Almanac At The Capitol is a production of Twin Cities PBS the stations of Minnesota Public Television Association.

As important budget and policy bills move through the legislature, we'll check in with a couple of key co-chairs in this new bipartisan historic system.

That's coming up on "Almanac at the Capitol."

[music] [music playing] Almanac at the Capitol is made possible by members of this public television station.

Support is also provided by Manitoba Hydro, providing clean, renewable energy to Minnesota utilities for more than 50 years.

Manitobahydropower.com.

Flint Hills Resources, a leading producer of the fuels Minnesotans rely on every day.

Minnesota Lottery, generating over $4 billion for our state since 1990.

Great River Energy, providing wholesale power to 1.7 million people through its member-owner cooperatives and customers.

The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, a sovereign tribal nation in Scott County.

More at ShakopeeDakota.org.

and the University of Minnesota, healthier here, there, and everywhere.

Welcome to Almanac at the Capitol.

I'm Mary Lahammer coming to you live from the House Gallery, where lawmakers have been pulling a lot of late nights working on budget and policy bills.

We will talk to a couple of committee chairs about how that model is going.

In just a moment, later in the show, we'll talk democracy and government.

But first, a look at the governor and legislative action so far this week.

Governor Walz went to Harvard for a forum on national politics, again taking on President Trump.

If you leave a void, Donald Trump will fill it.

So how is Tim Walz filling that void right now?

Well, I'm governing in Minnesota, the state that ranks first in health care, education, access to education, biotech research, higher ed.

I think this is a time to show an alternative model of governing and what governing can look like.

If you elect us, here's what you're going to get.

If I ever have 100 days to live, I would spend it in the Trump administration, because it's like a lifetime.

It's been 100 days of destruction.

You think we can survive 550 more?

That's the real challenge.

- You're not running for president.

- I am not.

- We do have a little bit of audio here that I wanna play.

- Walls agrees with me that this piddly, stupid stuff running small people out of business is terrible.

- The House Fraud Committee questioned the Attorney General about ongoing issues in the massive Feeding Our Future fraud.

- I'm concerned about the seeming focus and priority on keeping grant recipients in business, as opposed to defending the state agencies and maintaining the integrity of taxpayer funds that are going to these recipients for the purpose of providing services to people.

- Whenever there's a crisis, we also have got to put on our detective hat because fraudsters try to make use of those tragic incidents to enrich themselves.

- We agree and we look forward to working with you, Attorney General.

We are adjourned.

Thank you.

The next bill on the calendar for today is House File 2431 budget bills continue to move in a bipartisan manner, including higher education.

This bill is the result of robust negotiations between myself and my co chair representative Marion Rarick, and I'm very proud of the fact that we work together even with a zero target to fix the state grant program.

That huge hole, $239 million, was the equivalent of one entire year's worth of state grants going out to students.

So we had zero new money, and we had to fill and fix a huge hole.

And the League of Women Voters of Minnesota defended democracy in a nonpartisan rally.

The art of compromise, and I've spent most of my three years down here trying to find that level of compromise and recognizing that, you know, we can be hard on issues, but let's be soft on people.

Let's do that.

Joining us now, the co-chairs who have been working long hours here of higher education, we have Democrat Dan Wolgaman and Republican Marion Rarick.

Well, you two, that was a big vote.

It was bipartisan for but also bipartisan against, if I've got it right.

Who wants to talk about that, how you landed that?

- Well, governing in a tie is not easy.

In fact, I don't think anyone has ever been in the situation that Chair Rarick and I have been in where we have a perfectly tied committee and we share the gavel.

But I'm so proud of the work that we did together and really give credit to Chair Rarick for her leadership in this.

It's not easy coming together and having a bill that can get both through my caucus and her caucus obviously we come at it from very different points, but Through good faith negotiations and a lot of back-and-forth and I might add many cases of lemon and lime LaCroix We we that was that was the real secret to our success But no, we worked together in good faith.

We came up with this bill.

Not everyone in our caucus liked it.

I think that's the nature of a true compromise.

And I'm proud we were able to get that over the finish line.

- It's not an accomplishment.

Yeah, bipartisan in support and against.

- Yeah, absolutely.

And I think the sticking point was Mayo funding.

And we-- - The Rochester representatives voted against it, correct?

