MN lege: Stuff of interest, good and otherwise

- “Worker Friendly Bills Continue to Move Forward" (Workday Minnesota)

- The House Health and Human Services Finance omnibus bill, HF 2414, was passed last week. House Party of Trump anti-choice zealots - that is, all MN House Republicans - tried and failed to add 6- and 20-week abortion bans. Of course. (The foregoing is paraphrased from an email I got from Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota Action Fund).

- The House passed a 100% clean energy by 2050 mandate.

The Minnesota Solar Energy Industries Association (MnSEIA) said the bill could increase solar jobs in the state 10x. “We estimate that if this bill were to pass through the senate, then our state’s solar industry would balloon from 4,600 jobs to well over 45,000,” MnSEIA Executive Director David Shaffer told pv magazine.

But it may be too good to be true. Every state house to date that has passed a 100% clean energy mandate has been dominated by the Democratic Party. And while the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party holds a 75-59 majority in Minnesota’s House, in the Senate it’s a different story: a story where Republicans hold a 35-32 majority.

Sources close to this bill have made it clear to pv magazine that some features of this bill – specifically the 100% clean energy mandate – have a snowball’s chance in Hell in the Senate due to Republican opposition, and this concern was alluded to in Shaffer’s statements. - pv magazine

- In fact, the Senate has very different ideas in general about anything good for the environment.

(In mid-April), the Minnesota Senate Environment and Natural Resources Finance committee unveiled an omnibus budget bill that would dramatically cut general state support for our natural resources by 25%. These cuts, representing a funding decrease of $90 million from the last two year budget, would harm the ability of agencies like the Department of Natural Resources, the Pollution Control Agency, and the Board of Water and Soil Resources to tackle environmental threats to Minnesota’s health and livelihoods. - Minnesota Environmental Partnership

If Republicans ran Minnesota - education, elections, &c.

This series is based mostly on what Party of Trump state legislators have been trying to do. It is not remotely meant to be anywhere near exhaustive. Just items I’ve chosen to particularly highlight, being brought together for easy reference. I may be adding stuff, from time to time. Part 1, finances and budget, here. Part 2, environment, here.

School funding issues would only get worse. That’s what you call a “lock bet.”

State aid to Minnesota school districts—properly adjusted for inflation—has fluctuated significantly over the last fifteen years, but the overall trend has been downward, as documented in a recent North Star report. Of course, long-term trends are not exclusively the result of changes enacted by state policymakers.* Using information compiled during the 2017 special legislative session, it’s possible to isolate the impact of legislative actions during the current fiscal year (FY) 2018-2019 biennium. And those actions led to a decline in real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) per pupil general education revenue. - North Star Policy Institute

More here. And here, especially about how Republicans seek to backdoor public money for private schools.

- Election-rigging. Of course. Republicans have made numerous efforts to destroy Minnesota’s public campaign financing, and to potentially enable gerrymandering. In particular, they’ve sought to add riders to these ends to must-pass budget bills, apparently blissfully oblivious to just how obnoxiously childish - and cowardly - such tactics make them look.

- An effort to get the Appleton prison doing its thing died in the Senate, this time. Also from Bluestem Prairie, outstate locals do not in fact really seem to be on fire for the lock-em-up mentality. But a GOP legislature and governor would presumably quickly pass one of those override bills, mostly used in other states so far to reverse local minimum wage increases, to deal with such manifestations of intelligence and humanity.