Session Summaries
May 22, 2006| Posted in Session Summaries
The 2006 Session closed on Sunday evening. As you know, the state budget is set in the odd-number year sessions. As such, the even-year sessions are shorter with more limited agendas. Here is an overview of what happened and did not happen.
My personal practical legislative agenda this session – knowing it was not a budget year — included four items: accomplish the merger of the Minneapolis Teacher Pension into the statewide teacher pension fund; enact reform to the state’s eminent domain laws to protect individual property rights while allowing local government to accomplish important public purposes; pass electronic waste reform and move toward more targeted and efficient property tax relief. Two out of four were accomplished.
Minneapolis Teacher Pension Reform
The Minneapolis Teacher Pension is in dire straits, within years of bankruptcy and the solution gets more expensive by millions and millions of dollars each year. And the bottom line politically, legally and morally is that the State of Minnesota cannot renege on promises made to those teachers who spent their lifetimes teaching generations of Minnesota children. The looming default posed a grave threat to Minneapolis property tax payers and all taxpayers from around the state. Read Full Entry…
May 22, 2005| Posted in Session Summaries
2005: Environmental Issues
Sadly, I must report that the legislature did not do enough to protect our natural resources this session. For starters, the natural resources funding bill – which I voted against – has been characterized as the worst funding bill in thirty years. The results of this session must be a call to action for all of us.
Clean Water Legacy
As you may know, identifying and cleaning up Minnesota’s polluted waters is an important priority for me. And I had high hopes when the year started that we could make important progress toward that goal by enacting the Clean Water Legacy Act. Unfortunately, an agreement on it could not be reached before the Legislature adjourned.
The rationale for the proposal is fairly straightforward and something everyone in the state can agree upon: the protection of Minnesota’s thousands of lakes and rivers. To date the state has tested only eight percent of its rivers and 14 percent of its lakes, which has resulted in the discovery of over 1,900 water quality violations. This number will continue to rise as more tests are performed unless the state does something to reverse the conditions that have caused these problems. Read Full Entry…
May 17, 2004| Posted in Session Summaries
The 2004 regular legislative session concluded early Sunday morning. Although I do not agree with those who say that four months were wasted, I am disappointed and frustrated by what has happened. We could have accomplished much more.
Of course, there are many reasons for the lack of results and over the next several weeks and months, blame will be cast in many directions. I certainly have my own perspectives – an undue focus on less pressing,
divisive social issues may top my list – but there is certainly blame enough to go around. This Update is intended to highlight some of the results – and lack of results – of the 2004 session.
1. My Legislative Initiatives
In the flurry of activity in the last few days of the session, I was fortunate enough to be appointed to three conference committees and to pass on a bipartisan basis five of my bills. The bills included (1) an overhaul of state law governing the enforcement of campaign law violations that will reduce partisanship and make the system more efficient; (2) legislation to ease state funding rules to allow individuals near the end-of-life to choose hospice care rather than more expensive traditional skilled-nursing services; (3) an initiative to streamline reporting processes within state agencies; (4) a change in state law that will allow the Richfield School Board/Richfield Historical Society to accept a Minnesota Historical Society grant for improvements to the Bartholomew House; and (5) a requirement that public high schools make voter registration forms available to high school seniors before elections. Along with the passage of a corporate law reform bill earlier in the session, the passage of those bills made for a productive session. Read Full Entry…
Follow Paul