This week Democrats passed two controversial policy bills off the floor: the Labor policy bill and the Education policy bill. Both have many problems. I want folks to be aware of what’s in them.

Let’s start out with the Education Policy bill: a partisan, mandate-heavy bill that fails to address the things schools need the most help with. Schools throughout the state are struggling. We’re seeing lower graduation rates and fewer than half of Minnesota students are performing at grade-level in both math and reading. Yet instead of addressing these concerns, Democrats opted to put forward a bill that takes authority away from school boards, requires school board members to go through “training,” requires schools to consult with union representatives regarding paraprofessional training, allows smudging in public schools, and gives librarians full authority in selection and reconsideration of “age-appropriate books” in school libraries. We should be addressing the areas where our schools are falling short – many of those issues are happening because they were overwhelmed with Democrats’ mandates from last year. Our schools lack the funding and budgets needed to address their needs, and that’s because every dollar is getting eaten up by these burdensome mandates. Instead of helping schools out, and trusting school boards to be the local voices they were elected to be, we’re just piling more mandates on. This will not help our schools, and it will not address the shortcomings in our education system.

We need to put students first. That means giving school districts the tools to succeed. We tried to offer an amendment that would have allowed school districts to have an “onramp” for adapting to last year’s mandates because our schools have been asking for time to figure things out. Democrats were not interested in that option and they voted it down. Instead of focusing on “banning book bans,” Democrats should recognize the trouble our schools are in. School districts across the state are begging for help – this bill offers them none.

Let’s turn to the Labor Policy bill, which is going to do nothing but harm businesses in the state. Minnesota has 10,000 fewer jobs now than we did in 2020, and our economy is stumbling. This year’s bill heavily focuses on altering our state’s minimum wage laws. Currently the Department of Labor and Industry (DLI) can adjust minimum wage with a cap of 2.5% on the adjustment. Under this bill, they can increase minimum wage by up to 5% every single year. Democrats also eliminated a distinction that currently allows large employers to pay a lower rate to employees under the age of 18. This is going to create huge problems for small businesses and our hospitality industries, which still haven’t even recovered from Walz’s lockdowns. We need to incentivize business growth in our state, and this bill fails to do that.

These are bad bills – they force more burdens on the entities that are struggling the most. We should be helping schools address their issues and encouraging small businesses to continue growing. The bills that Democrats bring forward consistently do the opposite of what people are asking for. I will continue providing updates as these bills continue moving through the process.