Immediate legislative updates from the Capitol
Latest: details of budget coming together
2013 Team MAPE Legislative Update
TEAM MAPE LEGISLATIVE UPDATE - May 7
Team MAPE supports MAPE friendly candidates and legislation. Our issue priorities include: achieving fair compensation for state employees, fixing our broken health care system, preventing outsourcing and privatization of state services and protecting our pension and retirement benefits.
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Team MAPE

News Features

Thursday, May 16, 2013 - 12:36pm


Shortly after noon, the House of Representatives accepted the message from the Senate to approve the whistleblower bill. The final House vote was 76-56.

A big thanks to the two chief authors of the bill, Sen. Goodwin and Rep. Loeffler. The bill language can be viewed below:

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/text.php?number=SF0443&session=ls88&version=latest&session_number=0&session_year=2013

The bill is off to the governor and we anticipate it will be signed into law providing state employees protections when talking about issues they encounter within their state agencies. (12:30 a.m.)

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Tuesday, May 14, 2013 - 9:55am

Minnesota Senate voted Monday to expand marriage to same sex couples on a bipartisan vote of 37-30. The Minnesota House passed the bill last week.

Gov. Mark Dayton signed into law Tuesday afternoon, May 14, on the steps of the state Capitol House File 1054/Senate File 925, granting all Minnesotans the freedom to marry.   

MAPE supports marriage equality as a way to achieve benefit fairness for all our members and their families. The MAPE Delegate Assembly voted last fall to ratify the MAPE legislative priorities document. This year, as it has for many years, the MAPE legislative priorities states support for benefits for all of member families.


Here is the exact wording from the MAPE legislative priorities:

We believe the benefits stipulated in our contract should apply to all of our member families, thus we support domestic partnership benefits for state employees.

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Sunday, May 19, 2013 - 8:32am

House passed the final pension bill on a bipartisan vote of 77-53 on Saturday. The bill is now on its way to the governor for a signature.

The bill contains the contribution triggers outlined in the legislative update and a provision for unions to do a blind mailing to retirees using MSRS data. It also allows for retirees to pay dues monthly out of their pension checks.

To see this language, please go to this Legialtive Update here:
www.mape.org/teammape/news/team-mape-legislative-update-may-7

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Capitol News

New studies tell a familiar story: Racial disparities in assets
Oct 19, 2011
Two new reports from a national think tank look at financial security and opportunity in Minnesota, and find that Minnesota as a whole does better than the national averages, but worse than national averages when it comes to communities of color....
State revenue and cash flow steady, but economic worries remain
Oct 12, 2011
First the good news. The State of Minnesota started out the first quarter of the FY 2012-13 biennium with higher-than-expected revenue. From July through September, the state collected $59 million above estimates, up about two percent from earlier...
Going full circle on the cycle of advocacy – tell your story
Oct 6, 2011
As the leaves fall, many of us are bracing for the next legislative session and continuing our advocacy for critical state services.  But we also know that the cycle of advocacy is a complete circle—including raising awareness of the consequences of...