High tensions at the Capitol as lawmakers tick down the to-do list

This is Politics Friday on NPR News. I'm Brian Baxed. State lawmakers were back at it this week. They're working through a session agenda filled with optional items. There's next to nothing they have to do this year. The legislature is pretty much split down the middle politically. Combine that with very high tensions and frequent clashes in this election year session. What do you get? A recipe for low expectations. Our first guest today might have more to say about that assessment. Their leaders in the House caucuses and are trying to get parts of their agenda in to final negotiations. First up, Republican House floor leader, Harry Niska of Ramsey, welcome back. Good to be here. And DFL House floor leader, Jamie Long of Minneapolis. Good to see you, Brian. So you guys are kind of the pilots of the House. What kind of landing are we in for? Well, we are coming up next week on our finance deadline. So that's our last deadline before committees functionally don't meet as frequently. So we're kind of in the home stretch here getting into the last stage of session. So next week I think you'll see a lot of the committees that cover budget areas trying to move their bills out. We in for some turbulence? Well I think there's going to be obviously some differences of approach in a number of the committees. There also are a lot of bipartisan work happening. We're going to have a number of bipartisan bills on the floor on Monday, just like we have the last few floor sessions. We've had some bipartisan bills that have been passed out by big numbers. And then there will be some committees where there's a difference of approach on things like what our focus should be on school safety, what our focus should be on affordability, making sure that stretched family budgets get some relief this year. I do want to start with you, Representative Niske, about what your caucus released yesterday. You're calling it the North Star Comeback Budget Blueprint. How did the $3.8 billion in tax cuts rise to the top? The biggest things we're hearing about from Minnesotans as it relates to affordability that we can drive at the state capitol are things like property tax increases, 10, 20, 30 percent property tax increases in a lot of places, as well as things like license tabs, things that as Minnesotans are renewing their car registrations, getting those property tax bills in the mail. We thought it was important to try to take some of that money that we do have, the cash that we do have here at the state, and try to lessen that burden on Minnesota families as their family budgets are stretched in all kinds of other ways between groceries and gas and all that kind of stuff. Representative Long, will the DFLers in the House produce a framework? And what might it look like? Well, good news we did in the second week of session, so the Republicans are a little late to the party, but glad they're here. We have seen costs really skyrocket for Minnesotans. Gas prices are going through the roof because of the Iran War. We saw $17,000 to $100 per family because of Trump's tariffs increased, and we've seen now 140,000 Minnesotans are going to kick off their healthcare at the end of the year because of the Trump Medicaid cuts. So we're seeing these impacts on Minnesotans. Democrats put out a proposal that included substantive policy solutions for rising healthcare costs, housing, childcare, groceries, energies. This makes up two-thirds of the family budget. We've been working on this all session, trying to get these through committees. Republicans put out a proposal after deadline that they're forcing political votes on, so we wish they'd gotten serious a lot sooner. But just on one of the items that's in there, the property tax bills in particular that have been coming in, they're due in about a month for the first half. Will there be anything in the DFL proposals coming forward that deal with property taxes? That was included in our proposal to take a look at property taxes in a serious way. It was something that we did in 2023 in our tax bill, and that's the serious conversation that they should have in tax committee and not, and got you votes on the floor like we saw yesterday. So I'm hopeful that there can be some progress in the tax committee on trying to put together a bill that would include that. He says you guys are late to the game. We've been talking about license tab fees since Democrats raised them in 2023. We've been talking about the property taxes, the mandates have been pushed down since Democrats passed a lot of these things in the DFL trifecta. Obviously, we now have a clear budget picture, and we think that we should be able to take some of that cash and push it out to Minnesotans in property tax relief and in reprioritizing some of our other spending so we don't have to fund our roads using exorbitant car tab fees, which is, you know, again, hitting Minnesota family budgets. So it's issues we've been talking about quite a bit. We did roll it out as a comprehensive plan this week. April 15th is tax filing deadline for people who have waited to this point. The legislature didn't pass a conformity bill as it sometimes does to line up the state code with some of the federal changes. Has the ship sailed on things like no tax on tips or overtime? I know that that's a conversation that the tax chairs are having. I know that there's a lot of different conformity pieces that they're taking a look at. You know, ironically, if you look at what the federal government did, that was a very short term extension for no tax on tips. And the taxes that they, tax cuts that they baked in were all the ones for millionaires and billionaires. So it's a bit of a fig leaf to try to cover up what the actual goal was of the federal tax bill. And those are in your plan. Absolutely. We want to do as much tax conformity as we can. It's a disappointing that we haven't been able to do more of that sooner. One other thing, especially along those lines, Minnesota had a pass through entity tax that breaks that down for people. Yeah, it was a, it was a way that Minnesota allows small businesses who otherwise are going to get hit by a federal tax cap to