Capitol Update 9 2015

Board of Regents:
The top story at the legislature this week was the election of the University of Minnesota Board of Regents for the
five open positions. On Wednesday night, the House and Senate convened a Joint Legislative Session to vote on the
candidates that made it through the first two steps in the process. This is only one of two occasions where the House
and Senate gather together on the same floor the other being the Governors State of the State Address.

Heading into the evening, there were many complaints being made about the process. As you may recall from my
Capitol Update a few weeks ago, there is a three step process in getting elected to the Board of Regents. The first
step is to be recruited and interviewed by the Regent Candidate Advisory Council (RCAC). This group filters out
candidates and moves forward two qualified individuals for each open position. The next step is the Joint Higher
Education Committee, which I described several weeks ago. During this step, members that sit on the committee
may nominate candidates for consideration that did not make it past the first step. This year, we had three
candidates that were nominated outside of those recommended by RCAC: Dr. Patricia Simmons from the 1st
Congressional District, former Congressman Bill Luther and former student Regent Darrin Rosha from the 3rd
Congressional District. The latter two candidates were not recommended by the Joint Committee, while Dr. Simmons
was moved forward as one of the recommended candidates in the 1st Congressional District.
When we convened on Wednesday night, we knew that there was still a lot of member support for Bill Luther and
Darrin Rosha, even though they had failed to make it past the first two steps. When it came time to vote on the 3rd
Congressional District, the remaining recommended candidates, Paula Prahl and Dr. Michael Belzer (two incredibly
talented and deserving individuals), were the first to be eliminated while Bill Luther and Darrin Rosha (nominated
once again), garnered the most votes. The final vote was quite partisan. Darrin Rosha secured the spot by picking up
98 votes to Bill Luthers 96. That is in contrast to the votes for the other two where there was strong bi-partisan
support.
In the remaining Congressional Districts, Dr. Simmons took the 1st Congressional District spot (she will now be
heading into her 3rd term as a Regent), while current Chair Richard Beeson, Michael Hsu and Tom Anderson won the
4th, 6th and 7th Congressional Districts respectively.

While the political process has now concluded for these individuals, their work is just beginning. As Higher
Education Chair, I look forward to working closely with the elected members and ensuring that they push the
University of Minnesota to reach its highest potential.

Senate File 138 Crowdfunding

In late January, I presented a bill in front of the Commerce Committee that would allow Equity Crowdfunding
in Minnesota. The concept is to let individuals invest their money in a local business as a shareholder and to
provide another avenue for companies looking to raise capital you can read about it in the bi-partisan Star
Tribune Op-Ed that was submitted by myself, Senator Branden Petersen, Representative Jenifer Loon and
Representative Joe Atkins.
A few days before we went to present the bill the first time, we were contacted by the Department of
Commerce who came to us with concerns about the legislation. Their opposition resulted in the bill being laid
over and the establishment of a working group to negotiate the terms of the bill such that all parties could be
comfortable with the language. After four weeks of weekly meetings with the Department, we were able to
find compromise language. On Wednesday of this week, I brought the bill back to the Commerce Committee
with a delete-all amendment for reconsideration. The bill passed out of the committee with Commerces
approval although they say we are only 95% in agreement. We have a few more committee hearings to go,
but it is safe to say that the biggest hurdle is behind us.

Have a great weekend! Dont forget to change your clocks Saturday night as we Spring Ahead!

We were honored to have Rabbi Sim Glaser of Temple Israel deliver the opening prayer on Thursday. Here, we are joined by Senator Jeremy
Miller, Senator Ron Latz and Senator Richard Cohen