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Robbins 2025 Updated Header




*May 23, 2025*






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Dear Friends and Neighbors,  

Monday at midnight officially marked the end of the regular 2025 Legislative Session. While we were able to get some areas of the budget completed, much remains to be done, and Conference Committees (now called Working Groups) have kept meeting all week.

Unfortunately, that means that Special Session will be necessary. I am hopeful they will get the final agreements wrapped up so the Governor can call the Special Session sometime next week. I am grateful my Higher Education Conference Committee wrapped up before we adjourned. More details on the current stalemate over the Higher Education bill below. 

This week, I was thankful to be able to attend the I-94 West Chamber of Commerce’s First Responders Luncheon. This annual event is a fundraiser to support the MN Law Enforcement Memorial Association, MN Fallen Fire Fighters Association, and Magnus Veterans’ Foundation.   

*This year, we honored Officer Jamal Mitchell, a Maple Grove resident who served as a Minneapolis police officer.  *He was killed in an ambush on May 30, 2024.  He ran to help someone he thought was a victim, and that criminal shot him as he tried to render aid. Officer Mitchell left behind his fiancée, Tori, and their four children. Please keep the Mitchell family in your prayers this week as they walk through this terrible anniversary. We are forever in the debt of the law enforcement officers, firefighters, and EMS responders who run into harm's way to keep our communities safe.

I hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! *Many of our communities are holding ceremonies to honor the brave men and women who gave their lives in service to our country.* Their courage and sacrifices secured the freedom we now enjoy, and we must continue to honor them and protect freedom in our generation.  

If you want to bring your kids or grandkids to one of our local ceremonies, here are two options in our district. *I’ll be speaking at the Maple Plain Ceremony at 10:30 on Monday morning and hope to see many of you there!* 

*Maple Plain:* American Legion 514 Annual Memorial Day Service | Maple Plain, MN [ [link removed] ] 

*Maple Grove:* [link removed] 



Memorial Day





Executive Summary

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Session Update: What's Passed, and What Still Remains

*
Standing Up for Legislative Authority on Regent Appointments

*
The Path Forward for the Office of the Independent Inspector General

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Scholarship Opportunity!






Session Update: What’s Passed, and What Still Remains 

Despite Democrats boycotting the 2025 session for the first 23 days, we did manage to pass several major budget bills before Monday’s constitutional deadline for adjournment. These agreements reflect areas where we found common ground and they all passed with strong bipartisan support. 

*Agriculture:* This bill provides targeted investments in disease preparedness for livestock and poultry, supports broadband infrastructure, and ensures resources reach our farmers without adding burdensome mandates. The bill also defunded controversial nonprofit grants and emphasized greater fiscal accountability. I voted in favor of this bill. 

*Housing: *This bill makes the largest investment in Greater Minnesota housing in recent memory. It supports new construction and infrastructure without expanding state bureaucracy or layering on costly new tenant mandates. It also blocks rent control proposals and requires greater transparency from the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency when funds are shifted internally.   

They significantly changed the provisions I had concerns about earlier that infringed on local control, which is why I supported the final bill. I still have some concerns about how the bill incentivizes certain types of housing and parking requirements (without mandating it), but I hope we will be able to work on those issues again next session. I hope the increases for housing finance will help increase supply, get the market moving, and drive down prices for Minnesotans. 

*Legacy:* This bill was another win for responsible government. We successfully pushed for reduced earmarks and increased oversight of Arts and Cultural Heritage (ACH) funds and prohibited those dollars from being spent on capital construction projects. This bill also reduced funding for Minnesota Public Radio by half. It also shifts more funding to competitive, merit-based grants to ensure taxpayer dollars are awarded based on need and impact—not political favoritism. The funding for this bill comes out of the Constitutionally-mandated “Legacy Amendment” funds, not the General Fund. I supported this bill as we are required to spend the money under the Constitutional amendment, we made significant progress in reducing earmarks, and the money is generally used to fund important water, habitat, and parks and trails projects across the state. 

