What do you like—or dislike—in what the Minnesota Legislature did or didn't do? Leave a comment below. The Star Tribune posted a handy list of issues the Minnesota Legislature did and didn't tackle in the session that ended Monday at midnight. Love 'em? Hate 'em? Leave a comment below. DID: OK'd higher taxes on income and cigarettes Funded all-day kindergarten statewide Let home child-care providers and personal care assistants unionize OK'd same-sex "civil marriages" OK bonds for $109 million in state Capitol renovations Froze tuition at state colleges and universities DIDN'T DO: No new tax…

A bill that would legalize same-sex marriage is expected to head to the governor after a vote in the Senate on Monday. DFLers hold a 39-28 majority, and Senate leaders predict that the bill will successfully move forward, Reuters reported. Before then, though, several legislators on the floor—from both sides of the debate—will likely offer personal anecdotes about what passage would mean to them. That’s to be expected; the issue is, at its core, a personal one. It touches on our relationship to those we love the most, our relationship to society and our relationship to God. That’s why Patch …

Why should online shoppers pay sales tax? Why or why not? Leave a comment below. You could pay the same sales tax for online purchases as you do for shopping at a physical store if a bill that passed the U.S. Senate Monday becomes law. The Marketplace Fairness Act would allow states to collect sales tax from retailers with more than $1 million in annual gross sales to out-of-state customers. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken (both DFL-MN) voted yes, joined by 67 other senators including 21 Republicans. Minnesota Revenue Commissioner Myron Frans praised the Senate action in a press release…

Do high school coaches need a law to shield their jobs from parent complaints? Leave your comment below. A Minnesota Legislature conference committee is weighing whether to include this sentence in its omnibus policy and finance bill: "The existence of parent complaints must not be the sole reason for a board to not renew a coaching contract." The legislation is in response to increasing non-renewals of coaches' contracts, with as many as 35 percent in one sport (boys' hockey) involving parent complaints, according to a Star Tribune report: “This just came out from athletics directors and …

Race has been an inflammatory subject in local schools over the past few months. On Friday, about 150 Hopkins High School students walked out to protest what called the school’s unfair treatment of minority students. The protest followed news the week before that prosecutors had charged two Hopkins students with misdemeanors after a confrontation in the assistant principal's office over the school’s handling of an incident in which they say several white students mocked black culture. The two students accused Hopkins ski team members of organizing a "ghetto spirit day." The ski team members …

Why should the public be able to eavesdrop on police radio communications? (Leave a comment below) That question came to a head in Watertown, MA after the bombing at the Boston Marathon, as thousands of people tuned into Boston police scanner chatter via Internet apps and spread information (and misinformation) on social media, creating hazards for law enforcement: The combination of large numbers of laypersons listening to these conversations—and then broadcasting their interpretation of the communications instantly on Twitter—can be dangerous to police work ... It raises the risk for …

Update, 12:20 p.m. April 22: White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will not be treated as an enemy combatant, according to NBC News. "We will prosecute this terrorist through our civilian system of justice," Carney said. Do you think the White House made the right choice? Tell us in the comments. *** Original post, 9:24 a.m. April 22: When Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was arrested Friday in Watertown, MA, we all let out a collective sigh of relief. Rapidly thoughts turned to prosecution. At the first news conference after the arrest, officials and reporters talked about the "…

  What changes should we make in the wake of the bombings at the Boston Marathon? Should we regulate sales of pressure cookers, as we do with the fertilizer used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing? Should we install metal detectors at sporting events? What about at orchestra concerts or other events that draw crowds? Share your suggestion with a comment below.

Hundreds of Washburn High School students walked out of school April 8 to support the school’s athletic director, Dan Pratt. The district is investigating Pratt for a “private personnel matter”—thought to be related to the purchase of a scoreboard—and students worry that he’s on the verge of being fired. In the lead-up to the walkout, high school administrators warned that absences would not be excused. A statement on the school’s website said: While we respect students’ rights to demonstrate, if a student chooses to participate, the absence will not be excused. If the student chooses to …

Do you want to pay sales tax on Twins, Wild and Timberwolves sports memorabilia and licensed clothing to help the State of Minnesota raise money to build the new Vikings stadium? E-pulltab revenues to fund the new Minnesota Vikings stadium have fallen short, so the Minnesota House of Representatives Taxes Committee is considering a new tax on sales of sports-related items to help fill the gap. Watch the House committee debate the issue at its Wednesday meeting starting at 12:30 p.m. above or at TheUpTake.org. The bill (see PDF) by Rep. Ann Lenczewski (DFL-Bloomington) would tax "'Sports …

