By now, I’m sure most saw the absolutely reprehensible actions taken on the Senate Floor in the final hours of the legislative session. With less than 2 hours to go before adjournment, it was announced that Democrats had done the unthinkable: they made a massive omnibus bill of 1400+ pages and brought it to a vote in the House and Senate without allowing any debate on the bill. In fact, the bill’s language was not even made available to Senators or Representatives until after the vote took place and after we adjourned. This is not leadership, and it’s certainly not democracy. This is inexcusable.

For the last 20 minutes of Session, every motion, request, and issue raised by Republicans was ignored. We did not have access to the bill, we didn’t know what was in it, but Democrats rammed it through anyways. They tried to blame Republicans for filibustering, stating that was the reason they rammed the bill through so quickly. Yet on Saturday, one day before adjournment, the Senate was in recess for twice as long as it was in Session. Democrats have full control of the recess schedule – Republicans do not get a say in that. In no world were Republicans the issue.

I’d also like to remind everyone that in the Senate, Democrats have a one-seat majority, which hinges on the deciding vote of an alleged felon who committed a heinous crime. They have abandoned all integrity this year and have corrupted the institutions meant to serve the people of Minnesota. The actions of Democrats show that they do not care about the voices of greater Minnesota.

The reality is that session began in February and Democrats have a trifecta. If they were actually serious about getting their work done, make no mistake – they could have gotten their “priority” bills through at any point in time. They are the ones who waited until the last minute because they were more interested in spending weeks in defense of Sen. Mitchell after she was arrested and charged with a felony. They delayed their own bills.

Democrats put their partisan special interests ahead of good governance. They were unwilling to negotiate on anything – completely unwilling to pass bills that serve all of Minnesota. It is well within the minority party’s right to raise issues with bills, especially when those issues directly affect our constituents. We’re elected to be the voice of our districts, and Democrats kept us from doing our jobs.

This is not democracy – this is a step closer to communism. The ruling party has silenced their opposition and ignored the voices of half of Minnesota. I’ve never seen anything so shameful. This is indefensible and I hope people never forget the utter disgrace that was made of our institution this year. It’s time for a change in Minnesota.