The following article by Patty Dexter was posted on the Eden Prairie News website May 29, 2018:
The 2018 legislative session ended on Sunday, May 20.
The newspaper contacted Sen. Steve Cwodzinski for a Q&A reviewing the session
I love going to work at the Capitol and working with all the amazing people there, so in that sense it was great. However, I feel like we had a lot of missed opportunities. No action was taken on gun-violence prevention or distracted driving. Legislation on opioid abuse and elder care could have passed unanimously, but instead they were included in a 990-page document that the governor had promised to veto. Our state constitution has a single-subject clause stating that a bill can only be about one issue. Following our constitution may have led to a more successful session.
What is included in this year’s bonding bill that will affect Eden Prairie residents?
- Legislation to allow the city of Eden Prairie to access funds appropriated last year for a railroad quiet zone and a new crossing near the high school. This was purely a technical fix without any additional cost.
- $10 million to the Metro Parks and Trails, administered by the Met Council (ask was $15 million).
- $15.073 million to move the Hennepin County Regional Medical Examiner’s facility to a location near Glen Lake, just north of Highway 62.
- Not directly related to Eden Prairie, but Fort Snelling received $15 million for a new visitor center (ask was $30 million) and $8 million for asset preservation (ask was $10 million). This was done just in time for the project to be ready by its bicentennial in 2020.
- A proposal for a new SouthWest Transit bus garage did not make it into the bill. The request made was $6 million.
The Eden Prairie City Council plans to send a letter to legislators asking them to address gun violence while protecting the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun owners. Do you believe their concerns about gun violence were addressed this legislative session? Would you support legislation to address gun violence?
I agree with the original resolution that the Eden Prairie City Council drafted on gun-violence prevention, and I do not believe the concerns mentioned in it were addressed by the Legislature. I co-authored a bill on universal criminal background checks, one on gun-violence protection orders, and one on banning bump stocks. None of these bills received a single public hearing in the Senate. I am an ardent supporter of gun-violence prevention legislation, and I hope that we can circle back to this issue next session. Our children’s futures depend on it.
Why was the leadership uninterested passing the hands-free bill cellphone bill?
All I can say is that I support the legislation. It was a shame that this was never brought to a vote in the Senate.
How do you feel about Gov. Mark Dayton vetoing the tax bill and the spending bill?
I agree with the governor’s decision to veto the tax bill. If it had become law, multinational corporations would see huge tax breaks at the expense of our public schools. I agree with the governor’s decision to veto the spending bill. It had a lot of good bipartisan provisions, such as requiring a course in civics for all Minnesota high school students; however, there were also some exceptionally controversial items.