The legislature adjourned for the year and as you know, Gov. Dayton vetoed three major bills that had strong bipartisan support. Those bills were, Education, Job Growth & Energy Affordability and Agriculture & Environment.

 

Gov. Dayton's vetoes will trigger a special session and we expect to be called back to St. Paul sometime before the end of June. Currently, House and Senate leadership is working with the Governor to find agreements so we can get these bills passed into law.

 

I am regular contact with house leadership. Some of the areas I am firm on are:

 

• No government forced Pre Kindergarten Education.

 

• No new taxes

 

• Bathroom privacy for students

 

• No driver's licenses for illegal aliens

 

• We must have energy reform to save our jobs and power plants!

 

• As your state representative, here what I have been able to accomplish, so far:

 

My bill, HF # 722 was passed and signed into law. This bill is called the Emergency Powers Bill. Simply put, it prevents the government from confiscating your firearms during a declared state of emergency. We saw this occur many times during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Law abiding citizens had their legally owned firearms confiscated by law enforcement and military units. My bill prevents this from occurring. This is a really big "win" for our 2nd Amendment Rights.

 

Emergency Response Teams

I authored amendment language to the Transportation Bill that created 2 new Emergency Response Teams. I am dedicated to increased rail safety and am very glad to have these teams come into existence. There were many meetings and committee hearings on this subject. In the end, all the work paid off.

 

One team will be in Duluth and the other, located very close to our district, in St. Cloud.

 

These full time teams will be ready to respond and assist local fire departments should there be a rail disaster. 

 

As an emergency professional, I recognized the great need we have for these teams. I must also give special thanks to St. Cloud Representative Jim Knoblach. He really helped me get these team past the final hurdles.  

 

Without his help, these teams would not have come into existence.

 

This was a big win for the people of Minnesota. Time-and-time-again, the Governor and the Metro DFL pushed for more gas taxes. Roads and bridges are a priority for me and the House Republicans were able to find a way to fund roads and bridges WITHOUT raising taxes. This was not good enough for Governor Dayton and he rejected our first transportation bill. We were able to pass a "lights on" version of the Transportation Bill in order to keep our transportation system functioning. We will keep fighting for roads and bridges - without new gas taxes!

 

 Each small city in Greater Minnesota received some much-needed help in the Republican "lights on" transportation bill. These funds are to aid these small cities towards completing some of their transportation repairs. The funding to the cities in our district include, Foley $64,445, Gilman $16,085, Rice $43,221, Becker $123,938 Clear Lake $28,254 and Clearwater $51,087. The funding was based on population.

 

Increased Nursing Home Aid

This year I was very pleased to help our area nursing homes.

 

In the past there were three different funding levels for nursing homes. The Metro area homes received the largest amounts, the funding dropped as you moved away from the Metro. The new law, which I supported, levels the playing field. Now all nursing homes should be treated equally. 

 

Folks in our district have loved ones in nursing homes that include: Foley Nursing Center, Good Shepherd Lutheran - Sauk Rapids and St. Benedict's Senior Community - St. Cloud.

 

All of these homes will now receive much needed increases in funding as they care for our senior citizens.

 

This year I was very privileged to support two pro life pieces of legislation. One gives parents more information if their unborn child is diagnosed with Trisomy characteristics. The other is titled "born alive". It protects unborn children in the event they are "born alive" during the course of a medical procedure or an attempted abortion.

 

As stated, the Governor vetoed bipartisan bills and we are headed for a special session. I have legislation included in these bills that cover a wide variety of subjects.

 

Legislation that will help farmers with irrigation issues. Help people who want to expand their own small cottage foods and farmer's market businesses, and Help small communities retain their landfill rights - to name a few.

 

As you know I am fighting every day save our power plants. They provide us with affordable/reliable energy, thousands of jobs, and millions of tax support dollars. I have personally authored 10 energy policy bills and fought very hard all year to get them through the committee process.

 

Many of them survived the committee process and were included in our conference committee bill.

 

We had some very strong bipartisan support on many of them. As we worked through the final days of the session, all of these bills were rejected by DFL leadership. It appears that they prefer to sacrifice our affordable energy, your jobs and our tax dollars for other "green" energy systems.

 

At this time, I am working with leadership to save some of our policy bills. Negotiations are ongoing with Gov. Dayton. The DFL leadership doesn't want any energy policy reforms.

 

I encourage you to email Gov. Dayton and ask him to save all of our power plants. We cannot afford his "green energy" plan. We will lose thousands of jobs, millions of tax dollars and be forced to into an system of over priced, unreliable energy. A sample email is below for your convenience. Please be respectful but firm in any emails you send to the Governor's office.