you're watching LM CC your community TV [Music] hello and welcome to talking points I'm Katie Eriksen with the League of Women Voters of south Tonka and today we're talking about Minnesota's 2019 legislative session with representatives Kelly Morrison she was first elected in 2018 and this is her first year as a legislator before we get into talking about the legislature first can you tell us a little bit about yourself and about your district sure I'm Kelly Morrison and I am a physician actually I've been practicing here in Minnesota for almost 18 years I've been married for 22 years I have three teenagers and my husband and I and our kids and our two dogs have lived in Deephaven for 10 years tomorrow actually we moved here a decade ago and our my district just 33 B which encompasses nine communities in the South Lake Minnetonka area and we're an interesting district because we are deeply purple which I see is an opportunity we have it's one of the kind of to disappear in places where Democrats and Republicans and independents live next door to each other which I see is an opportunity I think that's great because I'm always looking for things that bring us together well Minnesota is unusual in that we have a divided legislature Republicans have a majority in the Senate Democrats have a majority in the house and we have a Democratic governor but despite that you folks were able to come together and pass a number of bills the bipartisan basis you increase money for education you enacted protections for seniors living in assisted living facilities you had some targeted tax cuts you passed a hands-free cellphone driving bill that I think takes effect tomorrow that's right you increased local government aid and for the first time in 30 years you increased the monthly stipend for people getting money through the Minnesota family investment program so you were able to come together on a number of things but I'm sure there are a number of things that that you had to leave on the table so what was your overall impression of this session which was your first as a legislature because you were elected in 2018 so that's right overall take on that that's right you know I think there's a lot that we can all be proud of in Minnesota as one of their some debate as to not Alaska so as a divided legislature but we like to think of ourselves as the only state in the country that currently has a divided legislature and in these very partisan times that is challenging but we found a way to craft a budget that works for most Minnesotans which I think we can all be proud of we show the country that it can be done and so I was very heartened by that the end of the session was imperfect but I think when you're dealing with a divided legislature when both sides come away with some winds and a few disappointments we probably did something right we made compromises which is what politics is supposed to be about yeah that's generally works now you're one of four physicians in the legislature and you were vice-chair for the Health and Human Services Committee what were your goals for the committee coming into the session well as a physician it's really important to me that people get the health care that they need so figuring out how we can get everyone access and make it affordable is the ultimate challenge for our state and for our country right now and addressing the disparities that exist in healthcare in our country is excuse me in our state specifically is a big challenge that we have to take on because that's the future of our state and if we care about Minnesota we got to tackle that and healthcare is a piece of that solution in terms of your goals for the goal going into the session for the committee what were you hoping to do well I was really hoping that we could consider a Minnesota care by an option I can't hand on that the governor was for a version of that and I do think that as we look at if we think of States as sort of the laboratories for democracy I think it's a good way to experiment on a state level to see if this is a viable way of increasing access and bringing down costs so that did not pass that's true so is that I assume it would be a goal for the next session are there other things you'd like to see the committee accomplish next session I really hope that we will tackle that again Accession i think that protecting the provider tax was it a very important accomplishment in my view the provider tax is imperfect as all taxes are but it's worked pretty well for more than 25 years to provide health care to some of our more vulnerable Minnesotans more than a million Minnesotans rely on the healthcare access fund which the provider tax fund so if we had let that revenue source go away a lot of us would have been in real trouble now you try to enact the drug price transparency can you tell us about that and what it would do yeah I think this this piece of legislation has real potential and it's got a lot of bipartisan support which I really strove to achieve in the session it worked really hard to reach across the aisle particularly in our divided legislature and again reflecting my district we I represent everyone in 33b and that's across the political spectrum so the drug price transparency Act was is one way of trying to figure out why the cost of prescription medications is so high right now Julie Rosen who is a Republican senator authored the bill in the Senate so it was a Republican out there in the Senate and me in the house so I was really hopeful that it would get through but it got lost in the mix in the conference committee negotiations but the idea of the bill is to ask the pharmaceutical companies to explain their pricing so for drugs that come on market at a very high price or drugs that have been on the market or are