Do you know that feeling when you are approaching the end of the school year and your teenage kid has spent the past four months telling you they are doing fine in class, and when you get their report card you finally see that after all of this time, their grades are deeply, deeply disappointing? At this point you realize the only thing that could fix the issue is summer school.
Well, that’s the feeling I had when the Minnesota Legislature adjourned on May 23 without passing meaningful bills proposed this year, including ones that promised to promote energy justice, security and equity for the state.
As our country prepares for higher energy bills from AC use, recession and more COVID spikes, any and all good news would have been welcome. The state Legislature could have offered us a slice of comfort and positivity. With a historically large state surplus plus federal funds available for leverage, the Legislature could have drastically improved the lives of communities across the state. The bills introduced this past session and agreed upon in conference committees promised jobs, lower energy bills and clean energy funding for schools. But instead of helping us, the Senate failed to pass any of this much-needed legislation.
The agreed upon bills would have invested in public schools, renewable energy, infrastructure, Native American schools and jobs. The Climate and Energy Omnibus bill alone would have invested almost $67 million into programs to benefit communities across the state. There could have been $42.45 million invested in solar, including the Solar Rewards and Solar for Schools funds, allowing schools to add low-cost solar to their buildings.
Further, Minnesota could have leveraged federal funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Those are our federal tax dollars that we now won’t be able to use in our own state. And after so many lost jobs from the pandemic, the Legislature failed to pass provisions allowing for grant money that would have helped transitioning communities from closing fossil fuel plants to jobs in renewable energy.
[image_caption]Jenna Warmuth[/image_caption]
Minnesotans do not deserve legislators who drag their feet. We cannot wait until the next official session for these bills to be deliberated on again without any promise of passage. The current pace of change is failing those suffering from dangerous levels of pollution.
What we need now is the legislature’s version of summer school — a special session. The governor must reconvene the Legislature and urge lawmakers to pass these important policies and budgets. If Republican leadership is truly committed to their constituents, they will do so without further needless delay.
To those legislators who put politics above the health and economic prosperity of our great state: I am not mad, I am just disappointed.
Jenna Warmuth is the Midwest regional director for Vote Solar, focusing on Minnesota and Michigan.
A special session is not equivalent to summer school for students. Students don’t get to have fun hanging out with their friends. Legislators, on the other hand get rewarded for not getting their work done on time by getting paid for the extra session. If you want to have a special session it should come out of the hides of the Governor, the legislatures and all of their staff people.
Staff people don’t have a vote. You’re going to penalize file clerks?
I share your disappointment, and let me add to that my considerable annoyance.
I have often wondered – how is it that legislators can just punt like this? If they bail out on what they were hired to do, why do they still receive paychecks? A mechanic who didn’t fix the car, or the firefighter who ignored the call to action – these folks would not be paid.
So why do legislators, who don’t even attend consensus-building meetings (remember compromise? No; neither do they), not to mention ignore the call to come back to “summer school” to earn the credits they skipped class on earlier, still get paid?
And most insulting of all, you and I are paying them for this muddleheaded nonsense.
“I have often wondered – how is it that legislators can just punt like this?”
It’s very simple. The majority in the Senate is not interested in coming to any kind of agreement on significant legislation this year. It’s a gubernatorial election year, and rather than focus on their unpopular policy ideas, they have two paths forward:
1. If Governor Walz calls a special session, the campaign will be built around “Neener, neener! He said he wasn’t going to call a special session, but then he did it anyway!”
2. If there is no special session, it’s going to be “Neener, neener! The Democrats can’t get anything done!”
Of course, the exact language will differ, as “neener, neener” is pretty sophisticated for this crowd, but you get the gist. It’s not about policy or governance. It’s about formulating a campaign strategy.
I think Gov. Walz’ early insistence that there would be no special session was an invitation to the Republicans to step up and act like grownups. They failed. They need to take a time out – maybe a two-year timeout.
But my question remains – why do these people get paid for bluffing and posturing and going home early to campaign when they failed to do what they were hired to do? Does one of the grownups on hand need to introduce a bill, and put it in writing? Right now it appears the Republicans lack any incentive to do their jobs. To put it mildly, that is unacceptable behavior.
Well – a least this article used most of the current “code-words”