lessen their federal taxes, doesn't hurt our budget from a state perspective. It just helps Minnesota businesses not have to pay as much in federal taxes. We used to have that. It was bipartisan. Republicans have been trying to get Democrats to do that before 1st March 15th, which was the an important deadline for business owners to file taxes. And now before April 15th, and it's been frustrating that we haven't been able to get that tax conformity happening sooner. We've been all for as much tax conformity as early as possible. And it's frustrating that that's been caught up in political games. If it doesn't cost anything, as he said, what's the holdup? Well, I think that's been part of the conversation that the tax committee is having, and I'm sure it will be with there's a tax bill. One other conversation representative along that the tax committee started to have this week was around an ad, or a wealth tax, and assessing, I think, another percentage point on holdings of above $10 million that people have assets. Is this a preview for future sessions? Because it doesn't seem like it's going to go anywhere this session. Well, I think that Minnesotans are frustrated by what they're seeing in this economy, which is that we've seen essentially a new guilted age in terms of the concentration of wealth at the very top. And regular Minnesotans are struggling with cost of living and struggling with prices going up. And so we're trying to find revenue sources that are a better balance for Minnesotans, that are making those who have had the most success in their lives pay their fair share and trying to help help folks who are struggling afford their lives. Wealth tax? Minnesota is already a very high tax, high fraud in our state spending state. We should be thinking about how we make Minnesota a more competitive business environment long term. Our balance between our public sector and our private sector is already way out of balance. A wealth tax or unrealized capital gains tax would just tell private sector investment not to come to Minnesota. That's a terrible idea. A couple process questions here. Will there be the usual dance of setting those category by category targets this year? Or will it be more just everything's up in the air? Let's look for money in the couch cushions. So we've been saying policy and spending ideas should all rise or fall in its own merit this year. And so we're encouraging chairs to work together to come to figure out what we can do together. There haven't been global targets. If there's a way to come together on a certain amount of spending in a certain area, there are areas where I think we are in agreement on things like technology upgrades and things like that. People are working on those things. But there aren't global spending targets because we're in an off year supplemental budget. Representative Lung, you've been through this. Can it happen without a three way agreement between the governor, Senate and House? Well I do think there are some committees where there will be able to be agreements at the committee level and that we'll be able to see those move forward. Seems like there may be a public safety spending agreement. There may be a housing spending agreement. There could be a few others. And we'll see what some of the bigger pieces I'm sure are going to have to wait for a leadership negotiation. And do you expect these cars to move down the track on their own or do you think it's going to eventually wind up in one of these kitchen sink bills that get some members riled up? Well, I suspect that there will be fewer things to package together at the end. That's not a budget year. And it seems like we're having trouble agreeing on some things. We've been pushing hard, as I mentioned, affordability on gun violence prevention. And we haven't seen a lot of appetite for being able to take on some of these big issues from Republicans. A bite at a time or the whole entree? You know, we take the single subject rule seriously. The idea that we should pass policy items, deal with subjects on their own. And so I think there's not going to be one big omnibus bill like what happened in 2024. There might be more like a few minivan bills based on being able to get different policy areas, different budget areas, finding agreement on common ground and those. Very closely divided legislature, the most closely divided legislature in the country. So things have to have bipartisan support. I think you just coined something there or not. And omnibus, a minivan. Representative Long, guns have been a topic since the Annunciation, school shooting and some other high profile shootings. And what changes of note could conceivably happen to Minnesota's gun laws this year, practically speaking? Well, my community is where Annunciation Church is. I represent a number of families that attend Annunciation. And it has been devastating for our community. We've seen an outcry from the Minnesota public to take action. We've seen polls showing two-thirds support for the bills that we tried to move forward a couple of weeks ago on the floor to ban high capacity magazine, to ban assault weapons. And yet we didn't receive a single Republican vote to keep those moving in the process. So that's been really discouraging for us. We know that the guns matter. We know that if you're able to shoot more bullets in a shorter period of time at higher velocity, that's going to kill more kids when you're going to a school shooting situation. And so that's common sense for the Minnesota public. That's something that they're asking us to do. And it's been really discouraging that we haven't been able to get a single Republican to help support us taking meaningful action. Representative Nisga, do you expect all 67 of your members to continue to stand against any changes of the sort, the assault weapons ban and the ammunition clip limits? Well, our focus has been since September trying to find ways that I, by partisan, deal with all the root causes of this, deal with this in a layered approach, making sure that all schools, including private schools like Annunciation have the resources they need to keep their schools safe. We don't think that the policies Democrats have talked about in terms