Introduction, First Townhall, Prove it First Bill, and Other News 

Today, I reflect on the significance of President-elect Biden’s inauguration with mixed emotions. Tomorrow marks the culmination of years of hope, vision, and hard work organizing our communities. It also marks two weeks from the day when President Trump’s supporters, encouraged by other GOP elected officials, staged a violent insurrection at our Capitol. We have a strong tradition of peaceful, nonpartisan transitions of power on Inauguration Day and I am appalled that the President, GOP leaders, and public figures have endorsed and engaged in this affront to our democracy.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of a long road to right the countless wrongs that this administration has done and start us on the path toward a future where extremist rhetoric, violence, and racist double standards are not normalized or accepted in our society as we work to mend our social fabric. 

My joint statement with Sen. Omar Fateh on Jan. 6th’s events can be found here.

Town Hall 10:00am on Saturday, January 23rd

I am excited to announce my first Town Hall with the legislative delegation from Duluth! Please join Rep. Jen Schultz, Rep. Liz Olson, and me on Saturday, January 23 at 10 a.m., for a Virtual Town Hall Meeting to discuss the 2021 legislative session.

The event will be held on Zoom (https://zoom.us/j/94326878456, meeting ID: 943 2687 8456, password 033502). To join by telephone, attendees can dial 312-626-6799 and enter the meeting ID and password when prompted. The meeting will also be livestreamed on my Facebook page. If you don’t have a Facebook account, you should still be able to view the video event in real time. 

The town hall is nonpartisan and everyone in the community is welcome. We invite our community members to ask us questions and share your ideas and priorities for the session with us. To submit a question for the legislators to answer, email it along with your name and address to Lyndsey.Hanson@house.mn with “Town Hall Question” in the subject line.

Prove it First

I’m delighted to announce the official introduction of our Prove it First legislation to the Minnesota Legislature. I am so proud to be joined by so many of my colleagues and the many organizations that have done such excellent work looking out for our health and the wellbeing of our environment for so many years. 

Prove it First protects our clean water resources across Minnesota, and simply requires that proposed copper-sulfide mines in Minnesota prove that they have operated safely elsewhere in the United States for 10 years, and not polluted their local watersheds for 10 years after they ceased mining. We will not let Minnesota’s beautiful lakes and rivers be the guinea pigs for this type of mining.

My grounding in Duluth, where the St. Louis River empties into Lake Superior, drives me to be the lead author of this bill. My community has struggled to be heard in the copper-sulfide mining proposals over the years and we have never even been granted an evidentiary hearing on the impacts of the proposed mining projects. We are not willing to serve as a test case for wealthy international corporations to come into our area with experimental projects that put our public health, our economy, and our whole region in danger. We are going to insist that they Prove it First.

The video recording of the press conference is linked here and the bill itself can be found here. 

It’s official!

Just two weeks ago, I presented my certificate of election to Justice Barry Anderson and was sworn in to represent our beloved Duluth in the Minnesota State Senate. It was a very special day. Thank you for all of your support and kind and hopeful messages. I am so deeply moved that you have entrusted me to serve in this way. 

An update on vaccination planning and rollout

This week Minnesota has been steadily working through Phase 1a of vaccinations, which includes health care workers and long-term care residents and staff. Over 150,000 doses have been administered so far and thousands have already received their second dose. A new vaccine data dashboard gives an overview of how many vaccines have been distributed and administered throughout the state. Read more >>>

DFL Senators introduce K-12 education support legislation

Legislation was introduced this week to support students most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill will help schools provide programs to help parents, students, and teachers bridge the learning loss created by school closures prompted to curb the spread of the pandemic.

The bill, which has already been introduced in the House of Representatives, will cost roughly $60 million over two years and appropriate funds to:

• Expand full-service community schools that provide wrap-around services to schools and their communities 
• Enhance reading and math corps programs for tutoring services
• Expand after-school and summer school programs.

Unemployment Insurance updates

Soon after the state passed an extension for unemployment insurance (UI), the federal government took action at the end of December and passed an 11-week Unemployment Insurance extension. The federal extension includes the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program and the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program. Additionally, a $300 per week supplemental payment to anyone receiving unemployment benefits was also included.

While the federal government paid for the benefit extension, state governments are responsible for determining who qualifies and distributes the money. Those seeking unemployment can apply through the State of Minnesota.

In 2020, the UI program paid out $9,680,185,156 when accounting for regular and new federal benefits. This represents 23,010,049 actual payments. A recent DEED press release included the following, “Over the course of 2020, DEED received over a million new applications for unemployment insurance with payments going out to more than 814,000 individuals compared to 120,000 new applicants in 2019."

Businesses get assistance from the Legislature

The Legislature approved and Governor Walz signed into law a bill that provided $216 million in relief to businesses in December 2020. The money was divided into three areas: business relief payments ($88 million), movie theater and conventions center grants ($14 million), and county relief grants ($114.8 million). Read more >>>

DFLers continue to prioritize economic assistance for low-income families

The Senate Human Services Reform Committee heard a presentation this week on our state’s Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP). This program serves some of our lowest-income families with children who have had very little access to COVID-19 relief resources. About 27,000 families and 55,000 children in Minnesota rely on temporary help from MFIP while they seek financial stability through employment. Read more >>>