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Legislative News and Views - Rep. Jim Davnie (DFL)

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Legislative Update- January 17, 2019

Thursday, January 17, 2019

Dear Neighbors,

Last week marked the start of the 2019 Minnesota Legislative Session and I am honored to be serving another term as your State Representative. As we embark upon the next two years at the State Capitol, I’m committed to serving in a way that reflects our shared values, and delivering solutions which give everyone a true opportunity to succeed.

This session, I’m pleased to share I will be serving as the Chair of the Education Finance Division. I’ve also been appointed to the Jobs and Economic Development Finance Division and the Ways and Means Committee. I’m looking forward to a productive and highly functional legislative session under the leadership of our new Speaker of the House, Melissa Hortman.

Our state is in a good position, but to keep Minnesota headed in the right direction, we have to invest in the things that have made Minnesota such an excellent place to start with. Education is a key component to our success. We’ve long prided ourselves on having world class schools, but our achievement and opportunity gaps persist. All Minnesota students and families deserve a world class education system and support services, and I’m committed to fully funding our schools and these programs and working to dismantle barriers to student success. In fact, of the first 10 bills my DFL colleagues and I have introduced, HF 2 delivers direct mental health, community and housing support to students and families. We are also prioritizing increasing the number of teachers of color to reflect more of what students in the classrooms look like.

On Wednesday last week, the House DFLers unveiled the Minnesota Values Agenda, which will lay the groundwork for our commitments made to Minnesotans. Our agenda focuses largely on making affordable and quality health care a reality for everyone, providing a world-class education for every Minnesotan, improving economic outcomes for families, and ensuring safe and inclusive communities. You can find more information about the Minnesota Values Agenda here.

COMMITTEES & LEGISLATION

These first few weeks of the legislative session are largely made up of overviews of issues and state agencies in committees. That will begin to change next week as committees schedule bills for hearings.  My first bill hearing of the session is Tuesday.  It is on HF 51, a response to the racially restrictive covenants that many of us in South Minneapolis have on our home titles and are an important element to the housing segregation we see in our city. While the covenants no longer have any force of law they still are a moral injury to the current homeowner. I’ve worked with Mapping Prejudice from the University of Minnesota on developing the proposal.

STAY INFORMED

With a great deal of work ahead of us, I encourage you to follow the happenings at the State Capitol throughout the session. The House Public Information Services Office offers streaming video of floor and committee hearings. TPT’s Minnesota Channel also televises legislative proceedings Monday through Friday, and a schedule is available here. Please also encourage your neighbors to sign-up for these updates, too, which they can do here.

I can most effectively advocate for our community with input from constituents, so I hope you’ll feel free to reach out to me anytime to share your ideas and feedback. Please feel free to call me at 651-296-0173 or email me at rep.jim.davnie@house.mn. It’s an honor to represent you at the State Capitol.

Sincerely,

Jim Davnie

State Representative