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By Ryan Faircloth

The Minnesota Star Tribune

Good morning. Keri Heintzeman won a GOP primary election for an open state Senate seat on Tuesday, defeating a crowded field of Republicans that included Nisswa Mayor Jennifer Carnahan and Josh Gazelka, the son of former Senate leader Paul Gazelka. Heintzeman, who's married to GOP state Rep. Josh Heintzeman, was a district director for President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign and owns a recreational rental business.

“I express my heartfelt gratitude to the residents of Senate District 6 for their trust and support in advancing me to the Special Election on April 29th,” Keri Heintzeman said in a statement Tuesday night. “I am deeply honored by their confidence. The upcoming election is critical for restoring fiscal responsibility to our state government and ensuring accountability for the significant waste and fraud under the Walz administration.”

My colleagues Allison Kite and Kim Hyatt report that Heintzeman will face Democrat Denise Slipy in an April 29 special election to fill the seat left open by Justin Eichorn, who resigned following his arrest in an underage prostitution sting. Slipy, who's an environmental health professional and first responder from Breezy Point, was the only Democrat in the race and automatically moved on to the special election.

Minnesota DFL Chair Richard Carlbom said in a statement that Slipy would “fight to protect her constituents’ health care and be a champion for strong public schools.” Read more.

Minnesota Senate President Bobby Joe Champion has blurred the line between his legislative and legal business for years. Champion, an attorney, has sought state funding for organizations run by his past legal clients. He also represented a nonprofit after he secured state funding for it. The second highest-ranking Senate Democrat is facing an ethics complaint over a $3 million bill he pushed in 2023 for a violence prevention nonprofit called 21 Days of Peace. Champion never disclosed that he had represented the nonprofit's founder, the Rev. Jerry McAfee, in several court cases, one of which didn't wrap up until after he introduced the funding bill. Champion says the work was pro bono so "there was no potential conflict to disclose."

The relationship between Champion and McAfee goes back more than a decade, with Champion having represented the reverend’s New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in a 2012 lawsuit filed by a lending firm. In another case, which wasn’t previously reported, Champion sought millions of dollars in state funding for a “Minnesota SafeStreets program” in 2019 and 2021 to engage in community-based violence prevention. Two of his former legal clients, McAfee and Al Flowers, are listed as registered agents of Minnesota Safe Streets LLC, according to its business filing. Champion said there was no conflict of interest for him to disclose on the Minnesota Safe Streets bills, either, because he was not representing Flowers or McAfee at the time “and had not in many years.”

Champion is “blurring the lines between being a lawyer, a legislator and a lobbyist," said former DFL House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler. “To me, the question is, how does Sen. Champion benefit? As of now, we’re not aware of any way that he has personally benefited.” Read more. 

An extra tidbit for our Dish readers: Champion declined an interview request, instead choosing to respond to our questions in writing. Champion's written response included a sentence that was identical to one that appeared in a recent Minnesota Reformer story. A Senate DFL spokesman attributed his accidental plagiarizing of the Reformer article to “a miscommunication between [Champion] and staff."

In 2021, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison met with several people connected to the Feeding Our Future case about one month before the federal pandemic fraud case burst into public view with FBI raids. My colleague Deena Winter, who obtained a recording of the meeting, said the group that includes several local East African business leaders told Ellison they were being targeted by state agencies, which they accused of being racist and discriminatory. The group promised political and financial support for Ellison, and he expressed sympathy over their allegations of discrimination and told them he would look into it, while dismissing their entreaties to help him politically. A spokesperson for Ellison said the attorney general was just listening to constituents’ concerns. “Nothing improper happened whatsoever,” the spokesperson said. Read more.

On Wednesday, Gov. Tim Walz will attend a meeting about the Fargo Moorhead Area Flood Diversion Project, highlight infrastructure investments at the new Dilworth Fire Station and attend a town hall with legislators in Moorhead to discuss the impacts of federal government actions.

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Campaign finance numbers are in for the first quarter of 2025, giving us a look at how candidates are faring in the 2026 race to replace U.S. Sen. Tina Smith:

Democratic Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan reported raising nearly $452,000 and having about $367,000 in cash on hand as of March 31.

Former DFL state Sen. Melisa López Franzen reported raising $260,000 in a span of three weeks, with $251,000 still on hand as of the end of March.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, who is mulling a run for U.S. Senate, brought in more than $1.2 million and ended the quarter with more than $1 million on hand. Craig said Monday that she will make a decision about her future by the end of the month, my colleague Janet Moore reports.

Republican Royce White raised $204,000 in the first quarter and ended with about $182,000 on hand.

Adam Schwarze, another Republican running for U.S. Senate, raised about $141,000 and ended with $109,000 in cash on hand.

Walz will hold a news conference at the Dilworth Fire Station at 1:30 p.m. He'll discuss the need to pass a bonding bill for infrastructure projects this year, according to a news release.

The Minnesota Hands OFF! Coalition will protest outside the Consulate of El Salvador in St. Paul from 3-6 p.m. The coalition is protesting to "demand the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States and the end to all illegal kidnappings and removals to foreign prisons," per a news release.