Minnesota’s 2025 legislative session will go down as abnormal in nearly every way. From the late start in the House of Representatives and the accompanying case before the Minnesota Supreme Court, to the myriad special elections to the special session, little played out as expected in St. Paul this year.
Given that context, both Hastings’ legislators, Sen. Judy Seeberger and Rep. Tom Dippel, sat down to discuss the session and their takeaways from it.
The conversations have been edited for clarity.

I wanted to ask you very broadly what are you closing thoughts on the 2025 legislative session, what stood out to you and what struck you as important?
Rep. Dippel: Obviously, there are some very important things. Like education has been top of mind for constituents that have children in the district. Seeing that reading was below grade level among more than 50% of students, I think the fact that we got the READ Act passed and the science of reading was re-adopted and re-introduced into the reading curriculum of children, I think that’s absolutely critical.
Then beyond that, the work I did to push to get funding for the Hastings water treatment facilities through the bonding bill, I ended up voting for bonding. It went towards infrastructure of all kinds around the state.
But I think it was important to get Hastings as much relief as possible and then continue to fight to get more funding over the next couple of years.
We are faced with a $6 billion budget deficit. Going from $18 billion surplus and the taxes raised another $10 billion on top of that, we were faced with that huge deficit and yet we still had to prioritize absolutely necessary things at the state level. So that made things difficult.
I kept my promise on voting against any increase and in fact we ended up passing the largest spending cut in Minnesota history.
My votes reflect what I heard from constituents, that they didn’t want taxes to go up and they thought they should have gotten their money back from the surplus or that it should have been spent more wisely and shrewdly.
Certainly, I took away that Minnesotans are fed up with all the fraud, which is another reason they don’t want taxes to go up. There’s just a huge amount of fraud that occurred in Minnesota, and if the state is going to be taking their citizens’ money, they should be expected to watch over and spend that money first-and-foremost on necessary items, but beyond that, if it does go to an organization, these organizations must be vetted. They must be accountable. I would say that was another really big takeaway.
So fiscal responsibility was something I continuously brought up at the capitol and advocating for Cottage Grove and Hastings, for Nininger and Denmark for different issues whether that be with water quality or water filtration, water testing or any other issues.

This was your first session in the House and it was a strange one for every reason, so coming in, what surprised you the most and what were you most prepared for?
Rep. Dippel: I wasn’t necessarily surprised per say, and I entered into the legislative session wanting to be open, honest and transparent with whomever I spoke with at the capital to whatever degree was appropriate. I believe I executed on that.
I think people were a little confused by it and didn’t quite know what to do with that because that isn’t the norm. Normally people try to get information at the capitol and try to do run-arounds on everybody and that wasn’t the mode I operated under.
I expected people would be a little confused by that, but I think we need more of that at the capital. I wasn’t particularly surprised by anything, it was just a lot of human beings trying to do what they want to do within the legal system. Sometimes that brings the best in people and sometimes that brings out the worst.

To that point, there was a lot of talk before the beginning of the session that because of the close split in both chambers, it would foster more bipartisan cooperation. Do you think that actually happened?
Rep. Dippel: I do believe that happened. I believe that it became absolutely necessary especially toward the end of session. I think both sides of the aisle tried to get in their shots at one another but when the rubber hit the road, we both needed one vote from the other side of the aisle to pass something and so you ended up with a situation where you had to have bipartisan support on different things.
As I mentioned, I didn’t support a lot of items because they would have raised taxes or spending was too high on them and I had heard from constituents that they didn’t want that.
However, I voted for the bonding bill and I think that surprised people because with a bonding bill you need two-thirds of the House and spending bills have to originate in the House, that’s what our constitution says.
So people I think were a little surprised that I personally supported the bonding bill because there really wasn’t a lot of extra stuff in it at all. It was all necessary infrastructure that our state and cities need, so I was fine supporting that for the sake of our communities here so they wouldn’t have to shoulder those bills personally.