newly acquired and increase exponentially over 12 and 24 month period we're asking those companies to report to the health commissioner why though just to explain why those prices are what they are what how much what are the manufacturing costs what are the distribution crop costs what are the marketing costs what's research and development why are these drugs so expensive and this is not to demonize pharmaceutical companies they've done many great things for many of us and we need them but they've also made a lot of money in their industry and so there has to be a and a lot of Minnesotans are struggling to afford their medications this just devastating example of Alex Smith this young man who died 26 years old because he was rationing his insulin because he couldn't afford it that shouldn't happen in Minnesota and so we're this is one way I think to try to come at this there's not going to be one magic pill there's no one solution to all these problems but I think this provides some information and probably puts a little bit of pressure on the companies too to explain what's going on there yes when the prices for insulin skyrocket the price for EpiPen goes through the roof and I mean there's you expect companies that make a reasonable profit exactly but is there anything else we can do besides in them I'm sure you looked at all those things I've been serving on this working group to look at the Alex Smith bill because that also had bipartisan support but was lost in the conference committee negotiations and so this is a bipartisan bicameral group that's been meeting all summer to try to resurrect this bill and I'm really hopeful we've agreed on a framework where we're still haggling over that have the funding source that's right that's right some of us some of us think that the pharmaceutical companies should be asked to participate and then others of us think that the taxpayer should pay for it I favor asking the pharmaceutical companies who have profited so much from these medicines to participate so that no Minnesotan dies because they can't access insulin which is a hormone that's been around for many decades shouldn't be that expensive and it isn't in most countries in the world well it's right that's right so and then there's opioid addiction which is a problem in Minnesota and the rest of the country for that matter and there was a bill to increase fees on drug manufacturers can you talk about that and what that sure do will do yeah boy I have I have so much respect for Chris Eaton who's a senator who lost a daughter to this epidemic and Dave Baker representative who the Sun - this epidemic he's a Republican she's a Democrat and they've worked together for years now trying to find solutions to this problem they are just driven to make sure that other families don't go through what they did and I've just got so much admiration for both of them and I'm so pleased that we were able to craft and imperfect but but a pretty strong build that really does a lot toward prevention and treatment well you have to start somewhere and a lot of things even like Social Security got started but it gets changed over time so there are opportunities to improve it and that's right that's right we got to start somewhere that's right yeah we lost I believe 422 Minnesotans last year to this epidemic and I want to see that number that's all over the state that's just not and that is all over the state that's right yeah our rural areas are really struggling with this problem education new folks increase the education funding by correct me if I'm wrong 1.2 billion over the next couple of years did you support the increase there are other things you think we should have done I did support that increase you know our education funding was cut during the recession and really have many districts had fallen way behind and education as we all know is the future of our state one of the reasons that we are such a successful state and we're the home to so many Fortune 500 companies is we historically have had such a well-educated workforce companies want to come here and we need them to come here because we want good jobs for our people we need to grow the economy these special education cross-subsidy has created a big burden on funding our schools so I was proud that we froze that at least for a year but we need help from the federal government who has not lived up to its promise of funding that it's expensive to educate our kids but it's an investment that I think we all agree is worth it right should we have done more or is there other things besides just increasing the spending I mean I know it helps the individual school districts I assume it helps them all of the school districts all over the state it does it does that's right you know there are a lot of things that I wish we could have done you can't have everything we have we have finite resources but again getting back to addressing our disparities increasing the number of teachers of color I think is an important goal when we're talking about that kid there's a lot of evidence that kids learn best when they are taught by people who look like them and have a similar background so we we have very we have relatively few teachers of color in our state compared to how many kids of color we have that's an opportunity for us to improve which is continues to be a problem for Minnesota that's right that's right and when you look at I think about this with health care to which you know we talk so much about health care health really only about 20% of our health has to do with health care going to the doctor in the hospital 80% of it has to do with the social determinants of health so transportation nutrition pollution the environment all those things factored in and that's true for education too if you