and being from Iowa let me say it is not state government that is dysfunctional, it is Republicans in state government that are totally dysfunctional and determined to destroy functioning government in this country.

Your state is only a slight variation on what is going on in the other upper midwest states. I live in Iowa and our Republican legislature stripped most worker rights this last session, failed to restore a very good medicaid system after the Gov (now ambassador ) Branstad unilaterally brought in management companies and gave them 20% of our medicaid, undercut education on and on.........

In Illinois they haven't had a functioning budget since Rauner was elected governor - their university system is about to shut down from what I hear and that is just the tip of the iceberg ..........

Wisconsin & Walker have been the one of the pinup boys for right wing crazy government. He has destroyed unions, fucked up schools especially putting a huge hurt on the university system ........

And in Kansas, Brownback and his legislative crazies are so close to bankruptcy that even the far right wingers in the legislature voted to override Brownback's veto of tax raises.

I believe Illinois and Kansas have schools on 4 day weeks with little hope in sight to fix right away.

Oh, and after huge tax cuts for businesses in Iowa, we are falling way short on paying bills.

IMHO Dayton has done a great job of keeping Minnesota viable as long as he has. These repugs, especially the ones elected in 2016 are simply fucking nuts and determined to destroy government.

Thank you for giving me a chance to vent.

It used to be that Midwestern, farm and rural people were even handed, clear cut thinkers not given to hype that we tend to associate with the coasts, especially New York...

Seems that the Republicans all over feel empowered by the polarization in Washington. And, really one has to blame the voters. After all, when Dayton first was elected in 2010 he had a Democratic majority in both houses. We lost the House in 2014 and the Senate in 2016.

I suppose when your only source of info is AM radio and the church, you are getting a distorted view of the world.

they're in St. Louis Park - not a huge signal, but it covers the cities (we also have relatives up there.)

Or, what rurallib said.