of banning guns, in terms of dealing with not just people who are trying to do something bad, but law abiding Minnesotans making common firearms illegal in the state of Minnesota. We don't think those are a solution to the problem. So no, you don't expect any of the major gun bills to go through this year? No. School safety does seem to be an area, though, that there is some productive talks going on. There's talk about per pupil money going to public schools and maybe a grant program for private schools. Is everybody on board with the school safety components? Go ahead, Representative Nisga. We think our entire caucus is on board with the items that you just discussed. Representative Long? Yeah, we agree that school safety is important. We agree that mental health is important. We also think that you can't ignore the fact that when you have guns that shoot more bullets at a higher speed, those are going to cost more lives. We can't ignore that part of it. Republicans seem to just paper over that as if it doesn't matter. But the public understands that these weapons of war killed more people and that they don't want them in our communities. But are you okay with both public and private schools tapping into this fund for school safety? I know that's an ongoing discussion that the committees are having, so I think they should continue that. Representative Long, staying with you, the response to the immigration agent search here in Minnesota, there are various funding measures in the mix. Some deal with the tactical aspects of the ICE surge and others seem to do with relief to agencies or state businesses or people who are affected by it. How do you think that those will factor into the end of session dealmaking? Well, I've been really disappointed by the response from Republicans on this. We just saw in the latest jobs report that Minnesota now has a higher unemployment rate than the national average because of the economic impact of Operation Metro Surge on our communities, in addition to the devastating impacts that we saw on civil rights and civil liberties violations across the state. We proposed a wide variety of bills to try to help respond to this, including support for businesses, trying to help prevent ICE agents from going into schools, which is even something that the Trump administration has backtracked on to helping with a bill I proposed to allow individuals to sue for their own constitutional rights violations. We have received zero Republican support on any of these. I was hopeful that we could get support on some of these common-sense bills like schools, like constitutional rights violations, and no support on any of them. Representative Nisqa, many of your members have drawn that line that he's talking about, and they won't necessarily back the rent relief, the business loans, or the limits on the ICE tactics. Why is that? Well, Minnesota businesses have been lagging behind the rest of the nation for a while. It's not a result of Operation Metro Surge specifically. It's a result of high taxes, high business mandates in the state of Minnesota. That's why Minnesota's not just the last few months, but even before that was lagging behind the national average in terms of a lot of economic growth indicators. So we're all for reducing regulation, finding ways to give businesses relief on that front. What we're not in favor of are things that are just new grant programs that are the same types of things we've seen have big fraud problems under recent DFL administration. And so a lot of that stuff we don't think is- What about the tactical limits? Yeah, a lot of the other stuff that Democrats have been talking about are efforts by the state of Minnesota to regulate the federal government. We don't think that's the role of the state. Is there any room for negotiation on these matters, or do you think it's- You just got to keep it separate from the immigration? Well, I think that there's going to be continued discussion about anything that makes sense from a Minnesota perspective, but making this into an issue of worrying about what we can regulate that's outside of our control or doing political posturing about that we don't think is productive. The only political posturing is basically being unwilling to stand up to the Trump administration on anything. We have proposed very reasonable bills that are even-handed and not targeted to the federal government would withstand legal scrutiny, and they're not willing to take a single step. Representative Nisga, you brought up fraud. The Office of the Inspector General Bill seems to be at least making progress. Is that a sure thing, and what shape might that take? We were encouraged that there was a movement right before 1st and 2nd deadline about two things that are really, really important to us as a Republican caucus, features of that bill. We're hopeful that it has some real independence from the governor, that the governor doesn't get to have as much discretion on choosing who heads up that office, and second that it really have the power to do everything that's needed to combat fraud, including law enforcement. We're hopeful that it's going to get across the line. What's very important to us is that we make sure that whatever version we are able to move through the House is a version that the Senate is able to quickly pass so it doesn't get caught up in some kind of conference committee limbo or some kind of shenanigan at the end of a session. Any critique with that assessment? Well, I think the reason that had been in committee is we had a constitutional issue with a bill that had passed the Senate that's been resolved, so it's been able to move forward. Representative Norris is working extremely hard on trying to find agreement on this, and we're pushing too for the OIG office to do fraud prevention, which is something we haven't gotten a lot of support yet on. There's work to do, but I'm optimistic. Are you staying with your representative long? The Medicaid changes made at the federal level will require some work requirements put into Minnesota process. I don't know if it can be done administratively or if it has to be done via the legislature, but can you talk about where those discussions are at? I know that