don't have stable housing and a hot meal it's pretty hard to learn yeah so it's Education noise and all these issues are all always all tied together that's right and you've got to work on them all at the same time nothing exists in a silo that's right they all overlap and intersect transportation let's talk about the best way to fund our roads and bridges tricky one you had a proposal to increase the gas tax what's the right balance between a dedicated funding source and taking money from other areas which I assume is what you have to do right it's a huge challenge and our roads are in serious disrepair I think we've got a C and a D on our roads and bridges and to the point where they've determined that Minnesotans on average spend about $1,000 a year repairing the damage that our roads have done to their cars so we're kind of losing money in the end either way and we all drive on our roads we know how bad Minnesota also has many thousands more roads than most states we have a hundred and thirty three thousand miles of roads so it's a big task for us I think as we as we talk about transitioning away from fossil fuels and and hopefully increase the number of electron electric vehicles that we use those numbers are still really small only about one percent of the cars on our roads in Minnesota or electric vehicles so I think a transitional fix is to increase the gas tax I did favor that and I think there needs to be a way to make it somewhat more progressive because it can be a regressive tax so there has to be a way to give lower-income people a break on that but in general if you use our roads you should pay for our roads I think and that's one way to do it but we were in we really need to address our roads and bridges we don't want to see another 35w bridge collapse situation that was horrifying and so this is this is kind of an emergent see in my view is there any way to get it so that it is built in to be increased a little bit every year instead of having to have this big kind of percentage looking at us all the time every five or 10 years yeah yeah well part of the problem is we've let it go for so long yeah so if we supposed to do that if we scheduled more regular repair and perhaps look for alternative alternate funding sources it's tricky we have a lot of needs in our state and we're a relatively high tech state and we need to keep a balance there I think part of the reason the Minnesota is such a great place to live and work is because we invest in our state but we don't want our taxes to get so high that we scare people away we want we want businesses and people to thrive here so it's a balance in my mind thank you it's time for a short break when we come back I'll continue our conversation about this year's legislative session [Music] check out LM CC on Facebook be sure to LIKE and friend us so you can keep up with all the happenings or to watch one of your favorite videos welcome back to talking points I'm Kay Erickson with the League of Women Voters of south tanka in this segment of the program representative Kelly Morris and I will continue our discussion about this year's legislative session you co-authored multiple bills relating to the Equal Rights Amendment can you talk about that and why that was important women and all people are not discriminated on the basis of gender and so the bill in the house asked to put it on the ballot in Minnesota that did not pass the Senate so it won't be on the ballot but we'll try to to come at it again next time I trust the people of Minnesota and I think it's a reasonable question to to place what are some of the discrepancies you see in the treatment of women and women that need to be addressed by the Equal Rights Amendment well there are all kinds of areas where women can be treated differently and they don't have direct protection of the law so I think it's important okay you also co-authored the local options bill for ranked choice voting which didn't get passed this year why do you think it's important for local communities to be able to vote this way instead of just one person one vote yeah I think rank-choice voting is a real opportunity for us the way it works is if people if one candidate doesn't get more than 50% of the vote it automatically goes to a factor in the other choices so the voter will rank their top three candidates for example so the effect of this is to have candidates campaign to everyone and not to a smaller percentage of the electorate it tends to make elections more civil there's less attacking there's less negative advertising and if they're and it creates kind of an instant runoff so it saves money so we don't have to go through that process again and the other effect of it is that the the person who wins by definition has at least some support from morts from the majority of the electorate so I think it's a great idea to let and this bill just allowed communities to decide whether or not they wanted to do rank-choice voting this is not a statewide initiative so I think it's a great way for communities to try it out and I think there's real potential for improving our democracy with it aren't cities some cities already doing in some cities do already do it yeah Minneapolis does that's right okay so we do have some experience with it that's right all over the country actually it's it's it's really catching on I think there's real potential there okay so maybe next time yeah I think we all agree that it would we'd all appreciate it if our politics were more civil climate change is an issue for the country for Minnesota what do you think Minnesota can do as a state to address climate change initiatives that you support yeah the climate crisis is really it's sort of become a cliche expression but it is the existential threat that we face it's an