When it comes to safer communities and safer elections, it seems like Republicans in the legislature couldn’t care less. Here’s what they’ve been up to this week:
“Stomped on and run over”
While DFLers have been hard at work passing bills that uphold Minnesotans’ priorities, Republicans have been hard at work catering to the gun lobby.
At a pro-gun rally this week, one Republican, Representative Cal Bahr of East Bethel, took his rhetoric beyond the realm of “rights” and encouraged straight up violence. Here’s what he said, word for word:
“There’s a lot of us in this room that have had enough, and it’s time to start riding hard on the rest of these people that want to take your rights away from you. They will not go quietly into the good night. They need to be kicked to the curb and stomped on and run over a few times.”
Yikes. Somebody should tell him that “these people,” people who support common-sense gun safety measures, are the vast majority of Minnesotans.
You can watch the video of Representative Bahr’s comments here.
Voting against Minnesotans’ safety
Khadija, a high school student from Eagan, perhaps said it best. “Columbine happened in 1999, and I was born in 2002,” she said, “and still we’ve seen mass shooting after mass shooting.”
Minnesota students want to feel safe, and Minnesota parents want peace of mind when they drop their children off at school in the morning.
This week, two gun violence prevention bills, authored by DFLers, passed through committee, but not without a fight from Republicans. All Republicans in committee voted against these bills, and Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka has pledged to prevent any gun violence prevention measures from passing.
Letting Minnesota fall behind on election security
Minnesota is proud to be a state with consistently high voter turnout. That’s why safe and secure elections matter now more than ever. While DFLers are working to authorize federal funds for election security, Senate Republicans are short changing our state. Minnesota’s share of the federal funds is $6.6 million, but Republicans only authorized $1.5 million. To make matters worse, Minnesota is the only state that hasn’t authorized these funds already.
Future List: MN the #1 Most Hackable State? Minnesota is the only state that hasn’t yet authorized the funds from HAVA, putting the integrity of our elections at risk.
The Senate GOP needs to support accessing funds now to protect 2020 elections! mnleg pic.twitter.com/BuPVMD70jp
— Sen. Susan Kent (@SusanKentMN) February 28, 2019
While DFLers are listening to the Minnesotans they were elected to serve, Republicans are caving to the gun lobby and putting our elections at risk. We can’t let that continue.
