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Dear Friends,
Welcome back to the 2024 legislative session! I am excited to be back in St. Paul representing you at the Capitol. There are several critical issues that we must address this session. Remember, with a $17.5 billion surplus, Democrats passed a 40% state budget increase last year. How did they pay for it? They voted to raise your taxes by $10 billion.
Life under one-party control is becoming too expensive for Minnesotans. Family budgets are being stretched thin as prices for gas, groceries, and energy bills continue to rise. We need balance in our state government so we can support Minnesota’s families by making their lives more affordable with permanent, meaningful tax relief.
But we also need balance so we can quickly address the problems that were created by one-party, Democrat control last session. The first problem we must correct is the school resource officer (SRO) issue. You may remember that over the summer SROs across Minnesota were pulled from schools because of changes to the student disciplinary policy. While Democrats promised to address this issue immediately when session resumed, their SRO bill has now stalled.
Republicans are ready to get to work to fix the SRO issue to keep our students and teachers safe at school. We tried to declare an urgency on the very first day of session that would have allowed the House to bring our SRO bill to the floor. Unfortunately, Democrats blocked our motion.
This problem is not fixed until 100% of SROs are back in schools. Republicans are waiting for Democrats to join us so that we can get to work on a solution for our students, teachers, and law enforcement.
Yesterday, in the Higher Ed committee, we heard from the Office of Higher Education. Their presentation included details on the newly passed North Star Promise Program, which is the new program to provide free college tuition for families making $80,000 or less. Did you know that the residency requirement for taking advantage of this program is only 1 year in this state? With our open border crisis, we have already learned that our state is now a top destination for these illegal migrants. You can connect the dots, right?
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