- That's correct.

So the Rochester representatives, not all of them, so Representative Quam did not vote against it.

But I think on the Democrat side, that was the Mayo funding that really was the sticking point for them.

And on the Republican side, it was a whole host of things.

Everything from just how campuses are conducting business, whether it's DEI or, you know, if you want to call it WOKE or whatever.

So there were all kinds of reasons on the Republican side why there were no votes.

How did you not get stuck in some of those political quagmire issues that people are just yelling at each other about across the rest of the country.

How did you avoid that?

Well, it wasn't easy and we did have a number of times where we'd kind of get in that quagmire and we would say, "Okay, we need to stop.

Let's, you know, let's retool.

Let's talk to our teams.

Let's come back."

It wasn't easy, but again, I think it was that determination that we recognized that the voters selected a tide house and they expect us to work together and do our job.

And so even when we got stuck, we came back and we get stuck and we'd come back and eventually we got the bill that you saw pass off the floor on Monday with 120 votes.

Inside baseball, did you have to just tell some people just simmer down like we gotta get this done behind the scenes?

Yeah, so I didn't on my side.

I mean, I kind of know where my members stand and interestingly enough, you know, we have lots and lots of huddles as you would imagine in the Republican caucus of the Higher Ed Committee and so we had been pre-caucusing and I knew exactly where they stood on everything and so I literally had the roadmap in front of me of what they wanted, what their priorities were, what they would kind of give in to.

So I had all of that in my notes as we move forward but I want to give credit to some of our staff.

We have the most amazing staff who came up with some great ideas when we did get stuck, and they actually helped move us forward.

So we have great staff here at the House of Representatives.

- And you had zero money to spend, as we heard earlier, and you had to backfill some cuts.

So explain, the grants was one of the tough areas.

- That's right, so even with the zero target, we sort of felt like we basically had a negative $239 million target because of the deficit with the state grant program.

And so a lot of our work was balancing out, okay, we have, we can do cuts to things to help backfill.

Yeah, what gets cut?

And then we have, we also have levers that we can use to sort of how we want to ration or make changes to the formula of the state grant program.

It was a combination of using both of those things where we were able to fix the state grant program even with a zero target.

- Yeah, talk about some of the cuts.

You mentioned Mayo, the higher ed part of Mayo.

What were some of the other cuts you had to make?

- Right, so in the University of Minnesota, they had a University of Minnesota and a Mayo partnership and essentially what it was was $16 million that were given to them and then they granted it out from there and we said, you know what, we don't really need them to do that for us.

We can do that kind of work and so that was $16 million.

- And you also said Mayo had money too.

Wasn't that part of some of the things you're saying about like executive pay, that who deserves it, who needs it, was that part of it?

- That's absolutely a part of it as well because we looked at just the gross revenue that Mayo had pulled in in the previous year and it was nearly $19 billion.

So we were trying to really prioritize which entities really needed the money and of course we prioritized students and families over anything else, that was the highest priority, is hold harmless the students and the families as much as possible.

What about the federal issues, the student visas, undocumented students, people in Minnesota getting removed from campus?

Did you touch to that, either of you?

- So we really didn't talk about that.

We did have one bill hearing that we heard as an amendment on the floor, saying that if you're here illegally, that you shouldn't get North Star Promise, which is the free college.

It's kind of baked into other areas of higher ed that you have to be a legal citizen here in order to get the vast majority of grants and scholarships in Minnesota.

And so it was just this one kind of outlier.

But we really didn't spend a lot of time on that.

We tried to talk about things that we could agree to.

And honestly, we did something historic that's never been done, which is we did the deepest dive ever on our budget.

We had every single, not only the University of Minnesota and Mid-State, but literally anybody that got money in any capacity come in and talk about how they spent the money and what they did with it.

And so we've never done that.

- I mean this in a really nice way.

I mean you guys geeked out.

You guys love to get into the minutiae, don't you, of government?

- Well, our predecessor, the previous chair of the House Higher Education Committee, Jean Polowski, had a motto for our committee, "Grab 'em by the budgets and don't let go."

And I really wanna credit Chair Eric for really fulfilling the spirit of that.

Because of our power sharing agreement, she had the gavel for many weeks before I did.

