Legislative Update from Rep. Mary Franson

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Happy Easter! He is risen.

The far-left was back at it again this week with several bills and other happenings around the Capitol that I want to bring to your attention. House Republicans fought back after religious liberty came under attack, I presented a bill in the Capital Investment committee to invest in our community, the DFL introduced a bill to make it legal for women to go topless in public (yes, really), and a Democrat Senator wants to eminent domain pregnancy resource centers in MN.

Religious Liberty

The biggest issue of the past week is reinstating previously existing protections for religious liberty into the Human Rights Act. Last year, the Democrat majority removed protection for religious institutions regarding their hiring and personnel practices. The removal of this protection would require religious institutions to hire transgender-identifying persons regardless of the teachings and deeply held beliefs of those institutions or face a Human Rights violation/lawsuit. Protecting religious liberty shouldn?t be a partisan issue, and in fact, is a core tenant of our republic, but our bill to re-insert these religious protections has failed on a party-line vote several times. Just this week the majority party voted to table our bill on the House Floor, shutting down consideration of the bill without debate. House Republicans held a press conference on the issue, which you can watch in its entirety here.

Bonding Hearing

On Wednesday I had the privilege to present my bill HF 3829 in the Capital Investment Committee. This bill provides much needed funding to the Alexandria Lake Area Sanitary District to the tune of $25 million. This is a critical investment in our community and I?m proud to continue advocating for you at the Capitol!

Topless Bill

Yes, the DFL really introduced a bill to allow women in Minnesota to legally go topless in public. I don?t know about you, but I think that there are more pressing issues in Minnesota that our legislators should be worried about. The bill was introduced by Reps. Sencer-Mura, Curran, Finke, and Kozlowski.

Pregnancy Resource Centers

Last week, Democrat Senator Erin Maye Quade took the mask off and showed just how pro-abortion their side really is. As reported here by Alpha News, she said: ?I would love to eminent domain all 98 of these crisis pregnancy centers and turn them into affordable housing for people who do have children. I would love to turn them into food banks and diaper banks and formula banks. Like, these are things that actually support people having children when they decide they would like to have children, and everything that crisis pregnancy centers are doing is not that. None of it is that.?

This is the evil that we fight back against at the Capitol every single day and I?m happy that at least one Senator is honest about her position on the abortion issue.

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