American Experiment Podcast
Why are so many Minnesota high school graduates unable to read or do math at grade level? Does Tim Walz actually think he's going to be the next president of the United States? And why does he keep swearing so much?
These are the kinds of hard-hitting questions we get into every week on the American Experiment Podcast, where we unpack the week's biggest stories, interview Minnesota's movers and shakers, and "stop the tape" on clips of our state's most ridiculous elected officials.
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American Experiment Podcast
Episode 128 - THE INSIDE STORY: MN Legislative Session Unfiltered
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A behind-the-scenes look at how Minnesota's legislative session finished
Check out the American Experiment Podcast
Join us as we unpack the biggest wins and losses of the newly wrapped 2025-26 Minnesota legislative session with special guest Bill Walsh (QOTD: Will you go surfing on the Rum River?). Later, Rep. Harry Niska gives us a look at how the session unfolded (and ended) from the inside, from shouting matches on the House floor to attacking the culture of fraud in our state government.
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#minneapolis #governorwalz #walz #minnesota #legislature #capitol #mn #republicans #democrats #politics #gop #dfl #stpaul #culture #politics #fraud #corruption #hearing #taxes #schools #education
Welcome back to the American Experiment Podcast.
SPEAKER_02Catherine, what do we have on the docket today?
SPEAKER_00Well, this week we're bringing in our own capital expert, Bill Walsh, to give us a rundown on the biggest wins and losses to come out of the legislative session that wrapped up yesterday. On the back half, we talked with House floor leader Harry Niska about what the session looked like from the inside.
SPEAKER_02Let's dive in. If this is your first time joining us, welcome. Things are pretty crazy here in Minnesota, and we try to bring you a more sane perspective and take on things. I am Grace Keating, as always here with Catherine Johnson.
SPEAKER_00And today we have another audience question for you all to drop in the comments on the YouTube video. So if you're listening on Spotify or on Apple Podcasts, thank you for being here. Head on over to the YouTube and let us know. Would you go surfing on the Rum River? We're gonna talk about this more later, but the Rum River isn't a no-gun. It's like this little itty bitty sort of stream, creek of sorts, even you might call it. But apparently, we're spending millions of dollars so that people can go surfing on it. I don't know, would you give it a shot, Grace?
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_02No, I would not.
SPEAKER_04No, I want to do surfing before I die. It's on my list. Uh, but I would not start it in a NOCA. Uh if I thought surfing NOCA, no. I'm thinking California.
SPEAKER_02That would be pretty sad if that was like your only experience of surfing was on the Rum River in Minnesota. That was your perception of it. Well, if you're watching on YouTube, you might have noticed that we do have our Capital Watch and stop the tape expert Bill Walsh here with us today, who is gonna break down the end and the wins and the losses and everything between of the 2026 Minnesota legislative session, which just ended, I think officially yesterday, right? There was some debate over this.
SPEAKER_04Well, it's not a debate necessarily, but uh the last day of session is the you know the first Monday after the third Saturday in uh in May. And so that was Monday, the 19th of May, right? Where no, today the 19th. 18th. 18th Monday, the 18th of May. Uh, but it the the legislature's on a two-year biennium. So we do a two-year session, and you the the constitution, the framework they said you can't pass a bill on the actually the last day of the biennium. So just kind of as a you know, to keep things from getting too crazy, all business has to be done the day before. So, really, the last day of work at the legislature is Sunday. I had to get everything done by Sunday at midnight, which they did. And then Monday is a legislative day, but it's ceremonial. There's no bills that can be passed. Um, and so what you typically have on the Monday is, because it's the end of a biennium, is speeches of retiring members. And so members of the Senate and the House that are not running again have announced their retirement, give a farewell speech. So it's kind of a ceremonial day. Um, I could be positive and say it's a wonderful experience. And oh, they they put down the Republican and Democrat things and they're all friendly. Or we could just be cynical and say it's it's one cringe moment after another. Someday on the podcast, if we want to, we could just break down uh end of session retirement speeches. It might be kind of fun, but it would kind of mean too, maybe.
SPEAKER_00It reminds me of being in like the theater department in high school on the last day, like right like the last performance before the performance, every senior would get up and through tears talk about how much the high school theater department changed their lives. And I did this for the record. I totally did this. At the time it was very heartwarming and we loved it. And in retrospect, I think, wow, that was so dramatic and hilarious and probably extremely.
SPEAKER_04It's a cross between that and and your in your best man speech at the wedding, you know, your your bait of honor speeches, you know. When we were in high school, and then they cry and everyone's like, Yeah, okay, we weren't there.
SPEAKER_02Speaking of, some poor souls had a wedding going on at the Capitol over the weekend, like as session is wrapping up and there's protesters yelling in the roads on the that's poor planning because you knew the legislature was going to be busy.
SPEAKER_04So yeah, the Capitol apparently is a beautiful place, it's a beautiful building. So if you want to take your wedding pictures there and just actually yeah, bad date to do it.
SPEAKER_02So, Bill, how did this session go in your eyes? Was it was it basically unfolding as you expected? Were there any major surprises?
SPEAKER_04No, I think as expected is the best way to characterize the session. And we we wrote about this at the beginning of the year in February, probably talked about on this podcast, that you know, Democrats came in and they wanted to talk about ICE and Operation Metro surge. You know, we started in February in the session, so we're the middle of Operation Metro surge, and they're very upset about what was happening with ICE. They want to talk about Donald Trump. They want to talk about, you know, all the terrible things that Donald Trump is doing in Washington, how it impacts Minnesota. Um, that's what they wanted to talk about. And then at the end of session, they wanted to talk about guns, which kind of came up at the end unexpectedly, I think. Um, and Republicans wanted to talk about fraud. You know, it's like, what can we do to stem the fraud that's been happening for years? What legislation can we pass? And so that's how they both started. Um, and that's kind of how it ended. Um, I will say we can talk about wins and losers or winners and losers. I mean, it's it's marginal, I mean, politically, but but a lot more fraud prevention got done. We'll talk about that than than anything dealing with ice um necessarily or guns. But uh, that's kind of how we thought the session would go. There was nothing that had to get done. You know, they didn't have to pass a two-year budget like the like the odd year. So um they could have done even less. So they did get some things done. They did come to an agreement with the governor and the legislative leaders and got some policy done, spent some money, uh, cut a little taxes. Um, so very modest, you know, agenda, nothing to really brag about or write home. Oh, this is an earth-shattering session of the legislature, um, which frankly, from our perspective, is good. I mean, the less they do, the better, mostly. Uh, you know, you're gonna spend more money, raise taxes, add more regulations, you know, impact how we live our lives. Mostly we're like, leave us alone, do nothing. So I think from that perspective it was good. But as expected, yeah, in a word.
SPEAKER_00I think we should start with biggest losses, get like the the downers out of the way, and then we'll get on to the stuff that's a little more exciting. The main thing being the bonding bill, right? So this is kind of the one thing I thought they had to get done this year. Am I wrong?
