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(bright music) - Good evening and welcome to the 45th season of Pioneer Public Television's Your Legislators.

I'm Barry Anderson.

For most of the last 35 years or so, I've been your genial host.

And I'm delighted to be able to introduce to you this evening our distinguished panel of guests.

Before we get to that, those introductions, I thought I'd lay out a little bit about what we're going to be doing today and what is upcoming for your legislators in this season.

We will be broadcasting on at least three occasions this season tonight, again, on April 17, shortly before the Easter break and on May 22nd, and perhaps on additional dates as circumstances dictate.

Watch the Pioneer Public Television website for further details.

Now, by way of background, as we all know, the November elections resulted in the election of 67 Democrats and 67 Republican members of the House.

There are at least three legal proceedings impacting the legislative session, which, by virtue of the state constitution, begins this coming Tuesday on January 14th.

There's a Ramsey County District Court finding that a candidate for a legislative seat with no incumbent on the ballot did not live in the district as required by state law.

Currently pending in Scott County District Court there is a proceeding challenging the reelection of the incumbent legislator.

And as of this week, currently pending before the Minnesota Supreme Court is a challenge to the scheduling of a special election to elect a legislator for that previously mentioned Ramsey County seat.

Session Daily, the new service operated by the House of Representatives reported the current status of matters this way.

House Republicans plan to fully exercise their rights as the majority on the first day of the 2025 legislative session.

But because DFL plan to not be in the capitol if a power sharing agreement previously agreed to wasn't in place, Republican House speaker designate Lisa Demuth is reiterating at a Monday press conference that with a split with a 67-66 split in the House, that following the general election, there is no longer any split given what has transpired most recently.

I would observe in passing that we've been here before.

For those with long memories, these circumstances are reminiscent of the 1979 legislature, which featured a 67-67 tie broken by the disqualification of Representative Robert Pavlock late in that session.

Now, in addition to all of these issues, the principle task before the legislature of this session is adoption of a budget.

And there are significant warning signs of a decline in the projected surplus and a deficit in future bienniums.

As always, as I said earlier, we have a distinguished panel of guests to discuss these issues.

Joining us tonight in order of seniority are as follows: Senator Nick Frentz from Mankato, who was first elected in 2016; Senator Jordan Rasmusson from Fergus Falls, first elected in 2020 to the House and to the Senate in, I think, 2022.

If I'm wrong about that, you'll correct me.

Third, Representative Jamie Long, who was first elected in 2018 from Minneapolis.

And then finally, Representative Harry Niska, elected in 2020 from Ramsey.

We were discussing before the program began this evening that we have a panel here full of lawyers, including myself.

We're looking to Senator Rasmusson, the one non-lawyer, to lead us to wisdom.

Let's begin, Senator Frentz, you are the most senior member of our panel tonight.

Why don't you introduce yourself to our viewers and maybe take a couple of minutes to talk about what you see as the issues today?

- Sure.

Well, thanks, Barry.

Thanks, fellow panelists.

Nick Frentz from North Mankato.

I represent Senate District 18A.

That's roughly described as the Greater Mankato area.

I'm in my third term.

Proud to serve as assistant majority leader in the Senate and love the work.

I think what Minnesotans are asking us for is to get our work done and to work together a little more.

And I think in the Senate, you'll find opportunities for that maybe a little more obvious than they have been in previous years.

I am following with great interest the litigation surrounding some of the House races.

And I think I would ask all of us to sort of center ourselves in this basic question.

What did the voters give each party and each caucus the right to do?

What did the voters not give?

And for those votes that are yet to be had, what will happen if they turn out one way or another?

Senate Democrats are ready to work with Senate Republicans, try to figure stuff out and get a budget passed and happy to discuss those issues.

I think what you'll see is an interest in cost of living issues.

And as far as the budget deficit, it's like a family that is meeting its expenses with its income, but is told in four years, it's gonna be more expensive without a corresponding increase in income.

So I think we gotta plan for that and how we do, that'll be a sign of our bipartisanship.

Looking forward to it.

Justice Anderson, - Very good.

I should note for our interested viewers who may be confused by this that Appellation of Justice is very much appreciated.

I retired from the court on May 10.

This is what I do for a good time is talk to legislators about what's going on at the legislature.

Let's move on to Senator Rasmusson.

Give us an introduction and tell us a little bit about the issues as you see them.

- Great to be with you, Barry.

And I really enjoy this program and the opportunity to talk with Minnesotans about what is occurring at the Capitol.

And I think for the Senate Republican caucus, we're very interested in being able to work in a bipartisan way, focusing on family budgets and the concerns that we have heard from our constituents since we've been back in the districts we represent.

For myself, I live in Fergus Falls with my wife Emma and represent five counties of West Central Minnesota.

And I'm also honored to have the opportunity to serve as an assistant leader for the Senate Republican caucus.

And I think one of the big changes that the voters sent us back in November is they've told us that they don't want a single party trifecta control in St. Paul.

And so I know from talking with my Republican colleagues, they're very much looking forward to this new opportunity where any bill that passes and gets signed into law is gonna require bipartisan support.

And I think we have a lot of bipartisan ideas that we're excited to promote once we get started next week.

