduce essential benefits to millions. Sending 3,000 federal agents to Minnesota, Operation Metro Surge was simply his fulfilled promise of revenge and retribution, hateful and definitely un-Christian. This will be his legacy.

Pete Boelter, North Branch

 

Choices

The Minnesota Vikings got rid of QB Sam Darnold and kept play-by-play radio announcer Paul Allen. Huh?

M.L. Kluznik, Mendota Heights

 

Where has our decency gone?

Donald Trump makes a racial post about a former president and says, “I didn’t make a mistake.” Fifteen years ago (before the first Trump term), any person in any position anywhere in the country would get fired for such a public display.

Where has our decency gone? Trump has made this type of behavior acceptable in nearly all our society. He must be removed from office now, before our country degrades even further.

Mark Nelson, St. Croix Falls

 

Proud to have lived among you

As a journalism vagabond, I have lived in too many cities to mention. My 11-year stint as editor of the Pioneer Press during the ‘90s was my longest. My wife and I were native southerners who arrived in the Twin Cities with some trepidation. The Midwest was new territory.

Pretty quickly, we felt at home (except for the winter).

Twin Citizens were honest and open, friendly and, most important for an editor, well read. We didn’t know you were brave because there was no need. Life was normal.

As I have watched you on TV and the Internet these past few weeks, I have seen how brave you are. I am proud I once lived among you.

You should be aware America is watching and cheering. You are standing up to the most powerful man on Earth and you are winning. You, my former readers, are the best of America.

Walker Lundy, East Bay, California

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Today is Sunday, Feb. 15, the 46th day of 2026. There are 319 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Feb. 15, 1898, the battleship USS Maine mysteriously exploded in Havana Harbor, killing more than 260 crew members and bringing the United States closer to war with Spain.

Also on this date:

In 1879, President Rutherford B. Hayes signed a law allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

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In 1933, President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in Miami that mortally wounded Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak; gunman Giuseppe Zangara was executed by electric chair the following month.

In 1950, Walt Disney’s animated film “Cinderella” premiered in Boston.

In 1961, 73 people, including all 18 members of the U.S. figure skating team en route to the World Championships in Czechoslovakia, were killed in the crash of a Sabena Airlines Boeing 707 in Belgium.

In 1978, boxer Leon Spinks scored a massive upset as he defeated Muhammad Ali by split decision to become the world heavyweight champion.

In 1989, the Soviet Union announced that the last of its troops had left Afghanistan, after more than nine years of military intervention.

In 2001, the first draft sequence of the complete human genome was published in the scientific journal Nature.

In 2013, with a blinding flash and a booming shock wave, a meteor blazed across Russia’s western Siberian sky and exploded, injuring nearly 1,500 people as it blasted out windows.

In 2022, the families of nine victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting agreed to a $73 million settlement of a lawsuit against Remington Arms, the maker of the rifle used by a gunman to kill 20 first graders and six educators in 2012.

In 2023, Payton Gendron, the white gunman who massacred 10 Black shoppers and workers at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket in May of the previous year, was sentenced to life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to murder and hate-motivated terrorism charges.

Today’s birthdays:

Actor Claire Bloom is 95.
Songwriter Brian Holland is 85.
Jazz musician Henry Threadgill is 82.
Composer John Adams is 79.
Cartoonist Art Spiegelman is 78.
Actor Jane Seymour is 75.
Singer Melissa Manchester is 75.
Actor Lynn Whitfield is 73.
“The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening is 72.
Actor Christopher McDonald is 71.
Football Hall of Famer Darrell Green is 66.
Actor Alex Borstein is 55.
Hockey great Jaromir Jagr is 54.
Olympic swimming gold medalist Amy Van Dyken-Rouen is 53.
Actor-singer Amber Riley is 40.
Rapper Megan Thee Stallion is 31.
Race car driver George Russell is 28.
Actor Zachary Gordon is 28.

St. Thomas won while Minnesota lost as the two metro Division I men’s basketball teams took to the hardcourt for their respective conference road matchups on Saturday night.

St. Thomas 104, Kansas City 64

The Tommies were none too happy about losing their third Summit League game of the season at Omaha this week, and they took it out on Kansas City in their follow-up contest.

St. Thomas came out heavy and hard early, and never let up in a 104-64 pounding of the host Kangaroos. The Tommies led 43-29 at the break before putting up 61 points after halftime en route to the 40-point victory.

Nolan Minessale led all scorers with 25 points — nearly twice as many as K.C.’s top points producer — as five UST players posted double digits in the points column. Ben Oosterbaan logged 17 points, followed by Isaiah Johnson-Arigu with 15, Jermaine Coleman with 14, and Nick Janowski with 11. Minessale also added team highs in rebounds (7) and assists (5).

