17-02-2025
The Topline: Rural county accounts for majority of charges under archaic drug law
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Welcome to The Topline, a weekly roundup of the big numbers driving the Minnesota news cycle, as well as the smaller ones that you might have missed. This week: the illicit drug tax; Minnesota's federal workforce; new legislation to erase medical debt; and population projections for the Twin Cities.
MinnPost reported on ongoing bipartisan discussions to repeal an archaic drug war-era law requiring people to pay special taxes on any illicit drugs they possess.
Because people don't typically report their illicit activities to state agencies, the tax has virtually never been paid. But the law was put on the books in order to let county prosecutors threaten drug users with steeper punishments.
Today, it's a tool that few prosecutors rely on. In 2024, county attorneys charged violations of the law just 18 times. Thirteen of those alleged violations — more than 70% of them — were filed in rural Polk County in the state's northwest corner, home to just 0.5% of the population.
One of the people Polk County prosecutors charged with a drug tax violation was Jessica Beske, the North Dakota woman facing first-degree felony charges for possessing bong water.
Regular Reformer readers will also recognize Polk County as the jurisdiction charging a massively disproportionate share of the state's school zone drug possession offenses.
Lawmakers tried to repeal the tax stamp law last year, but it got lost in the shuffle at the chaotic end of the session.
The Trump administration began firing thousands of federal workers last week, part of the new president's efforts to gut the public and nonprofit sectors of the economy. The latest round of firings target newer employees with less than a year of service, who have fewer job protections than established workers.
It's unclear how many workers in Minnesota will be affected. There are roughly 18,000 civilian federal workers in the state, according to a December 2024 Congressional Research Service report.
Those employees are spread fairly evenly across the state's eight congressional districts. District 1, represented by Republican Brad Finstad, has the fewest number of federal workers at around 3,500. District 2, represented by Democrat Angie Craig, has the most at 7,500, comprising nearly 2% of the district's workforce.
In some parts of Maryland and Virginia federal workers account for more than 15% of the total workforce.
DFL lawmakers, supported by Attorney General Keith Ellison, have introduced legislation that would appropriate $5 million from the general fund to the nonprofit group Undue Medical Debt in order to pay off the medical debt of anywhere from 250,000 to 400,000 Minnesotans.
The nonprofit has worked on similar efforts in other states, and has already partnered with the city of St. Paul to pay off about $110 million of city residents' medical debts.
Because $1 can typically purchase $100 of debt from collection agencies, supporters of the bill estimate that $5 million could wipe out $500 million in total debt.
'Medical debt isn't like other types of debt,' said Sen. Liz Boldon, DFL-Rochester, a bill sponsor whose district includes the Mayo Clinic. 'No one plans on having their appendix burst or having a heart attack. Medical expenses shouldn't be treated like a loan for a business.'
Minnesotans with household incomes below 400% of the federal poverty level, or who have medical debt exceeding 5% of their household income, will be eligible. There is no application process, as the nonprofit obtains data from credit reporting agencies in order to identify candidates for relief.
The latest projections from the Metropolitan Council have the seven-county Twin Cities metro population growing by about 20% between now and 2050, from 3.1 million people in 2020 to 3.8 million by the middle of the century.
It's a somewhat slower rate of growth than what the organization envisioned 10 years ago under its previous long-term plan.
The population of Minneapolis, which stood at around 430,000 in 2020, is expected to grow to more than 510,000. St. Paul would add close to 30,000 new residents.
But most rapid growth is expected to happen in the suburban regions of the metro, the Star Tribune reports. Remote work is now much more common than planners envisioned prior to the pandemic, so proximity to downtown workplaces is less of a concern for people looking for housing.
That growth will have implications for the balance of power in the state Legislature, with suburban battleground districts becoming even more important in determining the composition of the House and Senate.
