Nation's only divided legislature passes bipartisan budget for Minnesota

Bipartisanship isn’t dead. Minnesotans can be proud of the way Democrats in the House and Republicans in the Senate worked together during the 2021 legislative session to successfully pass a $52 billion budget, end the COVID-19 peacetime state of emergency and help our state recover from the pandemic. I want to take this column as an opportunity to give you an update on what we passed this session and how it impacts our St. Cloud community.

I believe the core of my job as your state representative is to work with my constituents to pass meaningful legislation for our community and our state. By building off my experience from my previous term and utilizing my position as assistant majority leader, I advanced 12 of the bills I authored through the process and to the governor’s desk to be enacted into law. From my legislation funding a safety study of U.S. Highway 10 or my bill delivering dollars to the St. Cloud Children’s Museum to investments in local public health grants, we overcame partisan differences to pass bills that will make St. Cloud and Central Minnesota a better place to live, work and raise a family.

My top priority is the safety and security of our community. That’s why I worked hard to pass a public safety bill that not only implements new accountability measures for officers throughout the state, but also properly supports them through the trauma and danger that comes with their service. I passed legislation making it illegal to share the home address of a police officer without their consent – also known as doxing. I support peaceful protests, but doing so outside the private homes of law enforcement and their families is too far. Our St. Cloud police officers need to be focused on their jobs of protecting our community, not worrying about the safety of their spouse and children at their home. I also passed a bill designating specialty plates for the Minnesota 100 Club, which provides financial aid to surviving families of first responders who are killed or seriously injured while defending our safety. I hope you will consider getting one!

As a football coach and the parent of two daughters, I’ve seen firsthand how Minnesota’s students had to adapt and overcome so many changes and obstacles in pandemic learning. From our youngest learners to our college students, it was important to me that our budget gave them the tools and resources they deserved. We made historic investments in our students at St. Cloud public schools, and my bill making our school buses safer by funding cameras on school bus stop arms also passed. For our higher education students, the future of our workforce, I authored successful legislation making textbooks more affordable through the Z-Degree program, and ensured their access to food by funding the Hunger Free Campus Act.

Our small businesses deserve state support for the life-saving sacrifices they made during the pandemic. Through no fault of their own, local businesses sacrificed an incredible amount over the last year, which is why we cut taxes for impacted small businesses. I partnered with the Greater St. Cloud Development Corp. to pass legislation investing in Business Development Public Infrastructure grants, which will help grow and retain jobs in our community.

All together, despite being the only divided legislature in the country, we set aside our partisan differences and passed a state budget that puts Minnesota back on the right track after an unprecedented year. The nature of compromise is that no one gets everything they want. Both sides walk away with important priorities left behind, but even with deep partisan divisions, we still got an impressive number of bills to Gov. Walz’s desk and passed a budget that will help Minnesotans bounce back from the past year and thrive.

Now that session is over, it feels great to be back home in St. Cloud. I’m fired up for my ninth season coaching freshman football at Sauk Rapids-Rice High School, and I’m excited for fun summer nights with my daughters at Summertime by George and the Riverside Park splash pad. I hope to see you out and about, whether at the grocery store, park, brewery, or your doorstep, and welcome your ideas and feedback on what we did or did not accomplish this past session. You are my boss, so always feel free to let me know what’s on your mind!

— State Rep. Dan Wolgamott is serving his second term in the Minnesota House representing District 14B. A Democrat, Wolgamott serves as the assistant majority leader and resides in St. Cloud.