Rep. Jim Nash (R, Waconia) and Rep. Jerry Hertaus (R, Greenfield) provided their unique perspectives of being Republican legislators in the DFL-controlled Minnesota House during a 90-minute Pints & Pent-up forum on April 14.

Rep. Nash is the Assistant Minority Leader in the House. He is also the chief author of the “Free the Growler” bill. Rep. Hertaus is the Republican lead on the Property Tax Division Committee and has authored various election reform measures.

The two representatives joined the forum after a long day remotely attending a House Ways and Means Committee meeting. The free online networking event started with Reps. Nash and Hertaus making a few remarks.

Jim Nash led off by noting that there are so many weird and bad things going on in St Paul that Republicans feel like they are fighting things off more than they are actually advancing the ball.

Jerry Hertaus mentioned that his election reform bill tried to
• return early voting to 10 days before election day,
• limit absentee ballots to a few excuses, including those serving in the military, working out of state, and having some medical incapacity,
• eliminate opportunities for ballot harvesting

He tried to attract bi-partisan support by adding the carrot of restoring the rights of convicted felons to vote on release from jail rather than after they have completed probation. It would take away the chance that poll workers might illegally allow a formerly incarcerated individual to vote. If you are in prison, you cannot vote. If you are out of prison, you can vote. Yet his bill did not get a hearing in the committee.

The DFL leadership in the House has introduced their Omnibus State Government bill. This bill ignores the need to increase integrity in our elections and makes it even easier to vote without an I.D. in Minnesota. This bill also:

• Allows felons to vote.
• Allows individuals to assist an unlimited number of people inside the voting booth.
• Gives the Minnesota Secretary of State the ability to spend money with NO legislative oversight.
• Expands vote-by-mail.
• Has state government automatically register people to vote.

This legislation is a Democrat wish-list of election law changes. Rather than making the election process more secure, it increases the opportunity for voter fraud in Minnesota.

Representative Drazkowski (R, Mazeppa) authored amendments to add security and integrity to the election process. They require voter I.D. and provisional ballots in Minnesota elections. 

The population of the United States shrinks, grows, and shifts around dynamically. This presents a challenge, as the U.S. Constitution (Section I, Section 2) requires that each Representative in Congress represent an equal number of citizens. The process of adjusting and realigning the population blocks that vote to elect our representatives is called “redistricting”.

In 1929, Congress capped the membership of the U.S. House of Representatives at 435.  In 1941, it adopted the current formula for reapportioning those House seats.

Monday, April 26, the Census bureau released information indicating that MN would keep its 8 Congressional Districts. Reapportionment, or redistricting, takes place every decade following the conduct of the national census. Seven states (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming) currently have only one Congressional seat, due to their low population. Montana will gain another seat, the remaining 6 states will still have only one. For some of the other 42 states, the latest Census data will lead to the loss or addition of Congressional seats and the redrawing of Congressional District boundaries.

Minnesota also reapportions its state senate districts based on the Census data. Congressional district and senate district boundaries may be adjusted to rebalance their populations to be within 10% of the other congressional and senate districts. When a senate district boundary is adjusted, its associated house districts are also adjusted to be in relative alignment.

The Tax Foundation has released its latest “Tax Freedom Day” rankings. This is the day when workers have earned enough to pay their taxes for the year.

Even before any of the DFL's proposed tax increases would be put into play, Minnesota comes in at #46. We work until April 25th just to pay our taxes. This is later than residents in ultra-liberal California and Massachusetts!

Minnesota is currently sitting on over $1.6 billion in over-collected taxpayer money. That is on top of another $2.4 billion dollars of over-collected money that is sitting in a special reserve fund. In addition to this, the federal government is showering Minnesota with another $8 billion in funds from the American Rescue Plan. Despite this, Democrats in the House still want to raise taxes on Minnesotans by another $1 billion.

