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(upbeat music) - Good evening and welcome to the 44th season of "Your Legislators" on Pioneer Public Television.

We're delighted that you've joined us for a detailed and what we hope is an interesting discussion of the public policy issues that will be front and center in the 2024 legislative session.

I'm Barry Anderson, your host and moderator for this conversation, a role that I've held over the last 34 years.

And we begin our program, as we always do, by giving our distinguished legislative guests the opportunity to introduce themselves, to talk about the issues that are front and center for the legislature, and to have the conversation with each other about those issues.

Now our scheduling issues dictated that we prerecorded our program this evening, so we're not taking questions from our audience tonight.

We leave that for some future program.

Let's begin by introducing Representative Jamie Long, who is the majority leader of the House of Representatives from District 61B in Minneapolis.

Representative Long, we're delighted that you've joined us this evening.

Tell our viewers a little bit about yourself and the legislative priorities from your perspective.

- Sure.

Well, good to be with you, Barry.

Good to be with my colleagues.

So I'm Jamie Long, represent a district in Southwest Minneapolis.

I serve, as Barry mentioned, as a majority leader in the Minnesota House.

And we are coming off a really historic and successful legislative session last year and going into the second year of our legislative biennium.

And we, I think, had some enormous progress last year in investing in many of the state's needs that had been long neglected and trying to make sure we were helping Minnesotans afford their lives.

So we did really impressive work in trying to improve our schools' budgeting situations around the states, investing in our kids.

We passed a historic transportation and infrastructure bill to make sure that we were taking care of our roads and bridges and water infrastructure around the state.

We invested in early childcare and affordable healthcare to try to keep costs down for families.

And we did important work in trying to get to a hundred percent clean energy as a state, protecting reproductive rights and much, much more.

So I'm happy to dig into the work that we did last year and the work we have ahead in this upcoming session.

- Very good.

Thank you, Representative Long.

Let's go to you, Senator Bobby Joe Champion from District 59, Minneapolis.

Senator Champion, in addition to representing his constituents, has the honor to be the president of the Minnesota Senate Senator Champion.

Similarly, so much introduce yourselves to our viewers and talk a little bit about the priorities for this legislative session.

- Well, first of all, Mr. Anderson, let me say thank you for inviting me to participate in today's show.

Just briefly about me, as you so eloquently articulated, I am the Senator from Senate District 59, and I do serve also as president.

But I think it's also important for your listening audience to know that I first got elected in '08, where I served two terms in the house before going to the Senate.

I often say I'm a good senator because I was house trained.

So I'm grateful for being previously a member of the house.

And I went over to the Senate in 2012 and I currently, as you said, serve as president, but I'm also chair of jobs in economic growth.

That's important because it's always been important to us to really make sure that we are helping in every corner of our great state.

I also serve on finance and I'm also on the roles committee.

But I'm also proud to say I'm the first metropolitan or metro member to serve on the IRRRB.

So, it's given me a chance to interact with my folks on the Iron Range and look at what they're doing economically and taking some ideas from there and bringing them back down here.

But also taking ideas from our urban and suburban corridors and taking it back up to the Iron Range.

As majority leader Long talked about, I won't repeat the things that he said, but I do echo those things that he did talk about as being important.

But I'll lift up a couple others because I think it's important for folks to know that we also did tax reform or tax conformity because from my vantage point, that was very important to do.

Housing.

Without a safe and affordable place to live, nothing else in your life works.

And so many Minnesotans, including people who are employed, struggle to pay rent or buy a home.

And we know that buying a house is a threshold to improving your quality of life, but also building wealth.

And so we help to restore the balance by making it easier for Minnesotans to afford housing.

And housing should not be a commodity to increase wealth only for the uber rich hedgefunds.

We also think it's important for everyday Minnesotans to be able to have that benefit, 'cause we also know that educational outcomes are improved when individuals own a home.

Property taxes.

We restore the balance on public safety, as representative Long talked about.

But also on property taxes, Minnesotans want schools that are safe and by making these historic investments in schools and universal meals, we know that helps the bottom line for families.

And those investments would also keep the lid on local property taxes, including what we think in terms of public safety.

We put forth $300 million that goes all across this wonderful state.

And so going forward I can see us doing some other great things, whether it's improving and protecting and building on the 2024 progress to continue improving the lives of Minnesotans, but also a budget.

We see that we have great growth and we have projected growth both in employment and wages.

And we are excited about the historic tax cuts that we've done in the past, even if you think in terms of social security and also for child tax credit.

So those are just some of the things I'm excited about.

Just the underlining message for us is to improve and protect and build on what we did last session so that Minnesotan's lives are always improved.

- Senator Champion, thank you for that introduction.

Senator Champion and I share a passion for at least a couple of charities that I can think of.

And I've had the privilege of being with him.

I really appreciate his willingness to be here this evening.

Senator Bill Weber from District 21, Laverne.

Assistant minority leader.

Laverne, of course, Rock County.

I had the privilege of practicing law in southwestern Minnesota the first four years of my career a couple of centuries ago, and got to know that territory a little bit.

