Abortion to Social Security tax: Rochester DFL legislators discuss key session topics at Saturday's town hall

Jan. 21—ROCHESTER — The Rochester DFL town hall, hosted by Sen. Liz Boldon, Rep. Tina Liebling, Rep. Kim Hicks and Rep. Andy Smith at Rochester Community and Technical College Saturday, Jan. 21, produced an hour and a half-long conversation about topics important to Rochester residents.

The town hall also served to update constituents about the 2023 legislative session so far. The event was held two days after the Protect Reproductive Options Act was passed off the House floor.

After the vote, Liebling, who was a co-author of the bill, said in a statement the bill "guarantees the right to reproductive privacy" and "patients can be trusted to make difficult reproductive decisions without politicians looking over their shoulders."

Abortion and reproductive rights was discussed as the first prepared question of the town hall, and it was revisited again during the audience question portion. In total, 19 topics were discussed during the town hall, but six stood out as especially important pieces of this legislative session. The topics are summarized below.

After the first prepared question was raised, Liebling said the majority of Minnesotans want reproductive freedom, and she clarified that the new bill — which is on its way to the Senate — doesn't change Minnesota law.

An audience member posed another question on abortion, saying abortion shouldn't happen because there are people ready and willing to adopt.

Hicks, an adoptive mother, made clear that she believes adoption is a beautiful thing.

"But it's also a significant loss, and there's also trauma. I'm not a huge fan of connecting people's health care decisions with other people's lives," she said. "Also, if there's anyone in this room who's interested, there are currently 129 waiting children on the MN ADOPT website. If you are interested in learning how to foster, Olmsted County does a great job. ... If there's anyone in this room who is really serious about adopting off of the MN ADOPT website for the 129 kids who currently are up for adoption in the state of Minnesota through our foster care system, I would be happy to go to coffee with you."

An audience question arose about supporting Minnesotans who care for loved ones, a topic Boldon said she's sure is a priority for the DFL caucus.

"Lots and lots of folks across the state are having to choose between taking care of themselves or a loved one, or going to work and making a paycheck," she said. "And that is not a choice that people should have to make. You should be able to take care of yourself and your loved ones, and not have to lose your job or not be able to pay your bills because of it."

The discussion happening in committees now would give Minnesotans 12 weeks of paid family medical leave. Hicks shared that the paid leave would help Minnesotans who don't have the same protection she did when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

"When I got breast cancer at 37, with five kids, I was in a union that had short term disability and protection for my job, so I was able to have a mastectomy and a hysterectomy and six months of chemo without losing my house," she said. "I don't think that it should have just been luck that I didn't lose my house."

Smith, who owns two small businesses in Rochester, also supports paid family medical leave from a business perspective. He disagreed with the Rochester Chamber of Commerce decision to oppose the bill.

"From a business perspective, you retain your staff, you're going to cut down on retraining fees, all kinds of things — actually getting applicants, advertising those jobs. The small costs also add up," he said. "And secondly, we see in other countries where there is paid family medical leave that is more than 12 months — places like Norway, even as close as Canada — employee production is much higher than in the United States. I'm sad that some business groups are coming out against this. But as a local small business owner, who's also a legislator, let me say, I am so excited for my business to have this tool."

Liebling quickly said the Social Security tax policy is "one of those tax policies that, in a lot of ways, is a bad tax policy, just because it's so confusing."

She said Minnesotans aren't all getting taxed on their Social Security benefits. The tax begins once your total income reaches a certain level — which Smith said is $38,000 for a single family.

Liebling, however, doesn't believe in eliminating all Social Security tax because the "cost of totally eliminating it over the next four years is almost $3 billion," she said. But Liebling said she "firmly believes that people should be taxed according to their income, not according to the source of their income."

"$38,000 in our current society — in Rochester, specifically — is not something that you can comfortably live on with all of your obligations," Smith said. "We understand that. So we do want to change that, while at the same time be very cognizant about revenue."

This audience question touched on Rochester specifically: "As a growing metro area, Rochester does not get its fair share through Local Government Aid. Could you talk about bringing resources to our community?"

Smith called Local Government Aid a "complicated formula" that needs reformed. He said it's a longer project that he said the Rochester delegation will be working on.

"One way that we're trying to bridge that gap in between when we get more Local Government Aid — which we will get — is to extend what's called a local option sales tax, and that's the sales tax that we currently pay," he said. "Nothing's going to change, and you're not going to get taxed more. It's just what we're doing currently in Olmsted County and Rochester City to make sure that we can have roads and snow plows and all these sort of things that we're currently having as a large metropolitan area, because we're not getting the Local Government Aid, that, in my opinion, we should get."

Smith also said he will be bringing forward a bill to extend the sales tax, so "we can continue to fund the great city services we have and to continually improve them."

For context, Minnesota teachers currently have two paths to full retirement depending on the date they were hired: Teachers hired before July 1, 1989, have their retirement benefits calculated under the Rule of 90 and Tier 2, while all other teachers receive benefits only under Tier 2, according to Education Minnesota.

The problem with this system is the Rule of 90 allows those teachers to retire earlier, while Tier 2 retirees have to work longer — eight years longer, as the audience member put it.

Liebling said the pension system is bad, and Minnesota is "really failing among the states."

"I think that legislators have heard the message that if we want to attract and keep teachers in our state, which is super important, that we need to make sure we are competitive with other states, at least when it comes to their pensions," she said. "I have no doubt that that's going to happen. I'm sure that legislators at this table are going to absolutely be supportive of making an improvement there because having excellent teachers and keeping them on the job is so important to all of our futures."

On the topic of gun violence, Boldon said it's a topic that hasn't been discussed in the state Senate for years.

"I believe there will be bills heard this session around gun violence and what we can do about that, because there are common sense solutions that are supported by the vast majority of Minnesotans," she said. "Like universal background checks, making sure that those who are a danger to themselves or others, that there's a due process way to make sure they don't have access to guns. Some of those common sense things I expect we will be having discussions about this session."

In regards to mental health care, Hicks said the rates for mental health care haven't been raised since 2008, and aren't expected to be raised until 2025.

"If your rates haven't changed since 2008, your payment that changed since 2008, and they weren't going to give you a raise till 2025, would you keep doing the work?" Hicks asked. "The short answer to that question is no. And if we don't have providers to provide mental health care, we don't have mental health care. We need to do bold investment in mental health care today — now — so that we have providers to provide mental health care. Then we need to look long term on how to sustain that."