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Legislative Update

Dear Neighbor,

Monday’s deadline for the Legislature to adjourn arrived with much work left unfinished, largely because Democrats failed to show up for nearly a month and held up key bills over deeply unpopular provisions, such as providing health care to illegal immigrants.

As a result, a special session will now be required to complete the state’s next two-year budget. While it’s difficult to say what the final product will look like, one thing is clear: we must address the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars lost to fraud within state agencies and among grant recipients misusing funds.

Rep. Patty Anderson led the charge on this issue, authoring House File 1 [ [link removed] ] to create a new statewide Office of the Inspector General. From Day 1 of this session, Rep. Anderson worked across the aisle and across chambers. Her bill received bipartisan, bicameral support with weekly meetings involving Democrats, Republicans, senators, and representatives. The bill successfully passed through six House committees, until it stalled in the State Government Finance and Policy Committee when no Democrats would vote to advance it.

Meanwhile, in the Democrat-controlled Senate, the bill continued to move forward with bipartisan cooperation in a rigorous process. It eventually passed the Senate in a resounding 60-7 vote.

On the final day of session, House Republicans tried to suspend the rules and declare urgency to pass the bill and send it to the governor for enactment. But House Democrats refused, stopping the bill in its tracks. Why? The excuses they offered don’t hold water.

They claimed there wasn’t enough funding, despite the fact that the state currently has over $1.5 billion on the bottom line. And let’s not forget, they found $77 million “out of thin air” to pay for unemployment insurance for hourly school workers.

They also claimed the OIG bill hadn’t been properly vetted, which is an odd claim given that Democrats themselves had been working on it for months, right alongside Republicans. Even more puzzling, it was the Democrat co-chair of the State Government committee – the very person who refused to move the bill forward in her own committee – who made that claim. What exactly has she been doing since January? Oh, right, Democrats didn’t show up for the first 23 days of session. What has she been doing since February?

More recently, House Democrats and the governor have started walking back support for the OIG proposal, arguing it duplicates existing reforms. That is objectively false.

The proposed Office of the Inspector General would be an entirely independent, enterprise-wide office with actual law enforcement authority – power not currently held by existing agencies. This office wouldn’t just issue reports or recommendations; it would be empowered to take real action to stop fraud in its tracks. In fact, on the House floor Monday, the Democrat co-chair even referenced the Senate’s amendment granting the OIG that law enforcement authority.

Why that detail suddenly became a concern is unclear, but the timing is hard to ignore. The bill moved forward smoothly until the Senate gave the OIG real teeth. After that, Democrat leadership began voicing doubts. Draw your own conclusions, but it sure seems like they wanted the appearance of fighting fraud without actually committing to meaningful action. Instead, they’ve used this issue as an excuse to expand state government.

Looking ahead to the special session, early hopes of reconvening by the end of this week are fading. It’s now looking like a longer delay is likely. The governor has stated he won’t call a special session until agreements are reached on all remaining budget bills. The sticking points are radical, divisive, and widely unpopular demands from the most extreme wing of the Democrats.

To complicate things further, the governor is about to embark on another national self-promotion tour, which could further delay the session. Meanwhile, each passing day brings us closer to a potential state government shutdown if a budget isn’t passed by the June 30 end of the fiscal year.

Let’s hope Democrats can set aside their political games, stop catering to extremists, and work with Republicans to do what’s right for all Minnesotans before it’s too late.

Stay tuned,

Walter






chamber

Please visit my personal legislative website at www.house.mn [ [link removed] ] for the latest news and information.





State Rep. Walter Hudson
2nd Floor, Centennial Office Building
658 Cedar St., St. Paul, MN 55155
[email protected]
(651) 296-1534







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