Dear Friends,
This week, the House Taxes Committee heard directly from the City of Albert Lea and the Shell Rock River Watershed District, who are jointly seeking legislative authorization to allow voters the choice to renew the existing 0.5% local sales tax.
Albert Lea City Manager Ian Riggs and SRRWD manager Andy Henschel were at the Capitol to explain their request. According to the city's proposal, the sales tax proceeds would go toward further area water improvement and regional projects.
To implement a local option sales tax like this, a city must secure special state legislative authority AND local voter approval. The bill I bought before the tax committee, at the request of the city, is seeking that legislative authority. If legislative consent is given, it will be up to local voters in November to ultimately approve or not approve the additional sales tax and projects.
As background, Albert Lea voters first approved the 0.5% local option sales tax to fund area water projects, including the dredging of Fountain Lake in 2005. It was approved again by voters in 2026.
ANTI-GROOMING LEGISLATION MOVES TO HOUSE FLOOR
On Monday, my legislation (HF3489) that seeks to prevent grooming in Minnesota’s schools is scheduled to be debated by the full Minnesota House. It was recently approved in the House Ways and Means Committee.
The legislation strengthens protection for students against sexual grooming by providing clear field trip supervision rules, improves mandatory reporting and mandated reporter training to include grooming, and creates a new felony penalty for grooming. It allows grooming of children and youth to become a more chargeable and recognizable offense.
I will be sure to keep you updated on how the final vote turns out.
In the meantime, MPR recently aired a report on my bill. From the article:
When state Rep. Peggy Bennett heard Hannah LoPresto’s story of surviving what a police investigation described as a “pattern of predatory grooming” by a former high school teacher, the Republican lawmaker from Albert Lea knew she had to do something.
“It really brought back memories for me from quite a few years ago,” Bennett told fellow legislators this month. “When I was a 10th grader in high school, I was groomed by my band director. And I just thought, ‘You know what? I think it’s time I tell my story too because I really haven’t shared it with many people.’”
Bennett worked with LoPresto to craft a bill addressing some of the gaps in Minnesota’s system meant to prevent misconduct, grooming and abuse in schools.
Click here to read the rest.
THIS WEEK’S COLUMN - WHO GETS TO DECIDE WHOSE VALUES GO INTO YOUR CHILD?
Just a couple weeks ago, in the Education Policy Committee, I brought forward my bill (HF3550) that would restore and clarify a local school district's authority over health education standards. It would allow local school districts to choose between state or locally developed health standards (or a combination thereof) rather than current law that will force every public school to eliminate locally developed health standards and adopt the statewide mandates.
Two years ago, an all DFL majority passed legislation that requires state government to develop statewide health standards for education. (It was one of the many elements within a huge omnibus bill.) It mandates that all schools implement those statewide standards beginning in the 2026-27 school year.
Sounds fairly benign, right? Well, it’s not.
There are many areas of near universal commonality in health education. For example, most people agree that schools should teach age-appropriate subjects such as menstruation, substance abuse, the harms of sex trafficking, exercise and healthy foods, and sexually transmitted diseases. These are typically not controversial and are subjects that parents and communities would expect their schools to teach for health education.
However, unlike other academic areas like reading and math, health education contains some subject areas that are sensitive and/or politically charged such as gender identity and sex education. These subjects deeply impact family values and the diverse cultures in our state. Forcing universal one-size-fits-all standards in these areas encroaches upon parental authority and has the likely potential of creating dissension and controversy between parents and schools that local educators do not want nor need.
One section of the new statewide health standards resides under the umbrella of Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE.) This includes mandating what and when to teach about aspects of human sexuality such as anatomy, gender identity, sexual orientation, consent, and more.
I have taken the time to study CSE in depth, including the textbooks recommendations of other states that have mandated CSE. I have some of those textbooks in my office. The specifics in these schoolbooks are eye-opening.
Who gets to decide about the teaching of masturbation? When and how? These textbooks teach it to children explicitly beginning in third or fourth grade. Another textbook tells children that, “You and only you get to decide when you will become sexually active.”
How about pornography? One recommended textbook tells 8th graders that, “Deciding to view pornography or not is no different than deciding whether to have bacon for breakfast.”
Everyone knows how harmful pornography is to the human brain, and especially child and adolescent brains!
These sensitive subject areas cannot be taught in a valueless void. It is impossible to do so. Someone’s values will be imposed upon our children. The important question here is, whose values? Who gets to decide whose values go into your child? Government bureaucrats or local control with parental, educator, and community input?
Allowing schools to choose between state or locally developed health standards rather than requiring automatic adoption of statewide mandates is a good compromise and the right thing to do. The choice my bill provides would allow for quality health standards that fit the needs of local communities.
Sadly, my bill failed to move out of committee on a 7 to 7 partisan tie vote.
I certainly hope that we can re-address this subject in the legislature next year. Parents, communities, and local school boards deserve to be the decision makers for health standards in their schools – not state bureaucrats sitting at a desk in St. Paul.
Please watch my closing bill comments for my here: https://youtu.be/Mg1GQg1UF9Q?si=BxmDCyx_BAQXtwd2
Have a good weekend,
Peggy