At the town hall you hosted in Cottage Grove in March, you said you were against a bonding bill at that time. You said you didn’t “think the state should have a credit card.” Can you talk about what changed your mind?
Rep. Dippel: I still technically am opposed to the government taking out debt when they have plenty of money.
So the government definitely does not have a revenue issue. People have probably heard that phrase before. It’s not a revenue issue. We have a budget that is more than $60 billion now in Minnesota. We have plenty of money to help municipalities with infrastructure and mandates, frankly, that haven’t been funded.
I think there is a structural issue there, and I am opposed to the state taking out debt when they don’t need to. The problem is when you get stonewalled from one end to the next of the legislative session on trying to secure funds for the community here to make sure taxpayers don’t have to shoulder and even higher tax burden, unfortunately nobody had the appetite for that.
The senator who represents the district didn’t want to sign onto my bill that would have allotted 3M settlement money to Hastings. I tried to get the clean water rolling in Hastings from the Legacy Amendment. There’s money that is constitutionally mandated to go into that pool on an annual basis from sales tax—we are talking over $130 million just in the clean water fund—5% of that is specifically mandated to go towards clean drinking water.
Hastings has basically been at the top of the list to receive funding for these projects, and I thought, well, if 5% is supposed to go toward that, let’s roll with it. I held a press conference in Hastings and a whole bunch of activists from the other side of the aisle came out and distracted from that issue and really hurt the prospects of Hastings residents getting money from that because I had no momentum then.
I had no momentum behind that when you have the other side of the aisle attacking your idea of trying to secure funds that are already there, that are earmarked and mandated to be utilized for that, that was really a sad moment for the city of Hastings because people put politics over the health and wellbeing of everyone else in Hastings.
I was left with only one option at the end of the session even though I pushed hard for cash appropriations, I pushed hard for the Legacy Fund, I pushed hard for the 3M settlement money; I just found opposition at every level and bonding was the very, very last option on the very last day and one of the very last bills to come to the floor.

Pivoting from water for a minute, can you tell me about some bills that were left on the table that you think are important or that you will still be pushing for in 2026?
Rep. Dippel: I think that Education Empowerment accounts to make sure that families can send their children to school and have tax write-offs in that process, I think that’s a way to give parents as many options as they can in their kids’ education. Parents know what’s best for their children and how their children should be educated so that’s why I authored the Education Empowerment bill.
It both authorizes getting tax credits from the federal government which are there and available right now, if Minnesota would accept my bill and accept the $10,000 per student that the federal government is offering. It’s a huge amount of money and I think we should be prioritizing children’s education as the board chair and founder of a school with very high achieving students who are excelling, I think this structure would bring that same kind of option to parents so I do believe we should be pushing hard for that, especially when we come back after the summer.
There are other common sense, simple bills like if somebody has a small baking business out of their home, they shouldn’t be under the same burden of regulations that somebody who has a large bakery does. It makes it very difficult to do business under that circumstance. So, the smaller startups out of homes should have less regulations.
Really I’m going to continue to fight for clean water in our area. That isn’t a thing that’s been taken off the table by any stretch: that’s something I’ll continue to fight for.
The safety of our constituents in our area, making sure we continue to support and fund law enforcement and really funding every avenue.
There’s still work to be done on the healthcare side of things. We tackled some of the issues that occurred with middlemen between pharmacists and drug companies. These PBMs were charging exorbitant amounts of money and creating contracts that inflated the price of pharmaceuticals and drugs for our community and really were fleecing the pharmacists too. They were putting them in an untenable situation where they were making no money on the drugs they were distributing also, so these local pharmacists were going to have to shut down because they weren’t going to make profit anymore.
That has been resolved partially but still needs more work. I think healthcare needs to be more affordable for people here in Minnesota. We have to continue to work hard on that.
There is a whole gamut of issues that are still on the table that will require hardy debate and that I will continue to push for at the capitol.

Another priority you spoke about early in this session was tax relief for Minnesotans. You said in an interview to the House Public Information Services in January that you wanted to help Minnesotans “get back to an affordable life.” You’ve spoken about some of the votes you’ve cast for that already, but frankly, do you think it succeeded?
Rep. Dippel: Cutting the state budget to be within the same means as every Minnesotan lives in is a start. To have a record spending cut is definitely a start, but I believe we need to get back to where we were before we spent the $18 billion surplus and raised the budget another $10 billion on top of that.
I think we’ve shown that people can have good intentions and say that government can solve your problem if we throw a bunch of money at it; it doesn’t always work that way and individuals can make better choices for themselves than somebody else can for them. They can also manage their own money better than somebody else can for them.
Philosophically and principally, I heard from constituents is just that: ‘hey give us our money back. Let’s live within our means.’ I intend to continue to fulfill the promise that I made to constituents: your property taxes shouldn’t be this high, your income taxes on a state level shouldn’t be this high.
Something that’s a little hidden, that politicians try to do up at the capitol is they try to say ‘we didn’t raise taxes’ and then push it down to the property taxes through the county. They tell the county, ‘well you have to do this now’ but then they don’t give them any money for it. Well if they have to do it, they have to pay for it, and that means the county has to raise property taxes.
I am opposed to telling counties they have to do something without it being funded and in fact counties do way more than they were intended to do originally, so I believe we should be pulling back on those mandates that are pulling down on counties so property tax relief can happen and make sure we follow through on our promise to decrease taxes and make Minnesotans lives more affordable again.

So what I’m hearing is that to that question of if you succeeded, that this is a start.
Rep. Dippel: This is a start absolutely and it’s a good start to have record spending cuts, especially when you have a $6 billion budget deficit. It just means that we have a lot further to go too.
It’s not going to be an easy path but this is the conversation that needs to be had and it’s what I heard from constituents.

