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*April 4, 2024
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Dear Friends and Neighbors,

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I hope you all had a happy Easter! Now that we?re past first and second deadline, we have a good idea of which bills are ? and aren?t ? moving through the Legislature this session. That also means that most of the proposals that are moving will be wrapped up into omnibus bills and passed off the Floor in the coming weeks.

As you are aware, the Minneapolis City Council passed a crazy, unworkable ordinance that will lead to Uber and Lyft ceasing operations in the metro area by May 1st. ?The ?inside baseball? is that a few suburban DFL legislators are lobbying the City Council to repeal their ordinance at their April 11th meeting but that they aren?t having much success.? There is even a push by some of the Minneapolis DFL legislators to have the State of Minnesota start its own rideshare-like business and make Uber drivers state employees.? No, this is not a joke.

Fortunately, House Republicans have a solution to save these ridesharing companies that many in our community rely on to access essential services like the pharmacy or grocery store, or even to get home if they?re too impaired to drive. ?Our bill simply says that individual cities can?t regulate terms of employment (remember drivers are independent contractors) for vehicle drivers.? Even Governor Walz has talked about something similar.

Just tonight, we attempted to bring the bill under immediate consideration on the House Floor. A looming May 1 deadline and legislative inaction resulted in what we thought was a clear reason to expedite our solution, but the majority party seems to disagree. To be clear, we gave the DFL a chance to save Uber and Lyft by taking our bill up for immediate consideration and our motion was voted down on a party-line vote, which is unfortunate. This issue shouldn?t be political ? we need to find a compromise where drivers are paid fairly, and these rideshare companies are able to continue employing drivers and serving our community.

Speaking of forthcoming omnibus bills, I wanted to flag a couple of bills that passed the House this week. On the Floor tonight we considered the Higher Education Omnibus Bill, the Early Education Omnibus Bill, and the Transportation Policy Bill, just to name a few. Legislative leaders seem determined to spend money that we don?t have even in spite of our looming deficit. We pushed an amendment to shift a few dollars to add more staff at our driver?s license centers.? We supported an amendment to not spend any more money on light rail at least until they finish the SW corridor, we asked for a report on the financials of the new ?Train to Duluth? they passed last year, and we asked for many more commonsense and fiscally responsible provisions, but the majority party did not support even those.?

Finally, we are hearing that the housing bill I wrote about a few weeks ago is finally losing support due to pressure from citizens and local government officials.? Thank you if you joined our fight against this state takeover of local zoning and decision making! Here is an article from MinnPost today which gives a good synopsis but as you know, until the legislative session adjourns, nothing is ever dead around here. I will be watching to make sure they aren?t slipping parts of this into large omnibus bills.

There will be a lot more action on many of the other bills you may be hearing about.? I?ll start writing regularly as things heat up.






Please Contact Me

Please continue to reach out if I can be of any assistance to you. You can reach me by phone at 651-296-3018 or by email at [email protected].

Have a great weekend!?

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Patti











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387 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Saint Paul, MN 55155
ph: 651.296.3018







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