emergency and so we have to act in the bill that representative Jamie long introduced in the house called for setting a goal of creating 100% carbon free electricity by 2050 Xcel Energy has already committed to that and a business and the CEO of Excel has been quoted saying it's the climate shouldn't be a partisan issue and boy do I agree with him this this could be our great national project if we had leadership that would take it on and inspire all of us to do it it's it's going to take a big national effort but at a minimum we can do things on the state level so if Excel is be supporting this what are they changing in order to serve to accomplish that are they going to do more wind and solar or they already are they already are it's actually interesting because they've learned that wind has now become cheaper than coal and so from just a pure business standpoint they want to do wind energy because it's cheaper for them and clearly it's better for the environment so more wind more solar we've got to invest in research to figure out the best there's some really exciting research that's being done where they're used they're capturing carbon from the atmosphere and recycling it to power things I know it so it's important that we invest in those areas because we're we're close to teetering to a point of no return well in Minnesota I think from what I've read is is getting warmer faster than other parts of the country that's exactly right it's important yeah now Minnesota always prides itself on its rivers and lakes what do you see is the biggest threat to our water resources that's a great question and it's so relevant in district 33 B where we almost have more water than land with Lake Minnetonka are arguably best loved and most used lake in the state so protecting our water is important and climate change relates to this as we have more precipitation there's more runoff from agriculture from lawns so we have increased pesticides and fertilizers salt and sediment going into our lakes and rivers that create that and then the warming waters with the warming climate creates algae blooms and then the pollution is toxic to aquatic life so we've got big challenges we need to look at how we do agriculture a little bit differently and one of the one of the small changes that was made under the Dayton administration that was helpful was creating buffers around farm areas that are next to two waterways too and and that when there are native plants and a variety of plants planted they they create a filter for water and they actually clean it out before it hits it hits the the bodies of water so there's a lot we can do but we got more to do well in the cities the farmers would say you know we're not the only ones that have absolutely solved is a huge issue that's it's always there's a research about other alternatives put pretty as much salt on our roads as we do because the salt goes right in and they I would assume the chemistry that's exactly right that's exactly right and we've used Sam sometimes too but that also runs out in Korean as well so we probably can all use less and we can slow down on the roads and make sure that we're driving defensively and far away from the driver in front of us but we probably will need to look at changing some of the laws before we ruin our lakes and rivers did the legislature do anything pertaining to invasive species which is a huge problem on that is on Minnetonka and the other things that are coming in things I've never spiny things right right yeah things that are coming in that we you know that's right aquatic invasive species is a big challenge and our and our beautiful state that is rich with lakes I actually authored a bill to increase the fee on watercraft which was five dollars for three years per boat which seemed pretty low to me and has been that since about 1986 so I proposed raising that so that we could raise revenue to to prevent and treat the spread of aquatic invasive species so I proposed $20 over three years actually and wait with you know compromise in politics we landed on $10.60 for three years exactly so that will create money for the lake associations and for the DNR we also invested further funds in helping the Minnesota aquatic invasive species Research Center which is affiliated with the University of Minnesota they're doing great work so hopefully we're going to make some progress in that area but it's important that we all if we take boats from Lake to Lake that we really follow the rules and make sure that we're not transmitting these invasive species from Lake to Lake when that five dollar fee started I think there were there was just maybe one species identified and they were in about 40 lakes and now it's all over the state and there are multiple species so we have to proceed with real caution j-jane is subject completely gun violence prevention was also raised at the legislature did you support proposals to expand background checks or private gun transfers or allowing guns to be temporarily removed from people who posed a threat to themselves or others I did support those measures Kay they are I actually liked the approach that was taken to just focus on these two bills that have actually majority support all over the state ninety percent of Minnesotans favor universal criminal background checks so there's real consensus on these issues rather than trying to go after a bunch of different angles we all have the goal of keeping our kids in community safe whether you're a gun owner or not and if you're a law-abiding gun owner and none of these would apply to you so this one of them just closed the loophole so that background checks become universal and then the other extreme risk protection orders help law enforcement remove guns from people who are a danger to themselves