I am delighted to be able to introduce Senator Weber to our viewers.

Senator Weber, tell our viewers a little bit about the committees you serve on and some of the priorities you might see in this upcoming legislative session.

- Well, thank you so much.

It's indeed a pleasure to... An honor to be here with you this evening.

And I serve Senate District 21, which covers all or parts of nine counties in the southwest corner of Minnesota.

And I will be starting my 12th session, having been elected in 2012.

And as I look at my committee work this year, I serve as the minority lead on the Senate Tax Committee.

And I also serve on the Energy and Environmental Policy Committee this year.

And also, as you mentioned, I am an assistant minority leader and in addition, I serve as a co-chair of the Minnesota Water Study Committee, which tries to meet on a monthly basis and discuss water issues across the state of Minnesota.

As far as what I look forward to in this upcoming year, I have a bit of a different take as to what happened last year in Minnesota.

I think that while the other side does like to talk about historic increase in education funding, the thing that they failed to mention is that there was a historic increase in mandate costs on our school districts.

And as I visit with my superintendents, the amount of additional money that was given them does not even begin to come close to cover the costs of the mandates that were placed on them.

And so many of the schools in my district are looking at two choices.

Either cut staff and programs or raise their levies.

And quite frankly, neither of those choices are very attractive to they or the people that they serve.

As we look at what happened last year, we had a $19 billion surplus going into the session that was spent.

And then in addition, the budget was increased by 40%.

There was a $10 billion of tax increases.

That happened as a result of...

In tying the gas tax to an inflator.

And in numerous higher license tabs fees, higher sales taxes in the metro area.

And so, I have, like I said, a different take on what happened last year.

I would hope that we could make some progress in changing some of those problems that were created by the legislature last year.

And of course, this is a bonding year in Minnesota, a typical bonding year.

There was a bonding bill passed last year.

And quite frankly, the only reason that it actually did get passed is that the Senate Republicans stood up and said, "We have to help our nursing homes," who the governor and his budget and the legislative leadership at that point had quite frankly forgotten about.

And so we produced a $300 million over the next few years to go to our nursing homes to help them during a period of extreme difficult times for them.

And then there was a two and a half billion dollars worth of bonding projects that were passed.

And so, as we look forward to this year, we, like I said, we hope we can rectify some of the problems created and certainly do something to indeed help our schools, our families across the entire state.

- Thank you, Senator Weber.

Representative Igo from Grand Rapids, assistant minority leader, if you'd be so kind just to introduce yourself to our viewers, talk a little bit about the priorities that you see in this upcoming legislative session.

- Absolutely, and thank you Barry and it's great to be here with everybody.

I'm representative Spencer Igo.

So I represent House District 7A, which is about half of Minnesota's Iron Range.

So runs from about Deer River over to Hibbing and then all of Aitkin County and a little bit of Southern St. Louis County.

So this is my second term.

As Barry said, I serve as assistant minority leader.

I also serve on the Climate and Energy Committee.

I serve on the Sustainable Infrastructure Committee and the Economic Development Committee.

So I'm pretty proud to be on those three committees 'cause I think they all work together really well to accomplish a lot of things that us as Minnesotans, regardless of what side of the aisle you're on, want to get done and see a change in.

I also have the unique opportunity to service the chair of the IRRR.

As Senator Champion was already talking about, another fellow board member here.

We're glad to have him.

So that's an agency that oversees economic development here in Northern Minnesota.

So we're doing a lot of good things up here, as the Senator said, we're really learning from each other.

When it comes to the priorities that I have or as I see through my district, one, I'm really proud to represent my district.

I'm actually repping my Hibbing, Minnesota sweatshirt here today, because not only is it the biggest city in my district, it's the biggest city in the state of Minnesota by land area.

But the needs of this district and the state as a whole kind of come together into a T right here.

One of the first ones, one of the ones I work on a lot is energy policy.

Minnesota made the news here nationwide for some of the policy we're doing with the 2040 bill.

But there was things in that bill that we could have done a lot better to make, you know, energy affordable for people, but but also provide what people want to see, which is more of a diverse and renewable energy portfolio.

Minnesota took a path of only going down solar and wind.

I carry a lot of the legislation on making sure we can expand nuclear, we can have carbon capture and sequestration, we can have biomass.

These are all things that collectively working together can make it so that my Hibbing municipal power company can use, you know, waste slash from one of our paper mills or pallet mills up here, provide carbon neutral electricity for our communities that's affordable and is staying in our communities.

And these are ideas that all Minnesotans, regardless of background or political ideology, can kind of come together and we can find a way to really lead the way.

I would be remiss if I talked about...

I also try to lead on the issues of permitting regulation reform.

That's gonna be a huge concern here, I think, moving into next session.

We're hearing a lot of conversation that all the way up to the governor's office we're gonna see change in this regard.

It's something that needs to happen.

And it doesn't need to just happen for one specific industry.

It needs to happen for all of them.

We have projects across the state of Minnesota that have came and gone because of our regulatory system.

And I'm not saying this in a way of we need to deregulate, we need to make sure that we're working through our statutes on the books and the policies that we have in a correct manner.