there's really good discussions happening on a bipartisan basis at the committee level to try to resolve that. I mean, the broader context for your listeners is that, as I mentioned earlier, 140,000 Minnesotans are going to lose their healthcare once this kicks in. This is really devastating for Minnesotans. They've tried to paper over that this is just trying to kick people off of their healthcare by saying their work requirements. What they're trying to do is put as many obstacles as people can have into getting healthcare, and this is going to be devastating for our hospitals, for Minnesotans in general who rely on this. One in four Minnesotans get their healthcare from Medicaid. Representative Niska, is this just going to be more work for counties to verify the job status of people? Well, I think most Minnesotans agree that we should be making sure that people who are able to work are encouraged to work and that we have these social safety net programs for people who are not able to do it, who are not able to take care of their needs, their healthcare needs on their own. I think common sense work requirements are broadly popular. They're good policy. Certainly we have to be cognizant of making sure counties have the tools that are needed. That's why I think when you said not much has to get done, I would say we do need to make sure we do comply with that federal law so we don't lose federal funding, and we do need to make sure that we are modernizing the technology systems that counties have. I think there's broad general bipartisan agreement that those things should happen. Can you do that through the bonding bill? I don't think the way that we intend that most of the discussions haven't been around doing it with the bonding bill specifically, but there are good discussions going on about ways to make sure we have both the seed funding, the short-term funding that would be able to be deployed in the short term to make those technology upgrades, as well as thinking about long-term mechanisms to make sure that technology can be updated in the future. Construction projects bill in general, do you expect one to pass? There's a lot of good discussion about a construction project bill. This is a bonding year traditionally, and I think it's always one of those questions that ends up being decided on the last day of session. Bonding bill? Well, I think the discussions are going well in the House. I think what we've seen the last few years is that Senate Republicans have drawn a line and asked for unrelated policy demands, and if they do that again, I think it's going to be tough to get a bonding bill done. Any likelihood of Grand Casino Arena redo money being part of any package this year? Well, I can't speak for Chair Lee. I know that they're negotiating right now with Chair Fransen and having good discussions about the package as a whole. You're not dismissing it. Well, I don't know exactly what their point of view is. I know that that's something that Senator Papas cares a lot about, but I think the focus that I've heard from the bonding bill right now is on a lot of the local needs and local projects that didn't get included in last year's bonding bill, as well as the capital investment in our state assets that are so important. Do you expect any arena money to come through? I don't know about arena money. I think I would agree with what Representative Long was saying generally about the focus from our side is going to be on the local projects that are genuine infrastructure needs of our state, water treatment, roads, bridges, that kind of thing, things that really truly make sense from a state perspective to borrow money on. I have heard some broader discussion about what was formerly called the XL Energy Center. I'm having a hard time updating my lingo on that, but I'm not like that's a committee discussion at this point. Speaking of projects that have statewide significance, the HCMC Trauma Center in Minneapolis, seemingly on Thin Ice here, do you expect there to be some sort of rescue plan for them? I expect a lot of really serious discussion both about how this problem happened and what's a way forward that doesn't just involve a big new increase in taxes and an open-ended bailout to Hennepin County. Certainly very, very concerned about making sure that that state asset moves forward, but does so in a way that's sustainable. Very, very serious concerns from our side of the aisle on how they got there in the first place and that we don't just kick the can down the road with those kind of problems. Can lawmakers leave without doing something about HCMC? I don't think so. I think it's too important. I agree that it's a statewide asset. I visited on a Friday and there was a helicopter coming in from Wisconsin with a patient. It's really an important center for the entire region and not just our state. It's suffering from a lot of the things that other hospitals are. It's just that HCMC is serving so many more of the people who are on Medicaid, who are the neediest in Minnesota, and who other hospital systems and other healthcare has left behind. It is a critical infrastructure that we need to get right. All right. We have about a minute left here. The prediction market legislation to rein those in, do you think that that will happen this year? Well, I know it was a good discussion and committee. I didn't see if it moved out, so I don't know. What about you? I would say things that didn't meet the internal deadlines shouldn't necessarily expect that rules waivers are going to happen very freely without some sort of compelling reason to do so. This is one of a long list of items that there's been a lot of talk about publicly, but didn't meet the deadlines internally. Will these two ethics complaints, one against two members of your party, and one against two members of the DFL caucus, will they mess things up? Will they get in the way of an orderly finish? I doubt it. That's not the intent. I brought one of those ethics complaints, and it was simply because the behavior of the two individuals, Representative Angan, Representative Hudson, was so out of bounds and so far beyond our ethics and rules in terms of leaving committee in the middle to go drink. So I do think that those can be handled with the ethics committee and dealing just with those two members. That was DFL leader Jamie Long and Republican House Leader Harry Niska. Thanks to you both. Thank you. Thanks. You're listening to the Politics Friday podcast. We'll be right back after this short break. I'm NPR News Politics reporter Dana Ferguson. The many hours I spend at the state capitol and on the campaign trail are made possible by support of Minnesota Public Radio members. Thank you for your support. This is Politics Friday on NPR News. I'm Brian Baxed. On last week's show, we heard from three Democrats hoping to fill a house seat in Congress. They're running in the second congressional district open because the incumbent is in search of a U.S. Senate seat. Find that over on our Politics Friday podcast. With us this week is one of the Republicans chasing that seat. Eric Pratt is in his fourth term in the state Senate and represents a prior Lake Shakopee area district. He's vying for the GOP nod against Tyler Kistner who has yet to respond to our invitations to come on the show. Welcome Senator Pratt. Thank you. Very much great to be here. So as much as lawmakers are in the spotlight, a lot of people aren't all that familiar with most legislators including their own. How about you give us a quick thumbnail of who you are and how you arrived at this moment in your political life. Well, thanks. So Eric Pratt, I grew up in prior Lake. My mom was a teacher in Shakopee. Raised my family in the district. So both my kids are graduated. One is a data scientist for a marketing advertising firm. My daughter is a doctor of physical therapy. So thank goodness they take after their mother. And you started on the school board and worked your way up to the legislature? I did. I had a 30 year career in banking and financial services with both Target and US Bank here locally and then ran for the school board back in 1999. Served four terms there before I jumped to the Senate. And why do you want to trade your residence for an apartment in Washington? You know, I feel like I've done quite a bit here in the Senate and we need some good representation up in Washington. I retired from banking a few years ago. I'm not looking for a second career. I'm just looking to serve my community. So issues that are at the forefront right now, we're going to talk about some of those today. The US and Iran are in a quiet phase and entering negotiations this weekend. Did you support the US military strikes in Iran? You know, I never want to have us at war and I never like our men and women in uniform to be at risk. Certainly, a nuclear Iran would pose an eminent threat to United States and globally as the largest statewide sponsor of terrorism. So you know, I'm going to trust that the intelligence was right and that we needed to eliminate Iran's ability to produce a nuclear weapon. Did the objectives as you heard them get met? I think they're being met. I don't know that we've achieved them yet, but they are being met and you know, getting the Straits of Hormuz open up, getting our NATO allies to join in I think are the way we should be going. Were you okay with this being done without congressional consent, some authorization? You know, we've seen over the years more and more being done by executive order and I do think we have to re... Congress needs to step up and take its role again. I think congressional leaders should have been notified and I hope that they were. One of the things Congress will be asked is for up to $350 billion and added defense spending to support some of these efforts. If you were in Congress, is that something you'd be on board with? I would certainly be open to it. I mean, we have to again, making sure that Iran never ever gets a nuclear weapon is got to be one of the top priorities of every Western democracy and every peace-loving country in the world and we've seen that Iran will terrorize even their Arab neighbors. So we've got to make sure that they never get that capability. Closer to home that ice surge that we saw in the early part of this year really roiled some communities and in the state for months. Do you think it was properly carried out? I think there were some mistakes made along the way. Well, I mean, certainly we've talked about what are the procedures that should be done. I think we had some mistakes both at the local level and at the federal level. During that time, my objective was to get people talking, to try to bring peace back to the streets. I didn't think we should be encouraging people to go out and protest. I thought our local should be cooperating better with immigration enforcement. So as Director Holman said, being able to get detainees and those with deportation orders at the jail rather than out on the streets. I think our streets would have been safer had we had better cooperation between local law enforcement and federal agents. Are there any mistakes on the federal end? I think so, but a lot of them were caused by lack of training. I mean, our ice officers weren't trained in crowd control. They weren't trained in traffic diversion. And I think it showed. I mean, down by me, we had better cooperation between our local law enforcement and ice, and we didn't seem to have the same problems that Minneapolis did. Most of living affordability is the umbrella term that you sometimes hear is a prominent theme of this year's election. What's your plan for tackling real or even perceived concerns that just about everything's gotten too expensive? Well, everything has gotten too expensive and we're still feeling the hangover from post-COVID when we saw 9% inflation and real wages weren't keeping up with inflation. We're finally starting to see real wages catch up. Now, certainly the last inflation report came in hotter than we would have liked, and a lot of that is driven by gas prices based on what's happening in Iran and the blockage at Strait of Hormuz. We here in the United States are going to be able to weather that better than our allies in Europe. But we have to make sure that families have the means necessary. There's a proposal at the federal level for a child tax credit. I was the chief author in the Senate of the child tax credit that we passed