A message from your Senator
Constituents and friends,
You’re all likely aware of what happened at our own Plymouth Middle School on Monday morning – a student took their father’s handgun to school and fired multiple gunshots into the ceiling of a hallway. Thankfully, no students or staff were hurt, and the student was detained safely, but it was a truly horrifying event for our community and the state as a whole.
Every time shots are fired in a school anywhere in the U.S., I think of our critical need for basic gun safety legislation in Minnesota, including universal background checks and “red flag” laws – and, more directly related to Monday’s events, our need for a safe storage law like the one that exists in Massachusetts, which would require that all firearms be stored with a lock in place and that locks must accompany both dealer and private firearm sales (and that anyone found in violation would be prosecuted and liable for any damages). Despite my Republican colleagues’ stated unwillingness to engage on these issues or even hold hearings in the Senate, we will continue to urgently push these initiatives both publicly and privately.
At the Capitol, we again debated Senate omnibus budget bills, in advance of the beginning of the conference committee negotiation process next week – in which small groups of legislators and executive branch staff will iron out the many differences between the House and Senate versions of each bill. The State Government & Elections, Health & Human Services, and Tax omnibus bills all passed the Senate this week, almost exclusively along party lines.
I voted against the Tax omnibus bill for several reasons, including its exclusion of full tax relief for unemployed Minnesotans (the federal government has allowed up to $10,200 in unemployment benefits received in 2020 to be excluded from taxes, while Minnesota has not matched that policy), and my Republican colleagues’ refusal to even discuss raising new revenue through increased taxes on our state’s wealthiest residents. As a result, our state’s serious needs in education, transportation, housing, healthcare, and more have not been addressed in any of the omnibus bills passed by the Senate over the last two weeks. In the video above, I discuss my experience as a business owner who represents one of Minnesota’s wealthiest areas – I know firsthand that we can properly fund schools, housing, healthcare, and more if we simply live into our abundance and prioritize them.
I voted against the State Government & Elections omnibus bill as well, which was a particularly controversial piece of legislation – it cuts several major department budgets and imposes provisional balloting in Minnesota. Provisional balloting is an attempt to make it harder to vote in our state, by eliminating same-day registration voting and creating a system of second-class ballots that go into a “maybe” pile and are less likely to be counted. The bill also seeks to ban cities from adopting Ranked Choice Voting for use in their own elections. Thankfully, we expect these issues to be neutralized during negotiations with the House and the Governor’s administration.
Finally, I voted against the Health & Human Services omnibus bill yesterday, which fails to address prescription drug prices, affordable health insurance, homelessness supports, and much more, while including a provision that seeks to impose medically-unnecessary and politically-motivated licensing on clinics that provide abortion care. In the video above, I speak in support of my own amendment to the bill, which would have deleted that licensing proposal altogether – as expected, it was voted down by the Republican majority, but not before I was lectured by some of my male colleagues, to which I took real offense.
In the video below, from the same Health & Human Services debate, I speak in support of Senator Marty’s amendment to fund a benefit and cost analysis of a potential universal healthcare program in Minnesota. Senator Marty has been working on universal healthcare issues since he was first elected to the Senate in the late 1980s, and is a true expert in the field – he is the author of the Minnesota Health Plan, which is an extremely-detailed proposal for statewide, single-payer health insurance. It’s clear that our current system of health insurance simply isn’t affordable and useful for many, many Minnesotans (especially the hundreds of thousands of residents who are uninsured), and as a small-business owner with extensive experience in selecting and providing health insurance for my employees, I believe Senator Marty’s proposals are extremely promising and deserve formal analysis by the state government.
Community News & Events
Hopkins High School’s Layne Bell, a language arts teacher in the Hopkins Achievement Program, was named one of nine finalists for Minnesota Teacher of the Year this week! We’re lucky to have such outstanding educators in Senate District 44.
Minnesota led the country with a census self-response rate of 75.1 percent of households – and Hennepin County was even higher, at 79.4 percent! We played a large role in Minnesota holding onto its eighth Congressional seat.
COVID-19 Hotlines
- Hotline for health questions: 612-201-3920 or 1-800-657-3903 (staffed 6 am to 8 pm daily)
- Hotline for school and childcare questions: 651-297-1304 or 1-800-657-3504 (staffed 7 am to 7 pm daily)
- Questions for workers and employers: 651-259-7114 or 800-657-3858
- Hotline if you experience or witness bias and/or discrimination: 1-833-454-0148 (staffed Monday-Friday 8 am to 4:30 pm)
Please don’t hesitate to contact me at any time with input, questions, or concerns!