*Public Safety and Judiciary: *This bill provides important tools for law enforcement and closes dangerous loopholes. It includes mandatory minimums for sex traffickers, longer sentences for those who assault EMS workers, and protections against early release of violent criminals. We also invested in officer training and rolled back wasteful spending from previous years to ensure resources go where they’re needed most.  

While I supported the funding for law enforcement and officer training, I do not support the immediate closing of the Stillwater Prison, which was included in this bill.  This proposal didn’t have any public hearings and will be an enormous change for inmates, prison staff, and very costly for the state. To be clear, I have toured Stillwater Prison, and it is absolutely in need of safety and other upgrades and repairs, or closure. But that decision should be made only after public hearings, a well-thought-out-plan for where/when inmates will be transferred, a cost-benefit analysis, and a plan for replacing the beds we are losing at Stillwater. I think this decision needs a lot more vetting, so I voted against the bill. 

*State Government and Elections:* This bill makes good strides toward increased accountability and fraud prevention. It strengthens oversight of state agencies, reins in runaway budget requests, and restores bipartisan balance at polling places. It also includes significant election integrity reforms, including limiting permanent absentee ballot lists and tightening chain-of-custody rules. The bill also now requires that ballots from drop-boxes be picked up at 5:00 p.m. on election day, instead of 8:00 p.m. I supported this bill because it will help ensure chain of custody and proper processing, which was the big problem in the Shakopee race last year. 

*Veterans:* This bill fulfills a core promise: taking care of those who served our country. It fully funds our state’s Veterans Homes, strengthens suicide prevention efforts, and fixes a long-standing unfairness in National Guard pensions. It also honors Minnesota’s Gold and Blue Star families and ensures recognition for our allies from the Vietnam War. I voted in favor of the bill. 

*I am still fighting for Veterans in the Tax bill*, which hasn’t closed yet. We have strong support for increasing the Homestead Property Tax Exclusion for disabled Veterans and for allowing Veterans groups to use some of their gambling proceeds for repairs to their buildings. This bill is still being negotiated, but I hope we get those items over the finish line! 

*Human Services Policy:* This bill addresses mental health, disability services, and childcare with reforms that increase transparency and accountability. I am hopeful that some of the reforms will decrease the regulatory burden, increase the supply of home-based childcare providers, and help families have greater access to childcare at more affordable prices. The bill also includes protections against fraud in childcare assistance programs, expands access to mental health crisis services, and gives patients the right to a designated support person during health care.  

*Unfortunately, several major budget areas remain unresolved.* These include Education Finance and Policy, Health, Children and Families, Human Services Finance, Capital Investment (Bonding bill), Commerce, Energy, Environment, Higher Education, Taxes, Transportation, and Workforce and Labor. These remaining bills must now be addressed in a special session due to earlier delays and Democrats walking away from bipartisan agreements.  

I will continue fighting to ensure that any remaining legislation reflects priorities of families and seniors, respects taxpayer dollars, and helps us close the $6 billion deficit we are facing. 






Standing Up for Legislative Authority on Regent Appointments 

As we wrapped up the regular session, I wanted to provide an important update on a constitutional responsibility that still hasn’t been fulfilled: the election of University of Minnesota Regents. *You can watch my video update here [ [link removed] ]*. [ [link removed] ]  

I served on the *Higher Education Conference Committee*, where we worked diligently right up through the final weekend to finish the bill. That work is now complete. What remains unfinished, however, is the *constitutionally required joint convention* of the House and Senate to elect Regents for the University of Minnesota. This is something we do every two years. It is not optional or unexpected; it is the Legislature’s clear constitutional duty.  

If the legislature fails to act, the power to appoint regents shifts to the Governor. That is unacceptable. The Governor’s power to appoint is intended for times when a vacancy arises when we are not in session – not during a session.     

There has been more than enough time to get this done. Let’s not forget: Democrats delayed the start of session by 23 days. Despite that, we held our Joint Committee with the Senate and forwarded our recommendations for a Joint Convention to the House and Senate on *March 18th*. Then we were told we had to wait until *April 29*, when newly elected Senator Keri Heintzman would be seated. That date has come and gone. Four more weeks have passed, and still no action.  

