Democratic-Farmer-Labor Sen. Nicole Mitchell has resigned after her felony burglary conviction, and the special election to choose her replacement could shake up the balance of power at the state Capitol.

The race for Mitchell’s Woodbury seat is one of at least six special elections likely to take place this year, matching a record high for the state Legislature. And it figures to attract the most money and attention as the most competitive seat up for grabs so far this year, political observers and former elected officials say.

Last year’s election gave the state its most closely divided government ever: a House tied 67-67 between Republicans and DFLers and a Senate split 34-33 with the DFL holding the advantage.

That already tight political balance at the Capitol has been further complicated by an unusual number of vacancies this year due to deaths, criminal cases and a candidate residency dispute. Each time a House or Senate seat is vacated, control of either chamber is thrown into question.

There have been three special elections so far this year, and it’s likely there will be three more, including for Mitchell’s seat. Gov. Tim Walz has said he hopes those special elections will take place before the Legislature convenes in February.

Mitchell’s Senate District 47 and an earlier district that shared a similar footprint have favored Democratic Farmer-Labor candidates in recent years, though the East Metro suburbs are not as historically Democratic as the urban center.

Mitchell won the district in 2022 with nearly 59% of the vote. But former Woodbury lawmakers and others say Republicans might be able to play the unique circumstances of the race to their advantage.

Representation argument

Woodbury DFLer Kathy Saltzman, who represented parts of Washington County in the state Senate from 2007 to 2011, said some in the area are frustrated with what she called a lack of representation since Mitchell’s April 2024 arrest for breaking into her estranged stepmother’s home.

Some DFLers called for Mitchell to step down immediately, but the Senate majority instead stripped Mitchell of her committee assignments, removed her from caucus meetings and blocked GOP-led efforts to hold expulsion votes.

“The DFL wanted her 34th vote, and yet they really, in some ways, did not honor and respect our community having full representation,” she said.

Mitchell introduced eight bills this year, Saltzman said. That’s fewer than any other member of the Senate, according to the Revisor of Statutes office. In her first two years in office, she sponsored 87.

Amy Koch, a political strategist and former Republican Senate majority leader, said most special elections so far have been fairly one-sided as they’ve been in solidly partisan districts, but Mitchell’s seat could be different because of the representation issue.

“If you make it about that in a special, lots can happen,” she said of Mitchell remaining in office 15 months after her arrest. “I think there’s going to be a lot of money poured into Woodbury. …This is for all the marbles.”

DFL path to victory

DFL Chair Richard Carlbom called the representation argument “foolish,” noting the senator was taking her remaining days in office to, among other things, complete legislative projects and address constituent services.

But beyond that, Woodbury heavily favors Democrats these days, and the two DFL candidates vying for the nomination so far — Woodbury DFL Reps. Amanda Hemmingsen-Jaeger and Ethan Cha — are current DFL House members who each handily won their districts in 2022 and 2024.

“They’re wildly popular with their constituents, and I think the entire Senate district is going to be excited about the next senator that they have — who is a Democrat,” Carlbom said.

In the race, DFL candidates will focus on their achievements in 2023 and 2024 when they still had control of state government, such as universal free school meals and a new child tax credit, Carlbom said.

While no Republican candidates have announced their intention to run as of Friday, former Woodbury Republican Rep. Kelly Fenton said the ideal candidate would be a moderate. Besides questions about Mitchell, Fenton hopes Republicans will offer solutions to a looming $6 billion state deficit and fraud that’s taken hundreds of millions of dollars in government money.

Saltzman said voters also will want candidates who focus on local issues, such as addressing chemical contamination in the water supply linked to 3M manufacturing, which will require state funding for water treatment. Passing a bonding bill would be key to funding those projects.

Record-setting year

Criminal cases, lawmaker deaths and a residency dispute have led to an unusually high number of special elections in the Minnesota Legislature this year. 1994 was the only other year with six, according to Minnesota’s Legislative Reference Library.

If a DFL House member wins in the Woodbury Senate race, that could open the door to a seventh special election this year, depending on when Walz decides to call it.

Each vacancy has shifted the partisan balance at the Capitol.