Because right now we have projects that have been permitting for 16, 17, up to 20 years.

That's not a state that's open for business.

We just had a $500 million project located here in Itasca County that was forced to leave because of a regulatory process being broken and taking too long.

They already have their permits in another state and are moving forward and providing hundreds of jobs and tax base to communities.

Minnesota can't afford to keep losing out on that.

So, and that's why, like I said, I'm fortunate to be on the committees that I'm on because I think if you combine everything I'm just talking about, move them to those committees, these are ideas that we can all come together on, really make Minnesota the shining beacon of.

We can do all these things here.

Mining.

Timber.

All these different products can come together, provide manufacturing jobs, provide spinoff jobs, provide tax-based support communities, bring down the cost of housing, bring down the cost of electricity while making Minnesota the hub.

One of the things that I always pitch when I'm on calls or meetings like this or given the opportunity is that Minnesota is one of the only states in the nation where we could mine, manufacture, distribute, and recycle just about everything that's needed for the moderate economy and the world of tomorrow.

So I think this next session, when we're talking permitting reform, when we're talking energy policy, when we're talking what we're gonna do with economic development, let's keep these ideas in mind because these are ideas that can unite both parties, we can come together and really make a difference for all Minnesotans.

- So let's go to you Representative Long.

Senator Weber introduced the question of the budget.

I'd be interested in your observations on that.

We've had a regular report from the Department of Revenue regarding funds that are likely to be available in this cycle and in the next cycle.

And maybe you can talk a little bit about the budget and its sustainability from your perspective.

The floor is yours.

- Sure, happy to do that.

Well, first I might just respond to Senator Weber's comments on our education investments this year.

So you mentioned some of the costs that school districts are facing.

One of the costs that the school districts were concerned about was unemployment insurance for bus drivers and others who are currently not getting that over the summer.

And we funded that for...

Put together a fund to help pay for that for school districts.

The estimates originally were that that was gonna cost 135 million, and it turns out it's gonna be closer to 40 million.

So the fund's gonna last several more years than anticipated.

So I think for some of the costs that we are incurring in the education area, we know that they're coming in at less than projected.

And these are for important functions.

We wanna make sure that our bus drivers and other employees, school employees, have that access to unemployment insurance when they're not working in the summer months, as we do for everyone else.

But to the budget for this current cycle, we do two year budgeting in the state.

And so last year was our main budget year.

So usually in the second year of our two year budget cycle, we're only to allocate any surplus or deal with any deficits that come up.

So it's a much less of a focus in the second year of the biennium.

And the forecast that we showed that we came out with in December, and we'll have another one in February, show that the state is in strong economic shape.

We have AAA bond ratings, we are growing as a state with our economy, and we know that we have a full rainy day fund for any potential emergencies.

It also shows that we have a surplus in the current biennium and we have, in the next biennium, is where we, I think, see some warning signs, as the governor has said, where we are seeing some of our costs go up, particularly in human services area with our disability costs.

And those are higher than projected.

So we know that in the out years when we're looking out three or four years into the future, we are seeing that we have some warning signs.

So I don't think this is gonna be a year where we're going to see large general fund allocations, but I am hopeful that we'll be able to do a substantial bonding bill.

That is baked into our budget forecasting.

Another thing that we did in the budget, which we've never done before, is actually be honest about our budget and include inflation in our forecast.

So if we had not included inflation into the ongoing years into the future, then the picture would be very rosy.

But the fact is that we did include inflation, which is important for us to consider because that we're means we're accounting for those costs for our school districts, we're accounting for the costs for our healthcare systems, and that's never been done before.

So I think the fact that we're being honest with Minnesotans and transparent is a good thing.

And the budget picture is really strong.

- Representative Igo, your thoughts on the budgeting cycle and budget related issues.

- Yeah, thanks Barry.

So, you know, when it comes to how we budgeted, you know, we raised the state budget by tens of millions of...

Billions, excuse me, of dollars in the last session.

And I think what we've done is created a very unsustainable path of government.

When you grow government by 38% in one session, there is major issues that can come down the way of that.

And we're already seeing it through a lot of the programs that were instituted, a lot of programs that were instituted very quickly without good thorough vetting.

And we're seeing that, right?

Whether it's the paid family medical leave, earn sick and save time, you know, we're seeing that the free lunches for all is running over budget.

When you grow government that way and you don't do your business and you don't do your work, you're gonna be left with huge budget shortfalls.

So sure, right now we might be seeing a little bit of a budget surplus.

If you go to the tails in the next cycle, that we already are starting to budget for, we're seeing a deficit.

And these programs, a lot of 'em are still yet to be instituted.

So as this stuff comes together, we need to be looking at Minnesotans, we need to be looking at what we're taking outta their pocketbook.

I mean, it was already said earlier in this conversation that, you know, we need to be doing whatever we can to create generational wealth and putting money in people's pockets.

Well, increasing taxes in different ways with like transportation for instance.

That's not the way to do it, especially when we have hyperinflation kind of, you know, having a stranglehold, if you will, on Minnesota families across our state.

