Dear Neighbor,
It’s been a rather busy week in St. Paul, especially with House committees at full steam after House Democrats ended their shutdown at 23 days and finally showed up for work.
Most of our efforts have been on introducing bills and getting them into the committee process. One such bill is H.F. 20, which I authored to make a very small but important change to state statute. In short, my bill would make more of the attorney general’s data public and correct the law to more closely align with the legislature’s original intention, rather than the Supreme Court’s interpretation. It will not weaken the privacy rights of everyday individual Minnesotans.
This bill is particularly necessary because there are a lot of special interests trying to influence the AG to file motivated litigation. For example, there currently are nonprofit institutes funding anti-gun and anti-energy litigation, and the AG is misusing a provision in the Data Practices Act to shield that from public view. They don’t want people to know how lawyers in that office are being funded by outside, left-wing, dark-money groups. They don’t want people to know what communications are taking place within our government and are hiding behind the Data Practices Act.
We need to make sure citizens can get that information and hold the AG’s office accountable no matter who is occupying it and what nonprofits or dark-money groups are involved. I offered this bill two years ago, but Democrats never allowed it to have a hearing. Now, with a Republican House majority operating, we're getting a hearing – and there’s also been a hearing in the Senate for the companion bill.
In other news:
Balance at the Capitol
The House Republican majority is restoring balance at the Capitol, working to address issues that people care about. Meanwhile, Democrats have made very clear their strategy this session is to deflect from taking any responsibility for their fiscal irresponsibility, fraud mismanagement, etc., and are just blaming President Trump for everything.
This approach is turning out to be quite revealing. For example, polls show around 80 percent of people agree that biological sex should determine participation in sports, and that those born male at birth should be excluded from women’s sports. President Trump recently issued an executive order entitled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” to uphold fairness and safety. House Republicans share President Trump’s position.
Meanwhile, the Minnesota State High School League stated it intends to not to comply with President Trump’s recent executive order prohibiting men from playing women’s sports.
I am among House Republicans who signed a letter sent to the MSHSL Director expressing concern over that organization’s position. You can read the letter here. I also am a top author of H.F. 12, which says: “Only students of the female sex may participate in an elementary or secondary school athletic team or sport that an educational institution has restricted on the basis of sex to women or girls.”
The big question is this: Are House Democrats really willing to defy what 80 percent of the public wants and deal a devastating blow to women’s sports by opposing our bill out of spite for President Trump?
We’ll get into this more as the issue unfolds and see how long Democrats cling to their questionable Trump Deflection Strategy.
H.F. 4 puts money back in MN hands
House Republicans have authored a bill aimed at making sure over-collected tax dollars are returned to citizens. I am the No. 2 author on this bill (H.F. 4), which is in response to the Democrats spending our recent $18 billion surplus to increase state spending by 40 percent instead of putting those excess tax collections back in the hands of citizens.
With approval of a constitutional amendment, this bill establishes the Minnesota tax relief account, with the legislature appropriating funds each biennium into this fund to return excess tax collections back to taxpayers via refunds. Any projected revenues that go over 5 percent of projected expenditures according to the last biennial budget forecast will be used to fund the account.
This proposal is part of a larger package unveiled by House Republicans aimed at addressing Minnesota’s rising cost of living. Others include HF 5, which repeals a retail delivery fee and eliminates the state tax on Social Security income, and HF 9, which modernizes renewable energy policies by including hydroelectric power as an eligible renewable energy source, delaying impractical mandates, and protecting reliable energy infrastructure to stabilize energy costs. I’m co-authoring both of these bills as well.
Until next time, have a good weekend and please let me know how I can help.
Sincerely,
Harry