Tag: Minnesota laws

New Minnesota Laws In Effect In July Target Wage Theft, Marital Rape, Opiates

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Starting July 1, Minnesotans who rape their spouses finally can be charged with sexual assault. Wage theft becomes a crime. And drug manufacturers will help shoulder the costs of the opioid epidemic.

Those are some new Minnesota laws taking effect July 1 along with the state’s new $48 billion budget.

Minnesota will have what sponsors say is the country’s toughest wage theft law. It comes down hard on employers who cheat workers by making it a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. An estimated 39,000 Minnesotans annually are victims of wage theft in some form.

View the complete June 23 article on the WCCO TV website here.

New Minnesota Laws Effective July 1, 2017

The following information was supplied by the Minnesota House of Representatives:

The following is a list of select new laws passed during the 2017 regular and special legislative sessions that take effect July 1, 2017. The asterisk following the bill number denotes the language that became law. Summaries of all laws passed by the 2017 Legislature in regular and special sessions are available online from nonpartisan House Public Information Services at http://www.house.mn/newlaws/#/ search/2017.

AGRICULTURE

New law includes money designated for plant pests, noxious weeds

Sponsored by Rep. Rod Hamilton (R-Mountain Lake) and Sen. Torrey Westrom (R-Elbow Lake), the omnibus agriculture finance law appropriates more than $120 million from the General Fund during the upcoming biennium to fund the Department of Agriculture ($106.24 million), Board of Animal Health ($10.87 million) and Agricultural Utilization Research Institute ($7.58 million).

The Department of Agriculture appropriation includes money designated to expand capabilities for the rapid detection, identification, containment, control and management of high priority plant pests and pathogens, as well as grants to local units of government responding to noxious weed threats. Continue reading “New Minnesota Laws Effective July 1, 2017”