- Representative Long, the floor is yours.

- Very well.

Thanks for having me back on the program.

It's good to be with you.

Congratulations on your retirement.

I think you framed it up well in your introduction.

We had a 67-67 outcome to the election in November, and that's where we're gonna wind up.

We've had one court challenge that led to one of our members stepping down.

And we're gonna have a special election that's a democratic seat, and so we'll be back to 67-67 on the same day that the Senate will be back up to full strength because there's a special election in the Senate too.

So it seems like we'll be off to a bit of a slower start than normal in the legislature.

And at the end of January, I think we will be back up to full strength.

And so I'm hoping that we can operate well.

As Senator Frentz said, I think there are good opportunities for bipartisanship.

In my first four years, we were in divided government.

I worked on some issues with then House Member Jordan Rasmusson at the time on some energy policy.

And so I know that there are issues that we can work across the aisle on together to be able to do good work for the people of Minnesota.

But I think that pretending that we're not in a tie is going to be a path that leads nowhere.

So I'm hoping that we can get to a place of bipartisanship soon.

- Representative Niska, floor is yours.

- Thank you.

Well, yeah, certainly, there are big problems that Minnesotans expect us to be working on here in St. Paul, and we have to get started right away.

The reality of the situation is that we aren't at 67-67 today.

We're at maybe 67-66 as you referenced.

There is another court challenge going on about another election contest that may require another election as well.

And the people of Minnesota need us to get to work on the budget.

They need us to get to work on stopping the fraud that's happening in Minnesota.

They need us to get to work on making Minnesota affordable, on making Minnesota safe, on fixing our education system where half of our kids don't get to read.

And the reality of the situation is, nobody ever does a power sharing unless it's necessary to organize a House in the first place.

And on January 14th when the law says that we need to begin, there will not be an even tie in the Minnesota House.

There will be a 67-66 Republican majority, and that means Republicans have the obligation to move forward with organizing the House.

But it does mean that we're gonna have to work together as Republicans and Democrats to solve those problems.

And that's the responsibility that House Republicans are willing to take on.

It seems clear that that's the only way things probably will be productive in the House, that House Republicans work with the Senate and work with the Governor and any Democrats who are willing to work with us to solve those big problems that Minnesotans expect us to work on.

- So let's move to some specific issues that we know are of concern to Minnesotans.

And we have a number of members of this panel who have worked closely on energy issues.

And I want to go to that topic.

I mean, I recognize that the budget is a significant issue.

We're gonna come back to that and lay that out.

But I want to start with the energy question.

Senator Frentz, we'll start with you as the senior member of our panel here today.

Talk a little bit about energy issues and what you might see coming out of this session.

And in particular, I want to ask you about whether or not there is some possibility that the nuclear moratorium, which was imposed many years ago might be lifted.

Not necessarily any specific legislation in that area, but whether or not the moratorium would be be taken away.

So let's start with you, Senator Frentz.

We'll go around the table and have an exchange on energy-related questions.

- Sure, I appreciate that.

As the chair of the Senate Energy, Utilities, Environment, and Climate Committee the last two years, I love the topic.

I think Minnesotans are in a good place, but there are some things on the horizon we'll have to talk about.

First of all, responsible forecasts suggest that the demand for electricity in Minnesota in the next 15 to 20 years is gonna double.

So we have pretty reliable, pretty affordable energy right now, but we're in a serious crisis.

If you want to talk about our ability to build out energy generation or to buy it on the open market, of course, supply and demand tells you that the more we need it, the more we might have to pay for it.

So we have to ask ourselves how rate payers and their pocketbooks are affected by our choices.

The good news for those of us that are worried about climate change and I'm in that group, is that renewable energy becomes cheaper and cheaper.

First of all, it has no fuel.

And so as we watch unsubsidized wind out of my beloved Southern Minnesota, especially Buffalo Ridge and Southwestern Minnesota, be really the cheapest energy available, the question becomes how are we gonna generate it and how are we gonna transport it to where the most users are?

That is primarily the Twin Cities metro area.

I'm a big believer that rate payers have to be treated equally, whether they're invest-owned utility customers, rural electric co-op like me in North Mankato or Municipal Electric.

On the question of nuclear, I certainly am hearing from my friends across the aisle that they want to discuss lifting the moratorium.

I think that'll be a tough lift.

It'll require consensus from the Native American tribes affected and from some legislators who feel that nuclear waste is a problem that we have not solved.

But I do allow this, and it is no secret that the Senate Energy Committee passed the advanced nuclear bill unanimously last session.

That means every Republican and every Democrat voted for it.

And I think we have to look at advanced nuclear sometimes called small modular nuclear.

And I think the study's a great way to start.

I do think if you look around the country at states that don't have a moratorium, by and large, those utilities are not building nuclear primarily due to the cost issue.

But looking forward to the debate.

- Senator Rasmusson, your thoughts on the energy question?

- When I talk to my neighbors about energy issues, they want affordable energy and they want reliable energy.

And I think there's a lot of concerns with the energy mandates that got passed this last under single party control, that they're gonna get more expensive energy that's less reliable.

And we're seeing this from national reports coming out from MISO and others, that they're concerned about this demand-supply imbalance.

