First, Sorensen has been journaling in Minnesota, has moved to South Dakota, and has moved her publishing to substack: https://bluestemprairie.substack.com/
Her most recent post is about the Trump savaging of endangered species habitat protection, a move Trump aims at enabling developers into otherwise protected lands to exploit rather than protect. Trump acts, presumably with cronies in mind, not the environment nor living critters, about which he likely doesn't give two shits.
Sorensen's post, here. Readers who check her substack will note the chance to help Sorensen monetize her journalism, so she doesn't say, "Fuck it," and quit. Her work merits it's current ongoing status, into the future, so check it and possibly help.
THAT SAID -
Sorensen links to one item and republishes another, so Crabgrass goes to the originals. One a radio podcast, the other a text.
https://stateline.org on July 20 posted: The feds no longer protect endangered species habitat. States say they can’t pick up the slack. -- Few wildlife agencies have the authority to regulate habitat under state laws.
Sorensen republishes the full item, Crabgrass will extract from the start:
The Trump administration is removing
protections from the key places where endangered species live, saying
states can keep the areas safe.
But experts say states aren’t equipped for the task.
Earlier this month, the Trump
administration finalized a major change to the Endangered Species Act,
rolling back protections for the forests, wetlands, deserts and other
critical habitats that many plants and animals rely on.
The new rule will open many
landscapes to development, logging, mining and oil and gas drilling.
Wildlife officials — in both conservative and liberal states — had
expressed strong concerns about the proposal, saying it would threaten
their plans to safeguard endangered species.
But federal officials framed the
decision as a move to give “freedom” to state leaders to manage wildlife
without burdensome federal regulations.
States that wish to continue
protecting habitats can do so under state law, the Interior Department
and other federal agencies wrote in their lengthy new regulations.
But legal experts and wildlife
veterans say that almost no states have endangered species laws on the
books that allow state officials to prevent habitat destruction in the
name of saving wildlife.
While many states have laws to stop
poaching and direct killing of wildlife, the protection of nesting
trees, spawning streams and other resources has long fallen to the
federal Endangered Species Act and the agencies that enforce it.
“It’s not going to be a situation where the states can easily just jump in here and fill the void,” said Robert Anderson, who served as solicitor for the Department of the Interior during the Biden administration. “It’s not going to help states, and it’s going to make it worse for the species.”
Many wildlife experts also noted that
state wildlife agencies are already underfunded as it is. Taking on the
massive regulatory system that prevents developers and extractive
industries from destroying critical habitat would require far more
resources than those agencies have available.
A coalition of environmental groups and tribal nations have filed lawsuits challenging the federal rollback.
The ‘harm’ rule
On July 10, the federal departments
of Interior and Commerce announced they had finalized a rule rescinding
the longstanding definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act.
For decades, federal officials have
scrutinized logging projects that would cut old-growth trees where owls
build their nests, and agriculture operations that diverted water from
streams where salmon return to spawn.
But now, the feds are pivoting to a
much more limited definition of “harm.” Only actions that directly
injure or kill the animals themselves will be considered a violation of
endangered species law.
[... Quoting] Karrigan Börk, a law professor and director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the UC Davis Institute of the Environment. “If
you drain a salmon river during the summer when the salmon aren’t in
it, ultimately it has the same impact of killing off that whole
species.”
In its announcement, the Trump
administration framed the move as restoring the “original intent” of the
Endangered Species Act and reducing regulations that punished people
for “indirect or speculative impacts” to wildlife.
The Interior Department did not respond to a Stateline interview request.
A 2019 study
published in Conservation Science and Practice of species added to the
list of endangered species from 1975 to 2017 found that only 17% of them
faced threats from direct killing, while 81% faced habitat loss.
“It’s common sense that we can’t save a species unless we save the places that they live,” said
Jane Davenport, senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife, a nonprofit
conservation group that is planning to sue the federal government over
the change. “This is an attempted death blow to the Endangered Species Act.”
Some industry groups praised the
move. The American Petroleum Institute and other oil and gas groups said
in public comments that they supported the effort to limit habitat
protections, but expressed concern that the Trump administration’s move
to rescind the “harm” definition without issuing a new interpretation
could allow a future president or the courts to issue a more expansive
reading of the law.
It is really hard to love the fossil fuel giants as Trump does, where their money was a springboard to his second term, and such. Damned hard. Impossible for Crabgrass.
continuing-
[...]
Going to court
Last week, a coalition of environmental groups filed a lawsuit challenging the “harm” rule. A pair of tribes in Washington state filed their own lawsuit,
asserting that the decision will infringe on tribal fisheries that the
federal government is obligated to protect under treaty agreements.
Some legal experts expect a flood of lawsuits over specific proposed projects.
“Courts are going to have to figure out on a case-by-case basis what’s covered and what’s not covered,” said Börk, the UC Davis professor. “It’s
going to lead to widespread confusion over the next decades over what’s
illegal or legal, and it’s going to make it harder for developers and
landowners to know whether they have liability or not.”
And the authors note litigation could reach the Supremes, who'd possibly fuck things up as badly as they've fucked things against the stench of money in politics. Then a future administration would have a big rock to push uphill if some phony "Constitutional" property rights thing gets cooked from litigation that billion dollar corporate money prevails over a few "extincted" species where others, of course, exist. It could be that bad
A new Dem administration and Congress could amend the statute if winning both in 2028, but that would still leave the Supremes to their will to impose bad law.
================================
Which is a point to segue to EmptyWheel, here, which today deals with the Impeachment possibilities against sitting "Justices." It's worth the time to read and it is building commentator content as this post is being written and finished.
The immediate mind image is verbal diarrhea, Trump, exploding forth, all his words, etc. Not so. Apost by Dan Burns, who posts at: https://mnppannex.blogspot.com/
Dan is less editorial than Crabgrass. Shorter posts. His normal format is a few key paragraphs of items he finds of interest. In the explosive diarrhea case, an American Prospect item is featured.
The site link is given so readers can scroll back through Dan's links, and see which they'd want to read.
Dan also is a political populist-progressive, in that way similar to Crabgrass.
Dan further posts at https://left.mn/ along with Steve Timmer, who's maintained that site and a predecessor since God was a child. Crabgrass has often posted to Timmer's journalism, most recently: Apocalyptic fires
That one is non-representative of Steve's style, but very important - about climate change and wildfires.
More representative of Steve's general style, and recent, here.
In giving the site links for both Dan's site and the one Steve and Dan share, readers are urged to check out a few of the posts, beyond those linked in this item.
I have the two sites bookmarked [a/k/a favorites] and urge readers to bookmark.
