Star Tribune
Lobbying ban proposal for former Minnesota legislators to resurface in 2025
In the 1990s, Schultz was the executive director of Common Cause Minnesota, the nonpartisan government watchdog organization.
“The public is very mistrusting of politicians,” Marty said. “I’m hoping it’s a great time for a change.”
Schultz recalled the last time a revolving door bill made progress in the late 1990s, when then-House Speaker Steve Sviggum, a Republican, sponsored a bill that passed the House on a bipartisan vote. The Senate, led by Majority Leader Roger Moe, a DFLer, didn’t take a vote on the proposal. Moe left the Legislature in 2003 and is now a business consultant and lobbyist.
“We’ve got a bad revolving door problem,” Schultz said. “I just don’t think the legislators have bought into ethics reform.”
When legislators quickly become lobbyists, they’re able to use inside information and relationships they built while in office to benefit the business and interest groups that can afford to pay for their services. That’s in contrast to the average person, who doesn’t have such connections or the money to pay for access, he said.
Effectiveness as a lobbyist is all about relationships, Schultz said. The revolving door in Minnesota is “at a point now where it’s totally normalized. The public is kind of indifferent to it,” he said.
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Josh Allen’s latest kneel-down had nothing to do with football.
The Buffalo Bills quarterback and his girlfriend, actress Hailee Steinfeld, posted a photo to their Instagram followers on Friday — 20.3 million for Steinfeld and a mere 1.3 million for Allen — of Allen on one knee proposing marriage. The picture was taken on a grassy ridge overlooking water, with the couple surrounded by candles and framed by a large arch covered in flowers.
The NFL reposted the picture on X to congratulate the pair on their engagement, with a message ending with a ring and heart emoji.
The setting was likely somewhere on the California coastline, where Allen lives in the offseason. And the proposal likely occurred sometime last week, when the Bills had a bye.
Allen didn’t reveal the engagement during his weekly news conference on Wednesday as the AFC East-leading Bills (9-2) prepare to host the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday night. But he did smile widely when asked how he enjoyed his bye week.
”Fantastic. It was great. Got some sun. Hung out with family. It was fantastic,” he said.
Allen and Steinfeld were first linked in the spring of 2023, when they were photographed dining together in New York City. Months later, Allen acknowledged the two were dating, but asked The Associated Press not to mention Steinfeld by name in a bid to maintain a semblance of privacy.
Steinfeld has since begun attending Bills home games, and the couple hosted a Halloween party this fall.
She has since described — in an article in Vanity Fair, and in interviews with The New York Times — several instances in which Kennedy, then in his mid-40s, made physical passes at her: During a meeting with a Pace colleague in the family kitchen, he moved his hand up and down her leg, she has said. Once, he came into her room, shirtless, and asked her to rub lotion on his back. And once, he stepped into the kitchen pantry behind her and moved his hands up and down the sides of her torso, she said.
Kennedy declined to comment on the claims. When her allegations first surfaced this summer, he sent an apologetic text message to Cooney, saying he had no memory of the episodes.
Cooney said she was repulsed by the behavior, and left the household by the end of one year, though she continued her work at Pace and stayed in touch with the family. She says she was troubled by the entitlement and carelessness of his behavior.
“I remember thinking, in the beginning of my tenure there — Wow, it’s as if he’s up on the bow of a large, fast boat, and the rest of us are on board,” she said. “He gets to be in the front, look ahead, think big, holler commands, jump off, do what he wants, without concern for details or implications, while everybody else is there to deal with the wake.”
As part of his 12-step recovery programs, Kennedy kept a journal. In it, he chronicled sexual encounters with more than three dozen women in a one-year period in around 2001, assigning them rankings, 1 to 10, that corresponded with different sexual acts, the New York Post reported. The journal reportedly includes entries suggesting his behavior filled him with self-loathing.
“After daddy died I struggled to be a grown-up,” Kennedy wrote, adding, “I felt he was watching me from heaven. Every time I was afflicted with sexual thoughts, I felt a failure. I hated myself. I began to lie — to make up a character who was the hero and leader that I wished I was.”
“The trickiest thing is to manage the nerves, especially last season, performing for the Western Conference Finals. Every single seat was packed, and the energy was through the roof,” Riley said.
Among the challenges the 1st Avenue Breakers face when performing at the Minnesota Timberwolves games at Target Center are the flashing lights when spinning on their heads. (Minnesota Timberwolves)
The dancers also performed amid flashing lights, which made things more challenging. “You have to know where you’re at as you’re spinning on your head. It’s a lot to manage,” he said.
To help prepare the dancers, Riley said his group typically rehearses on the court before the show, flashing lights included.
“Part of my job is not just to choreograph, but to coach the new members in particular, to be ready for those timing cues,” he said. “Because if you miss a cue and you fall out of a move and we’re transitioning, it can have a bad snowball effect.”
Riley also owns House of Dance, an official dance studio partner of the Timberwolves and Lynx. The 1st Avenue Breakers rehearse in the space, and it’s the site for auditions, as well. “It’s been a good relationship because we’re so connected to the hip-hop dance community in general,” he said. “Our studio serves as a pipeline of talent for the Timberwolves.”
In a way, basketball is a kind of dance, with set moves and improvisational movement performed by the players. A soundtrack of recorded music and sound effects underlays the rhythm of the basketball hitting the floor, the shoes squeaking against the wood, and the ref’s whistle. Formal dance groups, mostly grounded in different forms of hip-hop vocabulary, supplement that basketball game with their own ebullient moves.