So as we go forward to budget, and this isn't a budget year, we need to be keeping in mind how can we look at these programs and say, okay, this isn't gonna work, we need to pull the plug on this, we need to go back to the drawing board.

because there's no shame in having to say that we took this too quickly.

And that's the one thing that I've heard from Minnesotans, not only in my district but around the state.

The session moved too quickly and now we're starting to see the cause of that and what happens.

We're seeing budgets that are gonna run outta control and they're gonna put our state in a really bad situation that makes us look at our taxpayers and say, oh sorry, that surplus is gone, by the way, we need more money.

That's not the right way to govern.

We could have done a lot better.

And I'm gonna back up at Senator Weber said about education.

We could have had the most historic increased education if we didn't send it with mandates.

I have school districts across Northern Minnesota that are now struggling because of the education bill that has been passed.

So these ideas sound beautiful and amazing to talk about on paper or in the news, but when you dig down and look at what they mean to a budget and what they mean to the Minnesotan family, it's crippling their pocketbooks and we need to take this right now, take a step back, pull these things back and make a difference.

- Representative Igo, I wanna give Senator Champion a chance to talk about the budget.

Before we get to that, I just want to pursue something that both you and Senator Weber mentioned, but we didn't get a lot of specificity and that is when you talk about mandates that have been imposed on school districts, do you have an example or two of what... Of a particularly expensive mandate that you're thinking of?

Or is this just sort of a general problem?

You're muted, Representative Igo.

Hmm.

All right, well, he will recover his voice shortly and we'll go back to him on the mandate question.

Senator Champion, let's go back, while we get the technology working with Representative Igo, let's go back to you on the budget question.

You could talk a little bit about your position on that.

We wanna give you an opportunity as well.

- Well again, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak on this issue.

When you think in terms of our budget, I want to just really make sure that we take a step back.

When we looked at the money that we had available to us during the budget year, we were very responsible as to how can we use this money in order to make sure that these investments help all of Minnesotans.

And as a result of that, one of those areas was in the education area.

Now I know they've been talking about mandates and yes, it was additional money, but let's not forget there was additional money, real additional money.

And that additional money, some was put in the tails and some was put in in order to make sure that we can go forward, right?

But we did have in some of our budgeting, one time spending so that we could be responsible.

And if you look at and pay attention to the November budget forecast, it shows that we are stable and Minnesota has a strong economy.

Whether we look at the increase in employment and wages, both projected to grow, and that we do not have a deficit.

So even when others talk about it... And here's the other thing that most are not talking about.

We know that when we think in terms of Minnesota, there are sometimes two Minnesotans.

You have those people who are in the majority community who are doing well and then you have those who are not doing so well.

And when you look at the deficits and the disparities, the common denominator is poverty.

And when you think in terms of how we address poverty, we've done some incredible things, not just in education but also in childcare, but also in in the jobs area.

I, being the jobs chair, we spent 968 million and that money reached all across our state.

There's not any area in our state that can't say that they did not benefit from investments and jobs and small businesses and loans and grants.

But we also was forward thinking, we even put forth money for the Minnesota Forward Fund, where we can make historic investments in areas like semiconductors and bioindustrial manufacturing so that we can make sure that we can bring some of that manufacturing back onto the shores of the United States so that we are not held hostage, for lack of a better word, by others in other parts of the world because they don't wanna sell to us.

So even to think in terms of our national security, we are not only thinking about jobs and growth and all those things mean something, but also national security.

So in the areas that I've often talked about, that's important to look at those investments, whether you're in North Minneapolis, South Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth, the Iron Range, I can think of specific things.

One of the first bills that we did was to make sure that we gave money to Northern Minnesota in order to deal with Covid and investments and all the other things.

And Grant Hauschild was very key in that investment happening.

When you think in terms of nursing homes, we all believe that our nursing homes and our family members who are in the twilight of their life, that they need to be cared for.

And so we looked at staffing.

It wasn't anyone else other than the leadership, at least from the Senate, of John Hoffman.

John Hoffman's been talking about this forever.

And he led the charge on making sure that no one, which no one was forgetting about our seniors, but no one will forget about our seniors.

And that it was reflective in our values.

So I believe that our budget is strong, the contributions that we made in the jobs bill and those investments.

Also in education, because guess what?

If we want more money in the pockets of Minnesotans, we did that.

We did it to make sure that that school that I heard someone say, hey, there's these mandates that are not there and I'd love to hear what examples that they have.

But money that we invested in education reduces property taxes because schools don't have to put forth a referendum or levy.

So I think from a budget perspective, I think that we've done a good job and we'll continue to improve and protect those investments that we've made together.

That's the only way that it can be done, if we do it together.

- Well, Barry, let me- - Senator, thank you for that.

Representative Igo's back with us.

Let's see if we've got the sound working again.

I wanted to give you an opportunity to answer that question I shot your way.

What are some examples of these mandates you're talking about?

- Well first, can you hear me now?

- We're good.

- Alright.

So examples is that we can segue right off what the senator was saying right there, and I know it looks like Senator Webb wants to respond to it too, so I'll be brief.