Vermont
Sen. Bernie Sanders believes discontent with the political
establishment who he says hasn’t delivered for working class Americans
will propel progressives into positions of power across the country —
including Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan.
Sanders,
an icon of the Democratic party’s progressive base, returned to
Minneapolis on Monday to campaign for Flanagan, the state’s two-term
lieutenant governor who is running for U.S. Senate promising to
represent the “many over the money.”
He
told a crowd gathered at downtown music venue First Avenue that the
“eyes of the country” are watching Minnesota and other states where
progressive Democrats are betting voters will chose candidates this fall
who hold themselves out as fighters.
“The
issue is whether or not billionaires and their greed will be able to
defeat candidates who are standing up for the working class of this
country,” Sanders said. “That’s what the campaign is about.”
At
a rally at the iconic venue, Flanagan drew standing ovations and
promised to go to Washington to fight for Minnesota, demonstrating the
progressive momentum she hopes will carry her to a primary victory over
Rep. Angie Craig, the more centrist Democrat in the race. The primary
election is Aug. 11, and early voting is already underway.
Some
of the heaviest hitters in Minnesota DFL’s progressive wing — including
Sen. Tina Smith, Rep. Ilhan Omar and Attorney General Keith Ellison —
came out to support Flanagan on Monday, firing up the crowd with the
promise of a U.S. senator who would not back down at a time of historic
strife between the state and the federal government.
Sanders
and other Flanagan supporters cast her campaign as a movement of
working class voters against wealthy special interests. While they
railed against President Donald Trump’s administration and Republicans
in Washington on Monday, they also criticized their own party’s efforts
to respond.
“We
got here, in part, because too many Democrats have been weak,” Flanagan
said to cheers from the crowd. “What I have heard from Minnesotans is
that they want their next U.S. Senator ... to be an actual fighter.
A fighter for the correct agenda. Not less. It is a double edged sword. That Flanagan would want Bernie in town. And that Bernie would show up for her.
To Crabgrass knowledge, Angie Craig rakes in the money, with no Senators showing up to boost her conservative credentials.
When the primary is over, the Crabgrass bet is Craig's millions of dollars raised cannot defeat progressive credentials, backed up by Bernie arriving to rally voters.
To begin you may try search = rescinding definition of "Harm" under Habitat-Based Protection
Or simply read on.
That search returned to Crabgrass a "search assist" bot statement:
The rescinding of the definition of "harm" under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) means that habitat modifications that do not directly kill or injure wildlife will no longer be regulated as they were previously. This change is expected to reduce regulatory burdens on landowners and businesses while still prohibiting actions that directly harm endangered species.
Those are helpful links. In particular, the FedReg link details things about a rule change. Better as an impartial intro, the lawfirm Holland and Hart (https://www.hollandhart.com/) published an analysis:
On Friday, July 10, 2026, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service (collectively, the Services) announced
that they have finalized their proposed rescission of the definition of
“harm” for purposes of “take” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The Federal Register version of the final rule
will be issued on July 14, with an effective date of September 12.
While the headline-grabbing ramification of this final rule is that the
Services will no longer deem habitat degradation or modification to be a
form of “take” under the ESA, the Services’ reasoning for rescinding
the definition will result in a narrowing of the scope of the ESA’s take
prohibition well beyond the habitat context. If the final rule, which
is certain to be challenged, ultimately stands, it will fundamentally
change how the ESA is implemented.
Overview of the Rescission Decision. The Services originally proposed
to rescind the harm definition in April 2025. They received
approximately 358,000 public comments on the proposal, which underscores
the significance of this action. As in the proposed rule, the Services
have declined to provide a replacement definition in the final rule,
opting instead to rely on the statutory definition of “take” without
further defining any of the ten verbs in the ESA’s definition of take1 (harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect).
In rescinding the definition, the Services expressly state they are
“making clear that habitat modification or degradation does not qualify
as ‘take.’” This outcome alone would be significant. But the Services’
justification for the rescission will result in wide-reaching effects
beyond elimination of the harm definition.
The Services’ final rule relies heavily on two high-profile U.S. Supreme Court cases. First, they cite to the Court’s Loper Bright decision, which overturned Chevron deference and held that the proper focus is on “the single, best reading of a statute.”2 Using that framework, they then rely on Justice Scalia’s dissent in Sweet Home to
conclude that the single, best meaning of “take” is an “affirmative act
directed immediately and intentionally against a particular animal—not
an act or omission that indirectly and accidentally causes injury to a
population of animals.”3 They conclude that the regulatory definition of “harm” does not accord with this single, best meaning.
Implications of the Rescission Decision. The obvious
implication of the final rule is that habitat degradation and
modification will no longer be a source of take requiring incidental
take coverage. Thus, going forward, a biological opinion issued under
Section 7 may conclude the listed species are likely to be adversely
affected by the proposed action’s impacts to habitat, but the Services
will not issue an incidental take statement for such habitat impacts,
which eliminates the Services’ ability to impose reasonable and prudent
measures or terms and conditions for those effects. Likewise, impacts to
listed species’ habitat by a project that lacks a federal nexus (i.e.,
state or private action) would not warrant a Section 10 incidental take
permit (ITP).
The Services emphasize, though, that “nothing in this final rule is
intended to require that any prior permit or incidental take statement
issued by the Services that relied on the prior definition of ‘harm’ be
reevaluated on the basis of this final regulation.” They leave open the
possibility that a current permittee may choose to return an existing
permit if it is mitigating for habitat impacts that are no longer
considered prohibited take under the new definition.
However, there is more to this story. By limiting “take” to
affirmative acts directed immediately and intentionally against an
animal or animals, the Services appear to be eliminating the need for
incidental take coverage for virtually all proposed actions that will directly
kill or injure ESA-listed species. Because, for instance, pipelines,
transmission lines, mines, housing developments, highways, and timber
sales, do not involve affirmative acts directed immediately and
intentionally against animals, any death or injury caused by these
projects—such as through collision, crushing, or exposure to hazardous
materials—may not be deemed to be “take” under the final rule.
Several statements in the Services’ final rule support the conclusion
that even direct injury or death of a listed species will not be
considered a take for the vast majority of proposed actions.
“The rescission of the regulatory definition of ‘harm’ does not
eliminate the Services’ ability to issue ITPs or [enhancement of
survival] permits where there is an affirmative conduct intentionally directed against a particular animal or animals.” (emphasis added).
“Section 10 then creates an incidental-take regime for when such
take is nonetheless inevitable in the pursuit of some other activity, as
when fishing for a non-endangered species of fish will, inadvertently
but inevitably, lead to the catch of an endangered species of fish.”
