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Legislative News and Views - Rep. Brad Tabke (DFL)

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Legislative Update - House Floor Votes

Tuesday, March 11, 2025
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Hello Friends,

I want to start by thanking everyone that showed up for our virtual Town Hall last week. For a Tuesday night event, we had a pretty good turnout. A lot of our discussion focused on the impact of the Trump Administration’s actions on Minnesota, and that conversation was fresh in my mind when we received the latest budget forecast for our state.

Responsible leadership at the state and federal levels these last few years have set Minnesota up to have an impactful budget and a strong financial future. But even as we work with a surplus this year to craft our state budget, the chaos and cuts coming from the White House put our state’s financial future at risk. We’ll do what we can to support Minnesota in the coming years, but it would certainly help if more GOP leaders recognized that a government for billionaires, by billionaires, is not sustainable.

We can talk about Minnesota’s budget, the bills I’m working on, or any questions you may have at my latest Shakopee office hours, which’ll once again be this Friday, from 8-9am, at the Shakopee Brewhall. I hope you can make it!
Office Hours

I also wanted to provide an update on some of the bills we’ve been voting on in the Minnesota House. With Republicans in control of the House for the first time in over 6 years, I was curious to see what they’d bring forward as their priority bills.

The Good
Last Thursday, with unanimous support, we passed bills focused on:

That last one was in response to the outpouring of support for the colleagues of the slain public safety officers in Burnsville. These were all important bills that make Minnesota safer and support those who keep us safe.

The Bad
Unfortunately, several bills (that the DFL successfully voted down) have ranged from misguided ideas to bad-faith attempts at scoring cheap political points, including:

  • House File 12, which only serves to bully trans kids while making it more difficult for ALL girls to play sports in Minnesota. As written, this bill would allow any random spectator to call into question the gender of a female player, whether that’s an elementary schooler or a varsity athlete. That kind of unwarranted scrutiny over the bodies of our children is not something I support.
  • House File 13, which would’ve rolled back the hard-fought progress we made in recent years to curb gun violence in our state by implementing a “Shoot first” law that leads to more gun deaths. Currently, 27 states have Shoot First laws, and every one of them has a higher rate of gun deaths than Minnesota.

I’m hopeful we can focus more time on bipartisan bills going forward. It’s going to take all of us working together to pass bills this year, and while I’ll approach ideas from colleagues on both sides of the aisle with an open mind, I won’t support legislation that harms Minnesotans.

If you have any questions about the bills I’ve voted for or against, always feel free to contact me! I look forward to hearing from you!

Brad Tabke, State Representative | Rep.Brad.Tabke@house.mn.gov
Tenzin Tsangyang, Legislative Assistant | Tenzin.Tsangyang@house.mn.gov