Legislative Session 2024: A Recap

It’s been a pro­duc­tive 2024 ses­sion and here at Bell­mont, we’ve had clients across indus­tries advo­cat­ing for change in St. Paul.

While the ses­sion hasn’t reached the his­toric lev­els of 2023, it still looks to be pro­duc­tive for a non-bud­get year. Leg­is­la­tors went into 2024 with a focus on keep­ing spend­ing low, pass­ing bond­ing bills and for House mem­bers, keep­ing an eye on the upcom­ing election.

Despite it being a non-bud­get year, we’ve been busy work­ing with clients to help them com­mu­ni­cate at the Capi­tol. Below are just a few examples:

DigiKey

DigiKey is one of Greater Minnesota’s largest busi­ness­es and as a result, are an impor­tant voice on eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment in rur­al Min­neso­ta. Dur­ing ses­sion, we work with them on strate­gies to con­nect with leg­is­la­tors and share pol­i­cy pri­or­i­ties impor­tant to busi­ness­es like DigiKey in Greater Minnesota. 

The Fam­i­ly Partnership 

We worked with The Fam­i­ly Part­ner­ship to raise aware­ness for the eco­nom­ic and social impacts of the legislature’s 2023 invest­ments in Min­neso­ta chil­dren and fam­i­lies, espe­cial­ly those liv­ing in low-income house­holds. This includes the state’s new Child Tax Cred­it and invest­ments in child­care and ear­ly learn­ing, child­care work­er com­pen­sa­tion and hous­ing access and afford­abil­i­ty. See addi­tion­al insights from Dianne Haulcy, The Fam­i­ly Partnership’s pres­i­dent and CEO, in Min­nPost.

Hen­nepin EMS (HEMS)

We con­tin­ue work­ing with HEMS to com­mu­ni­cate to elect­ed offi­cials about the strength of our state’s cur­rent pri­ma­ry ser­vice area EMS mod­el. We help HEMS reg­u­lar­ly com­mu­ni­cate with their stake­hold­ers, includ­ing devel­op­ing an annu­al book­let, a month­ly newslet­ter and work­ing with the lob­by­ing team on oth­er pieces of strate­gic communication. 

MnFIRE

Fire­fight­ers across Min­neso­ta con­tin­ue to ben­e­fit from the Home­town Heroes Assis­tance Pro­gram, which the state leg­is­la­ture passed in 2021 to ensure every Min­neso­ta fire­fight­er has the access to edu­ca­tion, pre­ven­tion and care need­ed to han­dle a car­diac event, emo­tion­al trau­ma or can­cer diag­no­sis. We con­tin­ue to work with MnFIRE as they admin­is­ter this cru­cial pro­gram to the state’s fire ser­vice, and share how the pro­gram is mak­ing an impact. 

As Min­nesotans vote in new House mem­bers this fall, we look for­ward to help­ing our clients estab­lish new rela­tion­ships with their elect­ed offi­cials and share their priorities.

If your orga­ni­za­tion is look­ing to affect change at the Capi­tol, please reach out. Whether it’s mes­sag­ing, coali­tion build­ing, or strat­e­gy, we’d love to dis­cuss how we could work with your team to ensure your inter­ests are heard loud and clear. We antic­i­pate 2025 to be a piv­otal year and the time to start prepar­ing is now.