Dear Neighbor,
Budget bills were the main emphasis at the Capitol this week. I am expecting the Tax Bill, which will include the House plan for conforming with the recent federal tax changes, will be released in the next few days.
All the budget bills for individual committees except Bonding and Taxes should have passed out of their committees to Ways and Means by the end of today.
There are a significant number of bills I have authored that are part of these bigger budget bills:
1) The Transportation Finance bill contains three provisions I have chief authored:
2) The Education Finance bill contains three provisions I have chief authored:
3) The Jobs and Economic Development bill contains two provisions I have chief authored:
4) The Environment bill contains language I chief authored to save Minden, Haven and other townships money by limiting the wastewater and storm sewer (MS4) environmental work now required to only the urbanized areas of those townships, instead of the entire township. This bill is supported by the cities, townships and MPCA;
5) The Public Safety bill contains language I chief authored that would prevent video and audio recording of victims and defendants in courtrooms being available to the media unless all parties consented. This has long been our policy in Minnesota, but there have been recent efforts to bring cameras into courtrooms, which I think would discourage testimony and otherwise make the justice finding job of the courts more difficult. Courts are open to the public, but victims in particular shouldn't have to relive their trauma on the nightly news and have their testimony on the internet forever.
I am pleased with the progress we are making on the above bills. Once these bills presumably pass the Ways and Means Committee next week they will go to the House floor, and then on to a conference committee to resolve differences with the Senate, then hopefully gain approval of the Governor. There is a lot of work still ahead, but I believe this is shaping up to be another very successful session.
Please continue to contact me with your thoughts and concerns. My apologies to those who may not have received a personal email back from me recently if you have contacted me, but it has been extraordinarily busy. I do read the constituent emails I receive.
Sincerely,
Jim