Dear Friends and Neighbors,
I hope you had a great weekend! As of today, there are three weeks remaining in the 2021 regular legislative session in which bills must be negotiated and passed to fund all of state government for fiscal year beginning July 1, 2021. Because we are approaching the end of session, each day last week was focused on over ten hours on the House Floor debating the Democrat authored omnibus bills. Despite being packed with radical progressive policies, mandates, and tax increases, the Democrat majority voted the destructive bills off the House Floor nonetheless.
EQUITY IN EDUCATION FUNDING
Students in our community continue to be deprived educational opportunities because our schools have been at the bottom of the state’s per pupil education funding formula for years. The root cause of the funding inequity is the current formula that calculates funding is biased in favor of metro and suburban area school districts. This is why I’ve been fighting for equity in education funding my entire time in office including having chief authored HF 425 and HF 455 this term to help our children and schools.
I’m deeply frustrated the metro Democrat Chair of the House K-12 Education Finance Committee chose to once again ignore our community by not even giving bill hearings to either of my equity funding bills. When the Democrats brought their education omnibus bill to the full House Floor last week, I offered both of my HF 425 and HF 455 bills as amendments to the omnibus bill. The truth is many school districts across the state are in similar low funding positions as our community but only my Republican colleagues spoke up in favor of my amendments. Even more frustratingly, metro Democrat Chair Davnie voiced his strong opposition to my amendments and the Democrat majority defeated both of my amendments that would have helped our children, teachers, and great staff. I voted NO to the Democrat education bill.
While my bills and amendments were once again defeated by the metro-centric Democrat majority, I will not accept defeat and I will never stop fighting for our children!
Rep. Lucero and colleague Rep. Matt Grossell were among the invited speakers at the Child Protection League (CPL) conference last Saturday in Ham Lake. CPL is the leading group fighting statewide against the radical progressives seeking to indoctrinate the impressionable minds of our young children with sexual perversion, gender confusion, and grooming under the banner of Comprehensive Sexual Education (CSE).
PUBLIC SAFETY
As a member of the House Public Safety Committee, I’ve been forced to listen to hate-filled bias slander against law enforcement professionals this entire session. It was zero surprise the Democrat Public Safety omnibus bill runs counter to public safety, is hostile to law enforcement, and will inhibit the recruitment and retention of peace officers statewide while letting criminals off with lighter sentences than the court imposed and hiding their records from the public. Below are several provisions from the Democrat bill:
- Rewrites statutes to divert some violent criminals from prison, and reduces sentences and incarceration lengths, even for heinous crimes
- Hides criminal offenders’ sentences from the public, including from their victims
- Allows governing bodies that oversee a law enforcement agency to create a citizen oversight council, which could have broad powers over the agency and its peace officers with no requirement that members to have adequate knowledge of law enforcement procedures
COMMERCE / ENERGY
Minnesotans deserve affordable, reliable energy achieved by a multi-pronged approach that once helped our state enjoy some of the nation’s cheapest energy rates. Radical progressive policies now have made our state’s rates among the country’s most expensive. Democrats seek to go even further in the wrong direction by adding more costly mandates and prescriptive bureaucracy while limiting our energy options. Below are several provisions from the Democrat bill:
- Restricting the use of natural gas for home heating to reach a goal of reducing residential and commercial greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent in the next 15 years would cause home heating prices to spike and threaten energy reliability when it is needed most
- Mandating carbon-free electricity by 2040 will increase costs and make our electric grid more vulnerable to blackouts
- Setting the goal of making Minnesota net-zero for greenhouse gasses by 2050 will be used to justify the implementation of even more fringe-left policies such as the governor’s California Cars Mandates
- Rescinds a bipartisan deal to build a much-needed replacement power plant in Becker
- Expanding the wasteful, unnecessary community solar gardens program, which adds an estimated $50 to your electric bill every year and is expected to double in the next five years with no environmental gain
TAXES
Despite the fact Minnesota presently has a $4 billion projected surplus, Democrats are seeking to raise taxes by more than $1 billion and hold relief for businesses and workers hostage. Below are several provisions from the Democrat tax bill:
- Creates a brand-new 5th tier income tax, of 11.15%
- Would give Minnesota the 2nd highest income tax rate in the country and directly impact many businesses who have been hit hard during the pandemic
- Expands the corporate income tax, making Minnesota an outlier for business competitiveness
- Fails to fully exempt PPP by capping relief at $350,000. This means many businesses will still be taxed on forgiven PPP loans that were used to pay employees and keep their doors open during a difficult year.
Rep. Lucero and several of his legislative colleagues were on the speaking panel for the Convention of States Town Hall last Saturday in Clear Lake. There was a lot of energy from the crowd of more than 300 attendees. The Federal government is undeniably pulling our country down an unsustainable path with uncontrolled spending and blatant disregard for the 10th Amendment. Article V of the U.S. Constitution is a remedy our Founding Fathers gave the sovereign States to re-exert authority against an abusive Federal Government.
IMPEACHMENT
Several weeks back I wrote about my estimate of receiving well over a thousand communications from those concerned about Minnesota’s election integrity and how I share those concerns.
Secretary of State Steve Simon and Minnesota Second District Court Assistant Chief Judge Sara Grewing both violated the plain language of the United States Constitution as well as colluded together with Democracy Docket to provide the impression of legality to the consent decree issued in LaRose v. Simon. The actions of Secretary Simon and Judge Grewing disenfranchised the voters of every legally cast vote in Minnesota and violated equal protection rights guaranteed under the laws of Minnesota as well as Article I, Section 2, of the United States Constitution.
For these reasons, this past week I chief authored articles of impeachment against Secretary of State Steve Simon (linked here) in addition to the articles of impeachment I chief authored several weeks ago against Judge Sara Grewing (linked here).
One of the core responsibilities between the three branches of government (Executive Branch, Legislative Branch, and Judicial Branch) is checks & balances and impeachment is one of the tools of checks & balances given to us by our Founding Fathers as I continue fighting for election integrity.
STAYING IN TOUCH
Each and every day I’m continuously humbled at the opportunity to represent and fight for the values and priorities of our great community!
Please contact me to share any issues, concerns, or feedback you have to assist me best represent you. The best way to reach me is by email at Rep.Eric.Lucero@House.MN or by phone at 651-296-1534.
Sincerely,
Eric Lucero
State Representative
District 30B
Albertville, Hanover, Otsego, Saint Michael, and the Wright County portion of Dayton