SPEAKER_04No, you don't have to do a bonding bill. That's it's a normal thing that gets done. It used to be we'd pass the budget in the even the odd year and then and then borrow money for capital projects around the state in the even year. But then now it's like they'll do a bonding bill every year uh because they just spend like drunken sailors. Um so yeah, doesn't it have to get done though? No, there's no, there's lots of projects that have been borrowed in previous years that we're that we're uh both borrowing money for and paying off the debt and and in construction. Um, so it doesn't have to get done. But um they, you know, they they they travel around the state and these bus tours, legislators do House and Senate, and the members of the committee that that handles the borrowing, and they visit communities and college campuses and state agencies and look at their projects and inspect them on site and say, Oh, we need money to do this or that. And then uh they come back and have hearings throughout the session. And the and the it was very frustrating because the then neither body passed a bonding bill, like in the Senate or the House, neither one put put a bill through committee, like these are the projects we're gonna fund. There's there's lots of projects on the table that they could have done. And then they just they just announced a deal with the governor that there's going to be a$1.2 billion bonding bill. Okay, so now we know how much the ceiling is, what they're gonna borrow. And then they just kind of wrangle over which projects make the list to get up to the$1.2 billion in borrowing. Um, and there's some really, I think the public would be like, ugh, you know, we don't really even know why some projects get on the list and others don't. We don't see any of that done in public in the committee. They announced the list at a hearing on Sunday, the last day. They had a hearing um in the afternoon, and I was watching it on my laptop, and it the the notes on the computer say the spreadsheet will be released at the time of the hearing. And they didn't even release the spreadsheet at the time of the hearing. So there's if you're not in the room, you know, which most Minnesotans were in the room, you're what you're trying to follow on your laptop on YouTube, they're going through the spreadsheet and announcing the projects that they funded, and you can't even follow along. So eventually got our hands on the on the spreadsheet. But that's and the less rest of the legislature is the same way, the other members. Like, we don't know which project got funded or not. So it just kind of hits, then a few hours later, passes.
SPEAKER_02And these are all backdoor or back, I'm sorry, back room conversations, deals that are being made. It's not really open to the public. Apparently, even to the other legislators, they don't even know what's gonna get funded or not.
SPEAKER_04There could be a lot more transparency in this process for sure.
SPEAKER_02Because we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars.
SPEAKER_04Yes, we're borrowing money, we're putting on state's credit card. These are 20 or 30 year bonds that are gonna be paid over time. We have a lot of debt in the state of Minnesota. We always say we are a we have a balanced budget, and that's true, but we do have billions of dollars in debt at any given time, 11 or 12 billion dollars on our mortgage, you know, for the state of Minnesota. And projects, you know, are on 30-year cycles. So some get paid off and then others come on. Um, but we have this huge debt that we manage, and debt service is a big line item in the state budget, just as, you know, if you're paying off your credit card, the interest and the the payments on that or your mortgage, big, big part of your household budget. It's a big part of the state budget and a growing part of the state budget because we keep doing these, you know, used to be a billion-dollar bonding bill was a threshold that got hit a few years ago. Well, now it's like normal. Oh, billion. We did a$2 billion budget bill not too long ago. So$1.2 billion. Now, in context, it's it's not the worst bill in the in the in the history of bonding bills. There's a big chunk of like$400 million of it is going to water infrastructure. So the two things are going to happen in a bonding bill. You know, things that that are need need to get done, um, assets, um, uh, they call it asset preservation, you know, college campus buildings, uh, the the heating system, the air conditioning system, water treatment, things like that that need to get done for state state assets. That's an that's why we have we have a borrowing uh plan.
SPEAKER_00I would kind of push back on the University of Minnesota needing to get$75 million.
SPEAKER_04The U of M is uh, you know, obviously the U of M system that includes Duluth and Morris and the U of M can the Rochester. And so that's not all gonna be at Minneapolis, but you know, yeah, they're a they're uh if you're gonna think capital bonding, capital buildings, those are a lot of the buildings we own our are college campuses. Um yeah, what what they do with it, you know, that's another, that's another, we can surely look into that. But so that's that's one side of a bonding bill. And then then the other piece is the pork. And so now we're talking about money that goes to local projects. And we could do a whole show on this and we'll try not to, but you've got you, you've got your zoos and your swimming pools and your hockey rinks and your curling rinks and your public safety buildings and um in, you know, there's there's there's there's the stuff that sounds like pork, like I just said. And then there's the a local city gets$4.5 million for their police department, for their police building. And then I, you know, I, you know, I guess I sit on a city council. We just built a police department building and fire department building in White Bear Lake, and we paid for it ourselves.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04And so there's this weird winners and losers dynamic all over the state. Some some communities are good at going down to the Capitol and getting the state taxpayers to pay for their local stuff. And then some communities just do it themselves, and we just you just get in this game of, you know, go to the legislature, see if they'll fund your project this year, and and you know, and and maybe we got to be better at that, but I it's the it's out of control. The system has got it out of control. Now we've even reached a new level. We used to, we used to do some transportation funding in the bonding bill. Now, again, it's a state bonding bill paid for with state tax dollars. So you think, all right, state highways, right? Yeah. Now we're doing we're doing money to counties. Now we're doing city streets. There's several city street projects in the state bonding bill. And again, as a city council guy, I'm like, well, wait a minute, we pay for our own streets. Streets are local, they should be paid for with property taxes. And so that's where the pork gets in. And you gotta ask, you have no idea why this community got a lot of money and this community didn't. Well, you know, so here's the other dynamic of the bonding bill. We're doing too much on this, but to borrow money, the the the the founders who wrote the constitution in the state of Minnesota said borrowing money is a big deal. Committing future people to to money and debt is a big deal. It can't just be a 50% plus one vote in the legislature. It's got to be a supermajority. So you need a two-thirds vote in the in the House and the Senate to pass a bonding bill to borrow money. So to get that many votes, that's where the horse tracing trading comes in. Because, well, put the project in there for Brooklyn Park, and then we'll get the Brooklyn Park state rep and the senator to vote for the bill because their project is in there. Yeah. So you can you craft a bill by saying, oh, these really important things are done. Great. And if we don't have enough votes, we'll put all this little stuff in there. I don't even get the sense that they did that this year. They they had a lot of votes for this bill. Both, both Republicans and Democrats play this game. I've been watching videos even since it passed yesterday or Sunday, uh, from a senator saying, Hey, we got this great stuff for my community, a Republican. And then a House member uh saying, Oh, we got a pool and we got this, you know, for our community. We did great, you know, at the bonding, but well, congratulations. The rest of the state is paying for your stupid pool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. In Chan Hassan, we got money for our community center, which is right uh down the street from me. Thrilling.
SPEAKER_04I wasn't gonna name names, but that was the senator, Republican senator that I saw the video of bragging about that. Yes.
SPEAKER_00It's like this stunning community center. You should go check it out. I am I'm excited. It's down the street from me. But this thing is beautiful. I think they're also raising taxes in Chan Hassan to cover some part of it. They got some of it from the state. How does us having this like state-of-the-art community center in Chan Hassan help anyone in northern Minnesota? White Bear Lake. So do we get in free?
SPEAKER_04I bet we don't even get in free. I bet we paid for it. And I bet if you come from Mount, oh, sorry, only Chan Hassan residents get in for free. You have to pay.
