Hello from the State Capitol,
On Thursday, Democrats finally decided to come back to work, ending their boycott of the Minnesota House as both their leadership and Republicans agreed to several operational provisions for the 2025 and 2026 sessions. They include having a Republican House speaker for both sessions, and a new committee - that will have a Republican majority - that will investigate fraud within state government.
In the short term, Republicans will hold a minimum of a one-seat advantage on all House committees, at least until a special election is held for a Metro Area House seat that is currently unoccupied. This means around six weeks – at minimum - of a Republican agenda moving forward in the Minnesota House.
This Democrat shutdown cost Minnesota taxpayers nearly $220,000. It was senseless political posturing and now the Legislature will be in catch-up mode for the rest of session. There’s a state budget to set and rampant fraud to stop. The time for talking has ended, the time for work has begun.
MOVING MINNESOTA FORWARD
Prior to this news, Republicans had been taking part in meetings in order to hit the ground running when House Democrats chose to show up at the Capitol.
This week in our Energy Finance and Policy working group, we began looking at ways to fix the Democrats’ climate overreach. Clean carbon fuel standards and greenhouse gas mitigations were among the topics discussed.
In our transportation working group, Xcel Energy, Great River Energy, Minnesota Power and a representative from the Data Center Coalition joined us. Opportunities exist to expand power. The fact of the matter is, if a company chooses to do business here it will get energy reliability from all forms - including a great number of fossil fuels. Transmission reliability and all energy sources need to be included to create a good environment for businesses and people’s livelihoods.