Monthly Archives: May 2015

Monday the House gathered for session and disussed the Omnibus Agriculture Finance Bill

No matter how budget negotiations go over the next two weeks before the May 18th session deadline, Minnesotans already know one thing: government spending is going up again.

Rep Ron Erhardt, D-Edina, was dressed in a white lab coat and holding props to share a story from the House floor today about eating turkey...

The expansion of state-funded PreK in Minnesota started in 2011 with a $4 million allocation for scholarships for low-income 3 & 4 year-olds from the Republican-led legislature. $40 million was spent on scholarships by the Democrat-led legislature two-years later. Today, the Republicans are proposing $30 million increase in funding for the scholarships over the biennium and an additional $9.5 million for other school readiness programs. Democrats would put $5 million more into the scholarships and $70 million into school-readiness programs per the Star Tribune.

Alpha News Featured Report on MN Care II Proposal

Elections: The current version of the Senate Elections Administration Bill includes legislation to allow felons to vote before their sentence is up, and to open voter registration to sixteen year olds. Alpha News spoke with the Ranking Minority Member for the Senate Rules and Administration Subcommittee on Elections, Senator Mary Kiffmeyer, to ask her about the various components of this bill.

As the final weeks of the legislative session unfold, look for bits of bacon in the final budget negotiations. Pork projects are ones that...