“We do not find persuasive the argument that the 1982 amendments to
the ESA, which allowed the Secretary of the Interior to issue
incidental take permits, suggests that Congress understood section 9 to
prohibit indirect as well as deliberate takings. Habitat modification is
not the only activity that might incidentally cause a prohibited
taking. For example, fishing for unprotected salmon may inadvertently
but unavoidably cause takes of an endangered species of salmon (515 U.S.
at 729).”
Thus, this rule marks a sea change in the ESA. But because legal
challenges are inevitable, and because it remains to be seen how this
interpretation of “take” will be implemented in practice by Service
biologists, there is still some uncertainty about how far and wide the
ripple effects of this rule will be.
1 16 U.S.C. § 1532(19).
2Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024).
3Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities for a Great Oregon, 515 U.S. 687, 719-20 (1995) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (cleaned up).
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activities, you should seek the advice of your legal counsel.
Left
or right, red or blue, there are some things that we can all agree are
simply true. If I burn down your house, have I harmed you? The answer
is, of course, yes.
But
on July 10, the federal government ruled that doing the same thing to
an endangered species — destroying the only home it has left — is not
legally “harm.”
The
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA finalized a rule rescinding the
Endangered Species Act’s 45-year-old definition of “harm.” Since 1981,
that definition included significant habitat modification or
degradation, and it was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1995, in
Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities for a Great Oregon.
Under
the new rule, bulldozing a nest, draining a wetland or clear-cutting
the forest on which a species depends no longer counts as harming that
species, unless the act also directly and intentionally injures an
individual animal.
This matters because habitat loss, not direct violence, is how most endangered species actually disappear.
The
greatest threat to animals in the US and globally is the destruction of
their habitat — replacing grasslands with farms, cutting forests for
timber, building suburbs atop wetlands. It’s the main reason why
hundreds of species have been listed under the Endangered Species Act,
which gives federal protection to species that are currently at risk of
extinction or are about to be.
That’s
what makes a recent move by the Trump administration both confusing and
— according to many environmental advocates — incredibly alarming.
In a rule published earlier this month,
the administration determined that, in many cases, destroying the
habitat of federally threatened and endangered species is no longer
explicitly illegal, even if doing so could ultimately drive them
extinct. The rule upends half a century of regulatory precedent that
survived many Republican administrations. Environmental advocates also
say it runs counter to the very intent of the Endangered Species Act,
which Congress passed in 1973 with near-unanimous bipartisan support
(and which Richard Nixon signed into law).
While the Trump administration has made several recent decisions that weaken protections for endangered species — amid what many scientists call an extinction crisis — this one may have the most far-ranging consequences. Here’s why.
The Endangered Species
Act notably marked its 50th year on December 28, 2023, and I wrote about
it here. It is known as one of the most effective environmental
statutes for protecting the environment and can halt development
projects if they trigger the prohibitions of the Endangered Species Act.
There
are two major parts of the Endangered Species Act. Section 4 describes
how to list a species as endangered or threatened, the two statutory
statuses for a species. Section 7 requires consultation by any federal
agency if it anticipates projects affecting endangered or threatened
species, and Section 9 prohibits anyone within the jurisdiction of the
United States from trading in endangered or threatened species or their
parts, or from "taking" an endangered or threatened species. "Take" is
defined as to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap,
capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct.
At
least until September 14, 2026, when the federal government wants to
finalize the removal of this definition of "take" from the regulation
that further explains the statutory definition. Since 1975, the
definition of "take" has included any significant environmental
modification or degradation that has such effects, which is included
within the meaning of "harm."
The
U.S. Supreme Court agreed in 1995 that this definition of "harm" was a
reasonable one on the part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and
upheld the regulatory definition. In the recent proposal to change the
rule, published July 14, 2026, the Department of the Interior explained
that part of its reasoning for rescinding the definition of "harm" was
that it was "outdated" and that it preferred Justice Scalia's dissent in
the 1995 opinion over the majority opinion.
Because
we cannot cherry-pick the dissent we like better and recognize it as
the law of the land, surely that is not what the Department intended to
suggest. Upon further reading, the logic it applies is, in essence, that
because this case was decided using the framework of a case that was
later overruled (Chevron), this case must also be overruled. Despite the U.S. Supreme Court specifically stating that overruling Chevron did not overrule cases decided under the Chevron framework, that is the logic being used.
So why does the definition of "harm" matter?
It
is the definition of "harm" that extends protection to the habitat of
an endangered or threatened species. The proposed withdrawal of the
"harm" definition would no longer prevent development projects that
destroy the habitat needed for an endangered or threatened species to
survive.
For
example, the endangered bird in the 1995 case could not survive if the
only tree in which it nested were destroyed. Common sense tells you that
if the bird cannot nest, it cannot produce another generation, and it
eventually becomes extinct. The common sense administration just lost
its common sense here.
Oddly,
the administration appears to have conflated the regulatory definition
(an Executive Branch function) with the statutory definition (a
Legislative Branch function). "Harm" is one of the words in the
statutory definition of "take," which remains the law. The 1995 opinion
addressed the interpretation of the word "harm" in the statute, which,
of course, cannot be rescinded by the Executive Branch.
Response to rescinding the regulatory definition of "harm" was immediate
Several
organizations immediately sought judicial stays to prevent the
Executive Branch from rescinding the rule. A stay, in this case, simply
asks the court to stop the agency from taking action until it reviews
the legality of that action.
While
the agency has taken administrative steps consistent with the
Administrative Procedure Act, it must also explain why it is reversing
its previous decision from 1975. Whether saying the definition is
"outdated," or that Justice Scalia's dissent is more persuasive,
provides a sufficient basis to reverse the agency's previous course of
action is something the judiciary will determine, consistent with
existing case law.
Crabgrass foresees a host of court challenges, a pissing match back and forth, where things may drift into an Executive and Congressional situation after the 2028 election, i.e. after change starting Jan.20, 2029, where the situation may then still be hanging fire, and where Crabgrass suggests a receptive Dem executive and legislative branch could tinker the statute (online https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-3002/pdf/COMPS-3002.pdf). Suggested change being:
DEFINITIONS SEC. 3. (16 U.S.C. 1532) For the purposes of this Act—
[...](19) The term ‘‘take’’ means to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct.
bearing an added sentence by statutory amendment:
(19) The term ‘‘take’’ means to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct. To harass or harm an endangered species includes land use which would result in material adverse impact on a species breeding or survival habitat whether on public or private land.
