By Senator Jeremy Miller
Greetings from the Capitol.The 2020 legislative session is now officially underway here at the Minnesota Capitol! It’s always difficult leaving Janel and the boys, and being away from the scrap yard, but the energy around the Capitol is undeniable this time of year. I’m very much looking forward to continuing to listen to the people and work together to get good things done for the great state of Minnesota!
As different proposals move thought the legislative process, there are a number of ways for you to follow along as well as ask questions and provide input.
•The Combined Legislative Calendar, https://www.leg.state.mn.us/cal, lists all upcoming meetings for the House, Senate, and various oversight commissions. If you want to know what’s happening at the legislature on any given day or week, this is where you should look first.
•If you see a committee hearing or floor session on the calendar that you are interested in watching, the House and Senate both have streaming video and audio services. Additionally, committee hearings each day are either televised or available via audio recording.
To view the list of Senate TV livestreams as well as video archives, visit http://mnsenate.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=1.
To access the video and audio archives for Senate committees and floor sessions visit https://www.senate.mn/media/.
•To view a list of bills introduced in the Senate, visit https://www.senate.mn/orders/intros/intro_list_from_db.php. It is important to remember that just because a bill is introduced does not mean that it is going anywhere; most bills never even receive a hearing.
•If there is a bill you are interested in, you should check out the bill search tool at https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/status_search.php?body=Senate. You can search by keyword, by author, by topic, or by committee. Once you have found the bill you are interested in, you can track its progress through committees, read updated text, see if there are any fiscal impacts or upcoming hearings, and more.
•The Senate also has a tool called My Bills, https://www.leg.state.mn.us/mybills/login. Once you sign up for a free account, it will allow you to keep track of all the bills you are interested in in one easy spot.
•The Senate website, https://www.senate.mn/, is a fantastic resource. The main page has links to committee activity, budget tracking documents, and much, much more information. If you are at all interested in following state government, you should spend some time on the Senate’s website.
•The Department of Administration has a calendar of upcoming events at the Capitol, https://mn.gov/admin/government/public-events/calendar.jsp.
And as always, if you have any questions, ideas, or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me any time. Your feedback is extremely important to me and I encourage you to share your input. You can send me an email at sen.jeremy.miller@senate.mn or call my Capitol office at (651) 296-5649 or talk to me at the grocery store or around town. It’s a great honor to serve as your State Senator.
Finally, if you don’t already follow me on Facebook, please give my page a “Like.” This is a great way to stay on top of the latest news from the Capitol! Visit my page here: https://www.facebook.com/SenatorJeremyMiller/.