Capitol Letter for March 1, 2024

The Capitol Letter™ is a recurring publication that provides reports from LWV Minnesota volunteer Observer Corps and Lobby Corps members on what is happening in the current legislative session.

 

LWVMN ADVOCACY

A handful of members from various local Leagues attended the We Choose Us Lobby Day at the Capitol on Thursday, Feb. 29. We were joined by other organizations and advocates to share our vision of democracy with legislators. Our collective work last session led to meaningful policy changes such as restoring the right to vote for those who have left prison behind and allowing 16 and 17 year olds to pre-register, to name a few. During the 2024 legislative session, We Choose Us will continue to advocate for expanding our democracy by tackling money in politics, strengthening voter participation, and supporting partner priorities like redistricting reform and ranked choice voting local option. The Lobby Day reiterated the power of sharing our stories with others and exemplified the impact of meeting with our legislators.

Observer Reports

Joint Committee meeting: Senate Agriculture and Senate Environment - Monday, February 26
LWVMN Observer Corps Member Amy Caucutt

Chair Aric Putnam kicked off the presentation on the state's response to the EPA directive to correct high nitrates in well water in SE MN by saying, "Today there will be no grandstanding. We just want to develop a deeper and more thorough understanding of the nature of this issue and existing efforts to remedy it." He welcomed the Senators from Sen. Hawj's Environment Committee to join the "cool kids'' in his Agriculture committee. Presenters included: Commissioner Kunas from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), Commissioner Peterson from Dept. of Ag. (MDA), and Commissioner Kessler from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). They described how they are dividing up this work as well as what they have been doing all along, since this is a long-standing problem. Several Senators (DFL) shared concern that this problem has existed for over 50 years and the map shows that the concern is in more than SE MN. Others (GOP) said it has been around a long time, and we hardly hear of blue baby syndrome being an issue.

Personal Analysis: I am interested since I live in SE MN and remember how our county and city addressed this issue over 30 years ago. But it keeps coming back. I learned a few new things:

  • nitrates in the Mississippi River along SE MN are actually slightly down.

  • nitrate problems exist where row crops and feedlots proliferate. MN has 17000 registered feedlots of 100+ animals, but only 1000 big ones have permits. Presenters think more regulation could happen here.

  • nitrogen fertilizer has doubled corn productivity. Now, Commissioner Peterson says farmers use much less fertilizer (ounces not pounds/acre) to get good results, but nitrates stay in water a long time. Also corn growing has become profitable in more of MN, so nitrogen fertilizer is expanding.

  • Nitrates in water: 35% from manure, 65% from commercial fertilizer

  • Hard fought MN legislation in 2018 led to limited fall nitrogen application, and money to promote good farming practices. 270 farmers in SE MN are in the Ag water certification program leading to 49% reduction in nitrates which was part of that effort.

  • More can be scaled up with more funding.

House Agriculture Committee - Thursday, February 29
WVMN Civic Engagement Director Sam Streukens

On Thursday, Feb. 29, the House Agriculture Committee heard (recording) from farmers, agricultural groups, and a researcher from Freshwater Society on the usage of nitrates on the land. Subsequently, Rep. Rick Hansen introduced HF4135, a proposal to tax nitrogen fertilizer that’s used by farmers to pay for drinking water assistance starting in eight SE MN counties. After member discussion that largely centered around the opposition of adding a fee to farmers’ bottom lines, the bill passed, 7-6, to the Environment Committee. Coverage from the MN Reformer: Fertilizer tax proposal advances despite opposition from agriculture groups with More Coverage from the Star Tribune (Note: LWVMN joined the Minnesota Environmental Partnership’s [MEP] sign-on letter in support of the bill.)

House Commerce - Tuesday, February 27
LWVMN Observer Corps Member Fern Panda

HF3577 (Jordan) - PACKAGING WASTE AND COST REDUCTION ACT; Amendments passed included adding exempt materials for infant formula, medical food and fortified nutritional supplements. There was also clarifying language added on the definition of a producer. The bill spells out a producer-funded system to reduce packaging and single-use plastic, make recycling easier, and lower taxpayer costs for managing waste. By 2032, all packaging must be reusable, recyclable, or compostable.

  • Testimony in support of the bill was similar to the first hearing. All city and county government entities cite that this is needed to reduce their solid waste and recycling costs that they are mandated by the state to do. Environmental groups say we need to decrease packaging, increase recycling and eliminate burning and landfilling for our water and air quality. Recyclers like Eureka and Plastics Recyclers would like increased and cleaner recycling.