And to really get into the weeds, there could be a third sentence to that:
Materiality would be a de novo litigation fact question for the court under a totality of circumstances analysis prior to or during implementation of a use, or for two years after an implementation finishes, without deference to administrative outcomes, if any, prior to judicial filing.
That would throw it unbiased into the judiciary without deference to agency adjudication and be recognition of prior restraint remedies as well as granting a grace period to challenge an ongoing or completed land use action.
Is the third sentence a good idea? Likely not.
But if impacts are not resolved suitably after a change of government personnel, the added sentence defining "harass or harm" inclusion would clarify rather than cloud.
UPDATE: In amending the statute, it might prove wise to add that impacting action alone is at issue independent of an actor's scienter (state of mind; intent). Courts have on occasion read-in an unstated scienter requirement; e.g. in Rule 10(b)5 securities fraud litigation.
UnitedHealth
Group, United Healthcare Services and Optum had sued the news
organization, alleging the article was defamatory and defamatory by
implication.
The
Guardian's U.S. entity sought dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6), arguing
the complaint failed to state a legally viable claim. The Guardian's
U.K. parent companies separately moved to dismiss for lack of personal
jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(2) or, alternatively, for failure to state
a claim.
After
reviewing the article, legal briefs and oral arguments, the court sided
with the defendants. "For the following reasons, after reviewing the
Article, the parties' briefing, and oral argument, the Defendants'
Motions to Dismiss are GRANTED," the opinion stated.
"[...] Today's decision is a vindication of The Guardian's
deeply sourced, independent reporting, and a rejection of UnitedHealth's
bullying and intimidation tactics."
[...] The
decision represents an early victory for The Guardian in a closely
watched case involving investigative reporting into one of the nation's
largest healthcare companies. It was not immediately clear from the
opinion whether the dismissal was with prejudice, which would prevent
UnitedHealth from refiling its claims, or whether the company could
amend its complaint or appeal the decision.
Representatives for UnitedHealth did not immediately respond to TheWrap's request for comment.
HEADLINE: UnitedHealth reduced hospitalizations for nursing home seniors. Now it faces wrongful death claims - The
company says it is protecting nursing home residents by curbing
unnecessary hospital transfers. Whistleblowers allege cost-cutting
tactics have endangered the elderly
Three nursing home residents died because employees of the American healthcare giant UnitedHealth Group helped delay or deny them critical hospital care, two pending lawsuits and a complaint to state authorities have alleged.
The
three cases involve a UnitedHealth partnership initiative that places
medical staff from the company’s direct care unit, Optum, inside nursing
homes to care for residents insured by the company’s insurance arm.
UnitedHealth says one of the initiative’s goals is to protect patients by reducing unnecessary hospital admissions. Those are admissions the insurance giant would otherwise have to pay for.
In Georgia, the family of a woman named Cindy Deal filed a lawsuit alleging
that the 58-year-old died because Optum and her nursing home failed to
hospitalize her for hours after she started foaming at the mouth and
appeared to be having a seizure.
In Ohio, the family of a retiree named Mary Grant filed a lawsuit claiming
that the 70-year-old died after Optum and Grant’s nursing home failed
to send her to the hospital, though she had suffered a traumatic head
injury and began vomiting.
In New York, a physician’s assistant named
Christopher Bieniek alleged in a complaint to state authorities that a
63-year-old nursing home resident died due to “gross negligence” by an
Optum employee. The employee refused to hospitalize the man, despite his
kidney failure, according to text messages Bieniek says he shared with
state investigators.
Citing patient privacy
rules and pending litigation, UnitedHealth’s public relations team did
not directly respond to specific questions about the three cases, but
said that many of the claims were unsubstantiated or based on incomplete
or embellished information.
The company has previouslydenied the Grant and Deal families’ claims in court, and attorneys representing UnitedHealth disputed some of Bieniek’s claims.
“We
remain confident in our transparency, our compliance and our steadfast
commitment to patient-centered care,” the company said. “We will not
legitimize a one-sided and misinformed narrative by further engaging
with it. Our focus continues to be where it belongs: delivering
high-quality care for our members and standing with the clinicians and
care teams who devote themselves every day to improving patients’
lives.”
The three cases highlight the dual
role that UnitedHealth has taken on for thousands of nursing home
residents across the country: medical insurer and provider of direct
care.
Like many American health insurers,
UnitedHealth has expanded across the healthcare sector and no longer
limits itself to simply paying or denying its members’ medical bills.
In nursing homes, for example, the conglomerate deploys its own army
of nurse practitioners and physician assistants from its medical
services arm, Optum, to care for seniors covered by its insurance arm,
UnitedHealthcare. During the day, these medical professionals listen to
heart sounds, decide on new diagnoses, and address dangerous
complications for insured residents at their nursing homes. At night and
on weekends, other Optum employees on hotlines weigh in on their care
from afar.
UnitedHealth insures more than 55,000 long-term
nursing home residents through what are known as institutional special
needs plans (I-SNPs), which are funded through the federal government’s
Medicare Advantage program. While other insurers also employ their own
medical providers, UnitedHealth is by far the biggest player in the I-SNP market, covering almost as many residents as all of its rivals combined.
UnitedHealth says this hands-on nursing home model provides an “extra layer of caring support”
that helps reduce unnecessary hospital trips for long-term residents at
more than 1,900 nursing homes in 29 states across the US. “United works
with the nursing facility, primary care physicians, and specialists to
deliver appropriate care for members in the most appropriate setting,”
the company said in an email, noting that a non-profit called the
National Committee for Quality Assurance recently awarded its care model
a 98.75% score.
Hospitalizations, the company
notes, can lead to serious issues for nursing home residents, such as
delirium, falls and pressure injuries.
They can also lead to major expenses for the insurance giant, a financial arrangement that lawmakers
and corporate whistleblowers have framed as a potential conflict of
interest incentivizing the conglomerate to discourage necessary
hospitalizations too.
Under Medicare
Advantage, the government pays insurers like UnitedHealthcare a set
amount of money based on the expected healthcare needs of each senior
enrolled in their insurance plans for long-term nursing home residents.
The less insurers spend on residents’ care, the more they have left over
in taxpayer funds for potential profit.
In
addition to the complaints from the families and the outside medical
provider, UnitedHealth’s nursing home initiative has been the subject of
at least four whistleblower complaints from former employees. The
whistleblowers allege that employees from Optum, UnitedHealth’s direct
care subsidiary, engaged in unethical tactics that sought to curb costly
but critical hospital care, or violated federal rules meant to protect
nursing home residents from predatory insurance sales tactics.