With the win, the Tommies (21-7 overall, 10-3 Summit) reclaimed sole possession of second place in the Summit standings as North Dakota fell to conference leader North Dakota State on Saturday. Kansas City (4-22, 1-11) remained in the Summit cellar with Oral Roberts.

St. Thomas finishes off its final road trip of the regular season at Denver next Saturday, with tip-off scheduled for 5 p.m. The game will be televised on the Summit League Network.

Washington 69, Minnesota 57

It was far from a happy Valentine’s Day for the Gophers, who got down early and couldn’t recover despite a late surge in a 12-point loss at Washington.

The Huskies took a 39-26 halftime lead en route to a 69-57 victory over Minnesota in Seattle.

Cade Tyson led the Gophers with 22 points and nine rebounds, while Bobby Durkin and Isaac Asuma chipped in 13 and 11 points, respectively. It was a night that saw the visitors rely heavily on their starting five with coach Niko Medved employing just two reserves for a total of 18 minutes in the entire game.

Minnesota lost for the ninth time in 10 games, with just a shock 76-73 win over 10th-ranked Michigan State on Feb. 4 to stem the tide.

The Gophers (11-14 overall, 4-10 Big Ten) fell behind the Huskies (13-13, 5-10) into 13th place in the conference standings. Minnesota remains on the left coast for a Tuesday night game at Oregon, with the opening tip slated to take place at 9:30 p.m. local time. The game will be televised on FS1.

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When Minnesota lawmakers return to the Capitol on Tuesday for the 2026 legislative session, addressing fraud in state programs and the federal government’s immigration crackdown are sure to be top issues.

Though with neither party in full control of state government, don’t expect any sweeping proposals to advance on either topic — or on other highly partisan debates like gun control. Just like last year, anything that makes it to the governor’s desk will be the product of hard-earned compromise.

Even after a near-record number of special elections in 2025, the Legislature remains closely divided between the Democratic-Farmer-Labor and Republican parties. The DFL and GOP each hold 67 seats in the House, and the DFL has 34 seats to Republicans’ 33 in the Senate.

Last year, that balance resulted in a state budget that required both sides to make sacrifices. DFL leaders agreed to a Republican demand to end state-funded insurance coverage for adults in the U.S. illegally. Republican leaders agreed to certain tax increases.

Since the state passes its two-year budget in odd-numbered years, lawmakers technically don’t have to pass anything this year. Even-numbered years are traditionally known as bonding years, where the Legislature passes a large public infrastructure borrowing bill. The Legislature did not pass a bonding bill in 2024, but did do a $700 million bonding package last year.

Major political events and tragedies in the seven months since lawmakers left the Capitol last year are sure to shape business upon their return.

Changes since end of 2025 session

Minnesota has faced significant trials since the Legislature adjourned after passing a $66 billion, two-year budget last June.

Just days after lawmakers finished business, House DFL leader and former speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were assassinated at their Brooklyn Park home. DFL Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, survived a shooting at their Champlin home the same night.

In August, two children died and more than 20 others were injured in a shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in South Minneapolis — prompting calls by DFLers for Gov. Tim Walz to call a special session to pass new gun-control measures.

Federal prosecutors continued to reveal new fraud investigations throughout 2025, and their estimates of potential fraud in the state continued to grow. In July, the U.S. attorney’s office speculated that Minnesota had lost $1 billion. By December, that estimate had grown to $9 billion lost since 2018.

As fraud caught the attention of national media and politicians, local leaders faced increasing scrutiny. Walz dropped his bid for a third term at the beginning of January amid mounting pressure on the issue.

Then, a surge of immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota, tied in part to allegations of fraud by Somalis, led to clashes between protesters and federal agents in Minneapolis, resulting in the fatal shootings of two activists. There also have been reports of unlawful detainments and stops of U.S. citizens.

On Thursday Tom Homan, the White House border czar, announced that the operation in Minnesota was ending. Homan said the action, focused on the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, resulted in more than 4,000 arrests.

ICE and immigration

Senate Majority Leader Erin P. Murphy. (Courtesy of the Minnesota Senate)

Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, said her caucus’s focus remains on issues like affordability, gun control and fraud prevention, though her colleagues have numerous proposals ready to address actions by U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

“The only thing that has shifted for us, really, is our work to make sure that Minnesotans are safe in response to a federal occupation and a fairly lawless and violent force here in the state of Minnesota,” Murphy said. “I hope my Republican colleagues recognize that what we’ve experienced here in Minnesota is a real assault on the U.S. Constitution, the state’s ability to govern itself and pass the laws that we intend for the people of Minnesota and people’s human and civil rights.”

