Committee on Rules and Administration - Mar 26, 2026

Foreign.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, members. Thankfully, this is my only trip to Rules this year, but I'm glad to see you. So my understanding about the piece that comes before Rules today is because we are providing for the appointment of legislators to this commission. Six members from the Senate and then six members from the other body. The Legislative Commission on Legislative Security provides a unique opportunity to address security issues that are not currently addressed by the Advisory Committee on Capital Area Security. This focuses really on off campus events and things that happen in legislative districts. So it is a separate commission. It is a truly bipartisan commission that has been fashioned after the Commission on Cybersecurity and also the ACAST Commission as well. So that is my understanding of what brings me here to you today and I am happy to answer questions.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Westland, you and I serve on a different security Committee. It was made up a bipartisan, bicameral commission reviewing the capital or capital security. Why do we need now another organization that focuses on the very same subject?

Madam Chair and Senator Limmer. This is. So the Advisory Committee on Capital Area Security actually covers the entire Capitol complex, including all of the many buildings. And that is the limit of our jurisdiction. As we all know, the events of June 14th occurred off site. It occurred in district. We are finding more legislators experiencing threats in district to them in District. This commission specifically deals with legislators versus the entire capital complex and, and deals specifically with security issues or proposals that may come forward that deal within district. I will say there have been conversations as this has moved along about could this potentially at some point be a subset of the ACAS Commission. I know that you were the person who provided the bill and created the ACAS Commission, but its jurisdiction is limited. And so I think if we wanted to bring this under acas, that would actually require a revision to that enabling statute. So this is different. It's more narrow. Again, it's on specifically legislative security, whereas ACAS is focused more on security on the entire complex.

Madam Chair, Senator Wesley, Senator Limmer, I understand your opinion. This is the bill that I'm bringing forward to you today. Before I would chop it up and start adding it to something else, I think I would want to do that a little more thoughtfully to make sure that we are. I don't know if we can just cut this and put it into the ACAS statute. I don't know if that will work as easily as you're suggesting. I'm certainly happy to continue the conversations. I know that in state and local government, one suggestion that was made would be to have a sunset on this and then at that point have it maybe integrated into acas. But I would say again that this is really addressing unique challenges that are not covered under the jurisdiction currently of acas. And as we are experiencing more and more threats across partisan lines and those threats are occurring in district. And again, June 14 was completely off campus, we would never have discussed those issues in ACAs because they don't fall under our authority to do so. So I'm certainly happy to continue discussions. But I guess from my perspective, this is the bill that I have today, and I guess this is the one that I would prefer to move. There is overlap between ACAS and this commission. One member of the Senate and one member of the other body have to be also on acast. So there's some overlap there in terms of sharing information.

Madam chair, Senator Wesley.

Madam Chair, Senator Limmer.

Multiplying.

Madam Chair.

I'm just going to point you again to lines 2.13 and 2.16 which describes. Describes in detail the duties of the commission. The duties of the commission are at a minimum, to study, research and analyze issues related to the security needs of state legislators and staff while in district and review and make recommendations regarding proposed legislation that impacts security for elected officials and staff. Those duties do not squarely fall under acas. I will also say that, that this has been a persistent issue, in particular this year given the things that have happened. There are a number of proposals out there. I've certainly had proposals and bills. One of them is to direct the post board to develop their own protocols for how they address security issues for members in district. You may recall that on June 14th there were law enforcement agencies that had no idea where elected officials lived in the areas that they. That they served. I think this is timely. I think it is pertinent. I think we. Individual threats is not what this is talking about. This is talking about the same sorts of things that we do in acas. But ACAS covers the security complex. It does not make recommendations for what happens in district.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Westland, what is the status of this bill in the House?

Okay.

The other body.

Madam Chair.

Thank you, Senator Miller. Senator Prince.