SPEAKER_02I know we're I know we're spending a lot of time on this, but is there any scenario where something like that makes sense? Because I completely reject this whole idea that, you know, I'm someone in Bell Plain is paying for, yeah, Chan Hassan's community center. So there, why is this even allowed? It's just is it just because the people at the decision-making level at the legislature it's morphed into that.
SPEAKER_04They used to talk about projects in the bodybuilding need to have statewide significance. And then we kind of morphed, well, it kind of a regional significance. You know, if you're a regional center and you're building a police thing, but you serve all kinds of people in the region, all right, regional center, but now the pork is local only and we don't even care. That's absurd. There's I said this before, there's there was one bond bill in my memory, and I'll just say Representative Jim Knoblock from St. Cloud was the author of that bill. That was a bill that was strictly statewide, significant stuff. It got a got a unanimous vote in the legislature. And it was, it was the state, state investment stuff. You know, the the state buildings, college campuses, the things that the state only owns. So that's only been done once in my 30 years watching this place. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00Well, we do have to move on, but I did want to mention that the Rum River Dam, because we mentioned it earlier, did get an additional 4.6 million dollars.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and this is a golden turkey nominee. Uh, I thought a really strong contender for the Golden Turkey nominee. Um, this surfing on the this vision they have of some have, uh a lot of people in Oka County don't even want it. They keep raiding money from money that should go to roads and bridges up there.
SPEAKER_02Well, the county doesn't even want to do it. Right, they've been fighting for years.
SPEAKER_04Yep, yep. And there's a whole fight going on with Zach Stevenson, the state rep from there. And there was an amendment on the floor. Uh Representative Peggy Scott brought an amendment that the Democrats did not like, uh, calling all of that out and trying to kill this, and it failed.
SPEAKER_00Because Stevenson essentially is trying to what what exactly is going on?
SPEAKER_04There's like a It's a fight between him and the county, from what we can tell. And so he's just stealing that money from the county that should go to Rhodes, using his legislative power to do that now that he had to get a vote of the legislature and got another one, and there's more money going to this project. Um, it's it's golden turkey all over the place.
SPEAKER_00We also have a garden uh that got$200,000, a radio station that got a million dollars, uh, organizations of Liberians or librarians?
SPEAKER_04Liberians.
SPEAKER_00Liberians, okay. They got$400,000. Um, and then that Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul got$40 million plus$10 million more in planning money for Grand Casino Arena, which I thought I was told like a million times wouldn't get money.
SPEAKER_04Well, they got some planning money. So this is how it works. This is a classic thing in the bonding bill. It's like, well, we're not gonna fund your project, but we'll put we'll put you with you$10 million for planning money. So now they'll set up an office because$10 million is a lot of money. You want to start a business? Here's$10 million in seed capital. You open an office, pay rent, hire a few people, start doing some designs. They love their architectural designs. Oh, look what it can look like. We're gonna have this beautiful thing. So then then legislators see those. Oh, look at this beautiful. They got an it's in design stage.
SPEAKER_00And this is like the community center, a few million beautiful. They'll do a flyover fake drone of the whole plan.
SPEAKER_04And there's little people on little trees and everything, you know. We all want to go to architecture school, you know, but then and then it turns into well, we got the designs. I mean, we we've already invested the 10 million in the planning, we gotta do it. So then it gets funded. And this is how they do it. They're they're really good at this. And the citizens just keep paying, done on the market.
SPEAKER_02That's what kills me. It's like my kids are gonna be paying for this nonsense that was passed in this session.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_02Serious reform needed there, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_00Well, next, uh, loser was human services spending. Um they had to comply with the big beautiful bill. Is that right? Um, which sounds like a good thing to me. How did this turn out to be a loser?
SPEAKER_04Well, the big beautiful bill was many parts of it great. One of them was stop wasting money in the welfare healthcare part of our thing. When we, you know, the federal government pays for Medicaid, uh, healthcare for the poor. And the federal government in the Big Beautiful bill said, you know, first of all, work requirements. You know, if you're gonna get Medicaid, be working, be looking for a job, be volunteering, um, be in school, taking a class, all those things, you need to be doing that, or you can't get Medicaid, you know? Um, so just adding the work requirement, wildly popular with citizens in Minnesota and the country. And it passed the Big Beautiful bill. So that, and then another eligibility check. So it's the other big one. It's like, hey, what maybe you apply for Medicaid, you're eligible at that moment when you apply, but maybe your life changes and things go better and you get a better job, or you get married, or you move in with somebody and then you've got better household income. You're no longer eligible for Medicaid, but we just leave you on and we continue reimbursing uh, you know, the the cost of that. So do more frequent eligibility checks. So these are things that the feds told states they have to do with federal money. So the feds can save money. It also will save the state money. This is, by the way, this is where all the fraud is in Minnesota, in the Medicaid area. So great legislation, policy changes coming from the feds. So we adopt them, we comply with them, but it's it's it's gonna kick some people off of Medicaid. It's very mean, it's very cruel, we're losing empathy. People are gonna die in the streets. People are gonna die in the streets.
SPEAKER_00They're no longer eligible. They don't need it.
SPEAKER_04So in Minnesota, what we do and what we do in this bill is about$700 million, was we're basically backfilling the pain. So while we're we're saying you have to have work requirements, we're gonna move you to another program and fund that with state dollars. So we we couldn't actually get the advantage of the savings for federal dollars. We're gonna, the feds are gonna save money, but the state is gonna backfill the pain. We're gonna we're gonna hold everybody harmless. Well, we don't want to kick them off. So this mean Donald Trump kicked him off. Um, but we're gonna we're gonna take care of them in another way. And I'm I'm really making this simple. It's more complicated than that. And you can have Matt Dean on, our health health policy uh expert to really go deep on what they did because it's worth, and he'll write about it. Uh, but they're putting them out different programs. And um, and and another thing he's written about, by the way, it's fascinating. You hear Amy Klobuchar, you hear Tim Walls, you hear all these folks talk about the horrible Trump administration kicking people off of healthcare. And and but the numbers in Minnesota continue to grow.
SPEAKER_02Enrollment went up.
SPEAKER_04So yeah, they they get the talking point that these Minnesotans have been harmed, but you can't actually find harmed Minnesotans because enrollment continues to go up. And this is a great example of it. This is a bad, a bad bill, um, a bad result, good policy, bad um dollars.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's so infuriating because you see the good work that's being done at the federal level. And of course, Minnesota's just turn around and fight it every step of the way. And so we don't even see those benefits here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, nope. And like you said, it's something that the vast majority of Minnesotans agree with. Um, people who are going to take our money, people who are currently working, need to be looking actively for a job. That is not groundbreaking, that is just common sense. Or volunteering. I mean, there's such wide berth on things they can do to, you know, just contribute to the community and get this welfare. So HTMC funding, we talked about that a lot on the show a couple weeks ago. Um, that was also included in this bill, right? What happened there?
