Contributed by Ben Feist, Legislative Director of the ACLU-MN.

The 2013 Minnesota Legislative Session ended May 20. Looking back on the session we were excited about a number of a huge victories, and hopeful that a few bills that did not make it through this session will be passed next session.

Victories:

  • After 40 + years of fighting for marriage equality in Minnesota, the dream was finally realized when Governor Dayton signed the Freedom to Marry Law on May 14. Minnesota will be the 12th state to grant the freedom to marry to all Minnesotans when the law goes into effect on August 1. Do you have questions about the new law and how it works? Check out our F.A.Q. page.
  • Voting rights were also expanded with a small step forward when no-excuse absentee voting was signed into law. Under the new rules any Minnesotan can absentee vote before Election Day (previously you had to have an excuse), which will help to expand access to voting and reduce long voting lines. A better fix would be early voting, which we are still hopeful will pass next session, that would open access but reduce costs to the State and local election officials.
  • The Dream Act passed which provides in-state tuition, state financial aid, and authorizes the use of private funds to create scholarships in public colleges and universities to all students from Minnesota regardless of their immigration status. Minnesota will join 14 other states in ensuring that all Minnesotans have the ability to access higher education opportunities.

Projects for next session

  • Automatic license plate readers are cameras used by police that capture images of your license plate number which can allow law enforcement to monitor and track your movements. There are no current laws that dictate how long police can keep that data or what they can do with it. Thanks to the ACLU efforts, the Minnesota House passed a bill that has a zero day retention policy, which means the police cannot store records of innocent drivers. However, the Minnesota Senate failed to pass any similar measures. While we were disappointed that reform didn't happen this session we believe that it could happen next session.
  • Rights Restoration - A bill was introduced that would allow individuals who have a felony on their record to vote as soon as they are released from prison—as opposed to waiting until they are "off paper" or off parole. The ACLU thinks this is a much needed reform and hops that the bill will pass next session as well.
  • Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform- Two bills circulated in the legislature this session that made important reforms to current law to strengthen the protection of your civil liberties and property rights. While they did not pass this session, we are hopeful that we can revive them next session.
    • Current law says that law enforcement can seize YOUR property without you even having been found guilty of a crime. This bill would change it so they cannot seize your property until after you have been found guilty of a crime.
    • The other important change this bill makes to civil asset forfeiture is that it protects spouses and other innocent owners to allow them to have their day in court and get their property back if they did not know about the crime. An example of this would be if your child used your car and was arrested for drug possession while in your vehicle, the police could seize your vehicle and hold it because it was involved with a drug crime. This would change the law to make it easier to get your property back if you were not a party to the crime.