Dear Friends,
Today marks the first committee deadline in the short 2016 legislative session. In addition to floor sessions and meeting with constituents this week, legislators spent long days and nights in committees making sure policy bills met the deadline. Policy bills that did not pass their committees by today in at least one body (House or Senate) are essentially dead for the session. However, those ideas can still emerge as amendments to other bills as they are heard on the floor of the House or Senate or even in a conference committee.
This week, one of my bills, HF 2694, was heard in the Aging and Long Term Care Committee. The bill clarifies that the Home Care Licensure statute excludes minor, occasional free care provided by home care or nursing home personnel. The Home Care statute is intended to protect vulnerable people from exploitation and insure that they get competent care—not to stop folks from getting minor assistance when they don’t need a whole package of services. The bill sailed through committee and has been sent to Health and Human Services Finance.
In my last update I mentioned a couple of issues that were coming up this week: the Best Life Alliance bill and the unfortunate emergence of Washington-style abortion politics.
The Best Life Alliance is a coalition that was formerly known as “The 5% campaign.” It has been seeking a 5% raise for the care workers who help disabled adults live and work in community settings and others to receive care in their homes rather than going into expensive and less comfortable nursing homes. This touches the lives of many Minnesotans, and legislators have received many messages about the need to improve the pay of these caregivers. There is strong bipartisan support for this effort and it has many co-sponsors, including me.
However, a new version was introduced this year, and in the committee the sponsor replaced the old version with the new one. Unfortunately—and unbeknownst to most people—the new version significantly reduced the amount of the raise that would see its way to the caregivers by letting the agencies to use up to 46% of the increase for other purposes. My DFL colleagues and I amended the bill so the entire 5% increase would go to help these hardworking, underpaid caregivers.
Despite the looming deadline for bills, many hours of this week’s committee time has gone to the abortion wars. The Health and Human Services Reform Committee heard the bill to defund Planned Parenthood—which would deprive over 45,000 Minnesotans—men and women—of needed health care. While the proponents claimed that these patients would get more comprehensive health care from other providers, the proponents had no evidence that other provider could fill the void. Since the GOP is in the majority, the bill passed on a party line vote.
On Thursday, the entire meeting of the Health and Human Services Finance Committee was given over to a bill that would cut off medical research funding from the University of Minnesota unless it agrees not to use any fetal tissue donated by women who have had abortions. The U is in the process of selecting researchers to lead their four new Medical Discovery Teams (MDTs), which will use a special appropriation from 2015 to do research on addiction, the biology of aging, optical imaging and brain science, and rural/American Indian health disparities.
The bill takes nearly $15 million in funds away from the University of Minnesota and returns the money in the next budget cycle only if the U agrees to not to use fetal tissue unless it is from “the natural death of the fetus”.
Without the guarantee of the already-appropriated $15 million in their current biennial budget, the U of M will not be able to move forward with these research teams and the research will not occur. Even without becoming law, the bill jeopardizes medical research that can improve the health and lives of Minnesotans.
The University retained a respected Boston law firm to review its past and present practices related to fetal tissue research to find out whether they have complied with the law. The firm found no evidence that the University violated federal or state law.
This legislation will never become law and is merely being used to tarnish the university and score political points.
Here’s some information on two other legislative packages my colleagues unveiled this week:
Working to Alleviate Student Debt
The average debt load of four year graduates in Minnesota is nearing $32,000 – the 5th highest debt burden in the nation. This debt burden can make it difficult for Minnesotans to buy a home or save for the future, limiting family budgets and overall economic growth.
Here are some ideas that DFLers hope to move forward this session:Several of these ideas were heard in the Higher Education committee this week.
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Freezing tuition at the U of M and MnSCU to keep college costs down
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Expand the state grant program to open access to more families
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Reduce cost of textbooks by requiring campus bookstores to compare and match prices
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Tax credits for student loan payments to reduce student loan debt
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Expand/improve the state’s refinancing pilot program to make repayment more affordable
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Loan forgiveness (up to 3K annually) to those who commit to work in Greater Minnesota
With a $900 million surplus this session, I hope we can do more to tackle our student debt crisis.
“Next Generation Main Street Act” to Help Small Businesses Thrive
This week, House and Senate legislators joined small business owners at a press conference to push for passage of the “Next Generation Main Street Act,” an array of proposals designed to support small businesses across the state.Key components include:
Supporting Small Business Start-Ups& Entrepreneurs by making sure that every person who starts a small business in Minnesota is contacted and provided information about resources available to them. Legislators are also working to assist business start-ups with gap financing through the Minnesota Initiative Foundations.
Helping with Succession Planning by providing grants to Small Business Development Centers to provide transaction services to business owners and next generation, non-family proprietors to help them take over a business.
Streamlining Audits: simplify the process to reduce the amount of time and money small business owners must spend on costly audits in a number of ways.
Simplifying Tax Filing for Small Businesses: by enacting federal tax conformity so that Minnesota businesses can file taxes without delay and uncertainty in 2016.
These are just a few of the initiatives we’re working on at the Capitol. As always, please contact me if you have comments, questions, or concerns.
Warmly,
Tina