Dear Neighbor, We’re in the home stretch of session, and it is busy. We recently passed around 14 bills off the House floor in a single day. That’s the most since 1994. These are truly good bills that are sailing through on their own merits instead of being tucked inside 1000-page omnibus bills. It’s been a weirdly refreshing development in this era of hyper-partisan politics and a tied House. One bill (H.F. 4425) we passed with broad, bipartisan support extends the statute of limitations for fraud from six years to 10 years. The bill gives prosecutors more time to investigate complex fraud schemes and ensures that those who steal from taxpayers cannot escape accountability by waiting out the clock. We’ve seen a lot of fraud going on in Minnesota and looking back they keep on finding more and more, so we want to make sure the statute of limitations allows us to prosecute fraud for a longer period of time. It is one step toward restoring accountability in Minnesota. Another strong bill to recently pass the House gets rid of an old, obsolete rule that said advanced practice registered nurses must have 2,080 hours of supervised collaboration with a physician. This was a pointless regulation that only made it harder and more expensive to find care. The 'supervision' was literally just a physician's name on the paperwork, nothing more. That doesn't increase quality or safety for patients. There are too few physicians in primary care to deal with the volume of Minnesotans with chronic disease. APRNs are highly trained and capable of treating medical cases commonly seen in primary care. Hopefully, we can keep passing individual bills so the public can know what’s going on and we resist the urge to shove everything into one nasty omnibus and shove that through the process. That’s not how the legislature is supposed to work. Sincerely, Nolan |