Thank you, Senator France. I will. I believe that this bill has been laid over in state and local government in the House. And I will also. In response to Senator Franson, I saw Senator Marty raise up his hand. There, I think, is an acute need for more concerted discussion, whether it is in a group like this or within the legislature itself about the issue of our security. And there are a number of proposals that are moving or not moving. But our members efforts, I think to say here are things what we, here's what we need. Whether it is for the legislature and its own patrol or an idea like this is talking, it's more talk about guns in the Capitol complex. I mean it's a wide variety of ideas that members have about the safety and security of elected officials in this body. And there's been a lot of work done outside of the Capitol and inside of the Capitol. I see Secretary Bodern here. He's been front and center in the efforts in the Minnesota Senate, whether it is funding for additional security for people members in their homes. When we think about the Internet and our presence there and of course what we've experienced in terms of security in this building and in the Capitol, there has been a really, I think, important effort. And there are still issues when I think about the interaction of social media and its ability to drive people to issue threats toward people. And I don't think a week goes by right now where a member doesn't come to me where they have experienced some sort of threat to their home, their physical nature, their life. So I do think that there is a thing here for us to consider. I know that this bill is going back to state and local government. I don't know if the ACAS advisory group is within the jurisdiction of state and local government or if that is in the jurisdiction of judiciary and public safety. But I do think that there is some value in thinking about the duality of those two things. And I have been wrestling a lot with how do we make sure we are putting tools in place and rules in place that guide our behavior together to make sure that we're not by our own actions creating unsafe situations for members. So this, you know, I support this as well. It may be that it is a short term and more acute effort than a long term effort as it's envisioned right now. But I do think we have work to do to make sure that people who run for office and serve in public office can do so safely to the extent that we can. And then just one last thing, I agree with Senator Limmer that some of that is not our responsibility, but then the responsibility of sworn officers, whether it is our local law enforcement or the State Patrol. So I appreciate you bringing the issue forward. It has been front and center for the work that we have been doing and I have been talking with Senator Johnson about this along the way.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Wessel and there are a number of provisions dealing with the judiciary because honestly, they are often under threat and we hear that regularly on the news. As this moves, I have always been open to and happy to looking at this is an idea that bubbled up from where we are at today. And as it moves, I'm certainly willing to have additional conversations with anyone, if anyone has specific language to improve this bill. I am also always open to any good ideas. Again, this is sort of the bill that I have before you today. I think this is an acute and urgent need and I hope that we can move this forward and improve it as it moves.

thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Senator Westland, for bringing this forward. I just had a couple of concerns, concerns that I wanted to voice during this as well, too. First of all, you know, this is another commission that's being set up with 12 members on it on that. You know, we are a part time legislature and as we continue. Well, that's the problem. As we continue to grow commissions and task forces and committees and all those things, this becomes more and more places place of full time employment even though you have a part time supposed salary on this one as well too. So I'm concerned that all of a sudden we're going to become a place where we come more full time. Putting a lot of burden on. We just had a debate on the floor yesterday of young parents that are there. This again is going to put another burden on that. If we could keep this with within an existing committee or task force or commission, I think that would be from my perspective, something that would be good. So we're not continuing to grow state government and the responsibilities that we have would be increasing. The other thing that I'm very concerned about is also the jurisdictional growth, you know, with the acas, that is organization that oversees the capital grounds, which is with within the purview of the legislature and the executive branch and the judicial branch. That to me seems a fit for legislative action. However, we have a commission of 12 people now that proposed that would be having an influence in investigating issues and concerns up in Senate District 1, Senate District 67 and whatnot. And so I worry that that could be, for lack of a better word, weaponized, politicized within our districts as well too, in a way where you have a governing body that would be maybe giving recommendations that politically would be detrimental to us within our own districts, which we would have no control over at that point. To Senator Marty's point as well too, on Subdivision 5's duties at a minimum within a legislative district or legislative districts. I counted at one point, I think it was 17 legislative districts I drive through to get down here at the state, both Minnesota and North Dakota. So I've got a number of senate districts I go through to get down here. So, you know, are we going to be investigating districts across state boundaries and within the state itself just to ensure that one legislator can make their way down here? I just think it's overly expansive. I do agree with Senator Miller and others that we can investigate into these things, but a lot of this is almost reactive to the situations that we have June 14th. We're doing a lot of studies on what happened back then, but what if we, you know, had an opportunity to do some training, some ability so members were just aware of what was going on in their district and knew what was happening A more proactive way of doing things. I'm just uncomfortable with the way that this is shaping up to be right now. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair. And just to reiterate, the purpose of this commission is not to investigate what's happening. This is to be proactive. It is to say what are other states doing regarding, for instance, security while legislators are away from. From the Capitol complex where we have now actually significant security in place that we have not had before. This is literally to try to analyze issues that are bubbling up. What are there trends that we are seeing? And I do think that there is merit in having a group dedicated to that particular challenge, which is difficult, different than protecting the entire Capitol complex and all the, I don't know what, 15 some buildings and all the parking lots. That is a very specific jurisdiction. It is a very specific focus. And the attempt here is to say we are seeing a substantial increase in threats and credible threats against legislators. Substantial. We just saw threats against Speaker Damuth in her district. We saw threats against Senator Gruenhagen in his district and others. So I think that having a focus on what are the things that we need to do to ensure that people who are holding elected office as legislators are not doing so thinking to themselves, well, I'm going to do this, but there's a chance that I could be harmed. This job shouldn't include risk of death, for example. So I want to be clear. We're not investigating things, but what we are doing is trying to provide information and make recommendations to the legislature, just as ACAST does. This commission was modeled after the, the Cyber Security Commission. So there, there are, I think, leading edge issues that warrant something. Maybe this has a sunset clause in it. Maybe we changed the language under the duties just simply to say security needs of state legislators away from the Capitol complex. I mean, there are certainly ways to address that, but I do think that this is. It's an acute issue, but I don't think it's going away. And I think, in fact, we are on a trajectory that the types of threats and things that we're seeing, I don't think are going to get better. That's my cynical view.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Senator Westland, for all your work on our security. I had a. I do agree that we should broaden it to outside the capitol complex on 214. I think that makes sense for rural legislators. You stay in my district, many of you, and so I think that is a concern. And then I'm just Wondering about the staffing. So we have the Legislative Coordinating Commission providing the staffing for this. Then who staffs the Advisory Committee in Capital Area Security? Is that admin that's staffing that?

And Senator Pappas. That's a good question. I don't believe it's the lcc. I think it may be admin, but I guess. I don't know.

Madam Chair, there was discussion of whether or not ACUS could provide these responsibilities. Just a short time ago, ACUS developed their own mission statement. There was no mission statement such as? Well, just like this doesn't have a mission statement. Does it need one? I'm not sure. I'm not sure if AKUS needed one either. But it changed the complexion of duties on that committee. And it then kind of slowly morphed into a legislative committee where it was considering gun issues, the metal detectors and other issues, and recommending specific legislation quite a bit different than what the original direction of that group was. So in discussing whether or not duties could be transferred from this work to that committee, I would think that history has shown that it can do exactly that. If the mission statement that adopts would do that, whether if they were in the right authority or not to make their own mission statement. Well, there was none that prohibited it, so that's a gray area. But nevertheless, it seems like ACUS does have the ability to expand its mission. Just wanted everyone to know that.

I've got a couple of pieces of information here. The Lieutenant Governor chairs and her staff. The practical answer is the Lieutenant Governor's chair provides a lot of support staff. The statute requires administrative support to be provided by the Commissioners of Administration and Public Safety and the Sergeant at Arms at the Senate and House of representatives. Thank you.

Madam Chair, I just want to thank the committee. I appreciate the thoughtful discussion we've had and many of the comments made are things that we've certainly considered and discussed. I'm pulling up the ACAST statute again and again. My goal here is to try to have something that is going to help improve our consideration of ongoing security risk risks for legislators when they are away from the Capitol complex.

Madam Chair, move the bill be recommended be re referred back to state and

No.