June 18, 2002 - Jesse Ventura, announces on the show he won't run again for governor.
June 20, 2002 - With Jesse Ventura out of race for governor, Minnesota's Republican, Democratic and Green Party candidates are each claiming Ventura supporters will flock to their respective camps. That may be wishful thinking. Three and a half years ago Ventura won the election with 37 percent of the vote statewide. But he did much better than that in a ring of suburban metro counties north metro of the Twin Cities. Minnesota Public Radio's Mark Zdechlik visited Chisago county and talked to voters about the 2002 race.
June 25, 2002 - The three major party candidates for governor debated in Duluth today. They spoke at the Minnesota Rural Summit, a yearly meeting of rural economic development workers. This year the summit's focus was the link between health care and rural economic development. Mainstreet Radio's Stephanie Hemphill reports.
June 26, 2002 - Attorneys representing several Twin Cities media organizations were in court today (WED) arguing that confidential documents from the Twins and Major League Baseball should be made public. The league and team turned over nearly 9 thousand documents to the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission after the commission sued last November. The groups settled the lawsuit but the groups are arguing over the fate of the documents. Minnesota Public Radio's Tom Scheck reports...
July 1, 2002 - Former Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Sandy Keith; Greg Wersal, Golden Valley attorney; MN Supreme Court Associate Justice Paul Anderson; and Steve Lubet, professor of law at Northwestern University discuss that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Minnesota's law limiting what judicial candidates can say about the issues, during their election campaigns.
July 5, 2002 - A St. Paul-based development group wants to build what's expected to be the largest mixed-use development on the Hiawatha Light Rail line. That line will connect downtown Minneapolis with the Twin Cities international airport and the Mall of America in Bloomington. Minnesota Public Radio's Cathy Wurzer talked with Scott Smith, who covered the story for today's edition of the "The Business Journal." Smith says this would be the largest project ever for McGough Development, and its size was influenced by the light rail line.
July 8, 2002 - Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak proposes capping city spending increases at no more than eight percent a year. The plan enjoys majority support on the City Council, but it means the city will have to cut six million dollars as elected leaders prepare for next year's budget.
July 9, 2002 -
July 12, 2002 - The stadium debate will be back at the Capitol again next year. Now that a new Twins ballpark in St. Paul seems all but dead, Hennepin County officials say they'll try to persuade lawmakers to take up the issue again next session. The four major party gubernatorial candidates say they're willing to allow Hennepin County to bid for a new ballpark, but some key legislators are skeptical about the prospects for revisiting the issue. Minnesota Public Radio's Laura McCallum reports.
July 25, 2002 - Though it's still relatively early on the campaign calendar, Minnesota's U.S. Senate race has had the kind of high profile that many races don't attain until closer to November. That's largely because the campaigns of DFL incumbent Paul Wellstone and Republican challenger Norm Coleman took to the airwaves with ads months ago. We're likely to see even more of both Senate candidates showing up in television spots through the fall, and that's begun to concern campaign strategists for some of the state's gubernatorial candidates. As the election nears, airtime will become scarcer and the gubernatorial campaigns worry they'll get squeezed out of the picture. Minnesota Public Radio's Tom Scheck reports: