In the Hopper: Race equity; be it resolved; veterans justice

Race equity. In the 2021 legislative session’s early going, George Floyd’s presence is being powerfully felt—at least in one chamber.

On Monday, Rep. Rena Moran, DFL-St. Paul, the powerful House Ways and Means Committee chair, presented her committee with findings from last year’s House Select Committee on Racial Justice, which she co-chaired. Last year’s panel recommended some 80 legislative proposals aimed at tackling systemic racism as a public health crisis.

“Racism is not a subject area that brings comfort,” Moran told her committee. “But I am asking each one of you—each one of us—to create a space today to listen, to learn and to sit in your uncomfortability for a moment.”

Moran is the committee’s new chair, succeeding the retired Rep. Lyndon Carlson, DFL-Crystal. Monday’s presentation was a little unusual for that committee, which is tasked with passing a budget resolution and reviewing all House spending proposals to see if they can be afforded within the scope of that resolution.

Still, a number of the Racial Justice panel’s proposals do involve spending. One recommendation calls for $1 billion to create a Black, Indigenous and People of Color Capital Fund that, among other things, would fund equitable grants and loans, land trusts and affordable housing.

Rep. Ron Kresha, R-Little Falls, the GOP lead on House Education Finance, asked Moran if she plans to require all bills passing through Way and Means to take account of racial inequities.

“I never use words like ‘every’ and ‘always,’” Moran replied. “I don’t do that.”

Kresha worried the her reply means she plans to pick and choose when that lens would apply. That could become problematic, he said, because it could create unclear expectations for bill authors.

“How am I going to know when to make that argument and when not to make that argument?” he said. “As you know, when there is fog at the pulpit, there is mist in the pews.”

Moran said that answering Kresha’s question is not her job alone. The various committee chairs and GOP leads who are Ways and Means members also must answer it, she said. But she acknowledged that not every bill—a transportation bill to build a railroad overpass in Kresha’s district, for example—would need a racial-equity impact statement.

A similar conversation took place in the House Capital Investment committee on Tuesday morning, where that committee’s new chair, Rep. Fue Lee, DFL-St. Paul, also presented the Racial Justice select committee’s findings.

Yet another occurred on Jan. 22, where House Public Safety Chair Carlos Mariani, DFL-St. Paul, presented his committee with what he called an “overview of the legislative response to the murder of George Floyd.”

In it, Mariani laid out the history of the racial tensions that culmination in Floyd’s death and its aftermath. Mariani also described the police-accountability legislation that followed.

He also provided, though with scant detail, a list of priorities yet to be accomplished. Police body camera compliance must be strengthened, he said. The use of jail house informants also must be reexamined, he said, as must police arbitration and a wealth of other related issues.

“We built a system and we can redesign that system, so that we are not constantly reacting to people within it that abuse it,” Mariani said.

The House’s emphasis on criminal justice and racial equity is not yet matched by the GOP-led Senate. So far, the upper chamber has been more focused on balancing the budget, cutting taxes and reversing the governor’s emergency powers.

About the closest the Senate has come to intersecting with House DFL priorities is a bill from Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Vernon Center, which passed out of Senate Judiciary on Monday. Senate File 7, which has no House companion, would prevent disaster relief funds from being used to pay for damages caused by civil disorder.

It is headed to the Senate floor.

Be it resolved. A resolution condemning the Jan. 6 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol and defending the integrity of Minnesota’s 2020 election passed the House with 111 votes on Monday. But only after considerable argument and quite a few edits.

House Resolution 1 was introduced to the House Rules committee on Jan. 21. It condemns political violence and insurrectionist rhetoric and affirms the House’s support for democracy, the rule of law and the certified results of Minnesota’s election.

Before it got to the floor, GOP House members, including Minority Leader Kurt Daudt, R-Crown, recommended several changes. During the Jan. 21 Rules Committee hearing, for example, Republicans found the phrase “murdered by members of the mob” problematic, so they successfully lobbied to delete that phrase and substitute the word “killed.”

Likewise, Rep. Cal Bahr, R-Est Bethel, found the phrase “constitutional democracy” objectionable because, he said, the United States is a republic. So the word “constitutional” was deleted from the phrase.

On Jan. 22, the resolution returned to House Rules and was passed with those edits, along with several others. But that didn’t end the argument over the resolution.

When it was brought to the House floor, the six GOP members who participated in a Minnesota Capitol rally on Jan. 6 all rose during debate to complain that House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, and the media had falsely branded them insurrectionists for speaking during the demonstration.

They also maintained that no investigation has been conducted into the matter. But Hortman said last week that the BCA did investigate the rally at her request. The agency found that no one broke the law there.

Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa, tried to insert a new phrase to “strengthen” the resolution. His attempted amendment condemned “any action that interferes with anyone’s ability to speak against their government” as well as “any attempt to use violence as a political weapon.” It was not approved.

Rep. Anne Neu Brindley, R-North Branch, resurrected the democracy versus republic argument with an amendment to replace the phrase “condemns attacks on our democracy” with “condemns attacks on our constitutional republic.” It was a question of accuracy, she argued. The House voted it down 63-68.

Neu Brindley succeeded, however, at deleting two lines from the resolution’s “whereas” clauses. Without explanation, she asked that, “Whereas public officials around the nation have made troubling statements that led to Americans questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election…” be deleted.

Rep. Jamie Long, DFL-Minneapolis, the resolution’s author, went along with the change. “While I do not believe that the amendment is necessary and that the underlying ‘whereas’ clause is factual,” he said, “in the spirit of bipartisanship, I urge members to support the amendment.”

They did, and it passed with a divided voice vote. The full resolution then was adopted, 111-8.

Veterans justice. Assistant Senate Majority Leader Roger Chamberlain, R-Lino Lakes, is taking the try-and-try-again approach to a veterans restorative justice bill that has failed to become law over that past several years.

Senate File 116, which does not yet have a House companion, is a bill that would create a uniform process for allowing veterans in trouble with the law because of service-related disorders to avoid prison.

The bill, as proponents have long maintained, is no get-out-of-jail-free card. It would require veterans to enter a guilty plea, and then ask the court for a stay of adjudication. The court would review and decide whether to approve that request. If it does, the veteran would have to go through treatment and complete other court-imposed requirements, all under strict supervision.

As part of the process, the court would help connect the ex-service member to the Veterans Affairs Department and the services it provides. At the end, if all hurdles are cleared, the charges would be dismissed.

The bill has run into a lot of problems since its early 2019 rollout, when Gov. Tim Walz and several county prosecutors spoke in favor of it. Last year, for example, Rep. Marion O’Neill, R-Maple Lake, balked at the prospect of allowing domestic abusers to take part, which helped to stall the legislation in its tracks.

Chamberlain argued that society owes its veterans the help the bill would supply.

“I think that there is a moral obligation that we have when we send our young sons and daughters off to war to do what the politicians have deemed necessary,” he said. “When they come home, we’ve got to fix them if they’re broken.”

The bill unanimously passed out of the Senate Veterans and Military Affairs committee on Jan. 21. It was then directed to Senate Judiciary, which has yet to take it up.