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Ecolution

Deep Dive: How the Attorney General’s Office Impacts Affordability, Housing, and Healthcare

At a recent campaign rally for Attorney General Keith Ellison, Sen. Tina Smith, Rep. Ilhan Omar, and Ellison talked about several key issues impacting voters this season. Following are excerpts of the discussion, including Ellison's talking points about the economics of daily living, healthcare, housing, and other details related to how affordability is tied up in government policy and enforcement.
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A Conversation About Priorities with U.S. Senate Candidate Peggy Flanagan

Two of our Future Forward editorial board members — a board of women under the age of 25 — had a chance to talk with Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who is running for U.S. Senate. Here is some of the conversation.
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EXPLAINER: Mining in Minnesota

Minnesota has mined iron for well over a century, and it is still the largest producer of iron ore and taconite in the United States. Now the state is at the center of a bigger question: should it open a second kind of mining, for copper, nickel and other metals, in some of its most water-rich landscapes? This Explainer is part of a series designed to help people understand how the government — and the people we elect to it — serve the common good with the decisions they make about policy and funding priorities that impact the interconnected whole.
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How Policy Around Data Centers and NDAs Are Moving at the Minnesota Legislature

How the non-disclosure agreement ban related to data center development is progressing at the Minnesota legislature so far. "We’re not asking for secret engineering plans or designs. We’re just asking for information that affects our communities. We want to know how much it's going to pollute and how it will affect our wells."
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Minnesotans Testify About the Need for a Large-Scale (Data Center) Water Permit Process

"Two months after the DNR warned the city about the significant water demand of the data center, the city signed a contract that guarantees the developer up to 2.93 million gallons of water a day.”
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COLUMN: Nancy Lyons on ‘The Convenience of Moral Flexibility’

"We've built an entire economy around the principle that winning is its own justification. That growth forgives everything. A system that suggests that if the stock price is up, the strategy must be sound. But here's the part we don't talk about enough: What do we actually lose when winning becomes the only metric that matters?"
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Third Act Turns Up the Heat on ICE Affiliations

“Turn Up the Heat: Melt the Companies That Profit from ICE and DHS” is a national boycott with a local chapter of Third Act — which was co-founded by climate activist Bill McKibben to mobilize people over age 60 through community organizing, digital communication, and targeted campaigns.
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ACTION: Community Voices Needed to Push for Data Center Moratorium

"Call your representatives and Governor Walz. Tell them we expect Minnesota to lead on the standards needed to protect our state. Minnesota can get this right, but only if we’re willing to slow down enough to think this through. Tell Walz and your elected officials to put a pause on data center development. Tell elected officials to stop allowing NDAs in data center development."
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2025 Report: New Americans Drive Minnesota’s Population Growth and Labor Force

In many counties, particularly outside the Twin Cities metro, immigration has been the difference between growth and decline.
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NEWS: The Mark of Operation Metro Surge on Minnesota’s Workforce and Economy

Local officials, business leaders, and immigrant rights advocates talked about the economic impact of ICE insurgence at a Minnesota House committee meeting. The long-term care sector faces particular pressure, given that approximately 30 percent of its workers are foreign-born. Minnesota’s immigrant business owners and workers generate $41 billion in economic output each year in the state.
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Consumer Boycotts Reflect Who Actually Controls the Economy

GEO Group, CoreCivic, and CSI Aviation — some of the country’s largest private prison and deportation contractors — gave Trump close to $5 million and received over $5 billion in revenue. Consumer boycotts are designed to showcase other values. Said one, who was arrested for a sit-in protest at Target: "Everyday people are doing their part. We are asking why large corporations will not.”
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Minnesota Lawmakers and Activists Call for Moratorium on Data Centers

"Not only are these multi-billion-dollar corporations building data centers outside of the public eye, but they’re also getting tax breaks from the state to do it.”
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Future Forward: How Collective Pressure on Corporations Works

During the last election cycle, Donald Trump’s top donors in the crypto, oil and gas, and deportation industries collectively spent $700 million dollars supporting MAGA candidate campaigns, according to research published in The Guardian. In exchange, they received over $170 billion in policies and tax breaks — an 18,000 percent return on investment.
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Commentary: Why the Minnesota-Led Target Boycott — and the Backlash to ICE — Reasserts the Meaning of People Power

Minnesota is living through another moment of economic truth-telling. It is everyday people who are feeding families, escorting children to school, translating for neighbors, organizing safety networks, and showing up — often in subzero temperatures — to protect one another. Meanwhile, corporations that profit from this labor remain conspicuously silent.
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RESOURCES: Data Center Issues

The November forum video, potential data center sites around Minnesota, action steps, and various resources about data center issues.
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