Dear Friends,
This week I introduced once again my bill from last session to increase the accountability of the Met Council. My bill, HF752 is a bill with more nearly three dozen co-authors including more than a dozen of my DFL colleagues to stagger the terms of the Metropolitan Council members.
Under current law, the Governor has the authority to replace all of the Met Council members upon taking office. That can result in dramatic, fast-moving changes for this incredible powerful agency, and leaves policy decisions at the Met Council to a select group of people who all have relatively similar political beliefs.
Staggered terms would mean increased institutional memory, and bring a little more balance to the Met Council. As the Governor's office changes parties from Democrat to Republican and back again, there would be Democrats and Republicans both able to serve on the council instead of being replaced by representatives of one single party every four or eight years.
MinnPost wrote a great article about the bipartisan desire to reign in the Met Council, which you can read by clicking here.
Commissioner Salary Update
The DFL-controlled Senate voted yesterday to suspend the Governor's pay raises for six months. The House is planning to take action on the more than $800,000 in taxpayer-funded salary increases next week.
Meanwhile, the Governor has remained insistent that he supports the pay increases for his commissioners, which I think is simply out of touch with what most Minnesotans expect. We want our commissioners to be paid fairly, but it's inappropriate to be increasing salaries by as much as the Governor did without any sort of public approval or input.
Most Minnesotans I've talked to agree that the pay increases are way out of line, and do not support the increases of up to $35,000.
Have a great weekend,
Mark