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Back in 2015,President Barack Obamacompared Minnesota favorably with Wisconsin, holding up our state's high, progressive taxes as the model for others to follow.

When I joined the Center of the American Experiment think tank in 2017, we were skeptical of this. The previous year, we had produced a report showing that Minnesota was losing residents to, and failing to attract them from, other states. Our annual report on Minnesota's economy in 2017 called its performance "lackluster," noting below average GDP growth.

These weren't popular arguments at that time.

Our concerns are now much more widely shared. In March, Steve Grove, commissioner of Minnesota's Department of Employment and Economic Development, tweeted in celebration of our state being ranked the second-best to live in byU.S. News: He was roasted by progressives highlighting Minnesota's racial disparities and forced to issue a groveling clarification.

In May, the Star Tribune Editorial Board embraced a report from the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce that highlighted, among other things, our state's below average GDP growth and "lack of in-migration from other states." Sound familiar?

And a recent poll for our magazine, Thinking Minnesota, found that while 45% of Minnesotans think our state is on the right track, 48% of us now believe it is on the wrong track: this is up from 38% in March 2019 and 26% in March 2018.

A new consensus is emerging as progressives join conservatives in perceiving that all is not well in the state of Minnesota.

Consider those racial disparities. Prof. Samuel L. Myers Jr., of the University of Minnesota, recently listed disparities in graduation rates,homeownership rates, loan denial rates, mortality rates, suspension rates, wage and salary incomes, unemployment rates, child abuse and neglect report rates,traffic stops,even drowning rates. Prof. Myers noted, "The coexistence in Minnesota of wealth and plenty for the majority group with wide racial gaps faced by minority groups has come to be known as theMinnesota Paradox."

Even worse, for Black Minnesotans some of these outcomes, like homeownership rates, are not just low relative to those for white Minnesotans but relative to those for Black residents of other states. My colleague Catrin Wigfall noted recently that Black and Hispanic students in Mississippi outperformed Minnesota's Black and Hispanic students in both math and reading and that test scores for Mississippi's Black students have been rising in recent years, compared with declining scores for our state's Black students.

And these disparities coexist with Minnesota's high, progressive taxes. Minnesota has had some of the highest tax rates and one of the most progressive income tax systems in the U.S. for decades. Our state's tax system ranked among the top five in 2018.

The data show that whatever problems you think afflict our state at present from racial disparities to surging violent crime they have either arisen while Minnesota has had high, progressive taxes or they have proved resilient to remedy by high, progressive taxes. It is time to try something different. But what?

Look again at those education disparities. Last year, Brightbeam, a nonprofit education advocacy organization, released a report which found that some cities are doing a much better job at closing the gaps in education outcomes than others. But, as Nekima Levy Armstrongwrote on these pages, "The Brightbeam report shows that progressive cities like Minneapolis do worse and, surprisingly, conservative cities do better when it comes to educating students of color. According to the report, conservative cities have gaps in math and reading that are on average 15 and 13 percentage points smaller than those in progressive cities."

This is not because conservative cities have higher and more progressive taxes than progressive ones. Something besides taxing and spending is closing those gaps. Rather than repeating or amplifying what has failed over decades in Minnesota, we should look to the places which are succeeding and learn from them.

This message was a hard sell four years ago. But with the emergence of a new, more skeptical consensus across Minnesota's political spectrum, its time might have come.

John Phelan is an economist at the Center of the American Experiment (www.AmericanExperiment.org).

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Minnesota, we have a problem - Minneapolis Star Tribune

An obscure progressive nonprofit called the North Fund has scaled up operations during the last two years, allowing the group to quietly work in high-profile legislative fights in Washington and state capitals.

Why it matters: The North Fund's structure and its refusal to reveal financial contributors make it the latest progressive nonprofit to operate in ways that obscure key financial information from the public, even as it pushes for legislation to limit the role of so-called dark money in politics.