And right now, we have a lot of our utilities and electric generators so focused on meeting these arbitrary mandates on types of generation that are gonna be allowed in Minnesota that they can't be planning for the additional capacity needs that we'll need with a new economy that has more data center, more AI usage for energy.

And so that's something I'm worried about.

And when I talk with my caucus colleagues, they want all the above energy approach where we can utilize all sorts of energy that can be produced here in Minnesota and that's gonna help ensure that we have an energy future that is affordable for Minnesotans, concerned about inflation, but also reliable, especially on cold weeks like we've had the last few days where Minnesotans need to have their energy work.

And they're concerned about some of the warning signals that have come from MISO and others, saying that our system is getting less reliable.

- For our viewers who are wondering what MISO is, that's the regional energy supplier for Minnesota, includes Minnesota and other parts of the jurisdiction.

Representative Long, energy issues.

- I'm glad we're starting off on energy.

Appreciate that, Barry.

So I agree with Senator Rasmusson about affordability and reliability, but I would add that Minnesotans also want clean energy.

And the good news is that you can have all three.

And we know that right now wind is the cheapest energy that you can build in the state of Minnesota.

Unfortunately, I saw President Trump today say that he wanted no more wind turbines built in his four years.

First off, I don't think that's gonna happen.

I don't think he's gonna be able to achieve that, but that's too bad to see that because we know that wind energy in Minnesota means jobs.

Right here, it means dollars coming into our economy, it means reliable power, and it means the cheapest power that we can build right now.

We know that solar energy too is gonna be the cheapest form of energy cheaper than wind within the next few years.

So we have the opportunity to lower costs as we're expanding the energy grid, as Senator Frentz said.

So I'm glad to see that we're doing that.

When it comes to nuclear power, which had been the start of your question, I was glad to see that the Monticello plant got an extension from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to 2050.

That's one of our three nuclear plants in Minnesota.

And I think that's good news for the state.

We have three existing nuclear plants that are providing good base load power for the state, but I'm not aware that there's interest from our large utilities in the state to build new nuclear.

It's very expensive to build.

It is much more expensive than wind or solar.

And so I don't think there's lot of appetite at this point for constructing new energy, particularly if Senator Rasmusson says we want it to be the most affordable form of energy - Representative Niska.

- Well, thank you.

Yeah, energy is a very important topic.

It's vital to all the way of life of every Minnesotan.

It's vital to every affordability issue.

Everything that we pay for has energy as a cost driver at every single step of the process.

And so driving up energy costs, which is the result of a lot of the policies that were passed in the last term, especially the energy ban, essentially banning most of the forms of energy that we currently use with the expectation that we will someday get to a place where we can use other forms of energy, has created serious problems, both in terms of affordability and in terms of reliability.

If we want to get to a future where Minnesotans, every Minnesota has reliable and affordable energy, we need to explore additional forms of energy.

I think that does include nuclear.

I was at breakfast just last week with the CEO of the leader of an energy co-op.

And they definitely want to at least have the ability to explore new forms of nuclear energy.

That's important not just to the day-to-day lives of every Minnesotan, but it's so vital to the future economy of Minnesota, the ability of Minnesota to compete in the economy of the future where AI and data centers are gonna require way more power than even what we have had to up to now.

If we let all of that economic growth happen in other states and say not in Minnesota, that's an opportunity for a bright future that Minnesota is passing up, that'd be the wrong path.

I do think that repealing the nuclear moratorium is something that we should work on together in this legislative session.

- Say, Barry.

- Yes, go ahead.

Right ahead, absolutely.

- You said jump in.

I want to thank my Republican colleagues, but I do want to ask, can we get a Republican plan for climate change?

I think both your answers were articulate and they made sense, but not a word about the planet warming or whether we are going to take any steps in Minnesota.

and I think we're willing to work with you on energy policy, but you have to be somewhere on climate change, hoax, not a hoax in the middle.

I'd welcome, Barry, any comment from Representative Niska or Senator Rasmusson.

What is the Republican position in Minnesota on climate change?

- You know- - Barry.

- Go ahead, Senator Rasmusson.

- The thing I would say to that is, so we have all these expensive mandates that are being implemented that were passed or the last biennium.

And the question I would have for my democratic colleagues who supported that is, how much is that gonna change global temperature?

I think it's important for us in Minnesota, we're an important state, but we have to have humility.

The United States is, let's say, about a quarter of global GDP, Minnesota's 2% of the US population.

Any policy that my democratic colleagues pass over the last two years is gonna have no impact on global climate temperature and global climate.

This is something that is much broader than the issues at the state capitol.

But, unfortunately, we know that these mandates will have real costs for Minnesotans, both in terms of the energy bills they pay, and we've seen this with recent rate cases and additional to the reliability issues that we've talked about when we're taking Baseload energy offline to go onto more intermittent sources like wind and solar.

So my critique of the policy is that when we go back to Minnesotans, we can't articulate any clear benefit, but we can see the clear costs that will be paid from the implementation of this.

- Well, Senator, I didn't hear your climate policy.

We could tell everyone to not take out their garbage because it won't make a difference in the county landfill.

But by that logic, our county landfills will immediately overfill.