But some of those mandates that I was talking about when we...

Even in my prior conversation, we're talking about paid family leave and earn sick and save time, those are multimillion dollar budget hits to our school districts.

And when Senator Champion talks about referendums, he should look at greater Minnesota where there's failed referendums that happened everywhere because they had to get put in place to try and pay for the new budgets that they were handed.

That's a prime example.

And I should mention the school lunches.

Yes, it's great that school lunches will be paid for, however, we didn't take into effect what's gonna happen when they lose those federal dollars that they're already getting for schools that have high free and reduced lunch amounts.

So, you know, some of the school districts that exist up here in northern Minnesota, which I'm very familiar with, are losing anywhere from a couple hundred thousand dollars to over millions of dollars now will not be taken care of by the state.

So that's coming away from that historic money that we put into them.

So that's why what we thought we were gonna put all of our school districts in the black we're actually putting 'em in the red.

- Senator Weber, you wanted to respond to that question very briefly and I wanna give our other two colleagues the opportunity to do that.

But just very quickly, anything else you wanna say on the mandate issue?

- Well, certainly.

In regards to the mandates, I had conversations with my superintendents and their point was this.

They were looking at the projected costs of the mandates, whether we're talking about unemployment insurance, other employer mandates as far as paid in sick time and paid family leave, whether we're talking about in requirements of process within the school.

But one of the superintendents from a district that graduates roughly a hundred students a year said that he was looking at increased costs of somewhere between two and three million dollars.

And I said, and what is the amount of increase for the formula?

He said between 900,000 and a million.

So he was gonna wind up on the short end.

And going back to Senator Champion's comment about the nursing homes.

The bill that Senator Hoffman brought to the floor included a hundred million dollars of loans to nursing homes.

And our position was providing loans to nursing homes is like throwing an anchor to a drowning person.

The reality of it is is that Medicare, Medicaid, are totally woefully inadequate in terms of the funding for nursing home problems.

And it was the Senate Republicans that had to fight to bring about between the administration and the house to get this done as far as bringing $300 million of assistance to our nursing homes.

And even then, the agencies wanted to say, well it has to be loans.

We said no, well then it can only go to homes that are in in trouble.

And we said fine.

And our definition of a nursing home in trouble is any nursing home located in the state of Minnesota.

And that is the only reason that we wound up with $300 million for our nursing homes.

- Representative Long, I wanna give you an opportunity to say anything you might want about the issue involving mandates and then I wanna move on to the University of Minnesota.

That was a topic that had a lot of discussion last session, but first anything on the mandate issue?

- Sure.

Well, I think we're forgetting that we had the largest single investment in K12 education in state history.

And that was something that school districts had been asking for for years, that Republicans had not delivered under the time that they were in control.

They had not increased the formula for K12 spending.

They had not increased the investments in our school districts around the state.

And we stepped up and we did it.

We also took care of other important needs in the state, like kids shouldn't go hungry in this state.

I think that's something that everybody should agree on.

I know that in my district, when I go and talk to the schools and the folks who are are school lunch workers, they say that the uptake in students eating lunch is huge.

And these are for students who hadn't been getting lunch in the past.

They said, "Oh I'm not hungry, you know, I don't need lunch today."

And now they're actually eating.

And we know that students learn better when they have full bellies.

We also know that no Minnesotan should go without the ability to take the care they need for themselves and their loved ones after they have a birth, after they are taking care of a sick family member.

That is a fundamental core value that all of us should agree on as Minnesotans and that's what paid family medical leave is about.

The United States is the only developed country in the world that doesn't have a program like this, and now we do.

So these are important values we can make sure that we are protecting our schools and protecting our families and protecting our kids at the same time.

- So Senator Champion, you wanted to say something on that?

We'll come back to you.

Go ahead.

- Okay, that sounds good.

- All right, very good.

Representative Long, I wanna talk to you about the University of Minnesota and then we'll give everyone a chance to weigh in on that.

Myron Frans, who's been around government for many years, practiced law in downtown Minneapolis for many years.

Going to be leaving service at the U in the finance area.

We know that we had a lot of discussion about the need to retain the university teaching hospital.

Obviously it's a very expensive proposition.

Can you update our viewers on what that issue is all about and whether that's going to see some attention to this legislative session and what observations you might have about it?

- Sure, happy to.

Well, viewers might have been tracking some of the discussion last year around the potential merger of Sanford and Fairview and that was, I think what prompted a lot of the conversations about what might happen to the teaching hospital.

And so this hospital is a really important statewide asset.

It trains a very, very high percentage of physicians that are operating in the state of Minnesota at the University of Minnesota.

And so it's certainly a critical public infrastructure for our state, and it's outdated.

And so there I think will be a request coming from the University of Minnesota.

I haven't seen the final request for what it might look like.

And it's certainly something we'll have to take into consideration.

We have of course many priorities that are coming from communities around the state as well, many other state needs.

And so whether we we move forward with the university requests this year or not, I can't say, but it is an important asset.

I think we should all recognize that.

And I think it is a good thing that the merger did not go through.

