Dear Friends and Neighbors,
As second deadlines come to a close we are now ready to work on preparing omnibus bills. We will have a busy week of finalizing different policies and marking up the financial parts of budgets to ensure they are balanced and complete in addressing Minnesotans needs. This is also the time to bring forward any technical changes needed in the bills important to you. Speaking of bills, I was successful in getting two bills heard and passed in Civil Law Committee this week. SF 1332 This legislation contains two provisions, one provision ensures appeals related to child support good cause exemptions occur in a timely manner that does not require parents to choose between safety and receiving assistance needed to support themselves and their children, and the other provision enables district courts to transfer child support cases to tribal courts when certain requirements are met so that tribal families are not burdened with an unnecessarily complicated process when seeking to modify child support. Also SF 1333 This bill makes a number of technical and housekeeping corrections to statutes governing adoptions from foster care and transfers of permanent legal and physical custody, Northstar Care for Children, permanency, and the definition of foster care. It also makes a correction in the statute authorizing co-location of a foster child with their parent in a specially licensed or approved co-location substance use disorder facility by referencing tribally approved facilities in addition to licensed facilities.
Knowing that Minnesota now has a surplus rather than a deficit we still need to be fiscally vigilant with the taxpayers money, but that point will make our decisions more focused on the unique needs and flexibility versus straight up cuts which was our first reaction to the fact that we were possibly facing a deficit.
Let me know what your priorities are as this process moves forward! Many of you have already reached out and I am grateful for that as it helps guide the work that happens here in the Senate.
Stay in touch and stay safe everyone,
John
HHS
A bill was heard in the Human Services Reform Committee this week that would address Minnesota’s hunger crisis by increasing eligibility to Minnesota’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
Last year there was a record 3.8 million visits to food banks and food shelves. An estimated one in nine Minnesotans do not have enough to eat and many more report difficulty affording food and other basic needs. A steep rise in food insecurity is one of the many hardships to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic, hitting our children and seniors particularly hard, especially those in communities of color.
Many families make just over the current income limit, putting needed benefits out of reach. This proposal would also allow us to leverage more federal funding and put us in line with many other states who have already raised this cap. Raising the income limit to our state’s SNAP program to 200% of the federal poverty line is one way to help these families put food on the table and recover from this pandemic.
ENERGY
A bill heard this week in the Energy and Utilities Committee would provide relief to Minnesota consumers and the state’s municipal utilities after unprecedented spikes to the cost of natural gas caused energy bills to skyrocket during the February 2021 polar vortex.
The bill heard this week would establish an emergency loan account for municipal utilities that had to purchase extra gas for demand during the polar vortex; these loans would be issued with zero interest for up to five years. Another provision in the bill would establish a low-income assistance program to provide bill credits for low-income households to defray a portion of the elevated costs incurred during the arctic front. Eligible households include those who have received assistance from the federal Low-Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) between October 2019 and September 2021, any household that has participated in a payment agreement under the state’s cold weather rule or a budget billing plan, and any household that has either missed two or more utility payments or submitted two or more partial payments since October 2020.
The history of women’s rights & equality in Minnesota
Women in the United States gained suffrage in 1919 through the passing of the 19th amendment. In fact, the first vote by a woman in the U.S. was in South Saint Paul, Minnesota. In the century since, the Minnesota Legislature has continued to pass monumental bills for women’s rights and equality.
The 1970’s included a number of bills and amendments in the fight for women’s equality.
1973: Minnesota Legislature ratified the Equal Rights Amendment to the state Constitution.
1974: Roe v. Wade passed by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Minnesota Legislature passed laws to match the decision in order to decriminalize and legalize abortion
1975: Kahn Act provided equal opportunity for women in athletics
1977: Minnesota became the first state to provide funding for battered women’s shelters
1978: Affirmative Action passed to include “females” as a protected category
The Minnesota Legislature continued its work towards equal rights for women during the 1980s and 90s.
1982: Prohibition on Sexual Harassment
1985: Equity in Education Bill
1987: Parental Leave Act granted Minnesotan employees six weeks of leave after the birth or adoption of a child
1990: Legal requirements for employers to provide reasonable accommodations for those experiencing pregnancy or childbirth related disabilities.