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What's new: Founded in late 2018, the North Fund's budget shot up from $9.3 million in 2019 to nearly $50 million last year, according to previously unreported records filed with state regulators in Montana.

It doled out nearly $18 million to other progressive groups, according to those records primarily other nonprofit advocacy groups, but with some going to outright political organizations.

The North Fund also financed ballot measure campaigns across the country last year, including efforts to legalize marijuana in Montana, expand paid leave in Colorado and reform congressional redistricting in Missouri.

In addition, the North Fund acts as the legal umbrella for a handful of other organizations, including voting rights group Just Democracy, anti-Big Tech advocacy outfit Accountable Tech and 51 for 51, which pushes for D.C. statehood.

The big picture: The North Fund is shadowy even by the standards of D.C. advocacy groups. It has no website. Its address is a shared workspace. And in March, it won a fight against Montana officials trying to force the group to disclose its donors.

The North Fund's subsidiary organizations are more prominent and are spending significant sums on some top progressive agenda items.

Just Democracy, for instance, recently kicked off a seven-figure ad campaign attacking Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) over her opposition to nuking the filibuster. It's also pushed heavily for federal legislation that would dramatically increase disclosure requirements for politically active nonprofits.

The North Fund operates as a "fiscal sponsor" for Just Democracy and other groups under its umbrella, a legal designation effectively allowing those groups to operate as any stand-alone nonprofit would but without submitting their own financial information to the IRS.

That's an increasingly common structure on the left, with large groups such as the Sixteen Thirty Fund seeding scores of progressive advocacy outfits and steering millions to them in ways that obscure key financial details.

What they're saying: In an emailed statement, North Fund president Jim Gerstein declined to identify any of the group's financial supporters.

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"North Fund strictly follows all disclosure requirements at local, state and federal levels, and donors decide for themselves whether to disclose their contributions," he wrote.

Between the lines: Many progressive groups benefitting from that sort of opacity are simultaneously advocating for more political money disclosure. Their excuse is they don't want to handicap their own side in a fight against a well-funded conservative opposition.

"The rules are rigged against Black and Brown people," Just Democracy told Axios in a statement. "Until we win our fight to change them, were committed to using every tool in our toolbox to stop voter suppression and build a more just democracy."

That echoed comments by the Sixteen Thirty Fund's president this year.

Amy Kurtz said her group would "continue to level the playing field for progressives until (reform) happens."

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A progressive dark money group is being built to fight dark money - Yahoo News

Progressive Democrats continue to demand bold climate action be included in any infrastructure legislation as the White House moves forward with bipartisan brokering that does not include measures to combat climate change. Climate activists and progressive members are working in a coordinated effort to mount pressure on the White House and drum up public support with the mantra and hashtag #noclimatenodeal.

Congresswoman Cori Bush sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the rest of House leadership on Thursday urging the Democratic caucus embrace a more progressive climate agenda.

"As the urgency to invest in public climate infrastructure and jobs intensifies each day, we urge you to work with us to deliver robust and lasting investments at a scale that directly addresses the climate crisis," read the letter, first obtained by CBS News.

The letter criticized President Biden's proposed infrastructure goals and his willingness to negotiate with some Senate Republicans. Read the letter here:

"We are very concerned that the American Jobs Plan (AJP), and more so the bipartisan compromise as it presently stands, will not reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving the climate crisis to the extent that science and justice require."

The message is cosigned by 10 members including Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pramila Jayapal, who is the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. With an evenly-divided Senate and slim Democrat majority in the House, progressives potentially hold enough leverage to foil legislation they find unsavory.

As the White House has had ongoing infrastructure talks with a group of 10 bipartisan senators, climate goals have been diluted in the name of negotiation.

Republican Senator Susan Collins, who has been at the negotiating table, said last month on "Face the Nation" that Republicans are working to include a tax on electric vehicle owners.

Progressives believe Mr. Biden ought to be listening to their demands more so than Republicans.

