Dear Neighbors,
With the 2016 Legislative Session just around the corner, I’d like to invite you to a Town Hall Meeting next Thursday, February 18 at 7:00 p.m. at the Roseville Library. Along with Sen. John Marty and Rep. Alice Hausman, I look forward to hearing about your ideas and priorities for the coming session, as well as answering any questions you may have about what to expect.
WHAT: Town Hall Meeting with Rep. John Lesch, Rep. Alice Hausman, and Sen. John Marty
WHEN: Thursday, February 18 from 7:00-8:30 p.m.
WHERE: Ramsey County Library - Roseville (in the Community Room), 2180 Hamline Ave N, Roseville
Much unfinished business remains from 2015, and I hope we can make progress this year on items such as a comprehensive transportation bill, increased opportunities for our youngest learners by expanding pre-K availability, and property tax relief for homeowners, renters, and seniors. In 2016 we will also consider a bonding bill to make capital investments in state infrastructure at our higher education institutions, parks and trails, and public safety facilities, to name a few. St. Paul is home to a few of the investments proposed for inclusion in the bonding bill including the Como Zoo Habitat Preservation Exhibit Renovation – which includes the long overdue renovation of the Sparky the Sea Lion exhibit – reconstruction of the Third Street bridge, and the Science Museum of Minnesota Building Preservation project. I'm grateful to Gov. Dayton for including each of these in his bonding proposal.
With the session projected to be so short – just 10 weeks – things at the Legislature will likely move at a fast pace, so it’s important to for me to get as much input from the community as possible before we get started on March 8. I hope you can join us.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to discuss some of the items I have been working on that will lead to strong policy that can be passed during the coming session:
Revenge Porn
Last summer I convened the End Revenge Porn Working Group with the goal of crafting a bill which will put a stop to the practice of disseminating a photo or video of someone, often a former partner, and often sexual or intimate in nature, in order to harass and intimidate them. This policy is necessitated by a Minnesota Court of Appeals decision which struck down the state criminal defamation statute as too broad. This statute had been used in Isanti County to prosecute an individual who posted sexually explicit ads online which purported to be from his ex-girlfriend and her daughter.
The working group members have a broad range of knowledge and expertise, including experts on the topic from other states, other legislators, prosecutors, defense attorneys, civil liberties experts, and advocates for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. It’s important to have such a diverse number of perspectives at the table so we can craft a law which can both provide justice to victims of revenge porn and can pass close constitutional scrutiny. With the working group getting a great deal of work done prior to session, I hope we can get our bill passed even with the short session.
#TakeCTRL Campaign
Last month I joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers to introduce a package of six bills aimed at protecting student, employee and personal data privacy. The announcement in Minnesota was one of 16 taking place simultaneously in other states as advocates rolled-out similar legislation as part of the #TakeCTRL campaign, named after the Twitter hashtag advocates are using.
A recent poll conducted by Anzalone Liszt Grove Research found that 90 percent of Americans believed (73 percent of them strongly) that the next president should “make protecting privacy so we have more control over our personal information” a policy priority. I agree with the majority of these respondents, but we cannot wait for the President or Congress to act. The right to privacy is a fundamental American value and, if need be, the states are willing to take the lead in protecting that right. I wrote a column for the Pioneer Press about this topic; I encourage you to check it out.
Nordic Model/Safe Harbor for Adults
Last session I introduced a bill, HF 2355, to extend Minnesota’s Safe Harbor Act to adults. The Safe Harbor Act addresses children exploited for commercial sex as victims rather than criminals. My bill would remove the age limit, and this approach, known as the “Nordic model” or “Swedish model,” in effect puts the attention of law enforcement where it should be: on the buyers and traffickers of human beings for sex, rather than their victims. It decriminalizes prostituted people, while continuing to penalize the perpetrators. An evaluation report of the Safe Harbor program conducted by Wilder Research last year recommended this approach.
The Safe Harbor program has been tremendously successful by providing sexually exploited youth services such as crisis management, health care, legal assistance and housing, and has included funding for law enforcement training and outreach. While we have a great deal of work to do to end the practice of sex trafficking, extending these protections to adults has been proven around the world, and would be a great step forward to protect women and girls.
In closing, I hope you will remain in touch before, during, and after session with your questions and comments about issues at the Legislature, or if I can ever be of assistance. I look forward to a productive legislative session which will build an economy that works for all Minnesotans.
Sincerely,
John Lesch
State Representative