Paying for rental housing is no easy proposition in Minnesota. Last month, the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s annual Out of Reach report ranked the state worst in the Midwest and 24th nationally. A breakdown of the report by the Minnesota Housing Partnership estimated that 54 percent of renters can’t afford a modest two-bedroom apartment. But apartments can have a hard time winning neighbors over even when they don’t specifically serve low-income renters—as recent debates have shown. In St. Louis Park, some residents criticized the proposed Eliot Park Apartments development that …

  Should news outlets and social media replay graphic video and audio clips? A couple recent examples: Kevin Ware's compound leg fracture in the NCAA men's basketball tournament or, closer to home, Jessica Schaffhausen's 911 call after her ex-husband told her he'd killed their children? CBS aired Ware's injury live but held back on replays—an approach the network's sports chairman defended to the Associated Press: "If people want to go watch the footage for whatever reason, they have a right to do so," [Sean] McManus said. "I just didn't think we had any obligation to be the facilitator of …

A Dallas-based company asked Shakopee for $2.1 million in assistance to build a $67 million server farm that would create 40 jobs. The Mayo Clinic in Rochester wants the state to fund $500 million worth of infrastructure projects that would support the clinic’s planned $3.5 billion expansion. And then, of course, there are sports teams like the Twins, Vikings and Saints that have all convinced legislators to fund public stadiums. As these plans attest, major projects aren’t just about finding a business plan that works. They’re also about finding a governmental partner willing to share a …

Should the U.S. Supreme Court uphold or overturn the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California's Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage? Take the poll above and leave your comment below! By Wednesday it was same-old, same-old as Supreme Court justices heard a second day of arguments about laws concerning same-sex marriage. Under DOMA, the federal government does not recognize marriages between people of the same gender. Prop. 8 made marriages between people of the same gender illegal again in California. How would you rule if you sat on the nation's high court? Take the poll above and …

Last month, four state senators introduced a bill that would set a minimum student-to-counselor ratio in Minnesota schools. Minnesota currently has one licensed counselor for every 771 students—one of the highest ratios in the nation, according to the American School Counselor Association. During a Minnesota Public Radio interview last week, a Roseville counselor and former DFL legislator said people in these positions help students with problems ranging from homelessness to family issues. At first blush, schools have changed substantially since the era when school days focused on reading, …

It's 5 degrees above zero on the first day of spring—10 degrees below zero if you count wind chill. Why do you live in Minnesota again? Today is the vernal equinox, when the Earth decides which end it wants to tip toward the sun. Why do our chances of being warm again seem less than 50-50? Spring has sprung, but the climate seems to have sprung a gasket. It's the coldest it's been this late in the season since 1996. Why haven't you moved someplace warm yet? Watch the video above, titled Why We're Here: Twin Cities. It was shot two years ago—entirely in the summer. Coincidence? Leave a comment…

Ten years ago Tuesday, two F-117 Stealth fighters and nearly 40 cruise missiles targeted a farm that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was thought to be visiting. The next day, coalition troops at the border crossed into the country. In an address just after the war began, President George W. Bush said the country’s mission was “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people.” Of course, bitter experience would come to cast a shadow over those goals. Weapons of mass destruction were never found. No meaningful …

On Friday morning, Gov. Mark Dayton announced that he is taking a business-to-business sales tax plan out of his revised budget. The news was overwhelmingly welcomed by businesses, whose leaders had criticized the proposal since its inception. But it also forced Dayton to remove another plank in his budget plan: a $500 property tax rebate for families. Patch wants to know how you feel about this trade-off. How would you have used the property tax rebate? What will you have to forgo now that it’s gone? Was the property tax rebate even a good idea in the first place? Share your thoughts in the …

Tuesday afternoon, Minnesota state senators and advocates gathered at the State Capitol to hear details of a proposed new anti-bullying law that would beef up the state's vague bullying laws.  The bill, written by Southwest Minneapolis' Sen. Scott Dibble (DFL-61) and Rep. Jim Davnie (DFL-63A) would require the state Department of Education to track and publish bullying data alongside the academic data it already collects. The bill would also require individual districts to have anti-bullying policies that protect students based on disability and sexual orientation, among others—current law …

Converting a school classroom or storage room into a police department office—is that a good way to make schools more secure? Since the economic recession arrived in 2009, many school districts have cut school resource officers (SROs), leaving school builldings without day-in, day-out  police presence, according to the Star Tribune.  But the mass-shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT, brought calls for more armed security, including police, at schools. One school district, in Jordan, MN, has opted to find space in its buildings to house some of the regular functions of the city's …