Dear Neighbor,
We are now at the point in the 2024 session when the majority has been bringing omnibus packages to the House floor for deliberations and votes of the full body.
Here is a look at some of what we have seen in recent days:
Labor and industry
This is an omnibus bill I have paid close attention to as a member of the House committee on labor and industry. While many of the provisions are not overly controversial, it does continue the majority’s trend of placing new regulations on small businesses without time to adequately prepare for the added burden our government is placing on them.
We’ve seen it with new laws regarding employee leave and now the majority is back at it again. I proposed amending the bill to require the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry to provide a reasonable amount of time for an employer to respond to a request for the employer’s books, documents, personnel records, etc. It is unfortunate the majority voted down this amendment and instead placed an even larger onus on employers, especially small business owners.
Public safety
The best news of the week pertains to an omnibus public safety policy bill which actually was bipartisan and 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 fairly clean. Maybe most notably, there are no gun control measures or other controversial bills in this package and it even includes handful of Republican-authored measures.
There also is no new spending in this bill, which is good news. The bad news is we very well could see a separate public safety bill brought to the floor by the majority later this session with more spending – and maybe some problematic policy provisions to boot.
Elections bill
If the public safety package is a shining example of bipartisan work, an omnibus elections bill House Democrats approved this week is the complete opposite – an example of one party ramming through controversial provisions without bothering to consider reasonable positions.
Welcome to 2024, with one party in full control of the Capitol and it’s all too often either their paper-thin majority’s way or no way with legislation to further the extremists’ wishes and will.
The way the majority constructed this elections bill runs counter to our Legislature’s longstanding tradition of elections policy being bipartisan so that neither side can legislative itself an unfair advantage over the other.
Even governors in the past have demanded that elections bills be bipartisan. But not this emperor governor, apparently, because this elections package includes controversial changes such as allowing a mere description of residence when an address is not available, and the establishment of additional polling places on postsecondary institution campuses upon request. The bill also infringes on local governments with additional unfunded mandates on local elections.
Just think about this: Minnesota allows same-day voter registration but also remains one of the last states to not provide provisional ballots because the one party in control will not allow even a trust-but-verify system to happen. They’d rather hand out ballots, throw them in the pile and not bother confirming the record. And now the majority isn’t even requiring an address to ensure people are voting in the proper precinct.
The bottom line is majority ignored the minority’s good ideas to promote secure elections and instead loaded up this bill with partisan elections policy that only serve to further undermine our system.
Have I mentioned before that we need to restore balance in St. Paul?
Sincerely,
Shane