Dear Neighbor,
As you may know, the veto of three bills by Gov. Mark Dayton has created a need for a special session.
This is unfortunate. House Republicans and Senate Democrats were able to come to an agreement on all eight budget bills this year and finished the regular session on time. Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, D-Cook, said this was the most bipartisan session in his memory (he was elected in 1994).
However, despite the bipartisan cooperation in passing bills that both the DFL Senate and Republican House approved, Gov. Dayton chose to veto three of the eight budget bills: education, agriculture and environment, and jobs and economic development.
The biggest sticking point seems to be around the education bill, where Gov. Dayton is holding out for his universal 4-year-old preschool program, under which every four year old in the state would be eligible for universal public preschool.
It was a pleasure to meet with Dr. Art Rolnick this week. Dr. Rolnick is a former Federal Reserve Senior Vice President and nationally recognized expert on early childhood education. He supports the House Republican plan of scholarships that gave parents a choice between private and public preschool options, unlike the governor's universal, public-only approach. In an opinion piece penned in February, Rolnick states: "...for some reason, the Dayton Administration is now proposing to take a much less effective and much more costly approach."
Dr. Rolnick is not the only opponent to the governor's plan. Numerous school board members and school district representatives have testified that they do not have the physical classroom space to start the governor's program, especially after last year's introduction of all-day kindergarten.
House Republicans will continue to fight for the proven strategy of scholarships that is supported by Dr. Rolnick.
I am hopeful the governor will relent soon, and with a minimum of changes make the compromises necessary to call us back for a short, one-day special session to repass the bills that he vetoed.
Have a good weekend,
Jim Knoblach