The current makeup of the legislature, which is not scheduled to convene again until February, is 34 DFLers and 32 Republicans in the Senate and 67 Republicans and 66 DFLers in the House.

Here’s a look at special elections so far and what could happen next:

The December death of Minneapolis DFL Sen. Kari Dziedzic led to a special election to fill that seat in January.

A House district in Roseville and Shoreview had a special election in March after winning DFL candidate Curtis Johnson was disqualified for living outside the district.

Neither race was particularly competitive as they were safe DFL strongholds.

Likewise, Republicans comfortably reclaimed a northern Minnesota Senate seat in April after the resignation of Sen. Justin Eichorn, R-Grand Rapids, who is accused of trying to hire an underage girl for sex.

Two seats opened up by lawmaker deaths are also unlikely to change party hands later this year. Northern Hennepin County voters in September will elect a successor for Rep. Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, the former House speaker assassinated in June. And Walz is expected to call a special election in the solidly-red District 29 after Sen. Bruce Anderson, R-Buffalo, died unexpectedly last week.

There could be a record seventh special election this year if one of the Woodbury DFL state representatives wins Mitchell’s seat. Both candidates’ House districts fall within the Senate district. Each in their second terms in office, Hemmingsen-Jaeger won reelection last year with 61% of the vote and Cha with 54%.

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The patients at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center’s new campus in Washington County certainly seem to like their accommodations.

On a recent weekday afternoon, young raccoons played with large plastic toys and caught minnows, a litter of orphaned opossums napped in the shade in tiny hammocks, and ducks splashed in blue plastic pools.

All are housed in species-specific outdoor cages, designed to reduce the stress of human interaction, on a 22-acre farm in Grant.

Center officials bought the property in 2019, and plans call for ground to be broken in September on the first phase of a $3 million waterfowl and aquatic-mammal facility that will house 20 runs with indoor pools and 10 animal wards.

Eventually, center officials plan to build a $15 million, 25,000-square-foot final-stage rehabilitation building on the site in Grant.

“It’s critically important to provide sufficient space for injured and orphan wild animals when they need less human contact and more space and quiet,” said Phil Jenni, the center’s former executive director, who now serves as director of special projects. “We know firsthand that our release rates improve when nursery patients are removed from the hustle and bustle, have room to run, jump, fly, and are put in a position for their natural instincts to thrive.”

The center’s existing veterinary hospital in Roseville has been providing care to injured animals and training the next generation of wildlife veterinarians since it started in 1979 as a student organization at the University of Minnesota.

The center has experienced extraordinary growth over the past few years, said Tami Vogel, executive director. More than 21,600 animal patients were treated at the center last year, up from 13,276 in 2018.

“Most of that growth was from orphaned animals, and we are out of room at our Roseville hospital,” Jenni said. “The hospital should be used as just that — a hospital. It’s not the appropriate habitat for nearly 70 percent of our patients. That’s why we started looking for additional land.”

Sustainable and bio-secure

Phil Jenni, director for special projects at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Grant, talks about pools for waterfowl the organization plans to build on the 22-acre site. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Criteria for the new space included easy transport to and from Roseville, he said.

“We didn’t want to be more than 20 miles away,” he said. “We wanted to be able to get there in 15 to 20 minutes. Our preference was Washington County, and we found it for sale online.”

Minneapolis-based AWH Architects, which specializes in sustainable and historic-preservation projects, is designing the new energy-efficient building, which center officials expect to earn silver certification under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system.

Grant does not have city water or sewer, so the building will be outfitted with a highly specialized “first-of-its-kind filtration system designed to protect the county’s aquifers and watersheds,” Jenni said. The system will recycle and filter water daily, conserving 37 million gallons of water annually.

The building will feature a geothermal heating and cooling system and solar panels, bringing it to almost net zero energy consumption, according to Jenni.

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“Conserving natural resources and being stewards of the environment means helping all wildlife, not just our patients,” he said.

Once the system is up and running, more than 3,000 ducklings annually will grow up in filtered, clean water, Jenni said. One major bonus: The smell will be much improved.

“If you’ve ever been somewhere where there’s even six ducks in a room, the humidity and the smell is overwhelming,” Jenni said. “It’s overwhelming and unhealthy — both for humans and the animals.”