SPEAKER_04Well, I think it's a fascinating. I think the the lobbyists for Hennepin County and the Hennepin County commissioners, uh, whoever they are, did a great job because they they have a healthcare system, they have a hospital they run that is in crisis financially, and they've mismanagement and they've they've ruined it. And you again read Matt Dean's pieces on HCMC management, DEI spending, all the kind of things, and the way they run that. Um, and he'll tell you that, you know, a county board shouldn't run a hospital. Uh they're not good at it. And and that's what's happened. So, so they they got a crisis, and then you start, they've done a they did a masterful job of coming to the legislature and convincing everybody in the legislature, the media, the members, the house, the senate, the governor, that HCMC is a statewide asset. It's because it serves people from all over the state. We train doctors there that they work all over the state. So they just took a county hospital and made it into a state hospital. And therefore, since this is now in crisis and it's now a state thing, we got to bail it out. So they got a$700 million bailout,$205 million basically right up front for for the next few years or ongoing. And then a$500 million pot they set aside for critical hospitals like HCMC, because there's that's not the only one like them. And and they to be fair, they do serve a need in the state. I'm not denying that, but they just they just did a great. Great job of convincing everybody that, oh, we got to do this. Really? Do we have to bail out the Hennepin Counties? And by the way, get no reforms, no changes in how they're running it. We just flat out bail them out, which is the worst thing the legislature does. They they all pat themselves on the back for solving the problem, but they didn't really solve any financial problems. They didn't change how healthcare is being delivered. They didn't change the fundamental drivers of what's going up. They ignore all that and they pat themselves on the back for bailing out the hospital. Like I said, they set up a$500 million fund for all critical incident hospitals or whatever they call them. Um, but only HTMC is gonna be able to meet the criteria eligibility for that funding. So it'll be there for them as well.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's just like when Minnesota somehow manages to produce a balanced budget and everyone celebrates and rejoices and it's this great thing, but we still have a structural deficit. We haven't actually fixed the problem that put us here in the first place.
SPEAKER_04Nope. And miraculously in Minnesota, you know, we do have a strong economy some days because the we continue to outperform, we continue to generate revenue both in the corporate tax structure, the income tax structure. And it it allows them to just keep kicking that can down the road. But if you read anything that our guy John Phelan writes about who's leaving the state, that is gonna dry up. And though those we're chasing people out of the state, the economic model is unsustainable and it will catch up. But you're right, we're balanced the budget. Yay.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Now, what about this rental assistance? The legislature, again, state gave 440 million dollars to the family homeless prevention and assistance program, which is supposed to help people impacted by Metro Surge who couldn't pay their rent. Why is this?
SPEAKER_04So this is this is what we talked about earlier, the agenda of the Democrats in the Senate versus the agenda in the House Republicans. This was top of their agenda, was to help them mitigate the horrible things that happened under Metro Surge.
SPEAKER_02We should be illegal immigrants. Just like following this logically. So if you're impacted by Metro Surge, presumably, statistically, you're more likely you're not going to work. You stop going to work, which would imply you're probably not here legally, right? So 40 million going to people, probably not here legally. Um, does anyone else have a problem with this?
SPEAKER_00Seriously, it sounds like 40 million going to illegal immigrants.
SPEAKER_04It's a self-inflicted wound. It's it's we scared everybody and like Tim Walls, others said, Oh my gosh, you know, stay in home, uh, don't go out. They're just grabbing people off the streets. Hit your whistle, blow it when the ice comes to town. And then and then guess what? People didn't go to work, can't pay the rent. People that go to work and the restaurants that that serve people didn't make enough money, they can't pay their rent. So we create this problem, um, and then we bail them out with the$40 million. Now, there's a dispute, and I know you're gonna have uh uh the Harry Niska on, and you can ask him because I he will tell you and it's one of these things where both sides are gonna claim it. The Senate Democrats Democrats are claiming it's it's forty million dollars in reaction to Metro Surge. But there's nothing in the language that says anything about Metro Surge. And it's not, it doesn't say you have to be impacted by Metro Surge to take advantage of this.
SPEAKER_02So they're marketing it as.
SPEAKER_04Yes, they're marketing it as this is our thing that we did to help Metro Surge. Harry Niska, House Republicans are gonna say, no, we put$40 million into an already existing program that many people around the state are eligible for and can can apply to for rental assistance to keep them out of homelessness. So, you know, obviously if you don't make a lot of money and you can't pay your rent, we're gonna prevent you from falling into homelessness, which this with this family fund, whatever it's called. Yeah, um, it's already existing. So a little bit of difference on the marketing. I I I don't know, I chalked it up as a Democrat win because they did get this$40 million. Why else did we do this this year?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think it we'll we'll see how it ends up being marketed uh in the end, because if it is marketed as the Democrats want it to be, who is going to take advantage of the fund? It seems pretty clear that that would be illegal immigrants or people impacted by metro surge, even if the Republicans say, well, the language isn't in the bill. It doesn't matter what was in the bill if they market it as such.
SPEAKER_04Well, if you're watching the podcast and you're having trouble paying your rent uh next month and you think you might apply or above or uh uh be eligible, by all means apply.
SPEAKER_00Uh can I bring up one other thing that I saw that uh was not in your Capitol Lodge but did not make it sadly maybe a loss? Hallucinogenic mushrooms. I didn't know that this was really in play. Uh but the Democrats were pushing for a proposal to create a therapeutic mushroom program. Sadly, this did not make it through uh final negotiations. Instead, lawmakers ordered the Office of Cannabis Management, which exists, to study the feasibility of administering such a program. So we got another study. You got a study which on psychedelic mushrooms.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, just you know, we can maybe be funny here, but it's gonna, it's gonna come back. It's it's a thing, it's a thing around the country. And it's a very interesting issue. Um, I can say that, you know, American Experiment, we are involved in a network of of think tanks around the country from the center-right perspective, libertarian. And there are many, many think tanks that there are our colleagues and our our allies around the country that are pro, that are, that are in favor of uh hallucinogenics being um legal in other states. So keep your eye on this. This is uh this is a libertarian issue uh um that may surprise you in terms of who the allies are in this, but in this state it's it's the that I think liberals and democrats that are pushing it. Man, we gotta get our arms around cannabis before we even set off on a new one. But this is how they do it. They drip, drip, drip, come back, come back, get a study, uh, get hearings, you know. They they're in for the long game. If you want to pass something in the legislature, you gotta be in it for the long game. This is not going away.
SPEAKER_02Let's end on a happier note. What would you classify as some of the wins from this session?
SPEAKER_04Well, you gotta start with tax cuts. We actually cut taxes. Anytime the legislature cuts taxes, it's a great day. Um these taxes are kind of small and they don't last enough permanent, but they're tax cuts. So you know, your tab fees went up in 2023 as part of that off the cliff session. Um they jacked tab fees, the percentage of the value of your car. So we're going back to pre-2023 levels for one year. So, you know, I think I saw a stat. If you have a$50,000 truck, you know, a nice truck, it could save you about$145. So a little bit of a sting, you know, take the sting off of your tabs for one year. So not until 2027. When in the 2027 year, your tabs will be that much lower. Uh so enjoy it and celebrate it. We cut taxes. If you cut taxes, that's less money they have to spend. They do a terrible job spending that. Also, some money in the in the property tax uh pool. Um, again, just kind of putting some more money into a pool that already exists for for property taxpayers, uh, homeowners. Um, but it's uh you know, not everyone's gonna get that. Um, if you rent, you're not gonna maybe see that. Um it's for homeowners that are that qualify through income, you know. Uh, but it's gonna allow for more people to get more money in a proper some property tax relief from the state.