Two
of the whistleblowers, both former Optum nurse practitioners, filed
declarations with Congress, alleging that company managers improperly
pressured them to reduce hospital transfers for nursing home seniors,
and to get residents on to medical directives, such as
“Do-Not-Resuscitate” orders, that could pre-empt costly emergency room
care. The declarations also allege that supervisors pushed them to
creatively code patient diagnoses to increase federal payments for the
company.
UnitedHealth said it categorically
rejected any suggestion that its employees engage in practices that
endanger patient safety or violate ethical standards. It said that the
suggestion that its employees prevented hospital transfers was false,
and that its permission was not required for nursing home residents to
go to the hospital.
The company added that
“the insinuation that the desire to decrease unnecessary
hospitalizations is motivated solely by financial considerations ignores
well established evidence of the harm unnecessary hospitalizations can
cause.”
Policy experts say reducing
unnecessary hospitalizations is important to cutting wasteful
expenditures and protecting frail nursing home residents, but caution
that these efforts must allow medical providers to follow their genuine
clinical judgments.
“You don’t want to then
overcorrect and basically align the incentives so that people are never
sent to the hospital when they really need to go to the hospital for
appropriate care,” said Gretchen Jacobson, vice-president of Medicare
policy at the Commonwealth Fund, a healthcare research non-profit.
Medical researchers have found that a sizable portion of hospitalizations of nursing home residents may be unnecessary. A study
published in July in the medical journal JAMDA, for example, found that
one-third of hospital admissions among thousands of “severely impaired”
nursing home residents appeared to be “potentially avoidable
hospitalizations”.
[...] In June, UnitedHealth sued the
Guardian alleging defamation for a previous story about UnitedHealth’s
efforts to reduce hospitalizations among nursing home residents.
The
lawsuit from the healthcare giant, which brought in more than $400bn in
revenue last year, was the latest in a series of aggressive tactics
aimed at quieting its critics, the New York Times reported.
In
the wake of the suit, the Guardian stood by its story, and continued
its reporting process, which identified the three allegations of
wrongful deaths.
These allegations, as well as
details from four whistleblower complaints about United Health’s I-SNP
nursing home program, have never previously been made public by the
press or government agencies.
“We are
disappointed the Guardian has continued a pattern of biased and
misleading reporting that does not reflect the value of the I-SNP
clinical model or the benefits we provide to our members,” UnitedHealth
said in a statement. “The inaccuracies have been so persistent and
harmful we have pursued legal action – an extraordinary step we take to
protect the integrity of our work, our care teams and the people we
serve.”
After the Guardian published its first story on UnitedHealth’s nursing home initiative, Senators Ron Wyden and Elizabeth Warren held a briefing with UnitedHealth about its nursing home program and decided to launch an investigation seeking company documents.
“Nursing
home residents and their families should not live in fear of a
for-profit health care company withholding care when it is most
critical,” the senators wrote in a letter to the company.
A whistleblower’s complaint
When
Maxwell Ollivant first started working as a nurse practitioner for
UnitedHealth’s nursing home program, he believed in his company’s care
model.
Maxwell Ollivant. Photograph: George Joseph/The Guardian
As
an employee of UnitedHealth’s direct care subsidiary, Optum, Ollivant’s
job was to visit and check on dozens of seniors at three nursing homes
in the suburbs of Tacoma, Washington. The goal: to identify medical
complications early and address them, protecting residents from needless
hospitalizations.
Ollivant was excited to
work in geriatric care. When he was young, his grandfather had supported
him after the shock of his parents’ divorce. Now he would be able to
care for seniors like him.
Less than a year
into the new job, however, the nurse practitioner, a committed
Christian, started to have concerns that his company was going too far,
inserting itself into nursing home emergencies and effectively delaying
or discouraging necessary hospitalizations, according to the lawsuit and
congressional declaration he later filed.
When
Ollivant visited his assigned nursing homes, he saw images with large
red STOP signs in his patients’ charts, according to the declaration
Ollivant filed in May with Congress as well as the Securities and
Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the Washington
state attorney general. The signs instructed nursing home staff to call
UnitedHealth’s Optum unit first, rather than their independent primary
care doctors, when a patient’s condition worsened, the declaration said.
If
a nursing home did send a patient to the hospital without first
contacting Optum and following various protocols, Ollivant and his
colleagues “were instructed to chastise the nursing facility staff”, the
declaration said.
Such scrutiny could even
follow a hospitalization for an emergency situation, as one Optum email
stemming from Ollivant’s litigation indicates.
In
that case, nursing home staff sent a resident to the hospital because
she was found drooling, unresponsive and with a “slant to the side”, the
email said. Thesymptoms
pointed to a possible stroke, an emergency that requires rapid
treatment, and the woman was subsequently admitted to a hospital’s
intensive care unit for “intrabrain bleeding”, a life-threatening type of stroke, according to the email.
But
after the transfer, Ollivant’s manager emailed her team that the
nursing home had sidestepped the company’s protocol, failing to take the
time to first call a hotline operated by Optum’s off-site medical
staffers.
“This is by pass,” the manager
wrote, referring to Optum’s term for when nursing home staff skipped
over its intermediary clinicians to hospitalize a resident. “Nursing did
not call Optum on call.”
The manager then met
with the nursing home’s director of nursing services and scheduled an
in-service training to re-educate the facility’s nurses, the email
shows.
UnitedHealth did not directly respond to questions about this email.
Four months later, Ollivant went to UnitedHealth’s HR team with
concerns about his company’s response to another emergency, involving a
patient of his, public records from the Washington state attorney
general show.
One Sunday earlier in September,
the 66-year-old nursing home resident had been found with potential
stroke symptoms, but his transfer to a hospital was delayed after his
nursing home contacted UnitedHealth’s on-call hotline, instead of an
independent doctor, according to Ollivant’s lawsuit, which referred to
the man by his initials, “M.T.”
For Ollivant,
the incident showed the danger of Optum’s involvement in emergency
cases, according to the congressional declaration he later filed.
In
its defamation suit and in statements to the Guardian, UnitedHealth
maintained that it repeatedly pushed for M.T.’s transfer and faulted its
nursing home partner for failing to hospitalize the retiree earlier.
Days
after Ollivant reported his concerns about M.T. to UnitedHealth’s HR
department, the company began investigating the nurse practitioner
himself, records released by the company to the Guardian show. It
concluded that Ollivant had failed to properly care for M.T. during a
second incident which the nurse practitioner had also complained about,
according to the company records.
Ollivant submitted his resignation that February – just over three weeks after he filed his internal complaint.