And for her to come in and set that standard of, you know, we're going line by line, we're asking specific questions, you know, you're getting this funding, what are you doing with it, show us your 990s, I mean, it was very thorough and I think really set us up in a successful position where when it did come down to crunch time, when we are pouring over these spreadsheets, boy, we had all the information line by line by line and then some, and that's a credit to Chair Eric's thoroughness.

- And to back up, you mentioned a program, But that's a program for free tuition for folks whose parents make less than 80,000.

That was preserved, held harmless?

- Correct, so North Star Promise was completely held harmless.

The Fostering Independence Grant, so the foster kids, they were held harmless.

Now we were told after we got back from break that there's an anticipation that they're gonna have a lot more take up the program, so we may need to work on some of that in the Senate.

But for the highest priority things, Child care grants, we held harmless.

Things that were really important to students, we held harmless.

- Yeah, and that's hard with zero target.

You mentioned the Senate, 'cause that's what's next.

How hard is it gonna be reconciling?

'Cause you maybe have a pre-comfereed bill, but now you have to go fight with Democrats over there, right?

- That's right.

Well, I think we're all kinda sitting on pins and needles waiting to see what our joint target is, because we're really limited in the work that we can do negotiating with our Senate counterparts until we know-- - And that'll happen above you, right?

- What our joint target is.

That's right.

And you know, for us, once we got our house target, whoosh, we sprung into action and started negotiating right away.

But you can only really just have, you can only be so productive in preliminary conversations until you get that joint target.

So we're waiting on pins and needles for that.

You know, we had a zero target.

The Senate had a $100 million target.

We're going to land somewhere in between there.

And that will, of course, dictate the kind of the battle lines, so to speak, of our negotiations.

- Thank you, we're out of time.

We'll keep watching it.

Appreciate it.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) [Music] (upbeat music) ♪♪ [music] well it is an unprecedented [music] well it is an unprecedented time in the state legislature and federal government and here to talk about legislative priorities of Common Cause Minnesota we have Ana Belladonna Carrera.

Welcome, let's start big picture, you just heard it from state lawmakers, the federal government is really affecting things that are happening federally, Common Cause is joining some lawsuits and really has some concern, right?

- Absolutely, absolutely.

So something for some of the viewers that may not be familiar with Common Cause, many of the folks tied to, or many of the folks will sometimes call us the watchdog grassroots organization.

- Non-partisan, right?

- Non-partisan, that's right.

I do wanna clarify, we do have a C4 arm.

However, we're the only organization nationally that I'm aware of in state that does not leverage that for any kind of endorsement of any party, any candidate, right?

We only limit that to our lobby.

- Okay, good to know.

- Just wanted to clarify - I'll clarify that real quick.

We do have offices in 25 other states.

I leave the Minnesota, but more importantly to your question about what are the things that we're really getting.

To really meet the moment, we really leverage our ability.

What makes us unique in the space nationally and state is that we leverage our policy experts at both the national and the state level.

We leverage our grassroots statewide, 1.5 million nationally.

I think like 27,000 in Minnesota, multi-partisan.

- So specifically federally, what's the biggest concern?

- Federally, the biggest concern right now is really the overreach, the violate, well, needless to say, there's various points of the constitutionality of some of the things that are coming out of the executive office, right?

Through the executive orders that we see just kind of flying through.

Obviously, the intent is to overwhelm, right?

However, fundamentally, when we look at those lawsuits, we're winning a whole bunch of them, right?

- So there's worth joining.

- There is worth joining that effort.

Absolutely, our most recent action is the one that's before the court with regards to citizenship, and specifically the birth rights.

And again, this is a fundamental constitutional cornerstone, right, that we have as Americans.

That we're born in North America, under the Constitution, we have citizenship that's automatically, and it's not something that's waivable by anyone, regardless of the party affiliation.

- Let's talk another issue you've been weighing in on, voting concerns about changes to voter access federally and do you have any concerns statewide?

Well here's the thing with Minnesota because we do have some amazing voter protection laws on the books and election integrity laws on the books.

And high turnout along with it.

High turnout along with it although with communities of color you know there's still an area that we need to do a little better on with that.

The concerns that we have with regards to what's happening federally with the SAVE Act is the quashing effect that that has for just common sense things.

I'm married.

My name is hyphenated, right?

