Legislative Update 03.14.25

Legislative Update

Dear friends and neighbors, 

I am happy to report on another busy week at the Capitol. I had so many meetings this week, allowing me to engage with community members from many different circles. I will dive into the details next week, but our one-vote GOP majority has technically ended and our 134th member will be sworn in next week, restoring the House to a 67-67 tie. Thank you for taking the time to read my update this week, and Happy St. Patrick's Day if you are celebrating this weekend!

Bills

I am excited to share about 2 bills that I am dropping and introducing soon. 

Got Milk Bill - This bill would make a change to the standing rule that any student that wants milk at lunch in our public schools also has to take a hot meal. If a student brings a lunch from home and just wants a carton of milk to go with it, they have to take the hot lunch and it gets wasted. My bill would allow students to take just a milk at no charge, which would save our schools a lot of money in the long run by cutting out the waste of entire lunch meals. At a time when our schools lack funding and other resources, this is one way that we can provide financial relief and avoid wasting food, which is never good.

Autonomous Lawn Mower Bill - This bill would provide funding for a study to look at autonomous lawn mowers, which could be used in the road ditches in Goodhue County. If these autonomous lawn mowers work well and can be easily controlled, three to four mowers could be supervised by one employee rather than having them all controlled individually. This would free up employees to complete other projects and tasks to best serve the needs of the county.

One these bills have HF numbers, I will add them to a future email update and let you know how they are doing on their way through the House.

Meetings

I would like to highlight the meetings I had this week. Thank you to everyone who made their way here to St. Paul in order to meet with me. I appreciate the time I have to connect with individuals and groups from our district.

Three Rivers Homeless Group

Three Rivers Senior Support

Trinity Lutheran School

Waseca and Janesville School Board Members and Superintendents

Owner of McDonald's in Faribault

Goodhue County Commissioners and Staff

Alzheimer's and Dementia Day on the Hill Visitors

Please Contact Me

I am here for you! If you have any questions, concerns, or would like to talk, I can be reached by phone at 651-296-8237 or by email.

Thank you!