The
nurse practitioner later sued UnitedHealth, then voluntarily dismissed
his suit after the US Department of Justice declined to intervene in the
case. In early May, with the assistance of the legal advocacy
organization Whistleblower Aid, Ollivant submitted his declaration to
state and federal authorities expanding on his previous claims.
In
a statement, UnitedHealth said that Ollivant was “not in a position to
assess the effectiveness of our programs”, claiming he “lacks both the
necessary data and the expertise”.
“Our
position is supported by peer-reviewed studies and measurable outcomes,”
the company said. “In contrast, the criticisms being raised are based
on anecdotes.”
Between July 2024 and June
2025, long-term nursing home members covered by UnitedHealth experienced
38,000 transfers to the ER and 16,000 hospital admissions, the company
said. Of those admissions, it said, nearly half were ordered by skilled
nursing facilities or primary care physicians without Optum’s
involvement.
UnitedHealth also said that the
Department of Justice investigated the whistleblower claims,
interviewing witnesses and obtaining thousands of documents that
“demonstrated significant factual inaccuracies in the allegations”.
UnitedHealth previously told the Guardian that the Department of Justice
found the allegations to be “meritless” and “found no evidence of
wrongdoing”.
UnitedHealth did not respond to requests from the Guardian that it provide evidence for this claim.
‘The goal is to treat in place’
Mary Grant, the nursing home resident in Ohio, never made it to the hospital.
Photographs of Mary Grant in a family album. Photograph: Maddie McGarvey/The Guardian
One
evening two years ago, when a nurse at her facility in Cleveland found
the 70-year-old low on oxygen and covered in pinkish chunks of vomit,
she called the care hotline operated by UnitedHealth’s Optum subsidiary,
instead of an independent doctor, according to nursing notes and an
Optum audio recording released through litigation.
The
day before, a nursing home employee had accidentally rammed a cart into
Grant, knocking her out of her wheelchair, according to a lawsuit that
her family filed in state court in Ohio and was later moved to federal
court. Her head, protected only by strands of thin, gray hair, hit the
concrete floor, leaving a bump on her forehead, patient records released
through discovery and the lawsuit assert.
Now Grant was experiencing nausea and vomiting – signs
of potential bleeding inside her head, according to a doctor who later
filed an affidavit as part of the lawsuit. To assess whether Grant was
bleeding internally and needed surgery, she needed to go to a hospital
and get a CT or MRI scan, the suit claimed.
But
the Optum hotline employee that the nursing home nurse called for
instruction “did not order” Grant’s transfer to the hospital, according
to the suit. After hearing about the fall and head bump from Grant’s
daughter and Grant’s vomiting and low oxygen levels from the nurse, the
Optum liaison determined that a transfer was not yet necessary,
according to a UnitedHealth call log disclosed in response to the suit.
“The goal is to treat in place,” a log from the Optum employee noted later that evening, using language reflecting the company’s efforts to curb unnecessary hospital transfers. “But if condition worsens, send to Soft Point [sic] hospital.”
The
Optum employee told the nursing home to continually check Grant’s vital
signs, order a chest X-ray at her facility, and give her medicine and
oxygen, company logs and audio recordings released through discovery in
the suit show.
This plan of care that Optum
coordinated with its nursing home partner failed to reckon with the
possibility that Grant had suffered a traumatic head injury that was
causing a growing pool of blood to compress the tissue in her brain,
according to court filings by her family.
The next day, nursing home stafffound the retiree dead in her room, according to nursing home notes released through litigation.
In
August, attorneys Michael Hill and Matthew Mooney filed a lawsuit on
behalf of Grant’s family alleging that the off-site nurse practitioner
for UnitedHealth’s Optum unit was not acting “as an independent and
objective medical professional” on the company’s hotline, but instead as
“an insurance adjuster” so that the healthcare giant could
“preemptively deny Mary Grant necessary medical care”.
In a court filing, UnitedHealth denied the Grant family’s allegations.
UnitedHealth’s
public relations team did not directly respond to questions about the
Grant case, but said in a statement: “Where litigation is ongoing, we
are limited in what we can share, but we contest inaccuracies and will
vigorously defend ourselves.”
Allegations of upcoding and changing medical orders to increase federal dollars
The
other former Optum employee who filed a whistleblower declaration with
Congress submitted it while still working at the company. Like Ollivant,
the clinician – who has chosen to remain anonymous – said they were
initially supportive of UnitedHealth’s nursing home initiative.
Once
on the job, however, the nurse practitioner discovered that their team
was under pressure to reduce hospitalizations while inserting
questionable diagnosis codes into patients’ charts in order to increase
federal payouts to UnitedHealth, according to the declaration provided
to state and federal agencies.
“It felt so
unprofessional and bizarre, based on other medical facilities I worked
in, to have managers challenge well-established critical interventions
in cut-and-dry cases,” the whistleblower wrote.
Bonuses
went to nurse practitioners who rarely transferred residents to the
hospital and who mined colleagues’ charts for lucrative diagnosis codes
they could use to bill the federal government, the nurse practitioner
wrote.
Staff went through training to learn
how to deploy diagnosis codes for weak foot pulses and minor skin
spotting, and would be re-educated by company coding specialists if
their coding was deemed insufficient, the declaration alleges.
“These
changes in codes did not change the treatment plan, but they did
generate higher Medicare Advantage payments for UnitedHealthcare,”
according to the declaration.
UnitedHealth did
not directly respond to a question on the allegations about its
employees coding patient diagnoses to increase federal dollars. But the
company said in an email that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services gave UnitedHealth’s nursing home plan a 4.5 star rating.
The
declarations from the anonymous whistleblower and Ollivant also alleged
that UnitedHealth’s Optum unit pushed to get nursing home residents to
consider medical directives, such as “Do-Not-Resuscitate” and
“Do-Not-Hospitalize” orders, which can limit access to life-saving
interventions and pre-empt costly hospitalizations.
UnitedHealth pointed out that advanced care planning had a positive
impact on the quality of residents’ end of life care and said that the
company tracked residents’ care preferences “to align the care provided
with the patient’s health and care goals”.
In the declaration, the anonymous whistleblower acknowledged that
advanced care planning was “very necessary”. But Optum staff, the nurse
practitioner wrote, sometimes convinced patients to agree to orders
limiting their care through counseling that failed to make clear that
some of their ailments may be reversible, and that patients with chronic
conditions might still benefit from hospitalization for less serious
complications.
“This resulted in what seemed
to be a de-escalation of care,” the whistleblower wrote, for patients
“who desired to live longer without extraordinary measures but still
sought treatment for manageable conditions”, such as heart failure,
urinary tract infection, or acute kidney injury.
