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Minnesotans should exert some pressure

Minnesotans need to raise a fuss if we’re ever going to get state leaders to agree on a special session this summer. The Legislature left a lot of important business undone this year.

Among the bills lost in the last-minute shuffle and its aftermath:

o A tax bill that did pass at the last minute, but was vetoed by Gov. Mark Dayton because of a small but meaningful grammatical error. The glitch would have cost the state some $108 million in revenue, something the GOP said could easily have been fixed with a letter of legislative intent to guide state administrators until the mistake could be corrected. The bill contained tax breaks for middle class Minnesotans, small business owners and farmers, and a special break for Madelia businesses that are rebuilding after the fire that destroyed their buildings in February.

o A bonding bill that would have funded many needed building projects in the state and created many jobs in the process, and would have funded many transportation projects as well.

o A bill to provide reliable funding for transportation needs over the next 10 years.

A special session of the Legislature is certainly needed. In fact, it would have been good to have it in June so that tax law changes could have taken effect July 1. But the session negotiations got bogged down in recriminations and finger-pointing. Now, it looks like the session may not happen at all.

With the election coming up in November, legislators are probably going to want to wait to see if their positions improve. If either side can add members, it would put them in a more powerful position. Good for the parties, bad for the public.

So we need to let our politicians know they need to finish the job they didn’t complete in the session.

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