The new multi-purpose facility will feature bio-secure space for food prep and storage, and isolation wards. There also will be space for support functions, such as cleaning facilities, a cage-wash area and laundry, and a space for volunteers that includes a break room and restroom.

Escape artists

The farm’s horse barn has already been converted into a pigeon coop. “What a great place to raise pigeons, right?” Jenni said. “I mean, we have nothing like this in Roseville. These kinds of birds need space and need quite a bit of time, frankly, to be able to be on their own.”

Just around the corner from the pigeon coop is a cage containing 12 baby opossums sleeping in those baby-opossum hammocks. Five are siblings, and five were transferred from a private rehabilitation facility. Most were found after their mothers were hit by cars, said Noah Zerull, an adult-animal-care manager.

Each species is separated into shiny stainless-steel cages specially designed for wild animals. Staff enter into an entryway vestibule, latch the door, and then open the door to the primary cage.

“Everything that we have doesn’t want to be here,” Jenni said. “They want to be out of there, and there are a lot of escape artists. If you open a door, and it’s just a single door, your animal will rush or fly out at you, so all these cages have to have these little antechambers. That way, if it does get out, it’s still in the cage.”

A sign shows the locations of the 101 raccoons currently being cared for. Of the animals recovering at the center, the most impressive escape artists are the raccoons. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

The most impressive escape artists are the raccoons, Jenni said. Around 100 of them are rehabbing in Grant.

“They are as cute as all get out, and they can get out of anything,” he said. “They’re very tactile. They’re always using their paws and exploring. Anything that is the least bit flawed on a gate or something, they’ll get out of, so having this space has been just a lifesaver.”

The space for juvenile raccoons in Grant is almost eight times the size of their space in Roseville. Each worker must don personal protective equipment and put on special boots before entering the area.

Power washers are used to clean cages because “when you have this many animals, if one gets a contagious disease, they’ll all get it,” Jenni said.

Service in demand

The center treats all animals, including those that some might see as “nuisance animals,” Jenni said.

“We feel strongly that we’re a hospital,” he said. “Our goal is to treat every patient the same and put the same amount of time, energy and money into getting that animal ready to release as we would the charismatic animals.”

“It’s like I tell people, ‘If something happened to me, and I went down to Regions Hospital, I wouldn’t want them to say, ‘Well, there’s too many old white guys, so let’s let him go.’ We do not make a judgment on an individual animal.”

More than half of the center’s patients are orphans; the rest are sick or injured adults brought to the hospital by those who come across them. People from more than half of Minnesota’s 87 counties brought patients to the center in 2023.

“The most awe-inspiring part of our existence is that Minnesotans have made us one of the busiest wildlife hospitals in the world — the busiest in North America,” Vogel said. “It’s just mind-blowing. We do not pick up animals — every single patient that comes to us is because a compassionate person has made time in their busy day to help the animal. That, to me, speaks volumes about the kindness of Minnesotans and how much respect they have for wildlife.”

The center’s services are free; it relies 100% on donations, Vogel said.

There were 201 species admitted in 2024, including the second vesper sparrow in the center’s history and the first red-backed voles, Vogel said.

The species brought to the center change with the season; May and June are the busiest months, she said. Six of the 10 busiest days in the center’s history were recorded this year in May and June; the busiest day on record was recorded on June 7, when 280 patients were admitted, she said.

“People were lined up down the sidewalk waiting to bring in their patients,” she said.

Patient release

A blue jay sits on a branch as it recovers at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center’s Grant Township location on Tuesday July, 22, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Vogel said center staff members do an initial health check when a patient arrives. If the animal is deemed healthy, center staff ask that the person who brought the animal in return it to the wild, she said.

“A big portion of our mission is keeping wild families together, and we need to keep space available in the hospital for those patients that really need it,” she said.

Anyone who finds a wild juvenile animal that looks abandoned should call the center, and “we will help them evaluate the situation,” she said.

The center relies on almost 600 volunteers to feed and care for the animals. The center operates on a $2.8 million annual budget, most of it coming from individual donors, including $190,000 each year collected from a small wooden box in the center’s lobby.