In his declaration, Ollivant echoed these concerns, describing the
conglomerate’s “push” for “Do-Not-Resuscitate” and “Do-Not-Hospitalize”
orders as an “unconscionable measure” that sought to reduce
UnitedHealth’s costs while increasing its profits.
UnitedHealth denies these claims.
The
company said Optum clinicians are trained to have high-quality
conversations about advance care planning to allow members and families
to make the most informed decisions possible. The company said that it
had never encouraged or pushed a member to sign a “Do-Not-Hospitalize”
or “Do-Not-Resuscitate” order.
“Our health
care providers are ethically bound to respect patient autonomy and
support informed decision-making,” UnitedHealth said in an email.
UnitedHealth’s
June lawsuit criticized the Guardian’s previous reporting on
allegations about its advanced care planning practices. Company
whistleblowers, however, were not alone in questioning its discussions
with patients and their families about such care directives.
More concerns about UnitedHealth’s end-of-life planning push
In
August of 2023, Christopher Bieniek, a physician assistant working for
an independent medical group in upstate New York, filed a complaint with
state authorities alleging that “gross negligence and incompetence” by
an Optum nurse practitioner working at a nursing home alongside him
“resulted in the death” of a resident experiencing congestive heart
failure and kidney failure.
According to the
complaint, the 63-year-old resident was complaining of dizziness and had
very low blood pressure. But when Bieniek pushed for the resident to go
to the hospital citing his kidney failure, the Optum employee simply
responded “no”, according to text messages Bienek says he showed to
investigators from New York’s office of professions, the state’s
licensing authority.
“No?
He has symptomatic hypotension with end organ dysfunction,” Bieniek
replied on the text chain, noting that the man needed rapid IV fluid
injections which he could not receive at the nursing home. The
63-year-old’s medical orders form “says to send to hospital when
medically necessary”, Bieniek pointed out.
Instead of helping to get the man to the hospital where he might have
received costly but life-saving care, Bieniek alleged in his complaint,
the Optum employee “talked the family into changing” his care goal to
comfort care – an end-of-life approach – “despite the condition being
readily treatable and probably reversible even at that late stage”.
The
nursing home resident died soon thereafter, according to Bieniek’s
complaint, which specifically pointed to UnitedHealth’s financial stake
in his patient’s care.
[... ]
The item is long and detailed,
with much more to read. Crabgrass chose to terminate the quote, already lengthy, as
sufficient to show some issues and responses of the giant corporation.
Readers are urged to follow the link if wanting the entire story.
From the excerpt, as quoted, Crabgrass believes it shocks the conscience to see facts Guardian alleged, if true, in its reporting. Again, as noted, Crabgrass did not try to access online court documents, which somehow might have lessened that "shocks the conscience" opinion Crabgrass reached, based upon Guardian's coverage.
UnitedHealth
sued, claiming the article contained numerous false accusations. Among
them: The health care company secretly paid nursing homes to enroll
patients in UnitedHealthcare insurance and then coerced residents to
sign do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders, preventing costly hospitalizations
and lifesaving treatments.
On
the DNR issue, the judge wrote: “Nothing in the article states that
United was approaching [patients] and telling them to change their code
status so [United] could save money.”
The indication is there was, over time, ongoing Strib coverage of the situation, and readers who can access the site's paywalled stories have those links Strib included.
It appears that Strib was not sued over anything it published about the situation.
That item - an executive summary to a linked full report - suggests that even if no other healthcare related firm did as Guardian reported about UnitedHealth conduct, the reach of the shock of the reporting is great because of the substantial leading position UnitedHealth has; it's biggest player in healthcare insurance. The 800 pound gorilla in the market.
The obvious answer to private firm abuse or possible abuse of the USA healthcare set-up existing today, as Crabgrass sees things, is to do away with insurance except for extended supplemental private-sector coverage, while enacting by law, ASAP,
Medicare for All, and nothing less.
That would be as a basic universal coverage human right and not as a pubic option to anything else. Anything purchasable from the private sector would be solely supplemental coverage. There would, of course as with Medicare now for senior Americans, have to be rules and limits of what could be covered. There would have to be cost cap planning, because nobody in their right mind would want the healthcare providers to have a blank check from the government. They'd abuse it.
FURTHER: Strib's coverage links to the online biography of the trial judge dismissing the Delaware lawsuit. He has outstanding credentials in the legal community, and the case was filed in the state of incorporation of the firm suing, not as a federal case.
Is summarizing the court's decision, Strib reported:
In
one count, the judge wrote that UnitedHealth Group’s lawsuit “cherry
picks” language to allege the Guardian was making claims that weren’t
actually part of its report.
Scott
dismissed another count after finding the news outlet’s story was
“substantially true” in characterizing certain nursing home bonus
payments from UnitedHealth Group as “secret,” or made “secretly” or
“quietly.”
And
responding to the company’s complaint that omissions in the news report
created a false impression, the judge wrote that the Guardian “is not
required to publish facts just because United would have preferred more
favorable facts. The omissions do not render the statements false.”
Again, Crabgrass made no attempt to find and review court papers online before posting. The post is limited to reporting of coverage by recognized online outlets. With brief added editorial comment.
FURTHER: It should be obvious that the story is important to the upcoming November election because healthcare deficiencies will be a major issue.
Incumbent Congress members, collectively, while having full terms have not delivered Medicare for All.
That might not relate to particular Reps or Senators who as a minority have continuously advocated for it, but if you are unsure when filling out your ballot, do not undersell this negligent aspect of incumbancy by granting incumbancy too great a privilege. There are large amounts of private donor money behind the foot dragging that, in general, has repeatedly been seen or postulated.
Clean house if unsure. Let new voices in. In the general election and if your state has not yet had primary elections. Minnesota's primary will be in August. Try to be as informed as feasible about the political stances of each politician on your ballot.
With embedded short video. That speech was fiction. Start to finish. The elections were secure, there was not any significant fraud, and he doesn't bitch about voting fraud possibility when he won. A piece of work.
[UPDATE: Crabgrass located the Strib paywalled item carried by MSN, here, without paywalling. Analysis below was posted prior than that discovery. It is the most complete analysis Crabgrass found differentiating between the two primary campaigns. Readers are urged to take advantage of unpaywalled access]
Going into a local legislative DFL primary, two candidates have gained more than district-wide attention to be the general election opponent to whoever the Republican candidate is. The District has been largely a Dem voting one, over recent time..
