Legislation proposed by Minnesota Republicans shows they know how to follow instructions. These lists show the goals of ALEC’s “model” legislation, and how Minnesota legislators are trying to turn those goals into state law.

• Reduce taxation on businesses.
• A constitutional amendment that limits increases in state revenue or spending.
• A constitutional amendment that requires a two-thirds supermajority to ratify any increase in state taxes.

• Cut corporate income and property taxes (Senate File 1).
• A constitutional amendment that limits spending in the next budget to the amount of revenue collected in the previous budget (House File 1612).
• A constitutional amendment that requires a three-fifths supermajority of legislators to approve any tax increase (House File 1598, Senate File 1384).

• Priority-based budgeting that first determines “the core functions of government” in order to ensure “that what government is supposed to do, it will do well.”
• Shrink or eliminate state agencies. ALEC’s specific proposal:
• Create a permanent “sunset review commission” and a sunset review process for all state agencies, boards and commissions. The review “must include a recommendation to either abolish or continue the agency.” The commission “should review 20 percent of state programs each year.”
• “Regularly review all state programs for performance, relevance, and efficiency…. identify immediate opportunities for streamlining, consolidation and alternative delivery.”

What ALEC’s legislators tried:

• Require each state agency, board, commission and committee to create a priority-based budget. (This became law in the special session.)
• A 12-member sunset advisory commission that will evaluate each state agency, board, commission and committee between now and 2022. The commission will recommend “whether a public need exists for the continuation of a state agency” or whether there are “less restrictive or alternative methods of performing any function that the agency performs.” (This became law in the special session.)
• Strip state government down to eight departments by merging Corrections, DEED, Health, Human Rights, Labor and Industry, Management and Budget, Revenue, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs into other departments. Also merge Housing Finance, the Iron Range Resources Board, Mediation Services, and Pollution Control into other agencies (House File 419).
• Consolidate information technology services. (This became law in the special session.)

• Weaken unions by creating “work for less” laws. These laws reduce dues collections because they allow workers to enjoy the benefits of collective bargaining without paying dues or fair-share fees.
• Weaken unions by forbidding public employers from deducting union dues from members’ paychecks.
• Repeal prevailing wage laws for publicly financed construction projects.

What ALEC’s legislators tried:

• Add “work for less” loopholes to the state constitution (House File 65).
• Forbid public employers from deducting union dues from members’ paychecks (Senate File 623).
• Cut prevailing wage rates for publicly financed construction projects (House File 513).

• Eliminate state employees.
• Expand privatization (see detailed list at below).
• Create a “flexible freeze” in state hiring that targets current frontline workers. Among exceptions to the freeze: management-related positions and cases where “a department offers to lay off existing employees to be replaced by new hires that are less costly.”

What ALEC’s legislators tried:

• Cut the state workforce by 15 percent across the board – or 5,000 jobs (House File 4).
• Institute a state hiring freeze (Senate File 81).
• Force state employees to compete to keep their own jobs (House File 192).

• Target public employee wages: “In times of deficit, policymakers should delay automatic pay increases for state employees.”
• Eliminate “pay equity” mandates that require men and women to receive equal pay for different jobs of comparable worth.
• Establish employee incentive or “gain-sharing” programs to compensate some of them “for the savings generated by innovation.”

What ALEC’s legislators tried:

• Two-year, hard wage freeze on state employees (House File 127).
• Two-year wage freeze on all public school employees. Outlaw economic strikes by school employees (Senate File 56, House File 381).
• Block contractual pay raises and step increases (House File 756).
• Cut state employees’ pay by at least 5 percent. Workers get their pay back only if their supervisor gives them a satisfactory performance review and approves full pay (House File 756).
• Eliminate equal pay for women (House File 7, Senate File 282).
• Establish an employee gain-sharing program. (This became law in the special session.)
• Redesign the state job classification and performance appraisal system. (This became law in the special session.)

• Target public employee benefits.

• Eliminate current state employee health insurance plan. (Senate File 805). Replace it with a risky, high-deductible, HSA-style plan in which state workers pay all premiums and must pay a $5,000 deductible before the insurance pays a dime.

Target retirement benefits:

• “Most importantly, states should consider replacing their defined-benefit plans with defined-contribution (401(k) style) plans for new employees.”
• “Capping of the existing pension system and forming a defined-contribution system for all new employees.”
• Increasing employee contributions to their pension account.
• Raising the retirement age for new employees.
• Restructure retiree health-care plans to reduce benefits, increase the eligibility age, and require high-deductible HSA plans.

What ALEC’s legislators tried:

• Close down the state’s defined-benefit pension plan (House File 542). Current employees could continue to participate, but the bill eliminates all future service credits. New employees would not qualify for pension benefits.
• Keep defined-benefit pension plans, but shift most of the cost from employers onto workers (Senate File 813). Instead of paying roughly half the cost, public workers at all levels would pay roughly 75 percent. For most workers, that is the equivalent of a 3 percent pay cut.
• Prohibit public employers from contributing to 401(k)-style defined-contribution retirement plans (House File 594).
• Shift costs of retiree health insurance onto retirees (House File 404).

• “Governments at all levels have expanded into hundreds of commercial activities … However most of these functions are not inherent or unique to government. In fact, they can be found in the Yellow Pages in towns all over America.”
• Determine “whether private firms could do the same things more efficiently and effectively.”
• A state privatization and efficiency council.
• Examine what property the state owns and “determine whether government or private ownership is the most effective.”

• Require the state to review the privatization potential of all state agencies and nonprofit organizations that receive state funds (Senate File 394). In the words of Rep. Keith Downey (R-Edina), “If it’s in the Yellow Pages, why is government performing it?”
• Assess situations that may constitute “inappropriate competition” with private enterprise (Senate File 394).
• Create a database of all property owned by the state (Senate File 394).
• Make it easier to privatize or outsource services in all state agencies by eliminating the current law that forbids outsourcing if a “current state employee is able and available to perform the services” (House File 53, Senate File 670).
• Require the state to seek bids to place prisoners in private prisons (House File 939).
• Privatize conservation and maintenance services in the DNR (House File 503).
• Privatize and sell off all DNR fish hatcheries and tree nurseries (House File 635).
• Consolidate all accounting, financial, procurement, fleet service, human resource, and payroll functions of all executive branch agencies into one agency – or allow them all to be privatized (House File 418).
• Turn MinnesotaCare into a private-market voucher system (House File 8, House File 559).

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