“The only reason we exist is because people want us here,” she said. “They fund our services. They demand our services, and that’s the only reason we’re here. It truly is remarkable.”

Adult patients are always released by volunteers where they were found because “we don’t relocate,” Vogel said. “Juvenile animals are released to a suitable habitat. We try to release them as close to where they were found as possible.”

There is one exception. During migration, migratory birds are often released directly from the Roseville hospital, she said. “They just take off and go,” she said.

A ‘nice match’ in Grant

The Grant City Council in April 2020 approved a conditional-use permit allowing the center to operate on site, noting that the center’s proposed use conforms to the city’s comprehensive plan for rural-residential and agricultural uses.

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“We were keen at the time in making sure that the provisions in the (permit) were protective of the neighbors and preserved the rural heritage of Grant,” said Mayor Jeff Giefer. “There’s a nice match there with the wildlife and our rural heritage. We’re very excited to see it come to life.”

Center officials also have obtained necessary permits from Washington County and the Rice Creek Watershed District.

Center officials are working to raise $10 million for the project. A capital campaign for the project was launched with a $5 million gift from a longtime donor, Vogel said.

“We’ve had people leave whatever change they have in the cupholder of their car,” she said. “Every donation — regardless of the amount — helps us secure the future health of Minnesota’s wildlife.”

Wildlife Rehabilitation Center

The Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota is raising money for its new late-stage rehabilitation program in Grant. For donation information, go to wrcmn.org/donate.

Anyone who finds a wild animal that looks injured or abandoned should go to wrcmn.org and read their “What to do” guidelines. If you still have questions, leave a message at 651-486-9453 and they’ll get back to you.

A post office theft leading to an uglier crime, a World War II memoir-turned-fiction, and two books about the environment. Take your pick for summer reading from Minnesota authors.

“Postmarked Castle Cove”: by Judy M. Kerr (Launch Point Press, $18.95)

(Courtesy of the author)

The weight of her circumstances was a heavy burden. A list formed in her head. The recently unlocked memories, Barb’s murder, rehab, AA meetings, Meg’s cancer, returning to work, and two cases she struggled to solve. All those things wrapped around her neck like an anchor, sinking her faster than the Edmund Fitzgerald on stormy Lake Superior.” — from “Postmarked Castle Cove”

Judy Kerr (Courtesy of the author)

Life is precarious for U.S. Postal Inspector MC McCall in the third book in this series, after “Black Friday” and “Silent Service.”

In this police procedural (yes, postal inspectors are law enforcement), McCall is returning to work after being in rehab for alcoholism. She’s a little shaky, longing for vodka. But she is determined to tackle her first assignment, a robbery at a post office in fictional Castle Cove, a small community near Two Harbors. At first it seems a simple case; somebody wanted the office’s money. But why did the perp throw mail around, as though looking for something specific?

As McCall digs deeper, while also trying to mentor a talented but slightly goofy new colleague, her investigation into the post office theft leads her to a local church run by a pastor who gives her and a woman deputy sheriff the creeps. Why is this man so devoted to the younger kids? And what involvement does he have with a local deputy who insults MC at every opportunity?

Kerr does a nice job of integrating McCall’s personal life into her job, including her friendship with two women who run a coffee shop and her grief over the murder of Barb, her life partner. Most of all, she fights the battle against booze, keeping her promise to attend six AA meetings even though she doesn’t believe in the program and can’t wait to finish. What keeps her going is the spirit of Barb speaking to her in her head, always pointing her to do the right thing.

“Postmarked Castle Cove” is a shout-out to postal inspectors who rarely make news. The book won the monthly Gold Award from Literary Titan, an organization of professional editors, writers, and professors who have a passion for the written word.

“Girls in a World at War”: by Peggy Munro Scholberg & Nancy Ewing Munro (Kirk House Publishers, $19.95)

(Courtesy of Kirk House Publishers)

She had no way to face this miserable war. No way at all. She’d tried to hate the Germans, but that didn’t strengthen the starved. She’d been shocked by the wounded. She was angered by those with venereal disease. She’d found a refuge in Charles’s loving arms. Yet this was no solution. She had no answers. — from “Girls in a World at War”

Peggy Munro Scholberg (Courtesy of Kirk House Publishers)

Peggy Scholberg has given us a remarkable look at her mother’s service as a dietician in an Army hospital in northern France during World War II. Scholberg bases the book on a 67-year-old autobiographical manuscript written by her late mother, Nancy Ewing Munro, which Scholberg edited into fiction.