in 2023, and that's helping families with the cost of raising kids. I've also been one of the authors on the eliminating social security tax, and even our federal government is still taxing social security. What about tariffs? The president opposed, were you okay with that? I'm not a big proponent of tariffs, but I think that they're a useful tool when we're looking at fair trade. We like to talk about free trade, and I think that's a great concept. But we also have to look at fair trade when our goods are being tariffed and taxed going into other countries and using it as a tool to ensure that we have fair trade. But the blanket way he put them on countries, were you okay with that approach? Again, I'm looking at, when we're matching the tariff to what we're being tariffed in other countries, I think that's how we get to fair trade. But again, I'd rather see us allow our companies and our businesses to be more competitive. It goes back to when I was studying economics at the University of Colorado and looking at supply side economics. Lower the cost of production and we saw a great economic boom. What should be done with some of that money that was collected in the courts later and validated those tariffs? Who should get it? Boy, that's a good question. I think the courts have said that it should be rebated, but now the question is how? Or to who? Or to who? And I'll be honest with you, I don't know. So that the major bill that passed last year that had a lot of tax components to it also had this Medicaid changes that might put a squeeze on some rural hospitals and some people who might get pushed off of programs. Should Congress stay the course with what it did or do you think that there needs to be some tinkering with that plan put together? You know, there could probably be some tinkering, but when we look at what 75% of the impact is, 75% of the impact was on those that are not in a country legally or those able-bodied people that have a work requirement. Now we've also met with the governor's office and we've been told that a number of people that fall into that category, the 200,000 Minnesotans that we continue to hear about, may qualify for disability, but they didn't go through that disability process. So they're sitting on the Medicaid expansion rolls. And so I don't think the impact is going to be as great as some of the political folks have suggested. What about those premium subsidies for people who buy their insurance on the private market? Should those be revived? In the short term, but what I would say is that they were supposed to be temporary subsidies in the first place. And what we've shown is that the ACA has not been affordable at all. And we've got to find a way to help bring back, to help make healthcare more affordable for people. We've spent 80 years making sure that patients aren't consumers of healthcare. And I think we have to slowly and surely bring that back. But I think what I heard you say is that you support some sort of short term measure to reimplement those. I think we have to have some sort of bridge until we can get to a long term solution. All right. The next Farm Bill, of course, the district that you're hoping to represent has a lot of farm country. What do you hear from farmers and what do you want to see in that next Farm Bill? You know, coming from the financial world, I tend to focus more on that piece and making sure that we have accessible available farm credit. Crop insurance is top of mind to make sure that our farmers can protect their businesses the way that they need to be protected. We need to make sure that we're opening up markets. And I would support an E15 allowing that to be manufactured. That's an ethanol based fuel. Ethanol based fuel as a way not to mandate its usage, but to allow it to be produced. So if producers want to make it and consumers want to buy it, then it's available for them. You voted this week in the state senate to ban cryptocurrency key asks or those ATMs in Minnesota. They've been used to scam some consumers, a lot of seniors. In Congress, you might encounter bills to regulate crypto more broadly. What's your read on whether there are enough to few or too many regulations in that space? You know, government tends to over-regulate at times on what it doesn't know. And I'll be honest with you, I am not a crypto expert, but what I have seen is that a number of banks are starting to hold crypto reserves. And at some point in time, I think we'll see it become a more common form of transaction. As I said on the Senate floor, banning these crypto kiosks today is one step for consumer protection, but we'll be back revisiting this when it comes to ATMs and people need to convert their crypto to dollars. It's hard to talk about politics without talking about President Trump, but a year ago, the Minnesota Senate took up a resolution to condemn the pardons of those convicted of January 6, 2021 offenses. You didn't vote on the resolution. How come? Well, as I stated that day, I thought it was a sad day in the Senate that we're reusing our time in the Minnesota Senate to take on such a partisan role. And when you look at some of the charges that Joe Biden brought against people, the Supreme Court had even said that they went too far, even the liberal justices that agreed. And so January 6 was being used as a political tool, and I didn't think it was proper for the Minnesota Senate to do it. I wasn't going to vote no. I wasn't going to vote yes. My vote, my staying off the board was a protest that we were even taking it up because we had so much work to do for the people of this state. Have you asked for the President's endorsement in this race? I have not asked for the President's endorsement, but I'll take any endorsements I can get. Do you think he'll weigh in? I don't know. My guess is that he probably will. This is going to be one of the most competitive races in the country. And will that May 2nd endorsing convention be determined for you, or will you head to a primary no matter what? I haven't made a decision on that yet. We are a primary state, but the endorsement is important to me. I want to honor and respect the people that go out, our grassroots activists, and I am actively seeking the