Dear Friends,
It’s been a very busy week with many hours spent on the House floor every day. There were a number of House majority omnibus bills passed. I’ll comment on just a few of them below. Though each of these proposals had provisions that I would support and vote for individually, there were too many harmful provisions included for me to support them. Because of space, I will focus my comments on the more noteworthy provisions for each bill that compelled the direction of my vote.
VETERANS
What a breath of fresh air this proposal was! House lawmakers unanimously voted for legislation providing funding for Minnesota’s National Guard members and veterans after their service to our state and nation concludes. In addition to increases in agency budgets, the bill also includes operational funding for three new Veterans’ homes under construction; expands the eligibility for free burial in Minnesota state Veterans cemeteries to spouses and dependent children of Veterans and Service Members who die on active duty; and it included my veteran bonus bill! I was proud to vote yes on this plan.
ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY
Despite having a $17.5 billion surplus, Minnesotans will pay more to recreate in the state and enjoy the great outdoors as Democrats want to increase fees for fishing licenses, DNR park permits, and watercraft licenses by over $33 million.
This bill also imposes expensive mandates and the costs will be passed directly along to ratepayers. We should be pursuing a clean energy policy that is affordable, reliable, and safe. The mandates in this bill are the opposite. It is unacceptable that Democrats want to raise energy costs at a time when Minnesota family budgets are already stretched thin. Remember, the “blackout bill” they passed earlier this year that pushes us too quickly onto an energy trajectory that current technology is incapable of supporting? Removing coal and natural gas too soon in our state is estimated to cost $313 billion, or nearly $3,900 per family per year by the year 2040 and will drive us into dangerous energy shortages with rolling blackouts. I was a no vote.
TRANSPORTATION
Maintaining roads and bridges is one of the constitutionally required core responsibilities of government. I fully support strong and smart transportation funding. Unfortunately, the House majority’s transportation funding plan includes roughly $3.5 billion in tax and fee increases. This includes a 75-cent delivery tax that will be applied to most anything delivered to your front door, whether it’s a package from Amazon, a chair from the furniture store, or a pizza from your favorite pizza place. License tab increases, motor vehicle sales tax increases, and a ¾ cent sales tax increase in the Metro Area are also included – despite the fact we have a nearly $20 billion surplus. I voted no on these unnecessary tax increases as well.
AGRICULTURE
Agriculture has the reputation as one of the few places bipartisan results are achieved in the Legislature, but this appears to be the most partisan Ag bill in the history of this institution. This bill is more about what it does to farmers than for farmers. Additional fees and regulations contained in this bill make Minnesota’s farmers less competitive and less profitable at a time many already are struggling. I voted no.
PREK-12 EDUCATION
This plan increases overall educational spending by $2.2 billion dollars, which is historic. But it also includes a plethora of mandates, 65 of them to be exact. Mandates create more work for schools. Mandates cost money. Mandates put extra burdens on teachers who already struggle greatly to find the time during the school day to adequately teach basic subjects like reading, math, and writing.
I have heard from numerous school superintendents, principals, and teachers, as have my colleagues, about these mandates. To a person, they are beyond concerned that the Democrat mandates will eat up most, if not all, of this historic new revenue. These dollars should be directly allocated to the local level right to the classrooms to help students instead of placed into special pots of money restricting the way districts can use it.
The cons far outweighed the pros in this bill, and it was another situation where I was forced to vote no.
For more information on the PreK-12 Education bill, please read Saturday’s edition of the Albert Lea Tribune as I have submitted a column on it. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
LOCAL VISITORS
It was so nice to have Albert Lea Hope Church’s Pastor Kaleb Hurley and his wife, Kristy, join us in the House chamber this week.
Pastor Kaleb offered the opening prayer for the House. What an awesome prayer he gave! Many House members and even some staff commented on his great prayer. Thank you, Pastor Kaleb and Kristy, for joining us this week. I loved having you there!
It was also nice to see Cassie Kohn, a constituent and HR Specialist for the Owatonna Public School District, at the Capitol Thursday.
Cassie came to talk to me about school districts’ concerns over the many mandates in the House DFL education omnibus bill that will greatly affect the bottom line for schools. She also mentioned mandates and tax increases in other House omnibus bills, such as the Paid Family Leave bill and the .75 cent delivery tax in the transportation bill. All of these will cost school districts significant dollars taking away their ability to spend money where it counts - on students’ education. Thank you for coming and sharing from a local perspective, Cassie!
Have a good weekend,
Peggy