Text: April 26, 2017The Honorable Mark Dayton, GovernorState of Minnesota130 State Capitol75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. BlvdSaint Paul, Minnesota 55155The Honorable Kurt Daudt, Speaker of the HouseMinnesota House of Representatives463 State Office Building100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.Saint Paul, Minnesota 55155The Honorable Paul Gazelka, Majority LeaderMinnesota State Senate3113 Minnesota Senate Building95 University Avenue W.Saint Paul, Minnesota 55155Governor Dayton, Speaker Daudt, and Majority Leader Gazelka,As new members of the Minnesota Senate, we are writing today to advocate for a fresh approach to endof session negotiations that involves transparency, public input and frankly, does not rely on last minutepressure to get our work done. We observed the last few budget negotiations from the outside and have not been impressed with the process or the results.Having been elected on a firm commitment of getting our legislative work completed on time, webelieve great strides have been made in accomplishing this goal. For example, the Senate and Housepassed an entire state budget earlier than any session in recent memory and bipartisan budget conference committees have been working diligently to arrive at compromises that will benefit all Minnesotans.We thank Governor Dayton for acknowledging our early committee work in his letter to legislativeleaders on March 13, 2017:"Thank you for setting deadlines that will require you to pass your omnibus budget bills out ofcommittee by March 31, 2017. Those deadlines provide ample time to negotiate biennial budgetbills to which we can all agree. To that end, I request that we set joint conference committeetargets no later titan Friday, April 28, 2017. That is two weeks after the Legislature returnsJi-om the spring recess and leaves more than three weeks to negotiate the details of the omnibusbudget bills before your deadline to adjourn. "However, over the past two weeks, we are concerned to see that the Dayton administration engage inoutspoken criticism of our budget bills instead of demonstrating a willingness to work directly withpolicymakers. We are now hearing commissioners testify in conference committee they cannot negotiate directly on the Governor's behalf.Delays, posturing and partisan attacks are the characteristics of failed budget negotiations of the past and must be rejected in 2017 if we truly claim to listen to the public. The early success of bipartisan bills like tax conformity, premium relief, Sunday sales, and reinsurance was accomplished with a new sense of openness and optimism and should be a model for the state budget - we hope that this plea can return all of us to that manner of governing.As such, we encourage all parties to engage in serious negotiations immediately and have three-waytargets available by Monday, May 1, so we can do the work we have been elected to do. As newmembers of the legislature, we feel a sense of urgency to work through our differences and simply getthings done.Working together - all of us - in an open, transparent process, we can advance policy for the commongood. Our policy differences do not, and should not, disqualify us from cooperation; instead, thosedifferences should drive a substantive, passionate discussion from which compromise can grow. Afterall, Minnesotans are counting on us.Respectfully,Senator Mark JohnsonDistrict 1Senator Andrew MatthewsDistrict 15Senator John JasinskiDistrict 24Senator Paul UtkeDistrict 2Senator Andrew LangDistrict 17Senator Mark KoranDistrict 32Senator Justin EichornDistrict 5Senator Rich DraheimDistrict 20Senator Paul AndersonDistrict 44Senator Jerry RelphDistrict 14Senator Michael P. GogginDistrict 21Senator Scott JensenDistrict 47