endorsement. That's Eric Pratt, a state senator and a Republican candidate for Congress in Minnesota's second congressional district. Thanks for your time. The House will come to order. And now some sounds and voices from the week in Minnesota politics. I recognize a member from Ramsey, Representative Godfrey. Thank you, Madam Speaker. We haven't fun yet. Minnesota Democrats are not only endangering girls, but risking federal funds, and at a time when Governor Walls is also seeking to cut funding to our schools. Minnesota prioritizes gender ideology over biological reality. Representative Jordan. Thank you, Speaker Damoth. And yes, members, Representative Knudson is right. This is a hateful and bigoted bill. This bill discriminates against our trans students and it discriminates against female athletes in this state. I recognize the member from Crow Wing, Representative Davis. See I know where words come from. I know who the creator of them is. He made them male and female and all unashamedly state the Lord Jesus Christ's words on this House floor. He knows what he's talking about. He's not a liar and he's not crazy. I recognize a member from Olmsted, Representative Hicks. This is theater and that's cool. Y'all want to do theater? Rock on. What ups. But you're supposed to be in Ed Finance today with new members talking about a bill to stop special education cuts. So could we just please get back to work because this whole thing is super ew. President. He says yes. Senator Weston. Senator Dibble, I was just trying to be clear. Are you standing with the Iran regime under your announcement? Is that what we're to take away from your announcement? Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, no president who openly contemplates such acts as genocide of an entire country is fit to command our armed forces. So I call on Congress and on members of the cabinet to uphold their constitutional duty to act immediately through the legal means they have available to remove this president from power before irreversible harm is done. Thank you, Mr. President. Senator Weston. Mr. President, thank you. I'll take that as a yes. Will you move the minutes from March 26th, please? I have not looked at them. Okay, I can have somebody else do it if you don't want to. Representative Whitty. Representative Davis, will you move the minutes, please, somebody? I have not looked at them. Representative Novotny. Thank you, Chair Liebling. So what you're saying is the problem is with agencies not following the FOIA rules. So I understand that frustration, but that's not the problem with the law. That's the problem with the agency that's not following the FOIA request. Currently, right now, members of the public can do a FOIA request. But my question is this. Why do members of the community have to dig for the truth? Why? Taxpayers in the Feeding Our Future scandal. Where is the relief for Minnesota taxpayers across the board from that scandal? Representative Schultz, I'm trying very hard to listen to everything you're saying and not react in a partisan way. My quick response is this. So to the taxpayers in Mille Lacs County who had complete and total compliance with federal law, why should they be paying for that when they were protective? Chair Frazier, yeah. No, Chair John. The same reason why taxpayers in Ramsey County, Hanover County, pay to help your community. That is why. Representative Davis. Thank you very much. That's why my name was invoked. Deadlines are deadlines. They're not guidelines. They're not suggestions. I suggest any member of this community go back to when my DFL friends were in the minority going very severely after it's peekered out about deadlines. And that deadlines are deadlines. And if you don't think deadlines are deadlines, I just suggest you watch John Wickwon. We're now much closer to the end of the session than we are to the start. That means decision time is coming. The legislative break gave lawmakers a breather, but didn't lower the tension level at the Capitol. There were plenty of sparks this week. Two people who do get along, I think, are Dana Ferguson and Peter Cox, who are with us to put the exclamation mark on this week's show. Peter, have you seen John Wickwon? I have. I'm a Beagle owner and shout out to Copper. But the key issue for John Wick is someone hurts his Beagle, so I can kind of understand his fury. Dana, you do get along with Peter, though, right? I do. And I'm also a big fan of Coppers. Hey, so we briefly touched on it with Harry Niska and Jamie Long, but the week started off with this dueling ethics filing. Peter, what's going on? Yeah, so, you know, they got back to work after a break. And right away, the DFL filed ethics complaints against Republican House members, Elliot Angan and Walter Hudson. Angan was pulled over for DWI, and Angan was a passenger in that vehicle. But those ethics complaints actually are about whether the two left committee assignments to go to a bar. And then Republicans came back with their own ethics complaint against Representative Alex Falkner about his work lobbying for the Boundary Water. So it's kind of a tit for tat situation. And both complaints go to an evenly split ethics committee. Evenly split is the key term there. Dana, do we expect any of these complaints to really result in much? They will result in a lot of clips for social media and possibly for election fodder, but likely not substantive changes for any of those involved. Speaking of social media clips, it seems like some of those floor debates are designed just for that. It's true, and we were remarking yesterday that I think at this point there have been more motions to suspend the rules to bring bills to the floor, which is the way that people try to break them out of committee if they've not actually passed and got there the right way. So just a lot of efforts to bring up issues that are central to either political party as they're getting ready for the election. Not as many efforts to actually pass bills on the floor. So not a lot of productive activity, but a lot of pseudo campaigning going on. And you reported this week on how this session just seems to be angry. Yeah. A lot of folks around this building have felt like there's just a