Dear Neighbors,
Early this morning the House moved to adjourn until April 14th, but not before we voted to set aside emergency funding for a COVID response. The House and Senate will meet in floor and committee sessions on an on-call basis through April 14. During this time period, the Legislature will only take up legislation on the House and Senate floors by agreement of the House DFL, House GOP, Senate DFL and Senate GOP caucus leaders
Emergency COVID-19 investment in health care system
We stayed up past midnight last night to pass SF 4334, providing $200 million in investments for the health care response fund and Minnesota’s public health response contingency account. Above all we have a duty to provide our health care system with everything it needs to get us through this safely. The bill provides $150 million to the Minnesota Department of Health to make grants to eligible providers for costs related to managing COVID-19. As a condition of accepting a grant, the provider must agree not to bill uninsured patients for the cost of COVID-19 screening, testing, or treatment. If a patient is out-of-network, the provider must agree to accept the median network rate as payment in full. The additional $50 million is appropriated to the public health response contingency account, which allows MDH to make flexible payments throughout our healthcare system where needed.
Governor signs orders temporarily closing certain public spaces & improving Minnesota’s unemployment insurance
Late yesterday, Gov. Walz signed Executive Order 20-04 to order the temporary closure of Minnesota restaurants and bars to dine-in customers. He also ordered the temporary closure of other places of public accommodation and amusement, including theaters, museums, fitness centers, and community clubs. Take-out and drive-thru options are still available.
Gov. Walz also signed Executive Order 20-05 to strengthen Minnesota’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund and ensure that workers who are not able to work as a result of COVID-19 have benefits available. Specifically, this Executive Order will waive the employer surcharge and allow the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development to pay unemployment benefits immediately, providing fast relief to employees who need it. If your employment has been affected by COVID-19 please visit this site.
Business not as usual
Some of you are probably wondering how the legislature, itself, is adapting to the Covid-19 outbreak. Most of us are here, on-call in our offices, in case we’re called to the floor to enact emergency legislation related to the pandemic. We have adopted special seating arrangements in the House Chamber to abide by the Minnesota Dept of Health’s “social distancing” recommendation that everyone maintain six feet of separation between ourselves and others – my temporary seat is in the balcony, which gives me a birds-eye view of the proceedings:
To maintain separation between members, only desks marked with an “A” are being occupied on the floor, itself:
Ordinarily, this would be the busiest week of the legislative calendar. This coming Friday was the announced date of the “first deadline”, the date by which all policy-related bills must pass all their legislative committees in at least one chamber to stay alive for the session. By the following Friday, the 27th, they would have had to pass all their committees in both the House and the Senate. All committee meetings have been cancelled for this week, with very few bills having met their first deadline requirements, so the deadlines will have to be renegotiated.
We really can’t pass laws without public hearings – and you wouldn’t want us to – so it’s hard to envision a scenario where most of the policy work that we had intended to accomplish this year doesn’t have to wait until next year. This means i will personally have to postpone legislation related to healthcare pricing (including drug pricing), housing affordability, consumer data privacy and state information technology management reform. Ultimately all of our effort must focus on a response to COVID-19 and this legislation, while important, must wait until another time.
With respect to the House majority’s Minnesota Values Project priorities, we still hope to pass our paid sick leave bill – the need for which ought to be obvious right now. We have already passed our Paid Family Medical Leave bill and our gun violence prevention bills, which await action in the State Senate.
We are working to devise a means by which we might hold online committee hearings to take testimony, but we will still have to meet in person, in public, to discuss bills and vote. The current situation is unprecedented, and so we’re inventing new ways to conduct our business as we go.
Access to the State Office Building were the House offices are located has been restricted to “by appointment only”:
Constituent group “Days at the Capitol” are being cancelled and almost all constituent and stakeholder group meetings are being held as conference calls or webinars. I’ve asked that all House members be provided with a dedicated conference call capability so that we can continue to hold group discussions. In the meantime, call my office to request an appointment to talk on the phone (651-296-7803).
Keep in Touch
Now more than ever please contact me anytime with questions, input, or ideas. Don’t hesitate to reach out if I can provide any assistance. This situation is evolving constantly and I will be sure to update you with any changes.
Thanks for the honor of representing you at the Capitol.
Sincerely,
Steve Elkins
Representative, District 49B
Minnesota House of Representatives
515 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St. Paul, MN 55155
(651) 296-7803