"The conversation has become a discouraging, tepid dance between the already compromised [American Jobs Plan] and plans from Republicans and bipartisan coalitions that leave climate out entirely," Bush writes.

Bush and her cosigners advocate for goals laid out in the Green New Deal, spending $1 trillion every year for the next decade "to match the scale of the climate crisis."

"This is the very least we can do to avert the worst of the climate crisis. Anything less would be unacceptable and an abdication of our global responsibility."

At a press conference on Tuesday, Senator Ed Markey, one of the coauthors of the Green New Deal, said he would only support a bipartisan infrastructure deal if he first had assurance of a complementary progressive climate bill with the promise of passing with 50 votes via reconciliation. Bush's letter urges Pelosi to include progressive directives in the budget resolution process, "which will dictate the scale and scope of the upcoming reconciliation bill on infrastructure."

The letter was written in collaboration with climate groups, including the youth-led Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats, demanding the Democratic caucus fully support a progressive plan.

"We are up against the ticking time bomb of the climate crisis and if we neglect investment now to avert the climate crisis if Speaker Pelosi ignores House Progressives and the thousands of young people behind them costs and consequences will only be greater," said Lauren Maunus, advocacy director of Sunrise Movement.

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House progressives demand climate action be included in infrastructure deal - CBS News

New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

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New York is a big city. It contains multitudes, and, yes, sometimes it contradicts itself. Its dominant Democratic Party can nominate both centrists and progressives for the citys top jobs. Indeed, it has done just that.

This is something pundits should remember when they try to make broad pronouncements about the narrow win by Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams in the Democratic primary for mayor. The final round of ranked-choice voting results have Adams defeating former New York sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia by about 8,426 votesfor a margin of 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent, according to Tuesday evenings report from the citys troubled Board of Elections.

There are still around 4,000 absentee ballots to be reviewed, but the Associated Press declared it for the borough president Tuesday night, Garcia conceded Wednesday morning, and Adams says, While there are still some very small amounts of votes to be counted, the results are clear: an historic, diverse, five-borough coalition led by working-class New Yorkers has led us to victory in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York.

Adams ran a savvy campaign that attracted key union endorsements, focused on often-neglected sections of Brooklyn and Queens, and identified a centrist lane early onbeating former front-runner Andrew Yang in the fight for voters who were worried by media reports of mounting gun violence in the city. Adams kept circling back to the promise of a safe, fair, affordable future for all New Yorkers. That message resonated with enough voters to give the advantage to the former police officer and state legislator who is now very likely to become the citys second Black mayor. MORE FROM John Nichols

Adams also benefited from the failure of progressives to fully recognize the power and the potential of the ranked-choice voting system that brought civil rights attorney Maya Wiley to the verge of a second-place finishand that might, with a somewhat more strategic approach, have gotten her into first place.

But the mayoral race was not the only contest on the ballot in the June 22 election and the ensuing rounds of ranked-choice redistributions. Two other citywide contests were decided, as well.

In one, for the position of public advocate, a bold progressive incumbent, Jumaane Williams won a landslide victory with a campaign that focused on criminal justice reform, legalizing marijuana, protecting immigrants, and a promise to stand up for low income renters across New York City for real, scalable policies that preserve affordability, and protect families from predatory landlords right now. Running with endorsements from the Working Families Party and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Williams secured over 70 percent on June 22 and did not have to wait for the redistribution of votes from the other contenders.