SPEAKER_00But classic bad governance, right? Because the property taxes went up in large part because of mandates that came down from the state. And so now they're just throwing a little bit more money because they said, Oh no, your property taxes went up. I can't believe it. When it's the fault of their own regulation.
SPEAKER_04It's somewhat the fault of their own regulations. I mean, I think local government spending is out of control just like every other part of government. So property taxes are driven by local government spending, cities, counties, school districts, and there's no there's no cap at all on that kind of spending. And then then we then we go to the state to say, oh, solve property taxes. Well, tell cities and counties and school districts to spend less money. You know, stop the revolving door of education uh funding, the cycle of education funding where teachers unions get all of the money that comes in the in the from the state and gets it in teacher salary negotiations. That's what drives property taxes up. And so until they do that, you're right, it's just it's a band-aid.
SPEAKER_02And it is so frustrating because the solution is not to cut spending, it's for the state and all state taxpayers to pay more to help the people who are paying the higher.
SPEAKER_04We take money from income taxes and we we buy off property taxes.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so what about fraud? I mean, we obviously got the Office of Inspector General bill passed. That's gotta be a pretty big win.
SPEAKER_04Yep. And uh I assume you're gonna ask uh Representative Niska uh uh about the house file one. That was their top priority and it passed. And so that you gotta say that's that's a successful thing for them. There's more than that. I mean, there's some there's they did they spent some money on IT infrastructure. Yeah. Kind of boring, but but both parties finally uh agreed to do that. I mean, I think there's no reason anybody could have done that when we had the$18 billion surplus. That absolutely should have been addressed, and some of this fraud might have been prevented if the systems had been updated. Just imagine massive state agencies running huge uh welfare programs, interacting with counties. So counties log into a computer system run by the state and they enter in Jane Doe and she needs welfare, and so we're gonna get her in there. And is she anywhere else in the system? And and does she can we get her income so we can figure out where she's eligible? Just outdated software and hardware uh across the state administering these programs. Uh-huh. And they finally put money into that. So it's not gonna happen tomorrow, but uh there'll be new systems that will cut down on fraud because there's been a better check-in on the back end. That was a that was a victory. And some other some other things they've done. They they gave the attorney general more money for his his Medicaid fraud unit, which has produced some convictions, so not enough, certainly, from Keith Ellison, but he does have some lawyers dedicated to uh Medicaid fraud, and he got some more. Um so um good for the office. I'm not sure the guy in the office is the right one to use that, but it's good that the attorney general's office has more lawyers fighting fraud and uh specifically Medicaid fraud.
SPEAKER_02Now, one of our other top priorities this session here at American Experiment was uh, you know, in addition to fraud, was of course reversing Minnesota's nuclear moratorium ban, uh excuse me, uh moratorium. Uh and it's kind of a mixed bag on that one. We made some good progress, but we did not quite get that ban overturned yet, right?
SPEAKER_04Well, I mean, we got the study. Got a study. So, you know, if we follow the the way in it for the long haul, long game, um, there was good conversation at the Capitol. We ran our campaign, uh, you know, nuke the mandate, free the nukes. Those billboards are still up, you know, around the Twin Cities. Um, I think that had an impact. We sent thousands of emails. You guys watching sent thousands of emails saying, you know, undo this nuclear moratorium. We can we can't even talk about nuclear, adding nuclear power. We can't bring a proposal to the public utilities commission to say, let's do nuclear instead of wind, solar, or even coal, you know, because nuclear is so clean. Um, so now at least we'll get a study. Uh so they're gonna be studying it's gonna be quick, done in a year, during during this year, um, and and it'll show, yeah, yeah, you we should undo this stupid law that that basically is a gag order on us talking about nuclear power. So there's a good coalition of people behind it. Yeah, uh it would have been we weighed in as in testimony in favor of the study and said the study's great, but we don't need to do the study. Yeah. Here's the here's your here's your study. Yeah, you know, unrepeal, repeal the law.
SPEAKER_01It's letting up study the nuclear power.
SPEAKER_04We don't need it, but for fine. Do the study and then we'll we'll take the results of the study and bring that to the legislature and say, undo the moratorium. One last thing on the nuclear moratorium, too. When we started our campaign in the beginning of the year, there were like nine states that had a similar moratorium. You can't talk about nuclear power. During this year, so far, up until now, five states or four states have undone their bans. So that's like now it's like five states left, and workhorse gonna be the last state to do this. But the good news is studies passed, we'll come back and uh we'll get it done next year.
SPEAKER_02Well, Bill, thank you so much for this whole session recap. Love to have you on in the next few weeks again. There's a lot more to unpack, yeah.
SPEAKER_04We can go deeper on different specific topics, but uh yeah, definitely some video.
SPEAKER_00I would love to get into any good cringe moments as well. Maybe there was even like sort of a fight that broke out at one point, which maybe we could get a little more into.
SPEAKER_04We should do a special show just on that, like a less serious kind of uh tales from the legislature, you know. Yeah, it would be it would be cringe.
SPEAKER_02Well, now we're gonna sit down with the house floor leader Harry Niska and get his thoughts on how the session unfolded for as someone on the inside. Stay tuned. American Experiment is supported by thousands of individuals like you. To join the movement, go to www.americanexperiment.org and click the yellow donate button. From all of us here, thank you. We are so happy to welcome into the studio today Representative Harry Niska, who has served in the Minnesota legislature since 2023 and represents District 31A in the North Twin Cities Metro, which includes Ramsey and Andover. He is also the House floor leader this session. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_00And thank you for coming on. I know you're working on minimal sleep. It is Tuesday. The session wrapped up what yesterday? So thank you for being here, even though I'm sure you're running on low, low fumes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and you know, last night I got about 10 hours of sleep. That was about the same as I had gotten the two previous nights combined. So uh working on catching up and um moving on, turning the page now to uh the election season, which is coming up in 169 days. Not that anyone has a countdown going.
