Mike Lindell heads to Wisconsin to urge recall of Republican leader
By Kelly Smith
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell will headline a Wisconsin event this weekend to back a petition to recall Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. As my colleague Ryan Faircloth reports, the effort led by President Donald Trump’s allies is targeting the staunchly conservative Vos because he rejected requests to decertify President Joe Biden’s win of the state in 2020 and for his 2022 comment that he would try “as hard as I can to make sure Donald Trump is not the nominee.” In an interview with the Star Tribune, Lindell said Vos “blocked anything that had to do with election fraud, election crime, anything to help Wisconsin.”
Vos launched an investigation into the 2020 election results and the investigation, led by former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, uncovered no evidence that Biden had lost. According to the Associated Press, the recall effort faces a high bar, needing nearly 7,000 signatures from voters in Vos’ district by March 11 to force the recall election — more signatures than the total votes cast against Vos in his 2022 reelection win.
HOUSE: Most of Minnesota’s Republican and Democratic members of the House joined in a rare show of bipartisan support to approve a $79 billion tax cut package on Wednesday. The measure would bolster the child tax credit as well as boost tax breaks for businesses. The bill passed 357-70, with Minnesota Reps. Angie Craig, Tom Emmer, Brad Finstad, Michelle Fischbach, Ilhan Omar and Pete Stauber all casting yay votes, while Rep. Betty McCollum voted against it. (Rep. Dean Phillips didn’t vote.)
Some Democrats said the bill didn’t go far enough to restore the tax credit passed in 2021, giving households far less. Meanwhile, some Republicans opposed it for expanding the child tax credit at all.
In a statement, Craig said the measure had “common sense tax cuts” for both families and businesses, adding that: “This is what happens when we work across the aisle, and I’m urging the Senate to get this legislation to President Biden’s desk as soon as possible.”
TAX: The IRS is standing by its decision to impose taxes on nearly $1 billion in rebate checks sent to Minnesotans last fall — a surprise to state officials who tried unsuccessful to reverse the decision. As my colleague Briana Bierschbach reports, in letters sent to Stauber and Craig, IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel said the state’s rebates didn’t fall under the category of general welfare or disaster relief, both of which can be excluded from federal taxes.
USDA: On Thursday, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will visit Minnesota to push for Congress to fully fund the Women, Infants & Children (WIC) program. He’s meeting with state nutrition experts in St. Paul followed by a visit with rural small business owners and farmers in St. Charles with Gov. Tim Walz to highlight programs supporting affordable clean energy. In Minnesota, on average, about 100,000 low-income pregnant and breastfeeding women, babies and children 5 and younger received WIC assistance to buy healthy foods, according to the state Department of Health.