What steps do the Republican party members want to take, if any, on climate change?

- Representative Niska, do you want to take a run at that?

- Yeah.

Well, and I remember asking Representative Long the same question that Senator Rasmusson asked on the floor when we were having this conversation two years ago.

And the answer is that there's not really an answer.

It's what Minnesota would gain or contribute is essentially minimal with the mandates that were passed.

But as a starting point, we should talk about what do we need to do to make the off ramps in the law that you passed last two years ago work.

I think that if we're really talking to the folks who are actually producing the energy and what's necessary to have affordable and reliable energy under the current law, we need some changes to that.

And frankly, we need to at least explore nuclear power.

I appreciate the point about large nuclear not being the future, but we do need to open the door to look at what are the other carbon free...

If that's the direction we're going, if there's energy transition, it's happening, it's happening regardless of what Minnesota policy is, but let's do it smart.

Let's do it in a way that helps Minnesotans instead of hurting Minnesotans.

- Barry, if I could jump in the...

The two notes I've heard from my Republican colleagues over the time I worked on climate is either climate change isn't real or yes it's real, but we can't do anything about it.

And we haven't really heard the yes, we're willing to step up and be a part of the solution.

And if the question is, well, what difference does one state make?

It makes a lot of difference.

We in the United States or federal government system, we have many states who have committed to a hundred percent clean energy, not just Minnesota.

And if you add up the states that have committed to going to a hundred percent clean energy, it does create a significant impact on moving towards climate.

And we know that collective action problems are hard, right?

This is not an easy thing to solve, but if we stick our head in the sand and say, well, not us, we can't do anything about it, then nobody's going to be able to make any progress.

And we certainly aren't gonna see any action out of the federal government on climate for the next four years.

So it's gonna be up to the states to be able to make an impact, and we know that.

I think we're at 15 states now that have a hundred percent clean energy policies and more to come.

So this is going to be a significant mover in terms of what we see around the world.

And when we've traveled to different countries and heard the work that they're doing, they're inspired by the work we're doing in Minnesota.

So it does have an impact internationally as well.

- All right, well, I regret to report we've not solved the energy problem yet.

We'll have to come back to that in future weeks.

Let's talk a little bit about the general budget situation.

There are specific ar areas of the budget, of course, that we're gonna talk about throughout the program.

But just to summarize where we're at, it's my understanding that we originally were looking at a surplus of around a couple billion dollars in the coming biennium.

And that number, the projected number is now about 600 million, looking at a $5 billion deficit in the biennium that follows.

So let's start with you, Representative Niska.

Let's get your perspective on what we should be doing relative to those budget issues and what that means for the budget that the legislature has to pass this year.

- Well, and you left a part of the story, which is we started with a $17.5 billion surplus.

And right now, we're projected to go in three budget cycles to a $5 billion deficit, which is really quite a stunning turnaround in the state financial situation.

The reason for that is a growth in the size and scope of state government by 40% in one biennium.

And so the first thing we have to do is seriously consider the consequences of that sort of explosion and the size of state government that sort of the imbalance that that creates between the public sector and the private free sector and how we're gonna deal with that imbalance going forward in the future.

Again, this runs into the bigger question of what is the future of Minnesota going to look like?

Is it gonna look like more government control, more government mandates, more government spending and taxes, strangling the free private sector of the economy?

Or are we gonna get back to some sort of a balance?

And we need growth in the private sector and in the rest of the economy of Minnesota in order to do that.

Part of that does play into the energy conversation we're having before, but part of it just depends on unleashing the ingenuity, unleashing the will of Minnesotans.

And that does require that we cut back on the bloat in state government, the number of of state employees, the number of unused offices, the amount that's going out in terms of fraud.

And we also have to look at what are the long-term policies, the entitlement programs, and how we bring those back into a situation where the growth of those things does not outpace the growth of the private economy that pays for all of that stuff.

That's the big problem we have.

We're not gonna solve that in 30-second sound bites or even a hour-long panel discussion on a PBS show.

But that's a big, big problem, and it's gonna require all of those things to be true.

We're gonna have to have a vibrant private economy based on freeing the ingenuity of Minnesotans competing in the economy of the future.

And we're also gonna have to deal with the size and scope of state government that exploded under a democrat trifecta the last two years.

- Representative Long, your thoughts?

- Well, I agree that- - Big complicated topic.

I'm confident the five of us can solve it, but anyway, go ahead.

- Absolutely, we sure can.

Well, I agree about the need to help grow our economy.

And I think that's just what we did over the last two years with our budget.

We invested in schools to make sure that we have the best workforce in the country.

We invested in our infrastructure and roads and bridges to make sure folks can get goods to market.

We invested in our higher education system to make sure that we are having the best talent, the best ingenuity, the best innovations coming out of Minnesota.

There are some other states that have different models.

They have race to the bottom models where they have cheap labor and that's their best goal, but that's never been Minnesota's value add.

Minnesota's competitive edge on this national basis has been that we have a great educated workforce and a great infrastructure and that's how we've been able to succeed.

That's how we've been able to attract so many Fortune 500 companies and create so many good jobs here.

And so those are the investments that we have made and those are what's going to help continue to help grow our economy and put our budget in a better position in the long run.