And I think it is something now that we're Fairview and the University of Minnesota are having to try to figure out a path forward for their relationship.

And figuring out the future of the teaching hospital is an important part of that conversation.

- All right, Senator Weber, University of Minnesota.

- Well, as it relates to the university, you know, I have had discussions with presidents of the university since I have been in office.

And one of the comments I make is that some days the university seems to have forgotten what it means to be a land grant college.

And that's a wide issue that I won't go into further.

As it relates to the Fairview Hospital and the teaching college, certainly it's important that we have a teaching college in the state of Minnesota.

As far as the university taking it back, it's my understanding that the reason it was transferred out before was that they didn't really have very good luck in managing it in the first place.

And so I am concerned about whether, number one, they can handle it.

Number two, at what cost?

And, you know, at this point we do have to wait and see what the proposal is that comes forward regarding that issue.

- Representative Igo?

- You know, so this is an issue that falls a little outside my purview if I may, but what I will add is that, I'll echo kind of what Senator Weber said, I think he's kind of right on the mark there.

But I will make a note that hasn't been made yet, is that when we talk about healthcare and we talk about, you know, these mergers and whatnot, the thing we have to remember most is that we need to make sure we have hospitals and clinics available for Minnesotans.

And the whole Fairview situation with Sanford came out of Fairview, you know, reportedly losing a million dollars a day keeping their doors open.

So the thing that matters most to me is making sure that we have a healthcare system here in Minnesota with clinics and hospitals that Minnesotans can get to, because if they close, then we're an even larger problem about whether or not we can train doctors and nurses.

- Senator Champion, University of Minnesota, teaching hospital, et cetera.

- Well, you know, I will just add this.

I concur with what has been stated already, especially by the comments of Representative Long.

But one of the things that I think the University of Minnesota issue cast a light upon is one, the health of our University of Minnesota as well as our other colleges and universities.

I think it also lands a light on the importance of our bonding build and what it does in order to help not only create jobs, but create the infrastructure that we need in order to continue to go forward.

But the University of Minnesota is one of our flagship universities, and even though we're talking about the medical school and that teaching component, it still raises the notion of higher education.

And one of the things that we did is made sure that higher education could be free for those within a certain place and space when we think in terms of economics.

And why is that important?

Because one of the things that the demographics show, or that the empirical data show is that we have a problem where the 18 to 34 year olds are... That demographic is hemorrhaging from the state of Minnesota because they're going to other colleges, they're going outside of our walls and we need to do things in order to continue to attract them.

Even when you think in terms of the number of students that go to North Dakota State University or South Dakota or Wisconsin, we need to find a way in order to keep them here, in order for them to know that they're welcome.

They can interact with those other folks, we don't mind that at all because we think interaction with anyone is a good thing because it heightens your awareness of other people.

But the bottom line for Minnesota, we need to make sure that we keep our kids in Minnesota to populate our labor and leadership roles to keep us globally competitive.

Not just competitive with Iowa.

Globally competitive.

And how do we do that?

That brain power.

Having a real attachment to this great state.

And whether that's in healthcare, whether that's in semiconductors, whether that's in bioindustrial manufacturing, whether that's agriculture, whether that's in making sure those bright minds are coming up with how to do green steel in order to make sure that it's appreciated from a climate perspective, 'cause you can use hydrogen versus, you know, carbon.

The real issue is that we need to make sure that our universities and our schools are strong in order to make sure our kids can get the best benefit of that research and development and opportunity.

So that places like... Or initiatives like Med Tech 3.0.

We've been identified as a hub from the federal government.

So there's a collaboration around artificial intelligence and manufacturing and agriculture and all the other things that makes us vibrant.

So I don't want us to lose sight of what that university means and what it means to the rest of the world and what our other colleges and universities mean and the importance of our young people staying here in Minnesota and developing and being able to lend their brain power and their intellect to our forward thinking and globally competitive notions.

- Senator Weber, this is bonding here.

You've been a member of the legislature for quite some time.

Any guesses about priorities for projects, size of the bonding bill, projects that you'd like to see in the bonding bill?

What do you think?

- Well, there's no shortage of projects, quite frankly, in any senate district that you go to.

I know that when the senate bonding tour happened in my district, except for the first visit of the morning, they spent the entire day in my district.

And of course my district covering all or parts of nine counties is, you know, probably 120 miles wide at... Or at least as you go kitty corner.

But we have a multitude of water and wastewater projects, road projects that need to be taken care of.

And I think that certainly there's going to be interest in seeing a responsible bonding bill.

If you look at the bonding bill from last year with two and a half billion dollars, a number of those projects aren't even started yet.

And the reality of it is, is that there are so many... Only so many contractors in the state of Minnesota that can deal with these type of projects.

And what my concern is, is if we pile too large an amount on top of that, we'll start to see those costs escalate even further.

Certainly inflation over the last couple of years, caused by the excess of spending in Washington DC, has had a toll on the costs of all the units of government, state and local.

And we need to make sure that we don't contribute to that, which we are capable of doing quite frankly.

So I think final bonding bill is gonna have to be under a billion dollars, depending upon what the next forecast is regarding our financial situation as a state.

