Dear Neighbor,
Just want to start this week’s newsletter with a shout-out to the Albany girls basketball team after a great win in the state Class AA quarterfinals Wednesday! Good luck to the Huskies in the semifinals against Goodhue 8 p.m. today at Williams Arena.
In news from the House this week:
Long-term care
Thank you to representatives of Assumption and Good Shepherd homes in the area (pictured above) for coming to St. Paul to discuss issues related to long-term care in our state. Our nursing homes currently are facing daunting challenges, from price increases to worker shortages and a resulting loss of beds. This, in turn, puts more pressure on our hospitals and clogs that system as well. Here are some numbers that provide some perspective:
- Our state has lost 2,400 nursing home beds since the Covid-19 pandemic, largely due to a lack of workers.
- 70 percent of our state’s nursing homes are limiting admission.
- 11,000 seniors were turned away from long-term care facilities in just one month due to a lack of staff. (Note: Even if someone who needs a bed finds one, it’s often not at a facility close to home, causing added stresses and burdens for the resident and their family alike.)
- Structural delays of up to two years in the state’s process for funding homes is causing logistical headaches and operational shortfalls in this era of rapid price increases.
Thank you again to the local members of this industry for sharing your thoughts. This issue is of utmost importance to me. A legislative working group continues meeting to establish real solutions for long-term care workers and clients alike. Watch for more as this issue continues to develop.
Safe & Sound Plan
It’s no secret Minnesota has been experiencing abnormally high rates of violent crime in recent years. Bipartisan support was expressed last fall and summer for taking action to make our state safer, which was good to see. On the other hand, we are now in the 11th week of the legislative session and there’s zero progress to report on this issue.
In fact, some legislators are going out of their way to avoid getting tough on criminals, and their priorities seem more focused on the rights of the offenders than the rights of victims. This is appalling.
Minnesotans have a right to safe communities, and that starts with policies to help officers do their jobs, ensure our laws are enforced, and hold criminals accountable. That is why Republicans in the House and Senate recently put forth a Safe & Sound Minnesota plan designed to confront the threat of violent and repeat criminals, strengthen police, and improve training for law enforcement, and hold judges and prosecutors accountable with public data and information.
The package includes 17 different bills from 15 different Republican authors across the state. Confronting the criminal threat would include new laws to add a new crime of carjacking to state statute, increase penalties for fleeing police in a motor vehicle, align fentanyl to the same weight thresholds and penalties as heroin, and increase sentences for those convicted with at least two prior crimes of violence.
To address crimes of gun violence, the package specifically increases the penalty for transferring a firearm to an ineligible person and requires a court to ensure someone who has been ordered to give up their firearms has indeed done so.
Republicans continue supporting our state’s law enforcement officers with robust recruitment, training, and retention plans. The Safe & Sound Minnesota plan provides $1 million for Pathway to Policing, the award-winning program that brings new recruits into public safety from other careers.
Tough laws and great officers can only do so much, however. The Safe & Sound Minnesota plan also puts in place transparency and accountability measures for the state’s courts. New data reporting would help legislators and the public understand how many felony-level offenses go uncharged, as well as a database by the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission for the public to conduct research about judges and their decisions to follow criminal sentences created by the legislature.
To address concerns that violent, repeat offenders are too often released, there is a new mandatory minimum sentence for dangerous criminals who commit crimes with a firearm. Finally, the plan would also make who posts bail payments public data. Recent scrutiny on non-profits bailing out violent criminals shows Minnesotans are at risk when these non-profits aren’t held accountable for their decisions.
Public safety is our government’s most important obligation to its citizens. Safe & Sound Minnesota would help fulfill that responsibility and I look forward to continuing this discussion.
Hope you have a good weekend and, as always, let me know how I can help.
Sincerely,
Lisa