Dear Neighbors,
We have 27 days until adjournment of the 2016 session and have a long road ahead of us to complete our work. I’d like to take a moment to update you on few legislative items of importance for our community and state.
State Budget Targets
The Republican House Majority released their budget targets earlier this month. Spending targets are established for each budget area and set the tone for the House Majority’s priorities. Unsurprisingly, it is a very severe and limited proposal with little or no changes at all to a number of specific areas of state funding. With a $900 million surplus, House Republicans are promising that half will be dedicated to transportation funding, and the other half will be go toward tax cuts.
One of the most striking areas of spending was a $0 budget target for any sort of education funding compared to the Senate’s target of $48.2 million for E-12 funding alone and the Governor’s $77 million. The Senate and Governor have also prioritized Higher Education by establishing targets of $47.7 and $56 respectively.
Last week each finance committee put together and debated their “omnibus” bills –a compilation of selected and prioritized bills heard previously in recent committee hearings and are chosen by committee chairs in each subject area: Public Safety; Health and Human Services and Environment, to name a few. Now that these omnibus bills have passed through the committee process, most of our time shifts to the House floor for debate on these bills.
In the past, the House has examined and debated each omnibus bill one at a time, allowing us to focus on each policy and spending area in turn. However this year, the House Republicans have decided to combine omnibus bills into 3 “mega” omnibus bills with the following subject groupings: Agriculture, Environmental and Jobs; Public Safety, Health and Human Services, and State Government Finance; and Higher Education and E-12 Education.
Last night, the House GOP presented their mega omnibus education bill. That bill includes a requirement that students take and pass the test used by the U.S. Immigration service for citizenship as a new civics education requirement. Believing that civics should be more about an engaged citizenry than a standardized test I offered an amendment requiring school districts to provide a voter registration card to students able to vote in the upcoming election. I was disappointed that there was no allowance for a healthy debate; House Republicans blocked my amendment stopping any discussion or vote.
We had opportunities to invest in our earliest learners, help families who cannot afford the growing cost of pre-school, fund special education needs, or doing something to address the student debt crisis. Unfortunately instead we passed a bill with no new funding. This is a big missed opportunity to invest in our future.
Addressing Racial Disparities
The Governor and Senate remain committed to addressing racial disparities and inequalities by establishing ‘Equity’ as its own separate budget spending category. The Governor’s target is set at $100 million and the Senate target is $91 million. There has been little to no action in the House on this issue even when we initially had the opportunity to do so during the 2015 special session. I was hopeful and tried to remain optimistic that House Republican leadership would reconsider this year when we still had a healthy surplus of $900 million and good legislative proposals began to roll out such as the Women of Color Opportunities Act and the Minnesota New American Integration Act. But instead, the House Majority chose to ignore a serious racial and socio-economic issue that hurts not only our community but our state. Actions speak louder than words; the Equity budget category was given a $0 target.
Last week, several House colleagues and I sent a letter to the Speaker Daudt requesting him to consider at least a $50 million minimum Equity target. We pointed to specific statistics and data as evidence of this epidemic; the rise in poverty from 30.5% and 34.7% between 2013 and 2014 among Black Minnesotans and the fall of median income by 14% in that same year. Today many of us, joined by community partners, held a press conference to again ask the House leadership to prioritize tackling the racial disparities in our state. My colleagues and I have yet to receive any official response from the House Republicans.
Presidential Primary Legislation Update
A bill to establish a Presidential Primary has moved through various committees and now sits in the Ways and Means Committee, which deals with finance bills and is the last stop before going to the House Floor for a full vote. The bill, HF 3549, has an estimated price tag of approximately $5-6 million once every six years and requires the Presidential Primary to use the same process for general primaries in Minnesota. There are a few exceptions to this rule, one significant exception being that it would be up to each major political party to determine specifically how the Presidential Primary shall bind the selection of delegates to the national party convention.
We anticipate a long week ahead debating final omnibus bills on the House Floor. A compromise on taxes, transportation and bonding will have to be determined in 4 weeks or we will again be at an impasse for this year.
Please always feel free to share your input on any issue that faces our community and state. I look forward to hearing from you and can be reached at 651-296-0173 or by email at rep.jim.davnie@house.mn.
Sincerely,
Jim Davnie
State Representative