Democrats block ‘common-sense’ school safety legislation as session enters its final weeks

On Tuesday, Democrats in the Minnesota House of Representatives voted down GOP school safety legislation that included additional funding, local options for school districts to create an anonymous threat reporting system, and would let schools suspend students for longer.

“With about a month left in session, the question is simple: are we here to get results, or play politics?” GOP State Rep. Ron Kresha said in a statement. “Every day Democrats delay is another day we fail to act and another day where students, teachers, and families aren’t getting the school safety support they’re asking for.”

That vote came as state lawmakers continue discussing how best to protect students in the classroom. Democrats have proposed sweeping new gun restrictions to accomplish school safety, while Republicans have put forward proposals they say are doable this year.

At a press conference before Tuesday’s vote, Republicans said their school safety bill was a “common-sense” proposal. One lawmaker noted that the anonymous threat reporting system was actually a DFL proposal introduced earlier this session.

However, the Republican school safety bill was blocked 12-12 in the House Education Policy Committee with all Democrats voting against it. As such, the bill was laid over for possible inclusion in a future omnibus bill.

During the committee hearing, Democratic members said the anonymous reporting system needs to be mandatory rather than simply encouraged. One DFL member said the proposed changes to school suspension law “makes it look like you’re criminalizing our students.”

State Rep. Cheryl Youakim, who is the DFL lead on the Education Finance Committee, said the bill “is not what we need to make change happen in our schools now. It doesn’t make our kids safer or our schools better prepared to tackle an emergency.”

Youakim said the Democrats will unveil their own school safety legislation today.

GOP lawmaker says ‘it seems rather obvious’ DFL worked to kill bipartisan bill

Republican State Rep. Peggy Bennett is one of the leading state lawmakers on education policy in Minnesota. A teacher for more than 30 years, Bennett recently discussed how a prior version of the anonymous threat reporting bill died in committee.

Originally, a DFL lawmaker introduced a bill that would require school districts to use anonymous threat reporting systems. However, Bennett said that legislation came with a “heavy mandate” on schools, so a bipartisan amendment to that bill was drawn up.

“Together, we developed a bill which we could all support that would create opportunities and encourage schools to voluntarily adopt an anonymous threat reporting system at low or no cost,” she wrote in a legislative update.

Among other things, the new language required the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) to produce an annual report, starting in 2029, that contained data from anonymous threat reporting systems used by schools across the state.

Bennett told Alpha News that the bill “would help keep kids safer in school” and “was on its way to full committee support,” but then MDE “swooped in, just a few hours before the committee vote, with a new claim that the modest [annual report] would require funding.”

The DFL author then pulled the bill from being heard in committee, Bennett said.

According to Bennett, MDE had not previously brought up any issues with the bill when it was heard in committee the month before and contained language about the annual MDE report. Since the DFL bill was pulled, a Republican bill with the same language was heard instead.

However, Democrats opposed an effort to send that bill on to its final destination, saying the language needed to be reviewed by another House committee to determine its fiscal impact. Bennett said a fiscal summary later showed no cost to MDE.

The same day the fiscal summary came back, DFLers attempted to bring a ban on “large-capacity” magazines to the House floor for a vote. Democrats have repeatedly pushed gun control bills in response to the Annunciation School shooting that occurred last year.

During that floor session, Bennett said the Annunciation shooting was a “terrible tragedy” but noted that a ban on “high-capacity” magazines did not have bipartisan support in the House and would not solve the problem Minnesota is facing.

Bennett told her colleagues that the anonymous threat reporting bill had bipartisan support before the agency stepped in and the bill was withdrawn.

“I’m tired of the constant political battling that happens that stops us from finding common ground like we found in [our committee],” Bennett told the chamber. “That is wrong. People want us to come together on the things we can agree on.”

In a statement to Alpha News, Bennett said the anonymous threat reporting legislation “is [a bill] where legislators and advocates have found mutual agreement. Why wouldn’t we pass it? It seems rather obvious that someone higher up in the Democratic leadership put pressure on behind the scenes to kill this bipartisan bill.”

Bennett elaborated on why she thinks the DFL killed the bill, saying, “I can think of no other reason than the bipartisan passage of a school safety bill like this would create an inconvenient quandary for their anti-gun messaging.

“I’m not one to quickly assign intentions, but it sure appears that Democrats killed a solid, fully bipartisan DFL bill that would keep kids safer in school so they can stay on their anti-gun narrative which they know will never pass,” she added.

Luke Sprinkel

Luke Sprinkel previously worked as a Legislative Assistant at the Minnesota House of Representatives. He grew up as a Missionary Kid (MK) living in England, Thailand, Tanzania, and the Middle East. Luke graduated from Regent University in 2018.