Dear Neighbors,
I hope you all are having a good week and staying warm! Last Saturday, Senator Torres Ray, Representative Wagenius and I held our first town hall for this session. Thank you to all who attended! I was particularly pleased at the number of people who came who hadn’t attended one of our events before. It was a great opportunity to hear from you and gain your input. There are many things going on at the legislature, so I wanted to give a few updates. Please reach out if you have questions or concerns.
Black History Month
Every month we need to remember to center underrepresented voices in our communities. This month serves as a reminder that it is important to honor African Americans in America and their history, and to uplift their voices. Minnesota has some of the worst racial disparities in the country; it is clear that we must do better. I’m glad that the DFL has put equity as central to all we are doing this year.
Black Caucus
Reps. Rena Moran, Hodan Hassan, Ruth Richardson, and Mohamud Noor, and Sens. Bobby Joe Champion and Jeff Hayden announced the formation of the United Black Legislative Caucus as part of Black History Month. The goals of the caucus will be to elevate and advocate for issues relating to Minnesota's Black communities. I’m glad our legislature has become more diverse so our elected leaders reflect and can advocate for the underrepresented voices throughout the state.
Racially restrictive covenants
Appropriately aligned with Black History Month, the first bill to pass on the House Floor was my HF 51.
The bill addresses the racist housing history in Minnesota by allowing homeowners to formally renounce racially restrictive covenants on their home titles. Restrictive covenants were used in the past to prevent minority communities from moving into residential neighborhoods and are common in our areas of Minneapolis. They were legal until 1948, but the language of restrictive covenants still exists on many houses. The bill would allow homeowners to attach an affidavit to their home title repudiating the racist language, but it would not remove the language form the title in order to allow for future research on the impacts of racist housing policies.
As the chief author of the bill and as a homeowner of a house with racial covenants, I am thrilled the bill received unanimous support. I hope that the Senate will now hear the bill and pass it as well.
Read the Star Tribune’s coverage of the topic here.
Helping People out of the Payday Lending Trap
My bill had a public hearing in the Jobs and Economic Development Finance Division on Tuesday. HF 367would deliver grant funding to support the nonprofit, Exodus Lending, which helps people by paying off their payday loans upfront and allows them to pay off the debt interest free, in installments over one year. Payday loans are marketed as “quick-fix solutions” to financial emergencies and usually range from $200 to $500, but people are almost always forced to take out additional loans to cover the high interest rates.
The bill was held over for possible inclusion in a larger omnibus bill. I’ll keep you posted on its progress.
Wage Theft
Minnesota workers deserve to take home every wage and benefit earned for their time worked. But each year, more than 39,000 workers face wage theft by their employers, resulting in millions in lost wages overall. For this reason, my colleagues and I are working to prohibit employers from denying wages and benefits to their employees. One of our top ten bills introduced this session addresses this issue, and it received a hearing on Wednesday. Much of the wage theft is a result of discrimination, which is another inequity gap we need to work on closing. This bipartisan bill is one step in the right direction.
National School Counseling Week
This week is National School Counseling Week. Our Minnesota school counselors impact students’ lives every day, and we are grateful to them this week and every week! When you see your school counselor around, be sure to thank them for all of their hard, important work!
School Safety
School safety is more than just locks on doors, bullet proof glass and security cameras. Tuesday’s shooting of the Minneapolis school bus driver is yet another example of the senseless gun violence we seeing all too often. Preventative measures have been introduced at the Legislature, such as ‘red flag’ bills, which would do more to keep guns out of the hands of people who may be dangerous to themselves or others. While we don’t know if such a provision would have prevented Tuesday’s incident, Minnesotans deserve to be safe in schools, on public transit, places of worship, and all public spaces. I’ll keep working to ensure we can pass these common sense bills to keep everyone safe.
I’m always available to you for any questions or concerns. You can reach me at 651-296-0173 orrep.jim.davnie@house.mn.
Sincerely,
Jim Davnie
State Representative