My GOP friends like to conflate one-time spending with ongoing spending.

The budget is not 40% larger on an ongoing basis.

There was a one-time boon from federal money and from coming out of the pandemic and that was invested in housing and infrastructure and schools and many of the other areas to help grow our economy that I mentioned.

The two areas of the budget that are of concern in terms of their growth right now are long-term care and special education.

That's 70% of the growth that we're seeing going forward.

Those are important programs for people in need in our state.

And we need to make sure that those programs are doing well.

But I'm happy to help work with my friends across the aisle and see if there are ways that we can reduce spending in some of those areas or try to make sure that we are doing what we can to help provide care to our most needy Minnesotans, but in a way that doesn't break our budget.

And I think we should be honest, though, about what the large budget areas are and what the small budget areas are.

And cutting a DEI employee from one agency is gonna do nothing to the budget.

If we want to look at the large areas of spending and work on where there's growth, I think that we can do that together.

- There we go.

Famous here on mute thing.

Senator Rasmusson, floor is yours.

- Thank you, Barry.

And it is important for us to remember that this is a budget year and so this was the main task that'll be ahead of us in the legislature.

And when we look at this structural deficit that's facing us, I think one key principle is that we can't raise taxes.

We have Minnesotans already pay some of the highest taxes in the country, and we can't just continue to go back to the taxpayer and ask for more.

I clearly heard when I was talking to people during interim that they want us and St. Paul to prioritize their family budget and to not continue to prioritize the state government's budget.

That's a message that I heard very loud and clear.

And I think one thing that we really need to focus on this session is getting a handle on the waste fraud and abuse that we've seen across state government agencies.

And it seems almost a weekly occurrence where we have some seven or eight figure case of waste fraud abuse hit the headlines.

And we've seen a lack of accountability from Governor Wallace's state agencies.

And I think this is something that we need to correct because Minnesotans don't want $30 million going to a substance use disorder provider who's fraudulently billing the state.

They don't want $250 million in fraud for the feeding our futures that was supposed to go to feed kids go into the pockets of criminals.

And so I think that's an area where we need to focus.

And we need to have accountability across all of our agencies that they're dealing with the hard earned tax dollars of Minnesotans and that they need to treat that money like it was their own.

And so I think that we will have a number of proposals once session starts to give more teeth to the office of the legislative auditor to ensure that their recommendations are being implemented.

And I think across our committees this will be something that republicans will be talking more and more about.

- Senator Frentz, floor is yours.

Well, here is where I gotta acknowledge a couple weaknesses on the panel.

First of all, I'm a more moderate fiscal type, so I'm interested in efficiency, I'm interested in budgets.

I tell the people in my district all the time when they ask what's it like.

I say the best part is also the hardest part, which is the state budget has to balance.

I'm glad you mentioned the family budget, Senator Rasmusson.

I am right there with you.

We talked to the farmers in my district, men and women that go to work every day, they thank us for the child tax credit.

That's a nation leading child tax credit.

We need more happy families in this state and that's a big plus.

The farmers in my district quite pleased with the exemption to their taxation on land.

As you know, we increase that exemption.

That's a big savings to them and we haven't talked about it yet, but the social security tax cut amounted to almost a billion dollars and actually will be more in the future as our population ages.

So glad to see we're on the same page about the family budget.

On the fraud, waste, and accountability,.

here's what I'd say.

Anytime, any proposal to deal with fraud and waste, any change to the criminal statutes, any ways to that more efficient is fine.

Feeding our future take place when the federal government loosened the reins a little bit of oversight.

And the theory was we gotta get food into kids' bellies, a theory I agree with.

However, that allowed for some theft to take place.

Those are the criminals, by the way.

And when I hear accountability, I would put it this way.

If a convenient store clerk gets robbed, I don't think they lose their job now.

Did they do something criminal?

If so, then they can be prosecuted.

Accountability talks about oversight and talks about the ways we do protect the taxpayer dollar, and I think we're up for it.

And, Barry, I think your question drove at this key moment, which is I think we'll produce a budget that is smaller, a cut from this current biennium.

And I think all four caucuses ought to just hold that up and say that's a reasonable goal.

Then I can look forward to Representative Niska going around, talking about how Democrats help cut the budget.

- Should we ask you for a rebuttal, Representative?

No, let's not, let's move on.

Over the 35 years that I've been doing this program, the one issue that comes up certainly every budget year, it's an issue that always concerns Minnesotans is education.

And I'd like to talk specifically here about what we used to call K-12 education.

Now, it's pre-K to 12 education.

There are a number of issues.

I'm interested in what members of the panel think are the most significant issues in this session.

It's not just budget issues.

When I talk to some of my friends who are in the civic education space, there are concerns there.

And of course, other parts of the budget that affect K-12 are also an issue.

Representative Long, I don't think we started with anybody with you yet.

Why don't you take a run at... We'll take a run at that question, and we'll go around the panel here.

- Happy to.

Well, I'm really proud of the work that we were able to do the last biennium on education.

For one thing, for the first time, we're able to index the K-12 formula, the per pupil formula to inflation going forward.

