May 5th, 2023 Legislative Update

This week is Small Business Week, a time to celebrate the great things our local small businesses do for our communities, including providing needed services and creating jobs in our community. We had a lengthy debate on Tuesday over the Democrats' Paid Family and Medical Leave bill. This bill would impose massive mandates on virtually every business in the state, and raise taxes on all employees to fund a massive new program and hire 400 new government bureaucrats to run it.

Local businesses are very worried about how this will affect their ability to provide good-paying jobs for their employees while also complying with these new mandates and taxes. This bill, if signed into law, would cause Minnesotans who already have access to paid leave to be taxed even more for a benefit they already have, as many businesses in our state already offer a paid leave plan.

Republicans proposed an alternative that would offer a private insurance option instead of creating a new bureaucracy and costing tax payers billions more. You can see the details of this proposed alternative in the table at left. Unfortunately, House Democrats voted that alternative down.

This bill has passed the House over bipartisan opposition, but the Senate has not yet voted on it. I am hopeful that the Senate will see that this bill is completely unreasonable and a huge burden on job creators and employees.

Please Contact Me Please feel free to reach out to my office if there is any way I can be of assistance. My phone number is 651-296-4282, I am here to serve you! Have a great weekend! Jim