Almanac: At the Capitol

The Organizing Apprenticeship Project issued a report card saying the legislature and governor share a "D" on racial equity. The group says there were missed opportunities on the teacher diversity loan program, reducing barriers to voting and reclaiming children from detention. The report card says "Minnesota is on the verge of a racial inequity crisis." We all know about the achievement gap in schools and there's also a huge racial gap on healthcare with African Americans being uninsured at a rate two times higher than whites.

One question I wondered about was the level of diversity in government. When you walk around the Capitol halls it's pretty white. I recently opened up a Legislative Manual from 1971 and found nearly as much diversity a quarter century ago as there is today. There were two commissioners of color in 1971 Elmer Childress headed the Department of Veteran Affairs and the Department of Human Rights Commissioner was Samuel Richardson, both African Americans. Today there are four cabinet level posts that are held by people of color (Human Rights, Mediation, MetCouncil, Enterprise Technology).

The place that has changed dramatically is the legislature. Back in '71, I count only one woman in the House and no people of color and none in the Senate. Now we have African American, Hmong, Indian, Latino members of the legislature. And lawmakers grades on diversity are going up. The report said last year 26 lawmakers made the "honor roll and honorable mention list" this year the number grew to 65.