Those of you that get your information on social media and Newsmax may be under the impression that Rep. Jeremy Munson, R-Lake Crystal, supports law enforcement and is opposed to defunding the police, but is that a real position when you fail to vote to fund law enforcement in the first place?

In the last session there was a bill to increase police training by $6 million (H1, HJP 212). Munson voted "no." There was a bill to ratify the state contracts for correction officers — already negotiated — (HF2768, HJP 8351). Munson voted "no."

A bill that I carried for 18 months that provided a pay raise for state troopers passed in Special Session 5 (HF1, HJP41). Again Munson voted "no."

The bill that really causes me to shake my head was another one I authored. After losing two correctional officers in the prison system, my bill brought in approximately 90 officers systemwide to improve prison safety (HF3156, HJP 8709). Again Munson voted "no."

So far this year, a bill to pay law enforcement for mutual aids contracts already in place was another Munson "no" vote. If I have his reasoning correct, he didn’t want his constituents to help pay for the problems in Minneapolis. Funny because he had a bill in 2020 for $12 million to fix the wastewater system in Vernon Center. Where does he think that money comes from? It comes primarily from the state's biggest tax base — Minneapolis.

In fairness to Munson, he did not get a Senate author for the bill and when Rep. Mary Murphy, DFL-Hermantown, recognized the emergency nature of the bill and put it in anyway, Munson voted "no" to it and the rest of the bonding bill.

I have included the House file (HF) numbers and the House journal (HJ) pages so you can look it up if you would like to do so.

Jack Considine

Mankato

React to this story:

1
1
0
0
0