In the original manuscript, Scholberg’s mother wrote that her memoir was “the story of five girls seeking purpose and meaning in a world too large to grasp.”.

Nancy Munro, called Kathy in the book, came from a wealthy family and was a college-educated dietician. When a friend came home from the war in a body cast, 23-year-old Kathy joined the army in 1944. Nothing prepared her for life in an Army hospital near Reims, where she nearly died of meningitis in freezing temperatures. She prepared meal plans for ambulatory patients and special diets for the wounded. When there was food left over, it was put out under the guise of garbage for starving French civilians. And although she wasn’t a nurse, she was sometimes asked to help in emergencies, from the birth of a baby whose Polish mother abandoned her newborn to changing dressings on the stump of a soldier’s amputated arm.

Kathy’s Army life is a mix of emotions, as are the lives of the women friends with whom she shared secrets. They were too busy to worry about lipstick and had too little water to wash their hair. They lived in khaki, right down to their underwear. Kathy interacted in kitchens with German prisoners of war and learned to speak French. And she saw how men and women far from home handled sexual relations, even though some had spouses. (She learned never to be alone with paratroopers or pilots, who thought they were gods.) But there were happy times too. One of her friends was married in her uniform carrying a bouquet Kathy made for her.

Kathy served during the Battle of the Bulge, the last major German offensive on the Western Front during the war. She helped celebrate VE Day, the end of the war in Europe, and Victory Over Japan Day. One of the funny anecdotes is about what was supposed to be a military parade celebrating victory, but the hospital staff weren’t trained to march so it became a haphazard event with people going off in different directions because they didn’t follow shouted commands.

Kathy was still in the service after the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan and the war was over. Everyone wanted to go home and there were orders and counter-orders about where to go. To her dismay, Kathy got orders to a different hospital in the same area. But she was exhausted and tired of the cold and she used a previous order to leave the hospital, even though she knew she was breaking rules. Nobody ever caught her. She also saw the effects of some American soldiers’ criminal behavior as Army discipline lessened. A French family with whom she became friends complained about some men stealing their possessions. Yet they also admired their American liberators.

Kathy (Nancy) came home to marry Army veteran Jack Munro, who became a professor of education. Their daughter Peggy, who lives in Apple Valley with her husband, Bill, retraced her parents’ European travels and researched World War II history to edit this involving personal view of war.

“Marketing the Wilderness: Outdoor Recreation, Indigenous Activism, and the Battle Over Public Lands”: by Joseph Whitson (University of Minnesota Press, $22.95)

With the Trump administration considering ways to privatize public land and cut funding for national parks, the question of what will happen to our beloved wilderness in all its forms is growing in importance. Whitson, a marketing strategist and founder of Indigenous Geotags, an environmental and decolonial justice-focused blog, analyzes in this book the relationship between the outdoor recreation industry, public lands in the U.S. and indigenous sovereignty and representations in recreational spaces. According to the publisher: “Complicating the narrative of outdoor recreation as a universal good, Whitson introduces the concept of ‘wildernessing’ to describe the physical, legal, and rhetorical production of pristine, empty lands that undergirds the outdoor recreation industry, a process that further disenfranchises Indigenous people from whom these lands were stolen. Through the lens of environmental justice activism, (the book) reconsiders the ethics of recreational land use, advocating for engagement with issues of cultural representation and appropriation informed by Indigenous perspectives.”

“Kindred Spirits: The Story of the Extraordinary Nature Conservation of Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir”: by Jeff Olson (Palisade Head Press, $19)

Published last year, this book is even more relevant now for students and fans of the history of the giants of the American outdoors. John Muir grew up in central Wisconsin and President Theodore Roosevelt spent several years in North Dakota in his 20s. “This is the remarkable story of the huge step forward of nature conservation during the Golden Age from 1889-1909 that established a foundation for nature and nature conservation in America,” the author writes. “It compares the two extraordinary naturalist leaders, the kindred spirits of Muir and Roosevelt with insight into their many strong similarities and strong differences in leadership style, naturalist knowledge, advocacy, education, upbringing, naturalist writing, and more.” Includes 32 literary quotations from naturalist writers and photos of national parks, forests and wildlife refuges.