Given the seriousness of ceding our Legislative power to the Governor, who would appoint new Regents for a two-year term, Chair Marion Rarick and I are still working to get a Joint Convention called for the Special Session as part of closing the Higher Education bill.   

This isn’t about partisanship—it’s about the separation of powers and fulfilling our Constitutional duty as a Legislature. Electing the Board of Regents of the University of Minnesota is our job, which we do every odd-numbered year. *I am opposed to continued willful neglect of our Constitutional Legislative duty and will continue to press for a Joint Convention to appoint Regents in the Special Session.* 






The Path Forward for the Office of the Independent Inspector General 

One of my top priorities this session was passing a bill to create a new *Office of the Independent Inspector General (OIG), which would have oversight and enforcement powers over all Executive Branch agencies, where we continue to see rampant fraud and abuse of taxpayers’ hard-earned money.  * 

Although there have been differences in approach, the idea of *creating an OIG has been strongly supported by Gov. Walz and Republican and Democrats in the House and Senate. *This is a common tool used in other states to strengthen accountability in state government. The bill would create a truly independent office tasked with preventing, investigating, and prosecuting fraud, waste, and abuse in public programs.  

The bill earned *strong bipartisan support in the Democrat-controlled Minnesota Senate*, *passing on a 60–7 vote.* It went through extensive committee work and was shaped by robust stakeholder engagement. In fact, *Governor Walz publicly stated that he would sign the bill* if it made it to his desk in a rare moment of bipartisan agreement on a major policy priority.  

Unfortunately, that momentum came to a halt in the Minnesota House. On the final night of session, *House Democrats refused to “suspend the rules” to take up the bill*, despite months of bipartisan collaboration and a final opportunity to get it passed. 

This failure to act is both disappointing and unacceptable. We have seen *nearly a billion dollars in known fraud in state programs – our current system isn’t working. *Taxpayers’ money is meant to help families, children, and the most vulnerable, such as seniors, those with disabilities, or those suffering from addiction. *Instead, it has too often been siphoned off by bad actors exploiting weak oversight systems. * 

The OIG bill includes specific tools to protect taxpayer funds. It would empower the Inspector General to *freeze funds when fraud is detected*, launch independent investigations without political interference, and ensure those who abuse public programs are held accountable. This office would operate outside of existing agencies, free from internal pressures or conflicts of interest, to restore the public’s trust in how their money is being spent.  

We are not giving up. I am continuing to work with Rep. Patti Anderson and others to get this across the finish line during the Special Session. Minnesotans deserve to know their tax dollars are protected and that elected officials take fraud seriously.  

Passing the Independent Inspector General bill is one of the most meaningful things we can do to *rebuild trust in government*. I will keep fighting to get this done.  






Scholarship Opportunity!

I want to pass on a great opportunity for families connected to our local first responders. *The Maple Grove Fire Relief Association (MGFRA) is once again offering college scholarships to eligible students for the upcoming academic year.* This program supports the children, grandchildren, or dependents of Maple Grove firefighters and police officers, as well as Fire and Police Explorers, who are pursuing higher education.  

*The application deadline is* *July 1*, and full details—including the application form—can be found on the MGFRA website [ [link removed] ]. This is a wonderful opportunity to recognize and support the next generation of leaders from our public safety families. I encourage all who are eligible to apply. 






Please Contact Me

Many of you have already been in touch to discuss your thoughts on the issues that matter most to you. Thank you for sharing your ideas! Please continue to contact me to discuss any matters to which I can be of assistance.

The best way to reach me is by email: [email protected]. For occasional updates, you can follow my Facebook Page at @RepKristinRobbins. You can also leave a voicemail on my office number, 651-296-7806, which is checked every weekday while we are in session.

Of course, if you are coming to the Capitol, I’d love to meet you! Please reach out if you would like to set-up an in-person meeting. 

Have a great weekend!

 

Kristin











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