SPEAKER_02Now, before we get into what went on at the legislature this last session, we do like to ask all of our guests who come in, what got them into politics in the first place? How did you end up at the legislature?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, I you know, I grew up um in a house where I didn't know any uh politicians, I didn't know any lawyers, I ended up going to law school. But I always was really interested in um uh you know argumentation about uh government and public policy was something that was interesting to me in high school. And um then as I went to college and tried to figure out what I what to do with my life, um, ended up going to law school and uh really uh a lot of focus um on trying to figure out how law works in people's lives, how it wor interacts with our businesses, how the courts especially have taken a lot of had uh taken a lot of decisions away from the democratic process and that system wasn't working um the way it was supposed to work. Uh so ended up in the legal profession um and involved in the grassroots uh politically. When my wife and I moved uh back to Minnesota after a few years in um in Illinois, uh we got involved in our local politics and um involved in a bunch of different campaigns, have been involved at that uh level, various different levels uh for a long period of time. Um was briefly uh candidate for attorney general in 2017, uh, got to a place where that statewide campaign didn't work um with our family and had to you know say no on that, uh close that door. Uh but then another opportunity opened in uh 2022 when there was redistricting and there was an opportunity to represent the community I had grown up in. Um in the Minnesota legislature, um I saw a unique opportunity to bring my legal skills and experience to the uh legislature, so I stepped forward and uh ran at that time and ended up um being successful. And uh then uh this last term was asked by my uh members of my caucus to step forward and into a leadership position. And um, it's been uh quite the interesting uh historic two years we've had um here in Minnesota. Going from, you know, the the being uh my first term uh in the minority of a trifecta where all we could do was say, this is a really terrible idea. Um a lot of the things that I was pointing out were things that we uh Democrats were pushing through where we were gonna get sued as a state and lose. And I uh, you know, stood up, I felt like an old testament prophet uh many times standing up on the House floor saying, This is exactly what the lawsuit is gonna say, and this is what the courts are gonna rule, and we're gonna end up paying someone else's legal fees. The people you say are the bad guys, we're gonna end up giving them money because they're gonna successfully uh sue the state. Um uh many of those uh predictions have turned out to be true. Um, but to go from that experience to then having uh a tie, the second tie in the Minnesota House that we've ever had, the only one that's ever gone for the full uh two-year session, and then what we were able to accomplish in that tie. Obviously, nobody ever really fully is able to get everything that they want, but we had a lot of really significant accomplishments for the state of Minnesota, especially if you think about um compared to what we would have had in another two years of a Democrat trifecta. Uh we wouldn't have seen tax cuts, we wouldn't have seen uh the spending uh reductions that we saw, we definitely would not have seen the fraud reforms that Republicans were able to push as much as Democrats wanted to pretend at the end to be for a lot of them. Behind the scenes, they were fighting uh very hard against things like having an independent inspector general. Um and uh Democrats would have been happy to uh not in you know uh implement the work requirements and and just raise taxes on Minnesotans to pay for uh the lost uh federal funding that would have come as a result of that. So there are a lot of things that we were able to uh get done. Um I know I've I've wandered pretty far away from the uh the initial question.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's right into my next question was going to be a lot of the discourse around this session was there's no way they get anything done because of the tie. And I think um that clearly wasn't the case. You've already listed a number of things. Let's dive into some of them. What are you most what accomplishment are you most proud of coming out of this session?
SPEAKER_03Well, I would say um, you know, first of all, uh there's a long list of things that are horrible ideas that Democrats would have pushed um that we blocked. You know, whether we're talking about gun control, whether we're talking about making Minnesota a full sanctuary state, uh a wealth tax, they have this uh giant new energy tax that they're uh telling Minnesotans they want to impose on them if they get another trifecta. Um and we were able to say um no to all of that. I would say the biggest thing that I'm proud of is that we uh really uh persistently highlighted, and obviously the Center of the American Experiment um has been uh huge on this issue as well. But uh with the leverage we had as House Republicans, the our ability to consistently leverage uh the uh and uh our our position and uh highlight uh the importance of fraud, obviously um by gaining uh some leverage at the beginning of the session, having Democrats down a member, forcing them to allow us to elect uh uh one Republican speaker, and forcing them to have uh to agree to have a fraud committee that had a Republican majority that was able to drive the agenda on that. Um and then you know if you look at uh what we filed as house file one, two, and three, our top priority bills, um those bills, even though those exact bills didn't pass as house file one, two, and three, the components of those bills ended up in uh things that were at the end of the session, especially having an independent office of inspector general, essentially a fraud law enforcement uh agency that can arrest people, prosecute people for fraud. We've seen how necessary that was having Governor Tim Walls look the other way for years and years and years and years. Uh, but the ability to have to leverage our tie and having the speaker and having the fraud committee into forcing Democrats to come around to a place where they uh almost all voted for it. The only no votes on the office of inspector general were from Democrats, even though you see official Democrat Party organs acting as if this is uh their big accomplishment. We know that they were uh dragging their feet, they were trying to water that down. They on the very last day before they passed it, they tried one last try to water it down by stripping out the independent uh law enforcement function from that office. So I would say those are the biggest things that um that I'm proud of. But there were a number of those things, whether we're talking about common sense work requirements on um on our uh benefits programs, so that we're saying we're not gonna give you uh subsidized uh health insurance, a if you're not here legally, and B, if you're uh able to work and you're not uh working. Um and uh you know, there's a whole long uh long list of things that we were able to uh get down that wouldn't have happened with a trifecto.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna ask you about that. It's been so frustrating watching the DFL, at least publicly, reverse on the fraud issue and suddenly claiming victory for things like the Office of Inspector General bill, which they delayed for well over a year. This could have passed months ago. What what what has that been like from the inside? Has it been frustrating for you and your colleagues?
SPEAKER_03Well, you know, um what matters more than uh getting the credit is making sure that good things happen. And so uh, you know, I'm happy to let uh other people try to claim credit. I think it's important though that that voters understand um what the choice is is in front of them. Uh they saw very clearly what a Democrat trifecta looks like. In 23 and 24, uh Democrats are warning them about what another trifecta uh will look like if they listen. And so uh I think the the um the contrast between um what we were able to accomplish this year giving at least some a temporary reprieve to taxpayers on a couple of big issues that we're um hearing about, uh trying to pull back, um trying to close the door on uh on uh fraud and waste and just the massive expansion of government uh spending and cost of government and government mandates that we saw in a Democrat trifecta. Um Minnesotans have an enormous choice before them in 169 days, and we're trying to make that we're gonna, it's gonna be my job now, um, and all of our jobs, frankly, as we go out um from here uh to make that as clear as possible. So it is frustrating seeing them uh maybe uh engage in a little fraud about fraud. Uh but um you know I the uh the the job is in front of us to explain to Minnesotans uh what the choices are this next election.
SPEAKER_00If Republicans do well in the midterms, what's the next step on fraud? Because obviously we've been huge proponents of the Office of the Inspection. I think that's a great step. But the other thing you hear from people over and over is that there is a culture issue in the state. There's really this fraud is embedded in a lot of ways in the culture of the state government. How do you get at that or pick away at that as a legislator? What's the next step for you guys when it comes to fraud if you had the ability to do what you wanted?
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean, the the most important thing that anyone could do about fraud is electing a governor who's serious about fraud. And the problem the reason, the only reason that an uh an independent office of inspector general was needed was because we had four terms of governors who became successively less interested in caring about fraud and more concerned about the political implications of uh going after members of what they saw as their own uh political coalition. So I would say electing a Republican governor is the most important thing that Minnesotans uh can do about fraud in terms of at the at the legislature. Um, you know, there are limited things we can do as the legislature about the culture of the executive branch. I think that's what you're really uh talking about. And so having a governor who can change the um the culture of the executive branch is the most important thing. Then the the other thing is to continue to look at all the incentives that we're creating in our uh public uh programs. People respond to incentives, and especially bad people respond to incentives. So the more uh loopholes you create, the more you offer people uh uh incentives not to work, not to do things that are productive uh for our society, but to rely instead on uh trying to find ways to get money from the government, um, the more you're gonna see those problems. And so there's a uh obviously this is a big picture issue about the ways that Minnesota um government has changed, the the size and scope of state government, the way that state government has grown in comparison uh to the private sector. It is not sustainable what we saw in the Democrat trifecta to have the size of government grow 40% in one biennium, to have it double in the uh in the course of a decade. And so it's just gonna be um you know a bigger picture issue about constraining the growth of state government, making sure that the uh that state government is not continuing to choke out uh the private sector in our state.
