Friends and neighbors, 

Budget negotiations in the Senate are progressing! While we are having many difficult debates on the Senate Floor, we are also working in a bipartisan way to get this done for our great state of Minnesota. Many of the budgets we are looking at are meant to encourage recovery from COVID and sensible updates to our state statutes. 

The budget bill for Veterans is coming to the Senate Floor next week for a vote. This bill prioritizes many needs for our veterans who are struggling with homelessness through a stable housing initiative and expands availability of dental services for veteran home residents. Providing resources and support to these American heroes will always be a top priority for the Senate.

The Jobs budget prioritizes business and economic recovery for all of Minnesota. This legislation creates a Small Business Loan Guarantee program, funds workforce training, and works to address the state’s childcare shortage. Included language also gives businesses the ability to operate at full capacity with a COVID-19 safety plan in place and requires any future Executive Orders aimed at closing or partially closing businesses receive support from the majority of both the House and Senate before going into effect. 

The Senate is committed to ensuring Minnesota’s constitutionally required public safety responsibilities are met through a robust Judiciary budget. This bill highlights the importance of harsher penalties for child pornography, sex trafficking and solicitation of children, and child torture. Also included are robust reforms to sexual assault statutes that were placing favor on the criminal opposed to the victim. In the 2020 Special Session, the Senate passed a widely supported, bipartisan package of common-sense reforms for Minnesota law enforcement. That legislation included achokehold ban, duty to intervene, training on crisis response and flexibility, and many other reforms to ensure thesafety of our officers and Minnesotans. 

I appreciate your feedback and am available to hear your concerns not only on these issues, but any other legislative issue you have. Please reach out to my office at sen.bruce.anderson@senate.mn or 651-296-5981.

Sincerely,

Bruce