Quite often I may hear of frustration that someone made a change and then publicly denounce it with no information. I always wish that people would at least research why a change was made and then educate the public as to why the change was made. I’m particularly referring to the issue of one less agriculture committee at the Capitol.    

I communicated with Speaker of the House Rep. Melissa Hortman on this as I was curious. She told me she streamlined the committee structure to allow bills in some areas to move faster than they had in earlier committee configurations. Agriculture is one area she did that. Rep. Poppe and others had indicated throughout the prior biennium that bills relating to agriculture actually took twice as long to get through the committee process as they needed to, since they had to go through a policy and a finance committee.  Testifiers had to travel twice to the Capitol to provide the same testimony on the same bill, just in two different committees. By making one committee that has jurisdiction over both policy and finance, it will speed up consideration of bills in this area.

Quite often we complain of the lengthy process that it takes to get a bill pass and in addition complain of duplication.  I applaud Rep. Hortman for streamlining a process that was especially frustrating for outstate voters. Please be assured all elected officials will still have a voice. I’m sure someone will be picky about what Rep. Hortman has done, in addition attempt to confuse the public. Unfortunately that’s the nature of some elected officials. 

Paul Tuveson

Woodbury