When I registered to vote in the state of Minnesota, I voted first as my maiden name, then as my married name.

But my birth certificate doesn't have a hyphen anything behind it, right?

I was born in Puerto Rico.

I am a US citizen.

So the complications of that-- in greater Minnesota, we just held two community town halls.

Those were some of the concerns that we heard a lot.

These are folks-- And people showed up.

Oh, my god.

That's the thing, right?

When we do our community town halls, they're not partisan.

So we had Republican folks.

We had Democratic folks.

And the thing about those events that was loud and clear is that this is something that's across the board concerning to folks.

And that issue with what happens to my voter registration now if all these things change in Minnesota, it'll do away with our online voter registration, right?

It'll do away with a lot of things that Minnesotans are just so used, it's part of our culture, it's so used to being able to benefit from in the state.

- Let's talk solely state, because you've been weighing in on ethics issues, and we've had more than one ethics hearing this session, last session, current, you know, the Senate President had to kind of clarify whether there was a conflict.

Talk to us about where you're at on some of those conflicts and ethics.

- Well, I mean, again, our thing is holding power accountable, right?

So transparent and accountable government is one of our key goals, whether it's federally or locally.

In this instance, we've been tracking this since the issue came up originally with Senator Mitchell.

And now you mentioned there was a newer, more recent.

But then we've had other issues bubbling that had to do with, well, what is a conflict of interest?

- Right, and what should it be?

Is it clearly defined enough for you?

- It is not, it is not.

- What should it be in your opinion?

- So for us, we're looking for reforms and we're already working on this, so look out for that.

We're looking for something that provides our elected officials, all of them, right, with clear, concise definitions, not perfect, but enough guidance that they're able to make those good calls.

'Cause we've yet to come across anybody that's really so blatant and flippant about their own standards of professionalism.

- Yeah, a lot of people said it's gray.

- Exactly.

- That was the final word on this was, oh, it kinda was gray.

Finally, how about this divided government and the Senate was tied, now the House is tied.

What do you think about that for democracy here?

- I think it's beautiful.

Check this out, check this out.

It just so happens that because of the election turnout, it's 67-67, right?

But aren't elected officials called to center constituents every day?

Not just when it's forced.

Shouldn't we be cranking those bipartisan compromises Just as part of interesting.

I think we could write the whole rest of the show.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for having a great to have you.

Absolutely well, the retirement of a House member last year could be seen as bonkers to use a phrase coined by representative and new Brindley time to meet her quotable replacement from North branch.

Why did you want to run?

I don't think anybody in my community expected my predecessor and new Brindley to retire.

Basically Mary, what I just saw was like, there's an opportunity here.

I've been involved, I kinda know how this process works before I even get down to St. Paul.

I talked to my wife, we prayed about it a lot.

It was actually kind of a delayed process 'cause they wanted to move things real quick, but it was like, I need to have a little bit of time here to process this with my family, and I'm glad I'm down here.

I'm glad it's me, I'm glad the voters chose me, and basically I've been able to hit the ground running just because I did have a little bit of knowledge about how the political process worked down here.

- Yeah, you are not a political neophyte.

We should let people know, like, I've known of your name for a long time.

Tell our audience who might not have known you before.

I own a marketing agency.

We work with real estate agents.

In my previous agency that I started, we worked in a lot of non-profit work.

We worked with a lot of politicians, both in Minnesota and out of Minnesota.

So I've run statewide campaigns.

I've kind of gotten, I think I did a headcount and I've worked with a third of our caucus already on their websites, on their Facebook ads.

I've always been a little bit vocal on social media and expressing my opinion.

I've done regular radio segments on conservative news talk channels.

- You can hear your maker tell you, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

- You mentioned Ann New Brindley.

She's probably up there in like the top three of the most loved lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Do you know that and how hard is that to follow?

- She was very good at disagreeing without being disagreeable and she was very kind.

My style's a little bit different.

I'm probably a little bit more confrontational in this role.

So yeah, it's been interesting to get to know people on both sides of the aisle, and they'll both tell me, "Oh, we loved Ann, we loved her so much."

And I was like, "You're gonna love me a little less.

"I'm sorry about that."

- You're just owning it.

- I am who I am, Mary.

- How does it reflect the district?

What do you think is kind of the pulse and mood of your district now?

- My district is really interesting.

