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Monday started off with HF 13, a rate increase for the Child Care Access Program. We want to provide effective and affordable childcare but this bill does not make childcare more affordable. Instead, this increases the pot of taxpayer money that by the legislative auditor’s own analysis is fraught with “pervasive non-compliance” when administrating its dispersal. It’s estimated that up to 40% of this funding ended up in the pockets of fraudsters and without added oversight, this bill is likely to lead to even more money never reaching the children it is intended to help.
On Thursday we faced the Earned Sick and Safe Time bill. This bill creates a huge mandate on our businesses and job providers. By dictating the paid sick time policies of every business across the entire state this bill adds a massive cost to payroll and is just the start of Democrat’s anti-business policy. As a business owner myself these added costs are tough to face as they will likely mean I have to reduce the hours available to my employees and increase prices for my customers to stay profitable. These increased expenses end up being a hidden tax that hurts the middle class and the most vulnerable as added costs get passed onto the consumer.
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Previously I as well as many of my Republican colleagues pointed out how HF 1269 would have added onerous mandates on homeschoolers and you all made your voices heard. We got a win on the bill this week when in the senate an amendment was accepted on the bill that removes these excessive standardized testing requirements on homeschooled students. This is a great win for rights in education and shows exactly how even in the minority we can have successes in the legislative process. This is thanks to everyone who made their voice heard and contacted their legislators about this bill.
Unfortunately, the removal of Tier 2 pathway to teacher licensure is still a priority of the Democrat Education policy legislation. We will continue to fight this as it would leave many experienced, qualified teachers without a path to full licensure. In a time of teacher shortage plaguing our state this is not only unnecessary but extremely detrimental to our schools and our students.
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Democrats are quickly moving ahead with their attack on the second amendment as a number of their bills to strip our gun rights are moving through committee. Of the plethora of bad firearms policy proposals, their top two are Universal Background Checks and Red Flag laws. The universal background checks bill creates a massive requirement for all sales to require a background check, even private parties. This also means the creation of what is essentially a gun registry as almost every transfer could be traced back through each of these checks.
The red flag bill is equally as bad as it looks to strip gun rights from individuals without proper due process. The lack of process and protections in the bill leaves it wide open for abuses as a form of retaliation by wrongfully reporting someone. The worst part is that this won’t even accomplish the goal of protecting people who may actually need intervention, this bill simply takes their firearms but leaves them without the counseling or medical care to deal with the situation that would lead to needing this kind of injunction.
I will always stand up against these infringements on our second amendment rights. To do that I want to hear your concerns on these as well as other gun legislation that is being introduced, so I will be hosting a Town Hall next weekend on February 26th in Park Rapids. This will be a great opportunity to hear directly from you on this issue. More details to come and you can get the updates first by following me on the Facebook Page.
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/RepKristaKnudsen
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225 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Saint Paul, MN 55155
651.296.6746 |
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