During their April 5 remote meeting, the Bloomington City Council was scheduled to discuss a new requirement that self-storage facilities allow for a 500-ft setback from residential properties. However, at one point, the discussion turned to a total ban any further such facilities.

The April 15 edition of the Bloomington-Richfield Sun Current quoted Mayor Tim Busse saying, “If we believe there are enough storage units in the city of Bloomington, then let’s just say there’s enough storage units within the city of Bloomington and they’re prohibited according to our zoning code.”

Interestingly, none of the discussion recorded by the Sun Current included any mention of the occupancy rate of Bloomington’s existing self-storage units.

Councilmember Jenna Carter reported that she had “heard from plenty of people – they do not want to see another self-storage unit or facility go up in Bloomington.”

Councilmember Nathan Coulter (pictured here) was not ready to implement a ban. Coulter, who is running for re-election, said, “I’m all for addressing community concerns. I’m all for doing what we really say we want to do. But I think we need to do it in a thoughtful way, and pushing something like this and saying we’ll just figure it out as we go. I’m just really, really not comfortable with that.”

One immediately wants to ask where Coulter was when the Council voted to put Ranked Choice Voting on the ballot without having any idea what the ordinance would require. Amid the pandemic emergency, the Council rushed to approve a ballot question, despite the lack of approval of the Bloomington Charter Commission.

Ironic that Coulter demonstrated more caution regarding an ordinance affecting self-storage facilities than he did approving a ballot question that will affect the future of our municipal elections.

Minnesota has a projected surplus of more than $4 billion. Yet DFL legislators in the House have released their Transportation Omnibus bill that would hike transportation taxes and fees by more than $1.5 billion over the next four years.

None of the proposed Transportation tax and fee hikes have been heard in committee this year. They just appeared in the omnibus bill.

What is included?

• Linking the gas tax to the Highway Construction Cost Index. Result: a five-cent per gallon increase over four years -- $350 million of new taxes
• Half percent increase in the Metro Sales tax to pay for light rail and other transit -- $916 million of new taxes over four years
• Increases in registration and tab fees, and an increase to the Motor Vehicle Sales tax – hundreds of million in new taxes and fees

The DFL House also dropped their omnibus Tax bill last week. In addition to the $1.5 billion tax and fee hikes in the Omnibus Transportation bill, the Tax bill raises taxes by another $1 billion. At a time when businesses are suffering from Gov. Walz pandemic restrictions, the DFL bill will not fully protect businesses from tax hikes on forgiven loans under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The federal government gives, the state government is eager to take away.

Despite the state budget surplus and billions of dollars more coming from the federal government, the DFL House wants to raise more taxes on business and families. Republicans are trying to provide relief to businesses and families facing a slow economic recovery, but the Democrats are holding the relief hostage in their push for more than $1 billion in unnecessary tax increases.

The State Central Committee of the Minnesota Republican Party held its semi-annual meeting on Saturday, April 10. The six-hour meeting was conducted virtually utilizing Zoom in a webinar format and Option Technologies for on-line voting.

The meeting was very well attended. The large majority of the State Central Committee delegates and alternates were elected at senate district and county conventions in February. Of the 340 elected delegates, 321 registered for the meeting and 314 were present when the final credentials report was given.

Of the 554 alternates elected, 341 registered and 306 were present. Twenty-one of those alternates ultimately were seated and allowed to vote.

The incumbent MN GOP officers were all reelected:
• MN GOP Chair -- Jennifer Carnahan
• Deputy Chair -- Carleton Crawford
• Secretary – David Pascoe

All of the previously certified MN GOP Affiliate groups were recertified. They include:

• Asian American Republicans of Minnesota
• Minnesota Federation of Republican Women
• Minnesota Republican Seniors
• Minnesota Young Republicans
• Minnesota Organization of Republican Veterans (MORVETS)
• African Republicans Affiliate Group
• Republican Liberty Caucus of Minnesota
• Republican Labor Alliance

Two new Affiliate groups were certified during this meeting
• American Indian Republicans
• Log Cabin Republicans

The College Republican Affiliate group hopes to be certified at the next State Central Committee meeting in December.

