LEGISLATION HIGHLIGHTSANOTHER SOLUTION IN SEARCH OF A PROBLEM: RANKED CHOICE VOTING As you know, I serve on the elections committee in the Minnesota House. One of the guidelines I’ve tried to adopt here is “make it easy to vote and make it difficult to cheat.” On Wednesday, on a strictly partisan vote, House Democrats approved their omnibus elections bill. It includes the very confusing ranked choice voting program. Under this idea, which would only apply to local races if the local government chose to implement the program, multiple candidates for a particular office appear on a ballot, and voters rank them in order of their preference. If no candidate receives more than half of the first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and those who ranked them first instead have their vote go to their second choice. The process continues until one candidate achieves the required 50%. The process is cumbersome, difficult and confuses many voters. If you make a mistake the possibility exists that your votes will be thrown out. It also slows down the process of counting the votes. What a mess. To watch my committee comments on ranked choice voting, click here. CALL TO ACTION ON EMERGENCY SERVICES FUNDING This week, House Republicans held a news conference to address the critical need to adequately fund emergency medical services (EMS) statewide.  $120 million is critically needed to keep our rural EMS providers operational. I am co-author of legislation that would provide this funding. In response, Governor Walz and legislative Democrats have proposed only $16 million. Keep in mind, they had no problem spending $730 million on a new building for lawmaker office space – a palace for politicians. Talk about misplaced priorities. To watch the press conference, click here. ROCHESTER SCHOOLS TRANSGENDER POLICY IMPLEMENTED WITHOUT PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE To me, one of the worst things you can do if you are serving some role in government is to be sneaky about implementing a policy. It gives credence to the argument that you must have something to hide, which is why you are choosing not to be transparent. Let’s look at the Rochester Public Schools (RPS) as the latest example. I met with this courageous school counselor, Christina Barton, who was interviewed by Alpha News. According to this news report, Rochester Public Schools Superintendent Kent Pekel implemented guidelines as they relate to transgender students. Christina said she “had consulted with RPS personnel who had warned me against making this guideline public and that there is a risk of job retaliation up to disciplinary action or termination if I speak to the board or am noncompliant regarding these guidelines.” Superintendent Pekel’s guidelines were put in place in September 2023 and were apparently done without knowledge of the school board. The guidelines state they “will remain in effect until the school board ‘develops and approves a policy and/or procedures to support transgender and gender-expansive students.” Yet, the Rochester School Board apparently knew nothing about these guidelines, so why would it feel compelled to develop a policy and rid itself of Pekel’s mandate? I’ve learned Rochester’s teachers found out about this in February. According to the article, the guidelines detail how students must be referred to by their preferred name and pronouns and allowed access to bathrooms and sporting activities in accordance with their gender identity. District staff who fail to comply with the guidelines, such as by refusing to use a student’s preferred pronouns, “may be subject to disciplinary actions, up to and including termination.” A section on “parent access to information” stipulates that parents will be provided with information about whether their child is “transgender or whether their child has asked to use a name, pronouns, restrooms, or locker rooms based on the child’s gender identity rather than sex assigned at birth” only if they request such information. Which begs the question, if the parents have no knowledge of their child’s transgender information, why would they ever think to request it? It seems pretty clear that Superintendent Pekel implemented this language on his own. The guidelines were not posted publicly. There was no public hearing. Why so secretive? So, let’s think about this for a moment. If a child is going through a gender transition activity, or is feeling uncomfortable about their birth sex, parents will not be notified about this unless they call the school and ask specifically about it? Kids can’t get their ears pierced without parental consent. They can’t get a tattoo. They can’t smoke. But when it comes to doing something that will cause irreversible impacts and does not “follow the science,” then it’s OK to keep parents in the dark? For the life of me, I cannot understand who would argue against transparency and against the protection of children. For teachers – union employees, mind you - to be threatened with their jobs if they did not follow these rules that were unknown to the school board or parents is disgusting. Again, to learn more about the Rochester Public Schools transgender guidelines debacle, click here. LOCAL VISITORS It was great to see members of Rise Up Red Wing in St. Paul this week!  This group really grew from last year! They even sat in my Education Finance committee meeting. Veterans Day at the Capitol took place this week. It was good to see so many veterans in St. Paul, including Joe Steck.  |