And we know that school districts across the state and every single one of our districts feel like they have to come back every two years just to be able to stay afloat and tread water because if they get a 2% increase on their formula and they have a 4%, 5% increase in cost, we know that that's a cut for those school districts.

And so we finally were able to index to inflation the per pupil formula going forward, which is a really big deal for our school districts across the entire state.

And frankly, it's a better way to budget.

We have honest budgeting now in our K 12 programs where we're not pretending like we have more money than we we do to be able to meet the needs of our schools.

We certainly have a lot of struggling school districts around the state, though not just in the metro, but but all over that are having difficulty making their needs meet.

I talked a little bit about special education as being one of those areas where we're seeing lot of increased costs, increased staffing costs, increased transportation costs.

And so I know that we're in a tight budget scenario.

I don't know that we're gonna have a lot of additional money to work with, but we know that these school districts are struggling and we know that educating our kids is, if not the most important thing we do is certainly up there.

And so we need to help make sure that our districts are getting what they need to be able to move forward and educate our kids as well as they can and not struggling financially.

- Senator Rasmusson, K-12 education.

- I agree with Representative Long that K-12 education is one of the most important things that the state looks at and it's one of the biggest pieces of the budget because it's so important.

The feedback that I have heard from educators across the state from this last biennium is that even though there is an increase in the spending in K-12 education, that it's all been eaten up by new mandates.

And so we've seen headlines of this in the area I represent across the state of school districts, that despite the additional spending, are facing serious budget challenges, are laying off teachers and have uncertain futures.

And I think that's a struggle that we're seeing across employers of all kinds.

And so for me, it's really taking a look at some of those mandates that we've passed and one-size-fit-all approaches.

I know a big thing in the area I represent is sometimes these smaller school districts need some flexibility in terms of what types of applicants they can bring in and teach in the classroom.

So if they have a career professional who's been running an auto program at a local dealership, but wants to get in the classroom to teach what they know to students.

Unfortunately, laws passed this last biennium have made that more challenging and more difficult for those people to pursue a career in education.

So I think we have to trust our parents, we have to trust our educators and empower them to make the right decisions for the students and the communities that they live in and serve and not treat St. Paul like a big school board because that's the concern.

Yes, there's been some additional money going into K-12 education, but from what I've seen, it's been gobbled up by these additional mandates.

- Senator Frentz.

- Love the topic.

I would consider education the state's top priority.

I think of it as a way we invest money in the state's children and invest in the state's economic future.

And I'm all in for the debate about how best to deploy those resources.

I agree with Senator Rasmusson that some of the requirements we put on school districts took away some of the extra money that we put into it, but we did put in extra money.

And some of those districts were in trouble before COVID and before the federal money started running through the state budget.

So we could debate that point, but count me in.

Here's the things I think Minnesotans would agree on.

We have to continue to focus on the basics.

The READ Act, for example, I applaud some of my Republican colleagues in the Senate on literacy.

I think that's a foundational educational goal.

And the READ Act is our effort to make literacy and some of the basics of reading a priority.

I think we should stick with that.

I like some of the stuff we've done on school meals.

It's costing us more, but that's because more kids are eating those meals.

I'm the child of two teachers, and I've heard stories about kids that stomachs are empty.

I know we've all got them in our district.

I think that's a winner.

I know it costs money, but don't just ask what it costs, ask what it pays.

And then watching some of the state's efforts in attendance or truancy, if you like the term from my era, and cell phone use.

I think the kids will be fine if we take cell phones out of school.

I know they don't like it.

I know some of them will make a fuss, but I think there's some big advantages.

Tell them that school's important, and they'll respond accordingly.

And as far as truancy, you may know there's a pilot project or two around the state, Mankato Area Public Schools' proud to be one working to reduce truancy, working to keep more kids attending more classes.

If we can get them in the classroom, we can show improvement.

And often as with the food, it's just two or three kids that sometimes create the greatest challenge for our teachers and the greatest impediments.

On the local expert stuff, Senator Rasmusson, happy to talk offline about that.

I have a rural district too.

And I think you're right, they want to talk a little bit about teacher licensure - Representative Niska, K-12 education.

- Yeah, no, I agree a hundred percent with all the panelists that it's important, but we have to think about it through the lens of empowerment and not control.

We have to think about it in terms of results and not dollars.

The problem with the conversation that happens so often in St. Paul and some of the conversation here.

It shouldn't be about how many dollars did we send out to school districts and how many ways it can bureaucrats in St. Paul tell the school districts or tell teachers how to teach it.

It has to be about the basics, literacy, math, empowering kids with the skills that they need for the future, empowering parents with what they need to choose the best education for their kids.

Empowering teachers to teach as professionals in the classroom, empowering school boards to make the decisions for their community, and not about bureaucrats in St. Paul pushing an ideological agenda or pushing something else that's not helping Minnesota Minnesotans be ready to be part of the economy of the future.

It's about teaching every kid what they need to succeed.

And the dollars are helpful.

Certainly, every school district is gonna tell you they want more dollars, but what they don't want is the mandates, the control that's being imposed on them from St. Paul that's stripping them of the ability to spend those dollars to actually help kids in the classroom.

The results are the key and the unfortunately have not been good.

