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Court costs that trap the poor

Nearly a decade ago, a federal investigation into the Ferguson, Missouri, police department drew widespread attention to how many municipalities rely on funding from hefty court fees and fines, often resulting from minor automobile-related violations. This encourages aggressive enforcement and leads to modern-day debtor prisons, in which poor people are incarcerated not for any underlying criminal conduct — only for lacking money to afford escalating penalties. The Obama Justice Department issued guidance aimed at limiting this pervasive and predatory practice. But the Trump ...

Code of ethics a must for U.S. Supreme Court

It was never realistic to expect that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. would go before Congress for a clobbering over Supreme Court ethics rules. But citizens are entitled to expect more from him than what they got this week after he decided not to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee: a “statement on ethics principles and practices” he released, which amounts to an insistence that existing rules are sufficient. The chief justice would do well to reassure the public that his institution is taking ethics concerns seriously following revelations about his colleague Justice ...

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Crackdown on gangs Thumbs up The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis is getting tough on gang crime in Minneapolis, using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) statute to target three of the largest, most violent street gangs in the city. This week 45 people have been charged for conspiring to commit murder, robbery, drug conspiracy and gun crimes. The RICO statute, first passed in the 1970s to bring down organized crime families, allows prosecutors to take on the gangs for organized criminal activity. The indictments are targeting members of two Minneapolis ...

Economy: Immigration would mitigate workforce shortages

Many of today’s economic problems can be related to workforce shortages, but we’ve spent little time thinking about one simple solution: immigration. An analysis by Anthony Schaffhauser of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development showed that returning to immigration levels of 2015 could mitigate 25% of our workforce shortages. The decline in the workforce that was in progress before the pandemic was made worse during and after the pandemic. That has led to Minnesota having record low unemployment at 2.3%, which in turn has created workforce shortages, supply ...

Keep improving state marijuana legislation

As Minnesota House and Senate finalize a bill, state should provide for stronger local control. Minnesota is about to embark on a new era, one in which recreational marijuana will be legal, after passage by both the House and Senate. If anything is clear about the protracted debate over legalization, it is that prohibition has been an abysmal failure, taking a heavy toll on a range of individuals, communities and public safety resources. The cost has been worst for people of color. While white and Black Minnesotans consume marijuana at about the same rate, Bureau of Criminal ...

Let’s keep religion out of public schools

In this era of so-called parental rights in public education, hypocrisy abounds. Texas lawmakers are concerned about the content children could be exposed to in public school libraries, but have moved forward with separate pieces of legislation that would require the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom and allow districts to require dedicated time for prayer and reading of the Bible or other religious texts. Parents should be the arbiters of the religious education their children receive — not the state. In many troubling ways, this latest effort builds ...