  • Most testimony this time was against the bill. National Federation of Independent Business says current timelines are not workable and is concerned about introducing layers of bureaucracy in the manufacturing process. Pharmacy and Medical groups (Medical Alley, Healthcare Distribution Alliance) still want more exemptions for Medical devices and pharmaceutical packaging. Producers of paper products (Forestry industry and MN Newspaper Assoc) want paper removed from this bill since they are already recyclable. The largest waste hauler, Waste Management, is against the bill. They were the first company to bring single sort recycling and they want to preserve their investment. The Assoc of Home Appliance Manufacturers wants this bill to be harmonized with other states to make compliance easier. Walter's Recycling, a family-owned business, thinks the proposed bill is too full of holes and will have many unintended consequences. The brand owners can pick winners and losers of the recycling group - Why should the brand owners get to determine how the recycling business is run.

The bill passed to the State and Local Government Finance Policy committee.

Senate Elections - Thursday, February 29
LWVMN Observer Corps Member Paul Huffman

SF3818 (Westlin) - Election administration changes. This bill is largely technical changes that clarify or revise changes from 2023, as well as minor policy changes. Key changes include: 1) Clarify that a school residential list can be used for voter registration in conjunction with any qualifying ID for Election Day Registration, and not just a student ID which was in the legislation passed in 2023; 2) Provide for use of a physical description of the location where they reside if it does not have a 911 address (occurs for unhoused individuals, some rural areas, some native lands); this is consistent with federal law and is allowed in a number of other states; 3) Clarify requirements for write-in candidate registration; 4) Strengthen/clarify foreign language instructions on voting information, especially which languages are required to be covered, as well as requirements for online posting of additional languages to be supported at each precinct; 5) Clarified polling place requirements for counties to identify them based on changes in pop-up polling places introduced in 2023; 6) Restore percentage-based thresholds on recounts that were affected by legislation in 2023; 7) Clarify protections on private voter information, including voter lists; and 8) Clarified the requirements for post election review to conform with the Federal Electoral Count Act.

At the start of the hearing, Sen. Koran (ranking minority member) interrupted Nicole Freeman from the Office of the Secretary of State to ask that for each item, she explain what the problem is that is being solved. A recurring theme in Sen. Koran's questions on various changes was that "things have worked fine for 150 years". Sen. Koran challenged how all the changes to Canvassing Board timing and post-election activities were related to conformance to the Electoral Count Act. He also challenged why a change was made to allow an alternate location to be identified for the assembly of presidential electors. To this effect, Sen. Matthews introduced a verbal amendment to remove the provision for the governor to use an alternate location. Nicole Freeman identified 2 occasions when an alternate location was used, and the challenge to pass a one-time law to move the electoral meeting. Sen. Matthews stated it was a "no-brainer", and asked for a roll call vote on the amendment. The vote on the oral amendment was defeated 7-7 with Sen. Rest voting Yes with the minority. Sen. Koran subsequently proposed another oral amendment to modify the A6 author's amendment to allow the meeting of electors to be "in the capitol" and not have language to move it out of the capitol. Sen. Carlson (Committee Chair) subsequently spoke in favor of the change. The amendment passed 8-6 with Carlson and Rest voting with the minority. Discussion continued with minority members questioning many minor aspects of the words in the statute which seemed to exasperate the author. The extensive discussion around this relatively minor point illustrates the resistance to any change and the suspicion that the government will do things that are not visible to the public or opponents.

With regards to use of a physical location description, there were a number of questions about how their residence would be verified. Sen Koran acknowledged the desire of all people without a home to vote, however questioned if there could be a better method to confirm their place of residence. Sen. Dornick asked how Election Day Registration was reviewed for those who had provided a physical description rather than an address, given that a postcard cannot be sent to the voter to verify their residence. Sen. Dornick raised a similar concern about how the non-verified residence was addressed. Sen. Koran raised this as a good example of where provisional ballots would be valuable, however there is no indication how that would address this circumstance as there would not be time for the county elections office to verify their address and there would still not be any documentation of their residence. A key element that was not identified by the author or OSS is that anyone without documentation of their residence requires a person to "vouch" for their residence as part of Election Day Registration. The bill was passed and sent to the Judiciary committee on a voice vote.

SF4039 (Westlin) - Use of a .gov domain by certain municipalities requirement; This bill would require local governments that process absentee ballots (cities and counties) to transition to a .gov domain from any other kind of internet domain name as a means to provide assurance that election information is coming from a trustworthy source. Chair Carlson stressed that a .gov domain requires additional verification to obtain the domain and additional security and controls on the page to provide security for the site such as two-factor identification. Nicole Freeman (OSS) noted that this was only applicable to cities that count absentee ballots.

31 of 85 cities that count absentee ballots are "small cities" with a population less than 5,000. A representative from the Minnesota Association of Small Cities (MASC) indicated that the estimated cost of the transition is at least $3,000. A representative from the League of Minnesota Cities also spoke at the request of Sen. Matthews. An amendment to the bill provided more flexibility to cities to make the transition, though there was still concern about the cost and burden to cities to change. The bill passed 7-6 along party lines, with Sen Rest passing, to be sent to the Senate State and Local Government committee.

Capitol LetterLWV MinnesotaHF4135, HF3577, SF3818, SF4039