Proposals being floated by DFL senators and representatives include a bill to give Minnesotans more power to sue federal agents for constitutional violations, a local ban on masks for federal agents, and protections against immigration enforcement in locations like schools, hospitals and day cares.

While federal immigration action in Minnesota has dominated the headlines in recent weeks, Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, said he believes the focus of the upcoming legislative session will ultimately be on “day-to-day” issues.

Minnesota Senate Republican Minority Leader Mark Johnson. (AP Photo/Steve Karnowski).

“We have such a limited ability to effect change at the federal law level, which a lot of the stuff falls underneath,” he said. “Even though there’ll be some clarifications, maybe some policy changes that will be proposed, I think overall, the underlying issues are still remaining when it comes to school safety, when it comes to the fraud issues that are going on, when it comes to affordability in this state.”

On immigration, Republicans are likely to focus on proposals to compel local law enforcement to cooperate more closely with federal authorities.

One such proposal received a hearing in the House last year. The GOP-backed bill would ban cities from restricting cooperation with ICE and other federal agencies and require local authorities to notify federal authorities when a person unlawfully in the U.S. is arrested for a violent crime.

Fraud prevention

One area that could see a greater level of cooperation is efforts to combat fraud in government programs. Republicans have found fraud to be an effective political issue against DFLers this election year, though proposals to boost oversight and accountability have support from both parties.

Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth. (Courtesy photo)

“The good thing is that everyone is acknowledging that fraud in Minnesota exists and it is out of control and has been allowed to get out of control,” said House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, who acknowledged that federal immigration actions have recently overshadowed the issue. “Now, is it making it to the top of news feeds? Probably not right now, but it doesn’t mean that it’s gotten better or gone away.”

More prosecutions of fraud in Medicaid-funded programs have been a political vulnerability for DFLers, including the governor.

Last year, federal prosecutors filed charges alleging fraud in a state autism assistance program and housing services for people with disabilities and addiction.

“What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes; it’s staggering, industrial-scale fraud,” former Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said in December, raising the possibility of a $9 billion loss to the state.

DFLers say they have already taken action on fraud in recent years, including establishing an inspector general office at the Department of Education and giving agencies power to cut off payments when they suspect fraud.

More proposals are in the works.

In 2025, the Senate passed a bipartisan proposal to create a statewide office of inspector general. But it didn’t see action in the House. Murphy and Demuth said they hope to see movement on that bill.

Another emerging discussion is boosting the state’s ability to investigate and prosecute fraud following a wave of resignations at the Minnesota U.S. attorney’s office, which had been the primary engine of accountability. Many, including Thompson, resigned in January, reportedly in protest of Trump administration actions.

Rep. Zack Stephenson, DFL-Coon Rapids. (Courtesy of the Minnesota House of Representatives)

Leaders of both parties in the Legislature said they have had conversations with DFL Attorney General Keith Ellison about the possibility of hiring more attorneys dedicated to combating fraud. One bill would create 14 new positions at the attorney general’s office — one for each of the federal prosecutors who resigned, according to House DFL Leader Zack Stephenson, a representative from Coon Rapids.

Stephenson said he believed the immigration crackdown had harmed efforts to bring more accountability.

“That was billed as an anti-fraud measure, and it has been a disaster for our efforts to combat fraud in Minnesota. FBI agents have been reassigned from working on fraud to working on immigration. The U.S. attorney’s office has been decimated,” he said. “I think it might be that Republicans are just more interested in using fraud as a political tool rather than actually getting anything done.”

Gun control

After the Annunciation shooting in August, there were widespread calls from DFLers and gun-control advocates for a special legislative session to pass new restrictions on guns and boost school safety. Despite Walz saying a special session would happen “one way or another,” disagreements between DFLers and GOP leaders on how to best protect schools stopped that from happening.

Walz and almost all DFL lawmakers support a ban on so-called assault weapons. They’d also like to see limits on magazine capacity. But with no Republican support and possible DFL holdouts, prospects of such bills passing remain uncertain.

In the face of what DFLers called Republican “stalling” and “stonewalling” on guns, Walz issued executive orders in December aimed at educating the public on existing Minnesota gun-safety policies and laying the groundwork for future gun-control legislation.

Republicans have pointed out that some DFL lawmakers are holdouts on new gun-control laws.

Even though the GOP is tied with the DFL in the House, gun bills still wouldn’t pass in the Senate, where the DFL has a one-seat majority.

Some DFL senators from rural districts have resisted gun-control bills, including Grant Hauschild of Hermantown and Rob Kupec of Moorhead.

When the DFL controlled the Senate, House and governor’s office in 2023 and 2024, they did not pass a ban on assault weapons — semiautomatic rifles with features like pistol grips and detachable magazines.

Republicans have backed boosting funding for school security and mental health services rather than new gun restrictions as ways to prevent violence.

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