December 15, 2007
Greetings to All with our hopes for a Happy Holiday Season! I'd like to use this forum to update our membership on my activities over the past several months as the Legislative Tracker for MCA. This interim period between sessions has been a most unusual time with a large number of legislators participating in several work groups meeting regularly to discuss where their priorities should be for this next Session. I have been following the work of a joint Senate/House Sex Offender Work Group that has heard from many experts in the field on the issues and concerns surrounding the delivery of services to this important and highly visible population, and secondly, the work of the Joint Re-entry Work Group which has focused on several different areas of interest, including whether our current sentencing model is outmoded and should be changed to deal with crimes that have grown to carry heavier incarceration periods. Both Rep. Michael Paymar! , the chair of the House Public Safety Finance Committee, and committee member Rep. Rob Eastlund, have indicated that they expect to offer a bipartisan, comprehensive Re-entry proposal for consideration early in the next session. Both of these committees have been conducting regular meetings, and I'd expect that they'll conclude and summarize their work some time in December.
There has been another legislatively mandated group hard at work on Re-entry issues for several months, the Collateral Sanctions Committee, which is currently putting the final touches on their work with a number of new recommendations to be expected in their final report due to the legislature in early January. This group has been chaired by Isabel Gomez, executive director of the Sentencing Guidelines Commission and a former Hennepin County District Judge. They have looked at several Re-entry concerns including employment, housing and many other community sanctions that impact an offender's ability to make progress in the community following release from incarceration.
Many of these areas were covered very nicely by the four legislators who appeared at our legislative workshop at the Fall Institute in St Cloud in October. Participating were Senators Linda Higgins and Leo Foley and Representatives Steve Smith and Joe Mullery. We owe them a debt of gratitude for the time they gave us to make this a very worthwhile workshop at the conference. Isabel Gomez also accepted our invitation and presented a good overview of the work of the Collateral Sanctions Committee. It is interesting to note that all of these people commented on their need to hear from us, the real front line experts working in the field every day to provide the best services we can with the resources we have available. Thanks to all who participated in this program.
The Legislature are-convenes on February 12th. This will be a bonding year, but with the work during the interim, it is pretty evident that we'll see a number of new proposals impacting the criminal justice system to be the subject of debate.
In MCA, we are in the process of setting our priorities as well for 2008. The new legislative agenda has now been presented and adopted as amended by the Board of Directors, and will be shared with legislators of the Public Safety and Judiciary Committees. In an effort to be more assessable to our membership, the legislative committee has decided to move their regular monthly meeting to the second Wednesdays of each month, beginning with the January 9, 2008 meeting. Meetings are held at the DOC at Energy Park Drive from 10:00 to noon. Please contact us if you are interested in becoming an active member of this committee.
We are also working on presenting a legislative update workshop at the MCA/MACPO Winter Conference scheduled for Jan 31 - Feb 1st at the Holiday Inn Select in Bloomington. Watch for more information. May the Holiday Season bring you and yours much Happiness and Joy!
Calvin Saari
MCA Legislative Chair |
