 Summer Greetings! I hope you are having a great July and enjoying these longer and warmer days! As we’ve passed the halfway point of the calendar year, I thought you might be interested in learning about some of the new statewide initiatives our DFL-led legislature delivered for you over the past two years. We worked hard to put aside partisan differences and improve the lives of residents like you and me. We lowered everyday costs and invested in the health and wellbeing of young and old, our future workforce, roads and bridges, public safety, and more. Among our many successes, here are a few highlights: - Banning junk fees: Banning unnecessary, hidden fees that get added at the end of your purchase.
- Ending predatory ticket sales: Making concert and event ticket sales fairer and more transparent.
- Banning book bans: Prohibiting public and school libraries from book bans.
- Improving water quality: Investing $2.8 million for nitrate home water treatment.
- Supporting our libraries and librarians: Allocating $4 million/year to our regional public library system.
- Expanding Solar in Schools: Expanding the Solar for School grant program to support solar energy system installation in Minnesota public schools.
- Investing in local schools: Universal free school lunches, additional funding for Eastern Carver County ($17 million) and Minnetonka Public Schools ($15 million), and improving literacy rates by funding the Read Act.
- Trusting you to make important reproductive healthcare decisions: Protecting Minnesotans’ rights to contraception, privacy, and access to reproductive healthcare.
- Investing in local infrastructure improvements: $20 million for Hwy 5 & $10 million for W. 82nd Street (CSAH18)
- Preventing gun violence: Banning binary triggers, strengthening laws to prevent straw purchases, enacting “red flag” protection orders, and requiring criminal background checks on all firearm purchases.
- Increasing access to mental health care: Increasing rates for Medical Assistance coverage and funding for additional nurses, social workers and counselors in our schools.
- Making consumer products safer: Banning PFAS, or cancer-causing “forever chemicals”.
- Removing lead pipes: Investing $240 million while unlocking additional federal dollars to get rid of lead pipes in homes.
- Making e-bikes more affordable: Implementing the highly popular e-bike rebate program ($4 million).
- Taking care of our veterans: Free admission to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum for disabled veterans.
Together, we are able to accomplish so much! Please contact me at rep.lucy.rehm@house.mn.gov with questions or thoughts on what you’d like to see the State House do next session. You’re also welcome to follow me on my official Facebook page for more community updates at https://www.facebook.com/RepLucyRehm, or subscribe to my e-updates at https://tinyurl.com/ma35ut95. Wishing you a healthy and restful summer,  Lucy  |