Legislative Update from Rep. Patti Anderson

Dear Friends,

We are now in the final week of session. As I send this, we are currently debating the Education Finance Omnibus bill. Here is where everything stands as of this morning:?

Omnibus Bill Update

Bill	Subjects	House Status	Senate Status
HF1937/SF2247	Veterans	PASSED 131-0 (5/8)	PASSED 61-5 (5/9)
HF2335/SF2566	Housing	PASSED 70-61 (5/8)	PASSED (34-32) 5/9
HF1999/SF1682	Legacy	PASSED 101-31 (5/9)	PASSED 40-24 (5/10)
HF2073/SF2075	Higher Ed	PASSED 69-62 (5/9)	PASSED 34-30 (5/10)
SF1955/HF2278	Agriculture	PASSED 85-44 (5/11)	PASSED 49-16 (5/11)
SF2909/HF2890	Public Safety/Judiciary	PASSED 69-62 (5/16)	PASSED 34-33 (5/12)
HF2293/SF2373	Early Childhood	PASSED 71-61 (5/15)	Awaiting Senate Action
SF3035/HF3028	Workforce/Econ Dev	CCR posted at 8:45PM 5/15
SF2744/HF2680	Commerce	CCR posted at 1:51PM 5/15
HF2/SF2	Paid Family Leave	CCR posted at 3:07PM 5/15
HF2310/SF2438	Enviro/Energy	Meeting scheduled for 5/16
HF1830/SF1426	State Gov	No meeting scheduled
HF2497/SF2684	Education	CCR posted at 2:14PM 5/15
HF1938/SF1811	Taxes	Meeting scheduled for 5/16
SF2934/HF2847	Human Services	Meeting scheduled 5/16
HF100/SF73	Cannabis	Wrapped, Awaiting CCR
HF2887/SF3157	Transportation	No meeting scheduled, last meeting 5/12
SF2995/HF2930	Health	No meeting scheduled, last meeting 5/3

Shortly after midnight this morning, we passed the Public Safety and Judiciary omnibus bill. This bill was full of controversial provisions including:

Reducing Sentences for Violent Felons.?This bill puts felons back on the streets by allowing criminals to serve only half of their prison sentence or probation if they complete Department of Corrections programming. This includes those convicted of violent crimes such as murder, manslaughter, rape, kidnapping, assault, or domestic assault. Limiting prison time for violent criminals puts all Minnesotans at risk.?
Anti-Law Enforcement. Instead of providing law enforcement with the resources they need to keep Minnesotans safe, this bill ties their hands and ignores their needs by further restricting no-knock warrants and fails to make any significant investments to recruit, train, and retain law enforcement professionals. This bill invest over $70 million in unproven nonprofits with little accountability on how the money is spent.?
Universal Background Checks.?This proposal will create strict and impractical hurdles for law-abiding Minnesotans seeking to exercise their 2nd Amendment right instead of addressing the root cause of violent crime. Criminals looking to acquire firearms will not follow this new complex process. Efforts should be focused on enforcing the numerous laws we already have governing firearm transfers.?
Extreme Risk Protection Order.?This proposal violates due process and does not address the alleged safety risk ? the individual. If?someone is a legitimate threat, simply seizing firearms will not prevent an individual from doing harm to themselves or others through other means. The seizure of property without a warrant and due process, especially property that is explicitly protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution violates civil rights. Our efforts should be focused on providing support and care to those in crisis.

I voted no on this bill. We need to be prioritizing funding for law enforcement over nonprofits in order to ensure every community is safe.?

Today, we are set to debate the Education, Paid Family Leave, Labor/Workforce/Economic Development, and Commerce omnibus bills. We?re not sure if we are getting this done today. Democrats have set Thursday as their deadline, but we are constitutionally allowed to work through Sunday. With so much work still to do, we will see if we are able to finish by Thursday.?

Omnibus Bill Update

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