Our SD49 Communication Team core volunteers create a Newsletter twice-monthly.  We're seeking a volunteer to take over editing/formatting tasks half-time (i.e., either once a month or alternating months).

The work for each publication takes 8 - 10 hours and can be spread over 3-4 days, if you choose. Training on our editing tool and coaching as-needed will be provided.   

If you have a good eye for detail, a firm grasp of English grammar, flexibility to learn the editing tool (if you can format using tools like Word or Acrobat you'll be fine) and most importantly a commitment to communicating Republican messages... WE NEED YOU.

Please contact Communications Chair Randy Sutter  [email protected] if you're open to exploring this volunteer role.

If you enjoy the freedom of the open road, enjoy it while you can.

Frank Hornstein (DFL, Minneapolis), the chairman of the MN House Transportation Finance and Policy Committee, is the lead author of the Sustainable Transportation Act. It puts into statute a new statewide goal to reduce vehicle miles driven by at least 20% by 2050.

In an information hearing in March, Hornstein told the committee that electric vehicles alone won’t meet the goals set for cutting greenhouse gases. While transportation is the largest source of emissions, electric vehicles are still less than 1% of new vehicle sales.

Move Minnesota, a transit advocacy group in Minnesota, supports the concrete emission reduction standards pushed by states like California and Washington. Sam Rockwell, executive director of Move Minnesota, holds that the shift to electric vehicles is not happening fast enough to meet climate change timelines that they want mandated. Rockwell is quoted in the Star Tribune as saying, “Reducing vehicle miles traveled in Minnesota is essential.” He suggested setting interim benchmarks for the target to keep the state on track and adding mechanisms to ensure the reductions can be enforced.

And since it is not practical for people living in rural areas to significantly reduce their driving, the focus will be on urban residents. They will need to reduce their driving by more than 20%. In Rockwell’s opinion, to make the urban reductions work, everyone needs to live and work within a half-mile of reliable transit.

At this point in time, two Republicans have declared their candidacy for Governor of Minnesota. Below are highlights from the candidates' platforms and key issues.

Dr. Scott Jensen  is a former Minnesota State Senator and practicing physician who garnered widespread attention last year through his opposition to Governor Walz's draconian COVID lockdowns and calls for greater data transparency in government COVID modeling. Dr. Jensen's key campaign issues include:

• Ending the lockdowns
     o In light of Gov. Walz's faulty modeling and devastating economic shutdowns, Jensen is committed to emergency power reform
• Opening classrooms
     o Jensen notes that our children have lost more than a year of critical in-person learning as Walz catered to teachers' union demands, while neighboring states and private schools have found a way to bring students safely back to the classroom
• Transparent data and decision-making, especially following Gov. Walz's faulty COVID modeling and devastating health and economic policies
• Restoring election integrity
• Protecting the Second Amendment
• Enforcing the law and protecting Minnesotans in light of the rioting in 2020
• Funding children's education, not broken institutions, by providing choice and empowerment for parents and their finances
• Protecting the sanctity of human life and supporting Minnesota families
• Shrinking the government and the tax burden on Minnesotans

His campaign website is drscottjensen.com

Mike Murphy is a small business owner who currently serves as Mayor of Lexington, MN. Mike's key campaign issues include:

• Business and Job Growth
     o Mike plans to reopen Minnesota's economy by lowering restrictions on businesses and ending tax hikes
• Supporting Law Enforcement
     o Mike fully supports law enforcement and will ensure they have enough funding to keep communities safe and secure
• Election Integrity
     o Mike will fight to protect the ballot box, as Minnesotans deserve to know that their elections are free and fair.

His campaign website is mikemurphyformn.com