And I think we need to keep it to the true purpose of bonding bill and that is bricks and mortar and those type of capital improvements, repairs and new, that we need to provide for our local governments and our state infrastructure.

- Senator Champion.

Bonding bill, what do you think?

- Bonding... Again, first of all, I wanna thank Senator Pappas and the committee that I think has done a remarkable job combing the state, showing up in all of our districts in order to see what the needs are.

One of the things that Senator Pappas and others have always said, and I know this to be true because I used to be on the bonding committee or capital investments, is that the need is always great, but the resources are minute.

And so I think that we have to be thoughtful about how do we continue to spur jobs and opportunity, how do we make sure that we protect our crumbling infrastructure?

And I think whether that's in community investments or bridges or heaper, all the things that is important for us to go forward.

Again, we wanna make sure that someone's going to one of our colleges or universities, that they have a great lab to go into, that we have state of their arts amenities.

But we also wanna make sure that a bridge is not gonna fall and that we make the necessary investments there.

Even though I have not always been a big component of bonding being used just for bridges, I thought there should be a dedicated revenue stream by which to deal with bridges and roads and that sort of thing.

But the bottom line is that we need to think about bridges, broadband and all the other investments that we need to make in order to make sure that our infrastructure does not continue to deteriorate because it will cost us more later if we don't be responsible now.

So, I believe that a healthy investment from a bonding perspective is warranted.

And I am excited about what we did do last year.

That was a major investment.

But you know what, it's never enough because we are so far behind 'cause we have not always made the necessary investments to keep up.

And so I do think, again, the bonding committee and we'll have a robust discussion, and I hope all would come to the table so that we can do what's in the best interest of Minnesota.

Thank you.

- Representative Igo.

Bonding.

- Yeah, you know, I kind of almost echo what's been said before me.

Roads, water, bridges, major infrastructure needs.

I think a bonding bill needs to strictly focused on that.

The last one definitely had a lot more of your non-profit type grant work and dollars that went out the door.

This one, let's have a brick and mortar bill, if you will, that's gonna take care of those needs.

There's communities across the state that need help getting water treatment plants.

There's communities that have other crumbling infrastructure that need help that don't have the capacity without state bonding to get it done.

So not only can the state be that partner for them so that these communities can continue to thrive, whether they be in the Twin Cities metro area, whether they be out in the Iron Range, whether they be down in southern Minnesota, those are good projects we can get done.

Those will provide good wage paying jobs while they get done and that's what a good bonding bill can be.

So if I can make anything to that point, let's keep it what we're talking about right now.

Roads, water, bridges, and that infrastructure that matters and let's let everything else fall off to the side and I think we will have a good bill.

- Representative Long, the bonding bill.

Your thoughts?

- Well, the first thought is that we did have a large bonding bill last year, but it was overdue.

We had had many years where we had done no bonding bills and in fact, under chair box tenure for his two years, he produced zero bonding bills for those two years, weren't able to reach agreement.

But this is should be an area for bipartisan agreement.

In fact, it requires bipartisan agreement to get bonding bills done.

And I think that's a good thing.

So I'm hopeful we can get it done.

I'm hopeful we can get it done early.

Last year, there was some politics being played with the bonding bill, that we passed it through the house early.

It took a very long time to pass it through the Senate, right up to the very end.

And so I'm hopeful that we don't bring extraneous issues into the bonding bill discussion and we can just focus on getting a good bill done with needed infrastructure for our state.

- A couple of specific issues have come up in the last several legislative sessions and haven't really gone anywhere, although there's been a great deal of discussion about them.

And I'm wondering what our panel thinks about the likelihood in this session.

One is sport betting, sports betting.

Let's start with you, Representative Igo.

Anything happening on the sports betting front and what do you think about that discussion?

- So I'm not privy, I guess, to the conversations that we're hearing about in the news right now.

I'm not really tied into that work on that bill.

When it comes to what I'm hearing about the issue as a whole, though, I only hear overwhelmingly positive things.

And that it's time for Minnesota to work on a good bill that allows sports betting in this state.

You know, maybe I'll speak a little to my generation, you talk to anyone that's in my generational group, they ask me, you know, Spence, when are we gonna get on board with sports betting?

So I think it is time for us to come with a bipartisan agreement and find a way that makes that open up to Minnesotans and find a way that it's going to benefit charities, benefit the groups that matter, but also make sure we have good protections in there for people.

And I think we can come together and find a good way to get it done.

- Senator Champion, sports betting.

- Well, sports betting is something that's been discussed last session.

It is gonna also be discussed this session.

There are people on both sides of this issue, so I'm not going to speculate on the future of it.

I will say I have talked to the author on... Well, the Senate author Matt Klein, and I've talked to members who have concerns about it.

And so there are also republicans who support it, who support Senator Klein's efforts.

So our caucus will have discussions about this issue as we move into the session.

So again, one thing about senator leader Kari Dziedzic is that she always makes sure that we have an open mind, we have an open door and that we do everything we can to talk and try to create opportunities for agreement.

