An anti-refugee, anti-Muslim Minneapolis-based organizer for Act! for America is urging supporters to contact the chair of the Government Operations and Elections Policy, asking that the committee hear HF4122, introduced on March 21 by state representative and US Senate candidate Jim Newberger, R-Becker.
The bill, which has no senate companion, has yet to be heard in a house committee. If the measure became law, a county could ask local and national resettlement agencies and sponsors to pay for public assistance provided to a noncitizen:
If a noncitizen receives public assistance administered by a single county for at least six months, that county may collect the cost, including administrative cost, of any additional public assistance administered by that county to the noncitizen. The costs may be collected from any of the following: (1) a local resettlement agency directly involved with the resettlement of the noncitizen; (2) a national voluntary agency affiliated with such a local resettlement agency; or (3) a sponsor that has agreed to help in the reception and placement of the noncitizen.
The bill--offered by a cluster of Republican lawmakers--was introduced nearly two weeks after the Office of the Legislative Auditor determined Refugee resettlement costs are difficult to gather, report says, according to the St. Cloud Times.
The push by anti-refugee activists. comes after the deadline for first hearings for bills. It's not the first time this cohort has united over going-nowhere legislation. Witness the freak-out this year over hearing-less house and senate bills stillborn in committee that we described in Anatomy of a smear: Jihad Watch blasts MN01 hopeful Nelson for economic development bill and MN1: Anti-Somali Minnesotans turn Facebook attention toward Anoka's Senator Jim Abeler.
March 22, the deadline for a first committee hearing of a bill in the house o this session of the Minnesota state legislature, has come and gone. Ordinarily, this means:
The 2018 committee deadlines are listed in this letter signed by House and Senate leadership. The committee deadlines are:
1st deadline - March 22, 2018 at midnight
2nd deadline - March 29, 2018 at midnight
3rd deadline - April 20, 2018 at midnightExplanation
There is no yearly deadline for the introduction of bills. However, each year the Legislature establishes deadlines for committee action on bills. Committee deadlines are announced during the first half of a session in order to winnow the list of topics to be dealt with that year.
"The deadlines do not apply to the House committees on Capital Investment, Ways and Means, Taxes, or Rules and Legislative Administration, nor to the Senate committees on Capital Investment, Finance, Taxes, or Rules and Administration."
"The first deadline is for committees to act favorably on bills in the house of origin."
"The second deadline is for committees to act favorably on bills, or companions of bills, that met the first deadline in the other house."
"The third deadline is for committees to act favorably on major appropriation and finance bills."
"When a committee in either house acts favorably on a bill after a deadline established in the concurrent resolution, the bill must be referred in the Senate to the Committee on Rules and Administration and in the House of Representatives to the Committee on Rules and Legislative Administration for disposition. Either rules committee, when reporting a bill referred to the committee under this rule, may waive application of the rule to subsequent actions on that bill by other committees." (Joint Rule 2.03, Deadlines)
That last paragraph indicates that there are exceptions to the rule, and we certainly see a few happening next week in the Minnesota House Government Operations and Elections Policy Committee, where HF4122 now slumbers. According to the committee's webpage, there's at least one bill being heard that missed the deadline and which has no Senate companion:
HF4114 - (Miller): Compensation to businesses provided for loss of business opportunity from sale and closure of biomass energy plant, account created, and money transferred.
While that measure has no senate companion (there's a similiar bill, HF4118, that does; it originated in the Senate and is moving forward), the issue itself does employ a number of lobbyists working for some of those businesses (example here) affected by the closing. Their clients would be able to tap into $20 million (HF4114) or $40 million from the renewable energy fund fueled by Xcel ratepayers under modifications to the Prairie Island agreement made last year.
Meanwhile, the anti-refugee folks--who have no representation in the phalanx of lobbyists in St. Paul--are asking for calls that the Newberger bill be heard. Anderson posts in part on Facebook:
Heads up MN: URGENT! SUPPORT LEGISLATION HF 4122
Allows Limits to Public Assistance for Refugee Resettlement.
After six months, counties may collect public assistance resettlement costs from a local or national resettlement agency or sponsor. . . .Call Tim O’Driscoll, Chair of the House Government Operations Committee . . .
Urge him to schedule HF4122 for a committee hearing!The 2018 House deadline for passing bills out of a committee has passed, but our state is in urgent need of some fiscal responsibility being brought to bear on the nongovernmental Voluntary Agencies. Until very recently, they have been so lacking in transparency that they literally have barred local taxpayers from even attending their planning meetings, all this while the costs of the resettlement program are extraordinary. Efforts for a cost accounting are being stymied at every turn.
This issue is an urgent concern and public policy matter. Scheduling a committee hearing will go a long way toward easing tensions by bringing these issues to light and laying the groundwork for addressing them legislatively.
Bluestem doubts that tensions would be eased by such a hearing--only the airing of grievances by anti-refugee advocates and a chance for Newberger to play to his base, such as it is, in his struggle to gain a few moments in the sun in his windmill tilting at the popular U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar .
We suggest that O'Driscoll not waste time on this one.
Photo: State rep and US Senate candidate Jim Newberger (far left), R-Becker.
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