Lawmakers recount '97 session

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

July 6, 1997

By Devlyn Brooks

Staff Writer

State Sen. David Ten Eyck, DFL-East Gull Lake, represented District 4, including Bemidji, in the 1997 legislative session.

Ten Eyck, a practicing attorney in the Brainerd area, also served his first term this session along with local legislative colleague Rep. Gail Skare, DFL-Bemidji.

He is the vice chairman of the Higher Education Budget Division and serves on the Children, Families and Learning; Crime Prevention; Health and Family Security; Judiciary; and Human Resources Finance committees. He also recently was appointed to chair the Senate's Subcommittee on Health Care Access, under the auspices of the Health and Family Security Committee.

Here are his thoughts on several major issues during the 1997 legislative session:

Session overall:

From opening day, the session was exciting, and "honestly hard work," he said, with welfare reform consuming most of his first two months in office.

According to veteran lawmakers, Ten Eyck said he had heard this was a good session because work was accomplished on a pre-established timeline, which was adhered to well. Partisan bickering took a back seat to the work that was at hand, he added.

"A majority of the people in the Senate were trying to do what they thought was best for Minnesota," he said, "not what (their) party thought was best for Minnesota.

Welfare reform:

"I believe what Minnesota has produced is a really excellent bill, which has taken a step toward ending welfare dependency," he said.

The Minnesota Family Investment Program is moving in the direction toward employment of welfare recipients instead of dependency of recipients, but said he believes it will need adjustment in future years as no bill is ever perfect.

The most difficult aspect of the bill was how it treated illegal immigrants, some of which the U.S. government brought here, Ten Eyck said. In the future, the issue will have to be addressed.

"Overall, Minnesota has managed to balance hardline and human-sided approaches," he said.

Higher education bill:

The main issue concerning higher education, he said, was it is becoming increasingly not affordable for Minnesota's families.

Because higher ed institutions are becoming more dependent on tuition hikes as their main funding source, the Senate tried to shift some of the burden from student tuition to the state.

One particular piece of the higher education funding bill that pleased him was the $1 million appropriated for building an American Indian center at Bemidji State University, but overall he thought it was a fair bill to higher education.

Property tax reform:

His only disappointment during the session was property tax reform, he said.

There was an opportunity to buy-down property taxes much more than the state did with a one-time rebate, he said, and investing that money in a buy-down would have provided long-lasting relief.

"But now we're basically back to square one again next year," he said. "If the opportunity ever comes up again, I hope we don't miss it."

K-12 education bill:

Ten Eyck said he is happy with the K-12 education bill, even after seeing the compromises made to the bill during the special session.

The structure of the bill will be good for the state's school districts as well as lower- to middle-income families it targets with its tax deductions, he said.

"It provides for the basic interests (the Senate) was looking at in the beginning of the session," he said.

State budget surplus:

The portion of the projected $2.3 billion state budget surplus spent on buying down education costs was something good for the state, he said. However, he did not like how the portion of the surplus spent on buying down property taxes was used.

He said he wanted more of a long-term tax relief effort passed, but lost that battle.

Finally, he said some of the surplus will probably be used to recover from damage imposed by this winter's blizzards and this spring's floods, but that is yet to e decided at a special session scheduled sometime this fall.

"We became a little bit apprehensive of spending the surplus as we saw the damage of the flood grow," he said.

Twins stadium:

The Twins stadium was "one of the biggest non-officials issues" the Senate dealt with this session, he said. The media exploited the issue even though the Legislature did not confront it until the last three weeks of the session.

However, he opposes public financing of a stadium for the Minnesota Twins, but is interested to see what type of new financing ideas are out there.

"I am opposed to using state dollars for the building of a stadium for (Twins owner) Carl Pohlad," he said. "There's better ideas we can spend our money on."