Ahead of Cook County visit, State Sen. Hauschild talks legislative priorities

Kirsten Wisniewski | March 20, 2025

The Minnesota legislative session has just hit the halfway point, and amidst efforts to move bills through committees and vote on issues, Cook County’s representatives are visiting Grand Marais on Friday, March 21. Both State Senator Grant Hauschild and Representative Roger Skraba will attend a legislative day event at the Cook County Courthouse, followed by a town hall at the Cook County YMCA.

Hauschild has held a series of town halls across the district, and he told WTIP that several topics have come up frequently. He said in addition to long-running concern over childcare access and rural health care, there is also a lot of worry about what is happening at the national level.

“Unfortunately, I have to say that the biggest issues that folks have brought up have been a lot of the chaos that’s happening at the federal level,” Hauschild said. “Which is not my jurisdiction, per se, but I do think that it’s important for me to lend my voice to my local constituents, with our federal delegation and with the administration on issues that matter.”

2025 legislative priorities

So far this session, Hauschild has been the author or co-author of several bills that address childcare regulations and support, and funding options for rural healthcare providers. He also recently introduced a bill that would offer tax credits to businesses that advertise with local media outlets, to bolster both local businesses and local news.

As the legislature debates bills, a looming state budget shortfall and major federal cuts are also front of mind. Hauschild said the uncertainty at the federal level has raised questions about what impact cuts may have on Minnesota’s communities.

“The thing that I keep highlighting is that all of these cuts that are coming down often impact rural communities most,” he said, “So whether it’s the Medicaid cuts, whether it’s VA services for veterans, whether it’s our Park Service and our US Forest Service employees, like all of that, feels very targeted, frankly, at Northern Minnesota to me, and so I’ve really been trying to highlight the concerns of our constituents.”

Power-sharing in the House and Senate

The 2025 legislative session began with vacant House and Senate seats. The Senate began the session with a power-sharing agreement before a special election gave the DFL a one-vote majority. In the House, the vacancy tipped the scales for the Republicans by a single vote. A special election in March restored the tie that was initially announced after the elections in November.

While the House began the session with a boycott from the DFL and disputes over how to proceed before the special election, the Senate started in a less tumultuous way. Hauschild said he was proud that the Senate was able to establish bipartisan control and work together to start the session. He said, “In the Senate, we’ve been at full throttle the whole time working on legislation, working on the bills that I have, and now that the House is back to normal proceedings, I think actually the Senate is in a good position to sort of advance the things we’ve already been working on.”

Cook County town hall meeting

As they head into the second half of the legislative session, Hauschild said he is hoping to take this time to check in with his constituents through town hall meetings. “I just want to encourage as many folks as possible to come have your voices heard, be part of our democracy,” Hauschild said, “It’s always a respectful and civil conversation, but it’s a great opportunity to just have a direct dialog, and frankly, a conversation within the community about the issues that matter most to us, and it helps give me direction on the policies that I should really be focusing on. ”

The town hall meeting for Cook County will be held at the YMCA on Friday, March 21, beginning at noon.

WTIP’s Kirsten Wisniewski spoke to Sen. Grant Hauschild. Audio of that interview is below.