So I'll not speculate, but it's something that will continue to be discussed and it will be discussed by our caucus as well.

- Senator Weber, sports betting.

- Well, it's an issue that certainly is starting to rise to the top.

Representative Igo made the statement about probably there's a certain level of generational thought concerning that particular issue.

I have a lot of people in my district that are against it.

I have people that are for it.

And as the old saying goes, I'm for my people.

But at the end of the day... At the end of the day, we are gonna have to recognize how do we handle this?

If it does come about, it has to be done in a responsible manner.

Our charitable gambling people took a hit last year with the stopping of the electronic pull tabs.

That will take effect the end of this year.

And I think that, you know, as we look at the overall picture of gambling in Minnesota, there are a number of people that don't wish to see an expansion of gambling in Minnesota.

And those that do.

And I really don't know exactly... As far as I know, we haven't taken a nose count as to where everyone sits in regards to that issue.

But I guess as the old saying goes, stay tuned.

- Representative Long, sports betting.

- Sure.

Well, first I just wanna correct one thing Senator Weber said.

We did not stop pull tabs for nonprofits.

Pull tabs are still allowed.

We just made sure that they are not trying to replicate other video gaming machines that they were not allowed to do so.

And we also tried to make sure we were helping out our local nonprofits with other investments in them and other tax assistance.

So I think that sports betting is an important conversation.

The goal here is to bring things that are happening in the black market right now, which are people betting online or on their phones or going to Iowa, I suppose, to other states, to bet, into a regulated marketplace where we can control it, where we know that people aren't gonna get taken advantage of.

And also where we can invest some of that revenue in helping folks with problem gaming and addiction issues.

So I think that's something that we wanna do and I think there's a way forward.

I think we need to make sure that as we're doing that, we're respecting tribal sovereignty and our tribal nations in the state that have been so important in the gaming industries that are taking place in our state right now.

But I think we can have those conversations and I think we can have a bipartisan path forward on this bill.

- The legislature created a task force to look at the question of how the Met Council should be selected for our viewers.

The Met Council actually is responsible for a large chunk of government administration in the Twin Cities area.

The task force made a report, they were gonna make a recommendation and instead they forwarded a recommendation, as I understand it, for six different ideas for the legislature to consider.

For those of us with an interest in administrative law and similar topics, this is absolutely fascinating.

And the question becomes, is the legislature going to act on Met Council reform?

Senator Champion, let's start with you.

- Well, thank you for that question.

You know, Met Council and how it should be... How the members should be selected is a really big issue and it's a really big issue that's been talked about, whether the members should be elected or whether they should continue to be appointed.

And it all boils down to accountability.

You know, is there any real accountability based on the way it's currently structured?

One of the things I can appreciate is that there's been hearings throughout our state about the structure of Met Council.

I know that there was a hearing in my Senate district and I know that it was well attended because different people have a really... Well, a variety of people have different thoughts about it.

I do think that the legislature will probably consider it, it's one of those things that will be discussed.

I know in the Senate that discussion is gonna be led by none other than Scott Dibel and others in order to make sure that we understand, even as a caucus, what are all the challenges.

And then for there to be a decision that's made.

And so I do think that there will be something done on this issue.

I can't speculate what, I can't speculate when, I just think that there will be something done because this is a big issue.

- Senator Weber, Met Council reform.

- I think it's absolutely necessary that there is reform.

As it relates to the selection of people to serve on there, I think that it should be up to the counties and communities that are represented by the Met Council to pick their people.

The closest thing we have to a Met Council in the rural areas is, for me, in southwest Minnesota, is the Southwest Regional Development Commission.

And it's made up of people from the county, from small cities, from larger cities, and they get together and they bring their own perspective to this.

I think that we are probably well past the time that this should be a political appointment made by any governor in terms of the people that serve there.

And quite frankly, I think our suburban communities are just like our rural communities.

Our needs are not exactly the same all the time.

And at the end of the day, you have to sit down and work out a solution that meets the needs of everybody that's involved.

So hopefully there will be a good reform package that comes forward for the Met Council.

- Representative Igo.

The Met Council.

Got about 40 seconds or so.

- I'll just kinda reiterate a little bit of both what I heard.

I think Senator Weber was kind of on his marks right there.

But Senator Champion said a word that I really appreciate.

Accountability.

I think that reform could really come together to give accountability to the communities that the Met Council represents.

Give those people whatever, what part of the metro area that they're in, knowing that their council has accountability to...

Whether it be to their county officials, whether it be to them voters.

I don't know what that proposal looks like, but I do know that accountability matters and let's pass reforms that can be bipartisan, that bring accountability back to Minnesotans.

- Wanna thank our distinguished panel of guests this evening.

Senator Bobby Joe Champions, Senator Bill Weber, Representative Jamie Long and representative Spencer Igo for their contribution to this evening's program.

I wanna remind you, the viewers, that you can get caught up on the legislative activity throughout the legislative session by tuning to...

Selecting the Minnesota Channel.

Your legislators will return later in the year with additional programming and give you an opportunity to hear once again from the legislators who represent you.

What's taking place in St. Paul.

Thank you and goodnight.

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