Texas shooting puts school safety debate back in Minnesota spotlight

Updated: 4:10 p.m. | Posted: 2:26 p.m.

A shooting at a high school in Texas has thrust the issue of gun control and school safety back into the spotlight at the Minnesota Capitol, as lawmakers face a looming deadline to pass those proposals and a host of others.

The shooting at Santa Fe High School in Texas Friday morning that left as many as 10 dead, was top of mind for lawmakers, even as they work to find a compromise on tax conformity, emergency school aid, a bonding bill and more, all before they are constitutionally required to adjourn on Monday.

DFL Gov. Mark Dayton said lawmakers should send him a bill funding school safety measures that he can sign immediately. He also urged students and parents to "keep fighting for common sense gun safety measures," but he didn't expect the Legislature to send him anything before session adjourns.

"It's one thing to prevent somebody from coming into a school, which is vitally important, it's another thing to prevent them from getting their hands on a gun when they shouldn't have it," Dayton said. "I don't expect there's going to be anything there, and that will be a serious omission, but it's important we find something we can agree on."

School shootings have book-ended the 2018 session. One week before Minnesota lawmakers convened in February, 17 people were killed in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Protesters marched to Minnesota Capitol to put pressure on the Republican-controlled Legislature to pass gun control measures, and more headed to St. Paul on Friday, including students from Henry Sibley High School in Mendota Heights.

"We are all terrified, we demand action," said Jorge Esparza, a student at Henry Sibley High School. "If the legislators in that building right now won't meet our demands, then come November, we will find people who will."

Still, a handful of gun control bills have stalled in the Legislature at the objection of Republicans in control, including a proposal to expand background checks for sales and another creating so-called "red flag" protective orders.

"We have to quit blaming the tool and look at what's causing it. With the drunk drivers and people driving their cars drunk we don't blame the car, we blame the people," Rep. Brian Johnson, R-Cambridge, said. "Let's take a look and see what's causing this to happen."

Democrats in the Legislature have tried to keep the issue front and center. They used a little-known rule to force a hearing on gun bills earlier in session, and Rep. Erin Maye Quade, DFL-Apple Valley, staged a 24-hour sit-in to protest lack of action on gun bills.

"On the one hand you have Minnesotans demanding action for the reasons you saw just this morning in Sante Fe, where we need to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people," Rep. Dave Pinto, DFL-St. Paul, said. "On the flip side you've got a Republican majority where the House speaker said a couple weeks ago, 'Those bills are dead; that effort is dead.' It's not dead until midnight on Sunday."

At a previously scheduled press conference demonstrating bulletproof glass that could be installed in classrooms with school safety funding, Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester, said lawmakers are "focused on something, right now, that can pass." Dayton and legislators have proposed spending between $20 and $30 million to give school districts to use for cameras, counselors, guards and other safety improvements.

"We are laser-focused on making sure that we have dollars that go to our schools and that safe school that make sure the buildings and facilities are safe," Nelson said.

Dayton and top legislative leaders met Friday afternoon to discuss a pathway to end the session on time and with a deal on taxes, education funding and other issues. The biggest remaining tension is over the details of a tax conformity proposal and Dayton's request to pump $138 million in emergency funds into schools facing teacher layoffs.

"We are absolutely dedicated to making sure our schools are well funded," Republican House Speaker Kurt Daudt said after the meeting. "But we want to make sure those resources are used properly.

Dayton also sent out a list of 117 "objectionable provisions" in a Republican budget bill, ranging from changes to rulemaking authority of his commissioners to requirements that part of the IT budget must automatically go toward cybersecurity.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka was optimistic that they could work through their differences and find agreement before time runs out.

"The people that we have working on it, in an hour, they went through about 24 of them," he said. "We're on a pace where we can actually do it. We know that we're running out of time, and we're going to get there."

Dayton was less optimistic.

"They're running out of time. They have no one to blame but themselves."