Hoodline, a local coverage provider links to the Strib item, and writes:
Endorsements, money and competing narratives
Latz has lined up backing from high-profile state Democrats, and the
Senate DFL caucus is spending to hang on to his seat. Dumalag,
meanwhile, has secured support from the district’s two House members and
St. Louis Park’s mayor. Her campaign is pitching the race as a mandate
for urgency, especially on housing and neighborhood engagement. "It’s
about the people of this district, and for the first time in 20 years
there is a choice," Dumalag said, as reported by the Star Tribune.
Latz's record and role in St. Paul
Latz chairs the Minnesota Senate Judiciary and Public Safety
Committee and argues that seniority and relationships translate into
concrete wins for his constituents. [...]
Dumalag’s pitch for faster change
Dumalag, a commercial real-estate broker, spent five years on the St.
Louis Park City Council and has centered her campaign on
affordable-housing advocacy and deep neighborhood outreach. [...]
Convention drama and immigration politics
The March district convention ended in a stalemate, with no DFL
endorsement and delegates split between the two candidates, which pushed
the final decision to the August primary. Many Dumalag supporters say
they were galvanized by this winter’s immigration enforcement operations
and the neighborhood organizing that followed. The convention deadlock
and the role of immigration enforcement in the race were detailed by the
Star Tribune.
Why the result matters beyond the district
SD46 is widely expected to stay in DFL hands in November, but the
primary looms large because Democrats control the Minnesota Senate by a
single seat and every member helps decide committee chairs and what
legislation can move. That razor-thin margin means the choice St. Louis
Park Democrats make in August could ripple into what the DFL can
realistically pass at the Capitol, according to Bring Me The News.
What to watch next
The primary is set for August 11, and both Latz and Dumalag appear on
the state’s official candidate list and elections calendar. Voters can
expect the volume to turn up as that date approaches, with more mail
pieces and digital ads highlighting contrasts between the incumbent and
the challenger, per the Minnesota Secretary of State and the Minnesota Secretary of State.
So, old school vs build-it-better. It's a shame Strib paywalls. But the fight of traditional local news outlets for survival is real. Mailer mischief, or was it innocent error, has become a clouding issue. When old ways and new aims collide, the choice can stand best on the issues and how the candidates see things.
Interesting coverage from during the last legislative session seems relevant, even if not directly related to the current primary contest:
Democrat Senators Ron Latz (SD46) and
Susan Pha (SD38) were on separate sides of the issue on a piece of
legislation and this led to personal attacks being launched each way!
The bill, SF1750,
altered regulations surrounding Home Owner Associations. While this
bill would have normally resulted in a mundane floor debate, Latz and
Pha implied that the other was a liar when considering whether to accept
the House's amendments to the bill! This mostly took place following
Pha's speech where she contended with Latz and Judy Seeberger's (SD41)
opposition. See video HERE.
Latz was looking at the legislation
with a careful microscope after decades of passing unconstitutional,
multi-subject, thousand page omnibus bills! Where was Ron Latz in 2024
when Democrats combined multiple omnibus bills into the Omnibus-Prime legislation totally nearly 1,500 pages! It seems he only wants to be meticulous when it comes to protecting tyrannical Home Owner Associations!
One reason Latz and Pha may be
willing to let their internal political disputes be seen in the public
eye is that they have nothing to lose! They are both facing left-wing
primary challenges and know their days in the Capitol may be numbered!
Like Ron Latz’ situation, Susan Pha is also not endorsed by the local party after neither she or her Democratic opponent, leftist activist Nehemiah Garley, could reach the 60% endorsement threshold. Garley had roughly $862 cash on hand as of Dec. 31, 2025 and Pha had roughly $838 cash on hand as of the same date. Garley appears to be supported by several legislators
including one of the Representatives of the district, Huldah
Momanyi-Hiltsley (38A). Following the convention Momanyi-Hiltsley posted
a misleading congratulations on Facebook for Garley, making many
readers think he is endorsed when he isn’t! See below: [...]
A strategic conservative would utilize
and exploit the Democrats’ lack of unity to its fullest extent.
Democrats have ram-rodded their radical agenda through and there is
finally a chink in their armor! They are divided, in conflict, and weak!
Now is the time for conservatives to strike!
So, the other party's print advocate has a look and opinion. The upshot of the long quote is that the Dems are presently looking at a Dem leg super-entrenched fixture, vs new thoughts, while the GOP is having its own internal problems nationally, while locally intact in a MN House split down the middle.
While the GOP is not likely to pick up the seat if Latz looses the primary, they hope.
What is really at stake, old ways against new ideas. The ICE invasion of the state has had its impact, in that Ron Latz was absent and Lynette Dumalag was a part of the entire metro communities' awakened reaction against the heavyhandedness, hatefulness and overbearing stupidity of ICE aims and behavior.
Will the challenge carry the day? This MN local senate district contest has gained more attention than others, and may be a barometer of sorts.
And Crabgrass in headlining has disclosed a progressive bias that favors the challenger over the incumbent. Regular readers would already know about that.
_____________UPDATE_____________
While the Republican outlet's claiming Latz went over this particular bill with a microscope, after watching their linked proceedings video, it seems impossible to dispute that claim. He was quite long-winded. Tediously so, some might think. Smoothly so. What I did not hear from Latz, where words matter, any disclosure of any pecuniary personal interest at stake.
He lists two rental condos in his district on his economic interest disclosure with the state Campaign Finance Board. Latz has said his wife rents out the units and he has little to do with them.
When Homowner Association restraints and regulations, procedural can and cannot do rules are under discussion, and you have a pecuniary interest in two rental units (presumably under separate oversight bodies each with its own covenants, conditions and restrictions) disclosure of that pecuniary stake at the start and in summary would be best practice, since both rental units are under Association jurisdictions, {unless extreme unusual practices not included in reporting exist). Law governing condominiums in Minnesota likely mandate it. But to take the unusual step of tedious time-consuming nitpicking of stuff and then voting for approval of the entire bill as passed to the MN Senate from the other chamber is - quaint. You object so much and look as if wanting to stall a passage, lose the postponement effort, and then take the safe Dem vote to approve a citizen protective thing is what Latz did.
Latz may have disclosed his pecuniary interest, and Crabgrass missed it. But the question, in an election is important. Are you voting for someone who both favors and practice.s transparency, or not? Latz is not a legislative novice. Twenty years on the hill in St Paul I believe. Disclosure of a pecuniary interest, even if indirect, is a generally known norm. It is not a novice being tripped up over some fine point; it is as it seems, Latz gave no disclosure. Knew or should have known disclosure was approprite for his colleagues to weigh his concerns. Twenty years.
Others, especially the Dumalag campaign should pin things down. Disclosure or not. Yes or no? Did he or did he not?