Minnesota has in the past had a competitive advantages, Representative Long said earlier, about having an educated workforce, but we're falling down on that.

We have less than half of our kids are meeting literacy standards and math standards at grade level.

That has to be fixed.

We have to do a lot more.

And it's about focusing on, like I said, empowerment, helping kids to learn, and less about the bureaucrats in St. Paul telling teachers, telling school boards, telling parents how they have to teach, how they have to raise their kids.

- Of course, education is composed of more than just K-12 education.

And I want to move now to higher education in the context of the current environment, which is a declining number of students attending higher education, increasing costs, lots of budget pressure, lots of concerns about... Of course, we've had concerns about curriculum and other issues.

I don't know that it has been as big an issue in Minnesota as it has been elsewhere.

But, of course, there have been concerns about student behavior and related topics.

So let's move to higher education.

Representative Niska, I don't think we've had an opportunity to tee you up as our first speaker.

What are we gonna do about higher education in the 2025 legislative session?

- Well, I'm not sure that we're gonna solve all the problems of higher education, the 2025 legislative session, but more broadly, I think that there has been...

There was a cultural period where kids coming outta high school were sort of being expected to go to a four-year track even for folks who... That wasn't the best way to prepare them for their future.

And I think there's been bipartisan agreement that we should be doing more to help think about how every high school senior can think about and be empowered to make the right choice for their career, whether that means going right into the workforce where that means going to some sort of a two-year program that's gonna prepare them the trades jobs of the future or whether they go into a four-year program.

There's more that we need to do to help.

Every student, regardless of what they want to choose...

The last legislature really focused a lot of the state spending on just public higher education to the detriment of students who choose a different direction, a private school through the Minnesota State Grant Program.

I think we need to rebalance that.

But, certainly, it's important that we are trying to support every student's potential path, whatever the path is that's best for them, for their future, for them to be a productive worker in helping Minnesota compete in that economy of the future.

- Senator Frentz, higher education.

- Yeah, I love this topic.

As a graduate of a Minnesota four-year school, it was a good fit for me, but I agree with Representative Niska.

We gotta find the best fit for each kid.

It's not the same as it was 20 years ago and it's not the same for each kid in each part of the state.

Honestly, what I see is the state's high schools doing a pretty good job opening up options like building trades, agriculture.

We're showing these kids.

The example I love to cite is in Mankato.

We started pre-agriculture kind of greenhouse program at Mankato East High School.

Barry, that's the non-Scarlet High school in the district.

- I was there and spoke to Mankato East High School, and my brother and sister both graduated from there.

So I have a really good (indistinct) there too.

- Go Cougars!

I'm just taking a little moment there.

My point was gonna be they opened that program with 40 kids, they now have 400.

So that tells us that there are opportunities besides four-year programs that a lot of kids are interested in.

As far as the way we structure men's state, I have some questions about how long we can keep all the campuses open.

We're telling the taxpayer that will be smart with their dollar, but in some ways, keeping the campuses the physical bricks and mortar there, I think, raises some questions.

I'm not on the higher ed committees.

I'm just throwing it out there that at some point, you would say the enrollment changes are such that it may not be cost effective.

Maybe we could use it different ways.

The online studying too, I think we need more information.

I'm not sure an online student gets the same experience.

And I see these ads on TV, get your degree online.

I'm not positive that is as valuable as sitting in a classroom listening to a professor.

But we can have that discussion some other time.

Long story short, Minnesota's been successful in higher ed.

I am a big believer that the private schools should be included in our state grant programs and open-minded to continue working on it.

I think it's really where the state can distinguish itself.

Take our great public schools, move those kids into four-year campuses, keep them here in Minnesota, stop going to Brookings, South Dakota for college, and we'll be fine.

- Senator Rasmusson, higher education.

- Thanks, Barry.

One of the factors that we have to look at when we look at higher education is how can this be an asset for Minnesotans that are looking to better their lives to improve their economic circumstances and how can we also use higher education as a growth engine for our economy?

And making sure that Minnesota continues to be a center for innovation across the country.

And I think we have to look at what programs and what institutions within our higher education network are delivering on that expectation, are delivering high quality educations that improve he lives of Minnesotans and are also producing that nation leading innovation.

And I think there are some schools that are doing a fantastic job in the area that I represent.

Alec Tech is...

They have waiting lists for their diesel mechanic program and they're looking to expand it so they can get more people into that in demand profession.

Those are the types of programs we should be supporting.

Now, if we have departments, and programs, and majors where there's more faculty than students, maybe that's something we need to look at and say, are we really using our tax dollars wisely or could we put that towards better use?

So I think we have to look across institutions, across programs, and make sure that we're getting a good return on investment for the money that we're putting in.

- Representative Long, your thoughts?

- I definitely agree that there are a number of students who are looking for other opportunities after high school and two-year programs.

Technical programs are excellent options for a lot of folks, but there's also a lot of demand and a lot of interest in four-year programs.

And I think one of the challenges is over time, we've seen more and more of the burden of attending a four-year program has shifted to the student.

So a couple decades ago, probably when Senator Frentz was going through public Minnesota schools, the state was picking up about 2/3 of the tab and now the student's picking up about 2/3 of the tab.