1993: Minnesota Human Rights Act made Minnesota the first state to provide legal protections for those who are discriminated against based on sexual orientation. Notably, this Act provided specific protections for Transgender women, the first of its kind in the Nation
1995: Labor Education Advancement Program, otherwise known as LEAP, paved the way for women and minorities to enter into apprentice trades
In recent years, Minnesota has continued to support women through crucial legislation. In 2014, the Women’s Economic Security Act, of which I was one on the co authors of a bill included, provided key protections and support for women’s economic stability, worked to reduce the gender pay gap in Minnesota, and further protected women from workplace harassment and discrimination. In 2020, the marriage of minors was prohibited through legislation, repealing the previous law that allowed 16- and 17-year-old children to legally marry with the permission of a guardian.
Throughout Minnesota’s legislative history, women’s rights have been and continue to be a crucial component of the fight for equality.
MPCA press conference highlights widespread PFAS pollution in closed landfills across the state
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) held a press conference this week to discuss the emerging issue of PFAS contamination in closed landfills across the state. Legislators and environmental advocates joined for a press conference to highlight the widespread health and environmental impacts of PFAS contamination.
Recent monitoring and testing from the MPCA have found PFAS contamination in 98 out of 101 closed landfills in the state of Minnesota. 60 sites currently exceed the state’s health and safety guidelines, with 15 of those sites experiencing contamination exceeding guidelines by 10 times or greater. These sites are located across the entire state, in rural and metro communities alike. MPCA officials stated that limited resources and capacity have prevented them from testing groundwater in many areas surrounding closed landfills, so the full scope of the issue is not yet fully known.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a large family of man-made chemicals that are also considered “forever chemicals” because of their persistence in the environment. Minnesota was among the first states to identify PFAS pollution and has been a leader in studying the health effects and in responding to contamination. PFAS chemicals continue to be used in food packaging today and have been used in other products, including cookware and paint.
In 1994, the Minnesota Legislature created the Closed Landfill Program, which remains a one-of-a-kind program in the nation. The program is designed to maintain certain mixed municipal waste landfills over the long term and places the closed landfills under state control. The MPCA is requesting additional resources and flexibility to combat PFAS contamination originating in Minnesota’s closed landfills. Under current law, the MPCA cannot access the dedicated funding from the Closed Landfill Investment Fund (CLIF) without legislative action, unnecessarily delaying emergency containment and remediation efforts.
The Senate needs to work together to provide the necessary funding for tackling PFAS pollution head-on, as this is a statewide problem that could harm Minnesotans in every corner of the state. There are currently several DFL bills in the Senate related to understanding and combating PFAS pollution, but they have yet to receive a single committee hearing.
Thank You!
It is my greatest honor to represent you the citizens of Brooklyn Park, Champlin and Coon Rapids here at our great state capitol. In addition to representing you, I absolutely enjoy it when you come visit. You must schedule with our office to arrange an appointment before any arrival, and we also do Zoom meetings! So reach out and tell me what matters to you or schedule an appointment so I can continue working on your behalf. You can reach me by email at sen.john.hoffman@senate.mn or by phone at 651-296-4154. I am at 95 University Avenue Suite 2235 in the Minnesota Senate Building.
Sincerely,
Senator John Hoffman
If you have any questions or concerns feel free to call my office at 651-296-4154 or by e-mail at jhoffman@senate.mn
LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
As we get closer to the second deadline for legislation I wanted to provide you with an update on all that I have been working on. I have chief authored 34 bills this session and co-authored 179 which is the most out of any state senator. Of my chief authored bills, 23 bills or 67.6% have a Republican co-author making them bipartisan in writing and I am confident that an even higher percentage of my chief authored bills will receive bipartisan support when it comes for voting. Of my co-authored bills, 169 bills or 94.4% have at least one other co-sponsor that is either Independent or Republican. When combined, 90.1% of my bills are bipartisan. I am proud of the bipartisan support I have received thus far and I promise you and all my constituents that I will continue to reach across the aisle to put the needs of Minnesotans first. You can see the full list in detail here. Or if you want to explore more check out this link. To provide you all with some samples of what I’ve been working on, here are some of my favourite bills from this session.
I chief authored senate bill SF1961 that created school district requirements to provide reasonable accommodations for parents of children with disabilities. This bill also calls for training where the teachers and staff directly work with a student with a disability reviews accommodations policy to better adapt to the needs of the student. Additionally, this bill treats the request process for accommodations as private data to respect the privacy of individuals. My hope for this bill is that it will make the accommodations process for disabled students much easier to better their learning experience.