The contest for city comptroller was a tighter race, but it also was won by a progressive champion. City Council member Brad Lander got 51.9 percent of the vote in the final redistribution of ranked votesa slightly higher percentage than Adams had in the mayoral count. Lander, a cofounder of the councils Progressive Caucus and a national leader in the Local Progress network progressive officials, was thought for much of the race to be trailing City Council Speaker Corey Johnson. But Landers focus on a bold economic, social, and racial justice agenda, and his innovative ideas for using the comptrollers office to advance that agenda, won endorsements from the Working Families Party and Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman. On Wednesday evening, as Johnson conceded, Lander declared victory and promised that as the citys chief financial officer he would work hard every single day to help our city recover from the pandemic more just, more equal, and better prepared for future crises than we were for this one.Current Issue

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Adamss narrow win will get a lot of attention. Fair enough; its significant. But so, too, are the Williams and Lander wins. So, too, is the victory of reformer Alvin Bragg in the crowded contest for Manhattan district attorney. So, too, are the many wins for progressive City Council candidates in primary voting that the New York Immigration Coalition notes have produced the most diverse slate of Council Members in the citys history. Presuming that the Democratic council nominees win in November, as is likely, the coalition predicts, In 2022, 35 of the 51-member legislative body will be people of color. Additionally, 29 of the incoming Council Members are women, which marks the first time that the City Council achieved true gender parity.

They are women, New Americans, second-generation immigrants, people of color, activists, and more, Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the coalition, says of the Democratic primary winners. In one of the most diverse cities in the nation, this historic moment will ensure that our immigrant communities will not only see themselves reflected, but they will also have a voice on the City Council with real lived experiences, similar to their own, in some cases for the very first time.

The winning progressive council candidates ran in many cases with Working Families Party support. Several of the winners were also backed by the citys Democratic Socialists of America organization. One of the DSA-backed candidates, Tiffany Cabn, won 62.5 percent of the ranked-choice vote and claimed a mandate for movement politics. We have made it clear that the political will is there and we are ready to fight unapologetically and urgently for the communities we deserve, Cabn announced on election night.

Adams, Williams, Lander, Bragg, Cabn, and the other Democratic nominees still must win November races against the nominees of the citys bedraggled Republican Party and various and sundry minor parties. If and when they prevail, these Democrats from many places on the partys ideological spectrum will all face the challenge of governing the nations largest city. They will bring to that work not one but many mandatesincluding some very progressive ones.

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Eric Adams Won as a Centrist, but Bold Progressives Took the Other 2 Citywide Contests - The Nation

The 2022 Maryland governors race is getting crowded and complicated for both parties.

Dan Cox, a pro-Trump state delegate who was previously president of the town commission in Secretary, has entered the GOP primary.

Cox, who represents Frederick and Carroll counties, is a stark Republican contrast to Gov. Larry Hogan, who is term-limited and a leading intra-party critic of Trump. The primary also includes Maryland Commerce Secretary Kelly Schulz and Robin Ficker.

Coxs strong support for Trump will be a test of the GOP waters, the split between the partys populist, neoconservative and business establishment factions and what direction primary voters want the party to navigate. Like other 2022 races, Marylands contest will gauge the appetite for a potential third Trump run for the White House.

The Democratic gubernatorial primary also faces some partisan conflicts between the partys activist progressive wing and the more establishment traditional block.

Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot, former Democratic National Committee Chair and U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez, former state Attorney General Doug Gansler and former U.S. Education Secretary John King are part of a crowded Democratic field along with some upstart candidates.

Democrats have been more unified than the GOP galvanized by their distaste for Trump and his supporters.

But they still face internal conflicts.

The partys progressive wing has energy and ideas and wants results. Candidates for governor will have to address issues such as crime, marijuana legalization, health disparities, criminal justice and police reforms, jobs and taxes.

Democrats will have to do that with an eye on progressives who prefer a more activist and leftward approach and electability in the 2022 general election.

Biden carried Maryland by 33 points over Trump but Republicans have had success in gubernatorial races via Hogan in 2018 and 2014 and Robert Ehrlich in 2002. Biden narrowly carried Talbot and Kent counties on the Eastern Shore, showing the region should not be ignored by either camp.

Trump and progressives have prompted sea changes in the two parties. The 2022 Maryland governors race will be a gauge of where those tides of change and disruption stand including for a potential third Trump run for president in 2024.

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Trump, progressives and the race for governor | Editorials | cecildaily.com - Cecil Daily