And we saw this year that when we passed the North Star Promise Act to help low income students attend college, there was huge demand for that.

We saw enrollment go up in a number of our state institutions as a result.

So I think we'll see that more over time.

But we know that the demand is there.

Students want to get these degrees but the challenge is the barrier of them often paying for school.

And if we do believe that having a well-educated workforce is one of those competitive advantages we have in Minnesota, we need to be able to lower the barrier to students being able to participate in Minnesota.

And I do think a number of campuses are taking appropriate steps, rightsizing programs where they need to, they are looking at their budgets hard.

But we also need to think about as a state, what is it worth to us to have a well-educated workforce?

And I think the North Star Promise Act was a really important step in that direction.

- In the remaining five minutes that we have of our program, I want to give our panel the opportunity to talk about an issue or two that we haven't discussed this evening that you think is worthy of further conversation and you want to highlight for the benefit of our viewers.

So I'm gonna pick on one of you and the rest of you should be thinking about that 'cause you're gonna get your opportunity.

So I'll pick on Senator Frentz first.

We started with you, we'll finish with you as the first responder on this question.

What's one or two issues that we haven't talked about that you think voters should be concerned about as we're entering this legislative session?

- Bipartisanship.

I think we have a great state, it's different all across it.

We have some districts that vote 80% for one party.

We have other districts that are split by here.

I think Minnesotans in November said, "Hey, I'd like you guys to work together a little more and fight as partisans just a little less."

That's my take in my district, that's my take across the state.

And I think it offers some huge advantages.

If you were working at a big company, like one of these outstanding Fortune 500 companies we have here in the great state of Minnesota, would you tell half the executives we want all your ideas and the other half we don't want any of them?

Of course not.

You want to get the best ideas on the table and then debate them.

But where the rubber really beats the road is legislators willing to break a little bit from their own party.

(piano playing) Both caucuses are guilty of taking piano lessons when it's not piano lessons time.

I think that's really what I see and I see opportunity there too.

The Mankato area district has rural, it has suburban, it has urban.

And there's a lot of people who like to see some middle ground, and I think there's ways to strike it.

Like your camera was struck, Barry.

That's the end of my answer.

We'll go now to Representative Long.

I don't know if we're going to you, Jamie, but I propose we go to you.

- All right, I'll be brief.

I was going to say early childcare and early learning.

I think that those are issues that I've heard about from all over the state.

And I know that there are challenges to childcare access across the state.

And certainly in my district, there are affordability challenges and access challenges.

So we talked about higher ed, we talked about K-12.

And I would also like to see...

I think there's a lot of bipartisan work that we can do in trying to help support our earliest learners too.

- Senator Rasmusson, sorry about that.

It disappeared for a moment, but I'm back.

- Good to have you back, Barry.

Nick was doing a good job though in your absence, I would say, and this is an issue that personally I'm gonna be working on that I think is really important is the issue of housing.

I hear from a lot of young families across the state that they're really struggling to get into that first starter home, especially with higher interest rates and higher construction costs.

And to me, it's really about the additional burdens and mandates that government put onto housing development that can really make that first House outer reach.

I think it's important for Minnesota's economy.

I think it's important for healthy families.

And I think it's something that there's actually bipartisan interest in addressing this session.

So I look forward to working on that issue with my colleagues.

- Representative Niska.

- Well, two items where hopefully we can have some bipartisanship on.

Number one, I hear a lot from folks at the doors and out there in the community about their concerns about public safety.

Obviously, that is job number one of government and hopefully we can get together on some bipartisan solutions to why are we not having the law enforcement recruitment and retention that we need.

We have a crisis in that area.

We also need to work on permitting reform.

And when we're talking about the future of Minnesota, when we're talking about energy, when we're talking about how Minnesota grows in the future, there was a good start.

I think a limited start last session.

Unfortunately, it was set up in a way that it was really kind of one party driving the bus on it.

But that does provide, I think, an opening for maybe something broader for the parties to work on this year to make Minnesota a great place to start a business, invest, grow jobs.

- Senator Rasmusson, I want to go back to the point that you raised in just a few seconds that we have remaining.

And I want to ask you about bipartisan support for land use, land regulation kind of reform.

That was part of my legal career 25 years ago, concern that I had doing municipal law.

A lot of resistance to that in localities.

We talk a lot about local control, but sometimes there's... You see a lot of resistance there.

Do you see some support for this in the legislature?

You've got about 30 seconds.

Solve that problem for us if you would please.

- I do, Barry.

I think the feedback we're getting, whether it's in Fergus Falls or Minneapolis, Minnesotans want more options for housing and we need to build more housing in Minnesota across the state.

And for me as a conservative, it's about property rights.

It's about who actually owns the property.

Is it you, the property owner, or is it the government that's regulating it?

And so I think we can find some common sense reforms on a bipartisan basis.

- Well, very good.

I want to thank our panel for participating in our program, our inaugural program of the 2025 season.

I want to remind our viewers that we'll be coming back to you again on April 17 and May 22nd, and perhaps some additional dates if time and circumstances permit.

I want to thank our viewers for joining us tonight, and we look forward to being with you throughout this legislative session.

Thank you and goodnight.

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