After last week?s Blackout bill that will turn the lights off on Minnesotans as our coal, natural gas, and waste-to-energy base load production is forced to shut down by 2040 this week hasn?t started much better. On Monday the house DFL passed language to provide driver?s licenses to undocumented immigrants with zero guardrails to make sure these documents are not being used for anything outside of driving and car insurance. While there is a strong argument for public safety that this bill could provide by allowing these drivers to get insurance and take some driver training courses, I believe the lack of markings or data sharing to prevent these from being used for voter registration is unacceptable.

Felon Voting is another one of the Democrats? top priorities that they have rushed through the process this week. While voting rights are already rightfully restored once someone charged with a felony has completed their entire sentence this bill, HF 28, would return a felon?s right to vote as soon as they are out of prison, while they?re still on probation. In some cases where the punishment is only felony probation, they would never lose their voting rights. Taking the teeth out of any punishment removes the consequences of committing one of these crimes. In some of these cases, the victims may never be able to vote again and yet democrats continue to remove layers of accountability for criminals.

In Housing Committee we heard HF 685 which would place limits on how much property designated as single-family could be owned as rental property. I believe it is important to protect and encourage home ownership both for the benefit of building equity and long-term wealth as well as for the benefit of the community. Unfortunately, this bill goes much too far in its definitions and would limit almost anyone with an LLC from building a portfolio of properties or even worse a family trust with multiple children running out of their allowed properties for each child. Hopefully this bill can improve as it heads through committee at a less feverish pace than some of the other legislation we've seen this year.

The pace of visitors is starting to return to normal. This week I had a number of visitors stop by my office to share the legislation that is important to them and how we can address these issues more effectively. Just some of the visitors this week include Cal from TownBoard, Anoka Technical College, as well as Schools for Equity who stopped by to share their vision for the future of education in Minnesota.

Getting to meet with constituents is a highlight of being at the capitol so please stop by to share your thoughts or concerns about the legislation that will shape the future of Minnesota.