lot of residual frustration and anger coming out of a year that's been really traumatic for a lot of different reasons. Lawmakers were killed, students were killed at Annunciation Catholic Church and school, the federal government came in and had a very strong immigration enforcement presence that affected a lot of people in Minnesota. And they, Republicans and Democrats don't see eye to eye about the solutions for a lot of that. And so their anger and frustration is really breaking out in committee hearings on the floor and folks are just not being very nice to each other. Peter, what's in this House GOP plan that was put out yesterday for the budget and other things? They're rolling out a $3.8 billion tax cut plan that includes a billion dollars in property tax refunds. A lot of these things were kind of brought up earlier in the session by Republicans, but they include tax conformity, so things like no overtime on tips or no taxes on tips or overtime. But these things probably don't have the backing of Democrats to kind of move on. So it also comes in pretty late in the session, so there's a little question about why they did this now. But the first speaker at that press conference was? Lisa Dayneth, who is running for governor, so she can remind voters this November that she tried to cut people's taxes. Seems like a platform for that campaign. Exactly. And Dana, there was also that discussion earlier in the week in the tax committee about a wealth tax. Are we seeing kind of the bubbling up of this, what might happen if one party or our party gets control of everything next year? Yeah, and we've heard lawmakers talk about that fact that a lot of what they're doing, especially in the House right now because of the tie, is giving voters a little bit of a preview, a little taste of what they would try to do if they're able to come back next year with control of the legislature or more control than they have now. And so we're getting a lot of little bits and pieces of what might be the platform for either party. Something people might want to go on a prediction market perhaps to? Oh, interesting that you would bring that up. They're also talking about trying to limit some of the prediction markets for folks who don't have a whole lot of backgrounding in that these are marketplaces online where you can sort of cast a guess at what might happen, whether that's when Taylor Swift is going to get married or... You've got to put money down to guess. You have to put money down to guess and it's a yes or no question kind of thing. But there are all sorts of questions out there that you can sort of weigh in on and put a little money down and then potentially get a lot back depending what happens. But lawmakers want to kind of rein this in because it seems they think there are not enough guardrails and they allege that these markets are kind of skirting state gambling laws and they shouldn't. And Peter, HCMC kind of got onto the radar this week. There's that ballpark tax that paid for Target Field that some folks want to use to extend and maybe build up a little bit what's going to happen. So HCMC is kind of facing some financial troubles here and one of the things is they serve a lot of people in the metro area but I think a third of their patients come from out state. So it's got backing from both parties. But they want to raise the sales tax in the county and I think it would give them about $300 million a year to kind of help cover those financial holes they've had. Dana, it's been great the last couple weeks to hear from candidates for Congress and the second district but by and large it's been a peekaboo campaign with the top of the ticket races. What are you seeing there? Yeah, and it's a little bit odd, right, that we have a candidate who's running for governor in Senator Amy Klobuchar that we really haven't heard all that much from. I talked to her at the No Kings Rally a couple weeks ago and she said, you know, I'm doing my other job which is being a U.S. senator but expect to hear more from me as we get closer to the election, to convention. Congresswoman Craig, Angie Craig was in town yesterday doing an oversight visit at the Whipple building. But we haven't seen her a whole lot around town. Again, I imagine she would say that she's also doing her job of being a member of Congress. Michelle Tafoya who's running as a Republican in the U.S. Senate race, we haven't heard a whole lot from and I should note that a lot of these candidates, we have standing invitations to them to come on the show or to talk to us and we're hoping that they will say yes and we can get to learn more about their campaigns but right now we don't have a super great window into that. Do we have any window into who Amy Klobuchar is looking at as a running mate? Well I think, you know, given her coming from the metro area, she's looking for someone who has some street cred and rural areas of the state and can kind of get to those middle voters. We've heard some talk about Tom Peterson who's the state ag commissioner. He kind of checks a lot of boxes there. He's from rural Minnesota. He's a farmer. He was on Angela Davis' show this week. What did he say? I didn't hear that. Well I heard it and he pretty much said I'm flattered to be talked about and I would be happy to do what role in partnering with Amy Klobuchar but did not say he's necessarily been asked to be Lieutenant Governor. And Amy Klobuchar will probably have to know this by the time that filing starts which is right after session ends which Dana that date is? March 18th I think. May. Oh my gosh. I think we're not even halfway done. Well that's okay but our time is up for today. We heard from House leaders Harry Niska and Jamie Long about the legislative session as it turns toward that home stretch May 18th is the end. And we spoke with Eric Pratt, a Republican running for the open second congressional district seat. Here are those conversations again on the Politics Friday podcast. This show was produced by Matt Alvarez with a hand from Kate Kelly. Our technical director's team today was Derek Ramirez right here and Maurizio Derico. God I miss that again. And we'll be back next week at noon. Until then stay safe and have a great weekend.