or others and we've had experience in other states with this and we've got data now that show that it has decreased the risk of suicide particularly suicides one of our major problems with gun violence I think we lost four hundred and almost 50 people last year to gun deaths suicide in Minnesota Minnesota yeah in Minnesota alone so most Minnesotans agree that these are measures that we should be taking okay switching to business yeah I've read articles that say Minnesota isn't as business friendly as it might be or other things that Minnesota is doing or can do to make sure that startups want to locate here that it's easier for entrepreneurs to be in Minnesota as opposed to other states yeah that's an important question because as we're talking about earlier it is so important that we attract new businesses and that we keep our best minds here to to reinvest in our state the best thing we can do is have a healthy educated workforce that's a huge piece and so investing in health and investing in education is a part of that I also think that actually attended a chamber breakfast a little while ago and the question was posed what would do the most to improve the VIS misen vironment in Minnesota decreased the personal income tax rate decrease the business tax or decreased capital gains I believe the third choice was overwhelmingly it was income tax businesses see that they want to have more of their money in their own individual pockets so that they can make those investments and so keeping our state income tax at a reasonable level I think is important the angel tax credit I think is is an important part of attracting new businesses to our state and I think that's a that's an innovative way to that does what it creates a tax credit for people who invest in new tech there's sort of a list of startups that are supported this way yeah so there's something being done absolutely absolutely now while there were significant areas of agreement and a number of important laws were passed the legislative session still ended in closed-door negotiations among leadership is there anything that can be done to increase transparency at the end of the session so it's not all done at the end it's been that way for years it's a real challenge you know the joke was there's no such thing as a special session anymore because they're all special because we seem to almost always have a special session now and that that's a problem that's not that's not what our Constitution calls for we should be able to get the work done in the time allotted and I think that some of it I think that Governor Wallace and Majority Leader gazelka and speaker Hartmann started the session off on a really positive note saying you know what let's get the non-controversial issue items that were in the big omnibus crime bill that Governor Dayton vetoed let's get those done and then we can get into the more thorny political issues and I thought that was very hopeful I think the three of them worked pretty well together but it shouldn't come down to three people making the final decisions in the end the way did I think we'd all like to see more transparency we'd like to see those negotiations happen in a more public way and I don't know if we need to have tighter rules on conference committees when there's a House bill and a Senate bill that differs slightly at the end of session conference committees are appointed and they hashed through and those are those meet publicly hashed through trying to make compromises in the bill that they can then give to the governor to sign and there were some chairs of conference committees who just refused to participate and I guess I don't think that's the way it should be I think there maybe should be some requirement and maybe if you don't show up to conference committee you don't get to vote so I think there's some opportunity there representative gene pawlowski has started some legislative reform hearings this summer he's a Democrat and he is he's very interested in improving the process too so we were able to craft a budget that works for Minnesota as I said before but it could have been better there could have been more transparency Thanks now is there anything you'd like to add that we haven't talked about or that you'd like to say about the legislative session in general again well you know I just want to reiterate I'm sort of a half-full optimistic kind of a person and I left the session feeling that way too there are a lot of really good people on both sides of the aisle trying to do the right thing for our state and that was really heartening to me and I go back to district 33 be where we have Democrats and Republicans and independents living next door to each other we need to get back to talking to each other and listening to each other I think we could use more listening in politics let's bring the temperature down a little bit and let's all figure out what's best for our state together sounds like a good idea well thank you for being here thank you for sharing your insights about the session and thank you for your service well thanks so much for the opportunity programs like this are just part of what league does to make a democracy work we educate our members and our communities about issues about how government works we lobby on our positions of the local state and national levels we're nonpartisan that we don't support political parties or candidates our South tanka League is open to everyone sixteen years of age and older and we serve cities in southwest Hennepin County we invite you to join us you can find out more about our league on our website lwv South tanka org finally I'd like to thank the Lake Minnetonka Communications Commission for the opportunity to present this program and thank you for watching [Music] you [Music]