Legislative Updates: Special Session or Nah?

You’ve probably been eagerly waiting for news on whether Minnesota will have a special session this late summer/early fall to finish the $9.7 billion in unfinished investments and projects from this spring. Well, unfortunately, we don’t have an update for you on this front…yet. There’s a lot of pontification, and there will be a lot more, but this is an especially important election cycle as the entire State Legislature is up for reelection along with the Governor. This means that the current setup of a divided legislature is likely to change. This gives little incentive for the non-controlling party (this time around, it’s the Republicans) to come to the table this year as they might have more power and leverage in next year’s session.

What we are certain about is regardless of who is in power, Fosters’ priorities, power, and perspectives will be heard by our systems leaders. We know this because Fosters have been diligently building relationships, educating legislators,  and successfully advocating at the Capitol all spring. 

We started 2022 with three policy goals, and while we have unfinished work to do, we are excited to celebrate our wins! 

We are diligently working on implementation support for the creation of the soon-to-be-formed Ombuds Office for Foster Youth and Maya’s Law. We are also not giving up on the fight to bring justice to Fosters who have had their much-needed benefits taken by the State/Counties. We expect that if there is a special session, this will be completed, if there isn’t, we are prepared to fight for its passage in the new legislative session. 

Supporters like you have given time and $450,000 of the money it takes to fund our work for the year. We need to keep pushing, and that will take $150,000 before December.  We trust that community members will keep stepping up alongside Fosters to give to support their rights and to fight the injustices of our state’s child welfare system. 

You have been a key ally in delivering the legislative wins and will be a needed ally in the next stage of the fight for Foster rights. Thank you for believing in a Foster-led movement.