State of the State:

I was honored to represent our community at this important event. Governor Dayton expressed his

commitment to a better Minnesota, with a strong sense of pride for what has been accomplished throughout his

tenure. I appreciate his strong support for early childhood education and the overall importance of

education.

I would echo those comments but add to them my strong stand to design a post secondary system that delivers on the 21st century economic opportunities

without burdening our young people with debt. We can transform this process by partnering with industry, Higher Ed, and K-12. In addition, I would also add a

strong commitment to reform the delivery of government services. The IT consolidation was meant to

be a beginning for the development of shared service platforms across all units of Government. This has not

been maximized and I call for a renewed pledge to tackle this with gusto. Lastly, I urge my colleagues and our

Governor to employ best management practices in every sector and make hiring retention and layoff decisions

with performance as the first and most important criteria.

I welcome hearing your take on the State of our State.

E-Pollbooks:

Over the past two years, I have been working on an initiative to make our Election Day process simpler and more cost-efficient for precincts. Minnetonka has been using Electronic Pollbook technology in their precincts

for the last couple of elections. By allowing drivers licenses to be scanned, data from other precincts to be

uploaded and verification of voters to be done electronically, this technology facilitates the election

process – making elections smoother for election judges.

Last Session, we created a Taskforce to look at this technology and how it can be expanded to other parts

of the State. Along with my colleague, former Secretary of State and current State Senator, Mary Kiffmeyer, I

participated in this Taskforce – chaired by current Secretary of State, Mark Ritchie. Our original goal was to see if this technology could be used to verify voters based on an online database of photos from the DMV

and other State Agencies. We soon discovered that the technology for facial-recognition is not quite where we need it to be in order to feel confident in this system.

However, we did move forward with legislation to allow any County in the State to use this technology if they so

choose. I know that Minnetonka has found great success in their use of E-Pollbooks and I am glad that

other areas of the State can now take advantage of this if they see a potential return on investment.

Medical Marijuana:

You have probably heard that medical marijuana is now moving in the legislature. The House passed a very limited bill. The Senate is moving a medical marijuana bill that would allow the user to smoke it. I support the Senate bill as I have heard from those who are in chronic pain or suffering with terminal illness and this flexibility does matter. This proposal still provides strong limits with regard to distribution and penalties with regard to misuse.

Topic Rewind: E-12 Budget

Last week, I polled this group to find out your thoughts on the E-12 budgets proposals. Just under half of you felt that the Governor’s proposal of $1.56 million is the best direction for us to take in this supplemental budget. I did receive several e-mails back from people who wanted to explain this position. The explanation offered was that given this is a supplemental budget, we should only be making modest investments. The remaining respondents were split between the House and Senatepositions.

S.F. 511: APRN

One of the more significant pieces of legislation that has been making its way through the Legislature this Session is the bill to expand the scope of practice for Advanced Practice Registered Nurses. While I support

the intent on the bill, to increase access for people in areas of the state that are lacking in health professionals, I heard strong opposition from Physicians. They were concerned that some of the provisions

within the bill would open up an area of practice that could pose significant health risks for patients.

The Chief Author, Senator Kathy Sheran, has worked extremely hard over the course of this Legislative Session to find compromise in the health care community. When the bill came up on the floor, she

introduced an amendment that satisfied all parties. By allowing more freedom for APRN’s to practice, while still requiring certain types of oversight by physicians in the area of interventional pain management, she

was able to reach consensus. The bill passed unanimously off of the Senate floor.