Another bill I chief authored was SF613 that required all school busses purchased after December 31, 2021, to include appropriate and safe seat belts. We require seat belts to keep us safe in cars so why wouldn’t we want seatbelts to keep our children safe when riding the school bus? With this bill, I hope to improve school bus safety so parents don’t need to worry about whether their children will arrive safely to school.
In a more localized approach, I chief authored SF385 which appropriates $2.25 million to design and construct a trail and pedestrian bridge along with associated lighting for the Coon Creek Regional Trail over Anoka county State-Aid Highway 1. This is in addition to SF612, another bill I chief authored for the appropriation of $1.25 million to the city of Champlin to acquire land along the Elm Creek Greenway Corridor to connect the trail to the Elm Creek Park Reserve. I hope that these two bills will make it easier for pedestrians to move about and to provide pedestrians and hikers with new green areas to enjoy nature.
Four new Regents chosen for University of Minnesota Board
The University of Minnesota will have four new Regents, including two additional women, after the House and Senate met this week to fill four positions up for re-election.
The 12-member board has eight seats representing Minnesota’s congressional districts and four at-large seats. The seats up this year were in Congressional Districts 1, 4, 6 and 7.
Regents elected were:
CD 1: Dr. Ruth Johnson (replacing Regent Randy Simonson, who did run for re-election)
CD 4: James Farnsworth (replacing Regent Richard Beeson who did not run for re-election)
CD 6: Kodi Verhalen (replacing Regent Michael Hsu who was defeated in his re-election bid)
CD 7: Doug Huebsch (replacing Regent Thomas Anderson who did not run for re-election)
James Farnsworth was the surprise election as he had not been forwarded to the full Legislature for re-election by the joint House and Senate Higher Education Committees and was nominated from the floor during the joint convention. He defeated Daryl Alkire and Karen Schanfield.
Johnson defeated Val Aarsvold; Verhalen defeated Hsu and Huebsch defeated Michael Yost.
Bipartisan bill to help dry cleaners is headed to the governor’s desk
A bill passed off the Senate floor this week would provide aid for cleaning up sites of former dry cleaners; it also establishes a ban on the use of perchloroethylene (perc) as a dry-cleaning solvent, which is a toxic air pollutant known to cause adverse health effects.
When dry cleaners shut down, the sites must undergo cleanup to remove traces of any toxic substances that may be lingering in the soil and air. The state’s Dry Cleaner Environmental Response and Reimbursement Account was created to provide financial assistance in these cleanup efforts, but recent years have left the account short of funds as fewer dry cleaners remain to pay into the account. The legislation passed this week would provide additional funds to assist in these efforts, and future priority for reimbursements from the account will be given to dry cleaner owners, which is a change from the fund’s first-come-first-serve model that previously allowed anyone doing site cleanup to have immediate access to the funds – regardless of whether or not they paid into the account.
The legislation also includes a future ban on the use of perc, which was commonly used as a dry-cleaning solvent until it was categorized as a likely carcinogen to humans and is known to cause damage to the kidneys, liver, and immune system. While most dry cleaners have already phased out their use of perc, between 20-22 dry cleaners in the state still use the solvent and will need to phase it out by Dec. 31, 2025. Funding in the bill is also provided to assist in making the switch because doing so can be an expensive endeavor for dry cleaners to pursue, especially as they already face financial hardship due to the pandemic.
The legislation passed the House and Senate unanimously and will be sent to Governor Walz for his signature. (SF 167)
EDUCATION
Legislation that would require 11th or 12th-grade high school students to take a for-credit course in citizenship and government before graduation was heard this week in the Senate’s E-12 Education Committee. The bill matches one that was included in the House Education Policy bill.
An advanced placement, international baccalaureate, or other rigorous courses on government or citizenship would also fulfill the new requirement. The new course would be part of the social studies standard requirements in state law. The bill also adds a personal finance course as a way to fulfill the social studies requirements. The Senate bill does not remove the requirement that students pass 30 of 50 citizenship test requirements once during high school. The test is not required for graduation and the test can be taken as often as a student would like. Civics education requirements have been discussed over the past few sessions with supporters pointing out that students need to have a basic understanding of democracy and the principles of American government.
LOCAL NEWS
Minnesota elementary teacher is chosen as the next Bachelorette
10 Candidates announced for the prestigious Mr. Basketball title
WWII Veteran weaves 400 hats for the Salvation Army during quarantine
Brooklyn Park Mayoral Candidates Square Off in Forum, Primary is April 13