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Capitol View®
Mike Mulcahy

Daily Digest (campaign fundraising, new Mpls council, MNsure audit coming)

Go Deeper.

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Good morning from a very cold Washington, DC where the temperature has hit six degrees. It may not be Minnesota cold, but it's cold by our standards. Your Daily Digester also lost his boiler heat yesterday (it's still not back yet) and apologizes for the delay in getting the digest out to this morning. Special thanks this morning to political editor Mike Mulcahy for getting the lion's share of the Digest taken care of.

Please send any tips, comments and suggestions to bneely@mpr.org and remember to follow us on Twitter at @mprpolitics and @brettneely. If you enjoy reading the Daily Digest and find it useful, please share it with others who might enjoy it, too.

Minnesota

Candidates have until the end of January to report their year end 2013 fundraising, but those who had a good 4th quarter are already letting people know. Tom Emmer, who is competing for the 6th District GOP Congressional nomination issued a press release this morning saying he raised more than 200,000 in the last quarter for a 2013 total of more than $500,000.

And in the race for governor, Republican Dave Thompson said he raised more than $120,000 in 2013.   "That is more than the last Republican nominee raised in the year before the 2010 election, and it is a solid start on what will undoubtedly be an expensive and hard-fought campaign," he said on his website, without noting that that 2010 nominee was named Tom Emmer. Gov. Dayton has said he raised about $1 million in 2013, but again, no official reports have been filed.

One big issue in the race for governor is likely to be the state's role in the Affordable Care Act and the rollout of the the Minnesota online health exchange MNsure.  Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles says he will launch a wide-ranging inquiry into what happened. Nobles told MPR's Catharine Richert that he wants to look at the state's contract with vendors, but  "Once we are in there, we may see a lot of other issues we may pursue."

The state's largest city officially has a new mayor and a number of new city council members, and MPR's Curtis Gilbert reports they will spend a lot of time working on bridging racial gaps. The city's need to narrow wide disparities between white residents and minority communities — in education, employment, health and other areas — was a recurring theme as the city swore in a diverse new City Council on Monday, says Gilbert.

Meanwhile, the former Minneapolis Mayor has undergone a second surgical procedure following a heart attack Saturday.  The Star Tribune reports R.T. Ryback is in good condition.

A Wabasha County district judge has ruled that a program that allows drivers to avoid a traffic ticket by taking a safe driving class and paying a reduced fine is not allowed under Minnesota law, reports MPR's Jon Collins. The sheriff there says he will end the program immediately.

Minnesota Republican Party Chair Keith Downey says Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal will be the guest speaker at the party's Lincoln-Reagan fundraising dinner on Feb. 19.

Washington

There's a new Federal Reserve chair. The Senate voted last night to confirm Janet Yellen to succeed Ben Bernanke. Both of Minnesota's U.S. Senators voted for Yellen.

Health care spending grew at a rate of 4 percent in 2012, less than half the rate of a decade ago. Could the reason be the Affordable Care Act? Maybe, maybe not, says the Los Angeles Times.

Minnesota Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken are supporting the Democratic push for an extension of long term unemployment benefits.  The Star Tribune reports Klobuchar is using a new report that argues that the long-term unemployment rate is twice what it was when Congress last allowed federal unemployment insurance to expire after the recessions of 1990-91 and 2001.

Healthcare.gov wasn't the only government website with a troubled roll-out. The New York Times reports that state government sites for the poor and unemployed across the country have also had major technological problems, a sign that the government technology contracting at all levels is in need of an overhaul.

In a move that cast doubt over the marriages of roughly 1,000 same-sex couples in Utah, the United States Supreme Court on Monday blocked further same-sex marriages there while state officials appeal a decision allowing such unions.