Dear Neighbor,
Greetings from the House, where we are wrapping up another week of the 2024 session and looking forward to what should be a beautiful weekend weather-wise, with sunshine and temps in the mid-70s.
As for official business, we are at the point in the session where committees are assembling omnibus packages for their respective subjects and sending them to the floor for votes of the full body. Agriculture will start this process in earnest next week and one of the things I’m working to do is protect revenue from a fertilizer fund from being siphoned away for uses other than originally intended.
Minnesota taxes fertilizer at 40 cents per ton, with those proceeds directed to the Agriculture Fertilization Research and Education Council’s efforts to conduct research and educate people on fertilizer use. That tax is due for renewal and some legislators want to divert those dollars to other programs. I disagree with redirecting those dollars away from AFREC, especially at a time when the southeastern part Minnesota is experiencing issues related to nitrates in groundwater.
In other news, it was nice to see an omnibus public safety policy bill received overwhelming support in the House this week, passing 130-0. The package includes changes related to crime victims and their rights, making criminal justice reforms, modifying predatory offender restrictions, and modifying some duties of the Department of Corrections.
Unlike most omnibus bills that have been coming out of the Public Safety Committee in recent years, this policy omnibus is pretty clean. For example, there are no gun control measures or other controversial bills in this package. A handful of Republican-authored measures also were included in this bipartisan bill.
On the other hand, the House also passed a rather partisan omnibus elections bill this week which includes a number of controversial provisions. Notable changes include allowing a mere description of residence when an address is not available is especially concerning in terms of upholding election integrity. The bill also establishes additional polling places on postsecondary institution campuses upon request and infringes on local governments with additional unfunded mandates on local elections.
Overall, the big concern with this bill is it went against our state’s longstanding tradition of being bipartisan. Governors in the past have even demanded that elections bills be bipartisan, but that was not the case this time.
It would be better to take a more balanced and reasonable approach that includes reasonable proposals from the minority instead of loading up this omnibus bill with partisan elections policy.
Look for more from the Capitol soon. Until next time, have a good weekend.
Sincerely,
Paul