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Today is Sunday, July 27, the 208th day of 2025. There are 157 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On July 27, 1953, the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed at Panmunjom, ending three years of fighting on the Korean peninsula that killed an estimated 4 million people.

Also on this date:

In 1789, President George Washington signed a measure establishing the Department of Foreign Affairs, forerunner of the Department of State.

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In 1866, Cyrus W. Field finished laying out the first successful underwater telegraph cable between North America and Europe.

In 1909, during the first official test of the U.S. Army’s first airplane, Orville Wright flew himself and a passenger, Lt. Frank Lahm, above Fort Myer, Virginia, for one hour and 12 minutes.

In 1940, Billboard magazine published its first “music popularity chart” listing best-selling retail records. In first place was “I’ll Never Smile Again” recorded by Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra, with featured vocalist Frank Sinatra.

In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee voted 27-11 to adopt the first of three articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon, charging he had personally engaged in a course of conduct designed to obstruct justice in the Watergate case.

In 1980, on day 267 of the Iranian hostage crisis, the deposed Shah of Iran died at a military hospital outside Cairo, Egypt, at age 60.

In 1981, 6-year-old Adam Walsh was abducted from a department store in Hollywood, Fla., and was later murdered (Adam’s father, John Walsh, subsequently became a victims’ rights activist and, in 1988, launched and hosted the television show “America’s Most Wanted”).

In 1996, terror struck the Atlanta Olympics as a pipe bomb exploded at Centennial Olympic Park, directly killing one person and injuring 111. (Anti-government extremist Eric Rudolph later pleaded guilty to the bombing, exonerating security guard Richard Jewell, who had been wrongly suspected.)

In 2012, Britain opened its Olympic Games in a celebration of Old England and new, even cheekily featuring stunt doubles for Queen Elizabeth II and fictional special agent James Bond parachuting into Olympic Stadium.

In 2013, security forces and armed men clashed with supporters of Egypt’s ousted president, Mohammed Morsi, killing at least 72 people.

In 2015, the Boy Scouts of America ended its blanket ban on gay adult leaders while allowing church-sponsored Scout units to maintain the exclusion for religious reasons.

In 2018, the White House announced that North Korea had returned the remains of what were believed to be U.S. servicemen killed during the Korean War, with a U.S. military plane making a rare trip into North Korea to retrieve 55 cases of remains.

In 2020, the world’s biggest COVID-19 vaccine study began with the first of 30,000 planned volunteers helping to test shots created by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc.

In 2021, American gymnast Simone Biles pulled out of the gymnastics team competition at the Tokyo Olympics to focus on her mental well-being, saying she realized following a shaky vault that she wasn’t in the right headspace to compete.

Today’s Birthdays:

Singer-songwriter Bobbie Gentry is 83.
Actor-director Betty Thomas is 78.
Olympic gold medal figure skater Peggy Fleming is 77.
Singer Maureen McGovern is 76.
Comedian-actor-writer Carol Leifer is 69.
Comedian Bill Engvall is 68.
Actor-martial artist Donnie Yen is 62.
Jazz singer Karrin Allyson is 62.
Rock musician Juliana Hatfield is 58.
Former professional wrestler Triple H is 56.
Actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (NIH’-koh-lye KAH’-stur WAHL’-dah) is 55.
Comedian Maya Rudolph is 53.
Rock musician Abe Cunningham (Deftones) is 52.
Singer-songwriter Pete Yorn is 51.
Former MLB All-Star Alex Rodriguez is 50.
Actor Jonathan Rhys (rees) Meyers is 48.
Actor/comedian Heidi Gardner (TV: “Saturday Night Live”) is 42.
Actor Taylor Schilling is 41.
MLB All-Star pitcher Max Scherzer is 41.
Golfer Jordan Spieth is 32.