Hello again, my friend!!
Last Sunday, the Governor, the Speaker of the House, and the Senate Leader Gazelka agreed to financial targets for Minnesota. Then, we worked through the week for final bills between the Senate and House that were identical and agreed upon with Conference Committees and working groups.
If this were still in regular session, the Conference Committee reports wouldn't be amendable. Just voted up or down. However, amendments can be added in Special Session. We are working through a variety of amendments now on the bills and have to vote them down. If we don't, it would change our language and we wouldn't match the Senate language. Sooo...we are working to vote them all down and keep up our end of the deal.
We are now working on the Public Safety and Judiciary Bill. It passed 87-49.
During this session, I was proud to serve on the Correction Committee. We toured the Stillwater Prison and held the first-ever Committee Hearing in a prison. It was amazing!!
The work done in the Public Safety and Judiciary bill does a lot of great things for the judiciary in Minnesota:
- Fully funds public defenders
- Increases Civil Legal Services
- New funding for 40 new Guardian ad Litem staff
For Corrections (really important in Shakopee!!):
- $19 million in funding for new corrections officers
- Funds offender health care
- Passes my Body Scanner bill that will allow prisons and law enforcement to reduce the infiltration of foreign objects and drugs into prisons
- Grants for Juvenile detention alternatives
Lastly, there are many public safety measures that will help thousands across Minnesota:
- Creates a task force on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
- Eliminates the nonconsensual buttocks touching exemption (yes. unwanted butt touching was legal in MN!!)
- Funds Emergency Response teams.
- Funds School Safety
There are so many great provisions in this awesome Public Safety Bill. You can see them here --> https://www.house.mn/bills/SS2019bill.asp
Brad
PS: Now we move on to the Jobs Bill.