So it's Chisago County, so think about cities like Taylor's Falls, North Branch, Lindstrom, there are some townships in the district, Wyoming.

It's really a district that wants to be left alone, mainly blue collar people who just want the government to kind of get out of the way and stay out of their daily business.

And I think I reflect that pretty well.

You know, I'm like the government plays a really limited role in our lives.

And I think that resonated with voters.

busy, beautiful district though, too.

I mean, it's like the place you want to go for a day trip.

The place like North Branch is more of a commuter city right now.

That's changing with work from home and that kind of thing.

You're having more young families move up to a place like North Branch for a place like Taylor's Falls.

Taylor's Falls is one of the most beautiful places in the entire state of Minnesota.

So you do have more tourist traffic, more tourist interest there.

And a state park, which is state government that people love, right?

I mean, you gotta love your state park, right?

And want that funded.

Is that good government?

- That's good government, yeah.

That's good government.

And we don't, in Chisago County, we don't ask for a lot.

You know, I think that's the biggest thing.

When I get like bonding requests and things of that nature, it's like, hey, North Branch hasn't asked for anything in years.

You know, or Taylor's Falls hardly asks for anything, despite it being a tourist city.

- What do you think they want?

What did you hear?

'Cause when you're a candidate, you're knocking a lot of doors, you're hearing a lot of opinions.

What came through of the things they do want you to do?

I think the biggest thing as I was at the door is this.

I have a population of people who again think that government has really overstepped its bounds when you talk about an $18 billion surplus, spent all of that, raised taxes.

Now we're staring down the barrel of a $6 billion deficit.

That exact mentality is what my voters don't want.

We have good schools up in the district.

They want to make sure they're adequately funded, but they're not asking for the moon.

Do you think they asked for a tie?

Not my district.

Not my district.

Statewide though, I mean you know politics.

I'm guessing you knew the math that it was mathematically possible.

Can you believe you are serving in a tie?

If any place could vote for a tie, it would be a place like Minnesota.

Because right now, the dynamic in this session is we truly are having to figure out how to work together.

And right now, the way that I view it, you have one side that is totally entrenched and used to being in the majority.

So I don't know what movement looks like with a budget deal that gets cut or what have you.

We have a few weeks to figure it out.

I do believe that Minnesota voted for this.

I believe that they wanted us to have the hard conversations and have kind of some sloppy outcomes, but we had to put a little bit of the toothpaste back in the tube from the trifecta.

So it's obviously kind of a slow, bumpy start with the boycott and the lawsuits and everything, but it does seem like the House is kind of getting its rhythm.

Do you feel that in committee?

What can you tell our viewers on the inside about how things are starting to kind of click?

What I would just say is the things that we're passing out of committee are broadly bipartisan agreements.

I think that some of these omnibus bills that we're going to pass out of committee, I think they're going to be small.

I don't think we're going to be having a 1,700 page monstrosity.

It's just the stuff you can agree on, right?

And it's minimal because your side wants minimal, right?

- Yeah.

- The hard part is in the backdrop, there being a $6 billion deficit, we are gonna have to have some hard conversations.

(upbeat music) - And we'll be back next week with another freshman.

This is the special election freshman Democrat in the House.

There is a new special election Republican freshman in the Senate.

In the meantime, head to our website, tpt.org/aetc.

There you can watch any of our shows, interact on social media, And be sure to watch the final weeks of session House and Senate floor sessions much more right here Friday night Eric and Kathy We'll talk to some former speakers of the house and I will have more on the latest from the legislature.

Thanks for watching.

Good night [music] ♪♪ "Almanac at the Capitol" is made possible by members of this public television station.

Support is also provided by Manitoba Hydro, providing clean, renewable energy to Minnesota utilities for more than 50 years.

Manitobahydropower.com.

Flint Hills Resources, a leading producer of the fuels Minnesotans rely on every day.

Minnesota Lottery, generating over $4 billion for our state since 1990.

Great River Energy, providing wholesale power to 1.7 million people through its member-owner cooperatives and customers.

The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, a sovereign tribal nation in Scott County.

More at ShakopeeDakota.org.

And the University of Minnesota, healthier here, there, and everywhere.

"Almanac at the Capitol" is a production of Twin Cities PBS for the stations of Minnesota Public Television Association.