SPEAKER_02To that point, you know, the growth of government, you mentioned earlier some of the relief for property taxes and uh, you know, car tab fees that did get across the finish line this session. Of course, it is temporary. So in that same vein, you know, if again Republicans do well in the midterms, what's the next step for giving some you know form of tax and fee relief for Minnesotans?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I think of it as more of a reprieve than anything else. Minnesotans are dealing with the um consequences, the costs of the Democrat trifecta, especially when it comes to property taxes, and especially when it comes uh to car tab fees. So you hear and if you listen to Democrats when they talk about it, um they're warning Minnesotans that that's temporary. They're saying that uh no, in fact, it is important to have um the car tab fees that were pushed by Representative Brad Tabfee from um from uh Shakapee, their lead on uh transportation. I've heard both uh uh Jamie Long and Zach Stevenson, the two top members of the uh DFL uh House leadership over the last couple of years say that no, they think of this as a as a one-time temporary thing, but it's very important to snap those car tab fees back up to that level because that's the only way that they're willing to pay for our uh transportation system is to make sure that those car tab fees are at that level. We need to make sure that we prioritize uh roads and bridges and transportation, an essential function of government within our overall state budget and not expect that uh Minnesotans are gonna have to be nickeled and dimed uh through things like uh high car tab fees um in order to do it. So it's part of a bigger uh uh budget conversation. Uh again, in the DFL trifecta, they were looking at every single opportunity to raise costs on Minnesotans, whether it's car tab fees, uh delivery fees, everything they could do to try to raise uh costs somewhere else. And then the property tax thing is is similar to that. You know, they um pushed a lot more work down to county government. They um prevented uh they uh made us fight very hard to give county governments the technology tools that they need. That's another thing that's uh I think an underrated uh big uh accomplishment from this legislative session is that we were able to get some really important tech modernization um investments happen that are gonna save a lot of cost down the road. But they pushed a lot of costs down to county government. A lot of these business mandates that employers are struggling with are also mandates on our school districts, they're mandates on our county governments, their mandates on our local governments. All of those things uh raise property taxes. Honestly, uh, some of that is by design. A lot of Democrats think whatever tax we can raise is a good thing. And so um they will, they're they're they're happy to push costs to school districts, to counties, uh, to cities, and cause them uh to raise property taxes. So we fought hard to get Minnesotans, again, a temporary reprieve on property taxes. Uh, but unless Republicans have the ability to really try to reform a lot of that stuff, property taxes are gonna come uh back up as well. So the stakes could not be higher for Minnesotans uh this year when it comes to the cost of government on all of those different levels.
SPEAKER_00Well it's a good segue to talk about bonding because I kind of hate bonding and I'd like to hear your perspective. I always think of it as a negative, not necessarily um bonding in and of itself. There's some good things that are funded. I saw a lot of money for um the water system in the state, things like that that um are great and positive, but inevitably there's a ton of pork in these bonding bills that are things like um community centers in certain towns, things that it does not make sense to me that the state government would pay for. It seems like something that the local county should take um into their budget and they should find a way to pay for. So, how do you, as a conservative, balance that need to help Republican legislators accomplish things in their district and also get the votes on these bonding bills, as we talked about with Bill, you need 60 votes, right, to pass those. Um so you need to do things, you need to put things in that bill that'll appeal to people. But as a conservative, we want to limit that kind of government spending from the state, I think. How do you balance that?
SPEAKER_03No, I the the the points you're making are exactly uh what we talked about as the focus of how to put this bonding bill together. And I think if you look at uh the ways that previous bonding bills, especially in the Democrat trifecta, were set up uh compared to this one, I think you'll see um a really significant improvement on a lot of those levels. Uh capital investment and borrowing for capital investment is something that um is important and and makes a lot of sense in certain circumstances if you get the right projects in there. And so you said, you know, you know, you mentioned the water projects, uh, there's a lot of road and bridge uh construction. There's a much there was a much bigger focus on putting in that kind of hard uh statewide or regional infrastructure into this uh bonding bill. Again, we had one a tie in one uh body of the legislature, Democrats have a majority in the other body of the legislature. We're dealing with the Democrat governor, and so there are limits to how much um how you know what level of control we have in there. And um part of this is part of our uh state constitutional design. Like you mentioned, we need a supermajority in order to pass uh general obligation uh bonding money that was set up in our state constitution to require there to be a broad consensus on the way that this uh uh uh on the way that um you know any kind of uh borrowing uh on uh uh of this works. And that means you're gonna get uh a range of projects in there that are um uh set up to uh get to that supermajority uh vote. And so um, like I said, I you know our our the Republican priority was to make that uh bill as much as possible be focused on those important infrastructure projects, roads, bridges, uh water projects. There's uh you know funding for uh uh a study uh to begin uh building this uh Ramsey-Dayton Bridge that has been talked about for years. We have a very long stretch of uh the Mississippi River in my district that does not have a river crossing between Elk River and Anoka. It's important for the long term uh in our state to have that uh bridge crossing. So that was one that uh you know I worked on it as it relates to um uh to my district. But um, you know, we we were um overall able to get uh much you know, very much significantly improved uh bonding bill compared to what we saw in the Democrat Trafecta.
SPEAKER_00Well, and you never know. Like if we keep putting millions of dollars into the Rum River, maybe surfing will take off in Minnesota. You never know. You can only hope.
SPEAKER_03We can only hope. And uh, you know, we did try to uh reverse that project. Obviously, I've talked a lot about that. I talked about that uh last year. There's a um, you know, you uh for those who uh maybe uh aren't as uh deep in the text messages of uh Democrat leaders um or missed the story in the Star Tribune uh about this. Fortunately, they do uh they did cover at least this uh story that's bad for Democrats. Um the DFL, a leader who represents the neighboring district to mine, uh took six billion dollars or six million dollars of uh Anoka County transportation funding away from roads and bridges and the other things Anoka County wants to spend it on, and gave it to the city of Anoka to make a pedestrian bridge that nobody wants other than uh maybe the mayor of Anoka and uh this uh particular representative. But in a text message he said that it was revenge against the county because of a disagreement between the county and the city about what to do about the Anoka County jail, which needs to be um uh significantly upgraded.
SPEAKER_00So um just some a little corruption for y'all.
SPEAKER_03A little, a little revenge for uh, you know, and I like I said, I think this is a family podcast. I'm not gonna read the I'm not gonna uh say the entire contents of the text message. I will just say that uh, you know, I uh have done a lot of document review in my life and uh generally not the kind of thing you want to put in writing.
SPEAKER_02Now it's probably not the Rum River surf issue. But obviously, as we've talked about, this was an evenly divided legislature and negotiations had to happen. So what are some of the things or the number one thing that Republicans had to give up that you wish hadn't made it across the finish line this session?
SPEAKER_03You know, um that's a great question. I there's a lot of stuff that uh that we were able to say no to, a lot of things that um that uh that we were able to stop. And I'm uh you know, I'm grateful for that. Uh I would say, you know, the the the fact that the the relief that we have is not permanent, um, that it's only temporary, uh, that's the biggest thing I I wish we had gotten more tax relief and been able to make it permanent.
SPEAKER_00One thing that I saw as a negative, but I'd like to hear your take on is the 40 million that was appropriated for the family homeless prevention and assistance program for rental assistance. Because Democrats are bragging that it is for people who were impacted by Operation Metro Surge. To me, that sounds like 40 million for illegal immigrants, right? Illegals were impacted by Operation Metro surge, I think one can reasonably um, you know, see. But what's your take on that? Because I've heard that in the actual language of the bill, it might not be quite what the Democrats are bragging about.
SPEAKER_03No, so that was part of a uh a broader housing uh package that took that redirected money that was basically just sitting under the control of Walls' uh housing commissioner and directed it to uh the the FHPAP program, which is not uh an operation metro surge program. It's a long-standing, I think it was uh created in the 1990s. It it works through uh counties, uh social workers. It's a one of the few uh social services programs we have in Minnesota that hasn't had a lot of fraud problems, and it goes at directly helping people who are you know in a short-term crisis in terms of dealing with uh paying their rent or paying their mortgage. Um it's the kind of program that um again, this isn't uh it's it's targeted at people in need for whatever uh reason um they might be in need and and uh uh has you know social workers go out and help people who just need a bridge to make sure that they uh don't get kicked out of their house. They're able to make their rent payment, they're able to make their mortgage payment. Obviously, that's good for uh the the um the uh housing providers that they're needing to pay their rent for. It's worse for a housing provider to have to evict somebody and find a new renter than it is for uh them to continue to find have some uh rental payments over a short period of time. And it's bad for everybody if we're kicking people out of their house for you know having some sort of a temporary um uh dislocation. So I understand politically why DFL leadership is trying to say, well, this is the way we were able to actually get this operation metro surge uh relief when over and over again we told them we're not here to reward bad behavior, we're not here to um reward businesses that, for example, shut down because they didn't want, they wanted to uh uh you know engage in some sort of general boycott. Democrats asked us over and over for that, and we said, well, if you want to help all businesses, we are interested in fixing uh paid family medical leave and things like that. Um and Democrats said uh no to that stuff. So it doesn't surprise me that at the end of the day they try they're trying to um uh pretend that this is a win uh for their base on a in and and frame it in a way that um it might uh impress their base. What I think is very interesting is if you uh look at DFL leadership's uh statements and compare them to the DFL housing chair, who's not uh he's plenty partisan himself, uh, but he said, no, that's not what this is about.
SPEAKER_02Now you had this pretty viral moment that unfolded at the legislature last week where you had, you know, members actually screaming at another member over I think it was the the gun issue. Um but I think it it speaks to sort of a lack of of decorum and civility that it seems has really taken hold of of legislators in this state and all over the country, frankly. Um do you do you think that that was kind of a one-off incident, or do you agree that this is more of a broader cultural shift that we're seeing?
SPEAKER_03Well, I think it was a broader there's a broader cultural shift happening, and and frankly, you know, we saw the the session really bookended by incidents about the Democratic Party claiming to be the party of democracy really being very upset about the outcome of votes when they don't come their way. Right. So the beginning of session, Democrats were down 67, 66 because a member, uh one of their candidates fraudulently ran in a district he didn't represent, he didn't live in. Um he was elected, and then he was uh, you know, ordered by the court that he couldn't uh take office. And so Democrats didn't like the way that a speaker vote was gonna turn out if they showed up for work. And so they didn't. They just decided not to uh come to the legislature for 23 days. And so um, you know, we uh uh ended up in the Minnesota Supreme Court a few times. Eventually, they did agree to show up for work um with some assurances that if they won that seat and got to a tie, that there would be um some you know uh ways that we would uh treat them fairly within a um within a tied legislature, even when we have the speaker who has a lot of power um within that uh office. So they finally showed up for work. Um, but the reason they weren't showing up for work is because they were worried about the way that vote would turn out. Um and then at the end, uh we heard uh, you know, the last uh week was this chant hold the vote, hold the vote, hold the vote. Well, they had the vote and they lost the vote. And uh then they still continued to do a sit-in after they lost the vote in order to have the vote that they had just lost. It was uh really uh quite strange. Um, but um yeah, as uh as we were uh wrapping up the session after the vote um that they had lost, one of our members um you know tried to salute the family of um uh one of the Annunciation uh shooting victims who was there, um, recognizing that uh he uh and that we on our side didn't agree with that family on the particular solution to this, but you know, he wanted to recognize them for their uh for their courage and and showing up, even though um there was a disagreement about the right policy um to deal with that. And uh a number of members of the DFL caucus, including really senior members, chairs uh in the DFL caucus, the the tax chair, um uh another chair, um just started screaming at him, screaming uh in a way where uh we had to adjourn the session, and you could barely hear myself moving to adjourn and the speaker you know announcing that we were um we were adjourned. And that's just uh totally unprofessional. I mean, they were they were yelling profanities at him. There's obviously disagreement about what exact profanities um they were yelling at him, uh but you know, honestly, in any other workplace, that is some that's a behavior that would uh never have been tolerated. And it's not something that anyone should be toler, you know, should be uh treated to in uh this system of government where we're elected by our uh our voters to uh you know, elected by our constituents to come down to St. Paul to debate issues in a reasoned way, to work out compromises, and then to hold votes, and we accept that that's the outcome of the result without people being threatened or feel like they're being threatened. It was a really, really um uh unfortunate scene, and I hope we don't see anything like that again.
SPEAKER_00What a good point, too, that this is the party that stands in the street and says, we want democracy, we're just trying to save democracy, and then repeatedly we've seen from Minnesota Democrats that they do go against the will of Minnesota voters. This is a purple state. We say that all the time on the show. Um and when our legislator reflects that over and over, we see Democrats be angry about that, which is something I I find so surprising and difficult. So thank you for your leadership, Representative NISCA. We appreciate you being here on the podcast too, and everything you've done this session for uh for conservatives.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Thank you for the work that you're doing to keep people informed about this, um, especially the advocacy work that the center has done to raise awareness of a lot of really, really important issues. Like I said, uh the the the work that you did on fraud, um, the work that you've done on education, on the Minnesota state budget, um, is really, really valuable work and appreciate that and appreciate your podcast and the opportunity to be here.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much to everyone who made it all the way to the end of this week's episode of the American Experiment Podcast.
SPEAKER_00Remember our audience question, drop it in the YouTube comments. Would you go surfing on the Rum River? I mean, they put millions and millions and millions of dollars into it. I mean, it's gotta be sort of an experience. I do fear like if you fall off, you're hidden rock, right? Like this is a creek. I would think so. It's a little bit of a dangerous excursion, but maybe worth it for the fun, for the meme, for the jokes.
SPEAKER_02Love hearing from you guys. Uh, I did glean from your comments last week that you are not concerned about the hantivirus.
SPEAKER_00So I have forgotten about the hontivirus that's last week. That is how little I was concerned about it.
SPEAKER_01So I'm glad to hear that from others as well. As always, stay sane, stay safe out there, and we will see you next week.