In the wake of the tragedy last weekend, there has been a lot of talk of toning down political rhetoric, taking the temperature down in politics. Do you think that is enough of a response, and if not, what else needs to be done?
Rep. Dippel: Rhetoric should be toned down. I have not been a fan of calling individuals names. I think that it’s important to talk about issues and the person’s record: what did they vote for and what do they support.
Those are things voters want to hear about. Voters don’t want to hear people being demonized on either side of the aisle. We are all humans. We have to be reminded that we live in the same state here in Minnesota, we live on planet Earth and as of now, we have nowhere else to go, so we should be showing love and kindness and respect toward one another and sometimes debate gets heated. Within that heated debate, we still need to be respectful. We don’t need to resort to calling each other names, demonizing one another and saying we are like a political figure in the past that was very evil and comparing people to things that are political hyperbole constantly. It just really amplifies the hatred side of people and I think we need a lot less of that right now.
With a year at the legislature under your belt, what are your thoughts on 2026 and is there a way you’ll approach it differently with a year of experience?
Rep. Dippel: Well I still intend on being transparent and honest. That’s part of the core of who I am and I don’t intend on changing that.
In terms of communication and strategy, just knowing different individuals more, whether Republican or Democrat, always gives greater ability to communicate effectively and get something done, so my intention is to work more closely with different individuals who specifically have a high knowledge base with issues important to our district and within that I will be more focused with people who have more influence and knowledge on the different things our district needs.

I wanted to ask you very broadly what are you closing thoughts on the 2025 legislative session, what stood out to you and what struck you as important?
Sen. Seeberger: I think what struck me about this session was just how closely we had to work together. Kind of coming into it, we all sort of acknowledge we can't do anything without everyone else, right?
I mean, we had the tied House and a one-seat majority in the Senate, and so really, by definition, we had to sit down and work together. And I took that to heart, understanding that we're going to have to really focus on the middle ground here and what we can agree on.
That was sort of the defining structure that I came at things with this session. Not everybody did. And so that became a little bit of a source of personal frustration for me, but it was something that we all had to work through, and I think we did.

Was there anything that stood out to you as most surprising about this session?
Sen. Seeberger: I think the way it started kind of took everybody by surprise when we had sort of everything grind to a halt in the House. So that was, I think, unique. I don't know that we've ever seen that before. I certainly haven't.
For me personally, in the Senate, I kind of stood back and waited for that situation to resolve itself. I think there was a learning curve. I think a lot of folks had to try to understand, what does it mean to have a tied House, and what does it mean, how are we going to work together, and how are we going to focus on getting a budget done and getting things accomplished? That I think took a little bit of time.

To that point of such a close split in both houses, before the session, there was a lot of talk that that split would foster more bipartisan cooperation, especially given the trifecta of previous years. Do you think that actually happened?
Sen. Seeberger: I think it did.
I think we saw that in the House once they got there, got everything figured out, and got joint power agreements figured out, then I think we absolutely did see that.
We saw co-chairs really doing their best to work together and I think we saw it in the Senate as well. And from my perspective, I saw two different reactions. I saw a lot of us rolling up our sleeves and saying, ‘We have to work together. We have to find common ground. We have to kind of focus on what needs to get done,’ and then a little bit more of the folks on either end of the political spectrum digging their heels in a little bit and saying, ‘We really don't want to work together.’
So that was a challenge to try to get everybody on the same page, and I think ultimately, we did, but it was certainly a learning curve for a lot of people.

The Senate had a power sharing agreement even before the first day. So when it came to many of your colleagues not showing up, what was your perspective from another chamber?
Sen. Seeberger: From the Senate perspective, I was kind of proud of how we jumped right in.
We were tied due to a little bit of different circumstance, right, the death of Kari Dziedzic. So, I think we all kind of came together in that spirit and said, ‘look, we didn't want to be tied.’ This was something that affects all of us on an emotional and personal level. And so we were able to come together and work really well together.
And in fact, when Sen. Clark was seated after the special election to fill Sen. Dziedzic’s seat, I wanted the power sharing to continue. I thought it worked really, really well and I kind of wanted to see it continue.
Some committees did, I mean, the DFL did take the majority again. But, for example, a Tax Committee in the Senate continued with co-chairs. A few other committees continued with co-chairs, and we kept that spirit of cooperation and working together moving forward, which I thought was pretty cool.

Can you tell me about some bills that didn't pass that you still feel strongly about or think are important and will be working on in future sessions?
Sen. Seeberger: Well, there were a few that got done, but that changed shape during the conference committee process, and one of those was a bill brought to me by the Chiefs of Police Association.
It's a bill having to do with first responder and officer safety establishing a 25-foot buffer zone around a scene. And as a paramedic, that's important to me, to keep folks at a safe distance, to allow us to do our work. And that didn't quite make it through the conference committee process, and I'd like to come back next session and work on that again.
Another one, a surprising one that did come to me from the BCA (Bureau of Criminal Aprehension) that passed through the Senate committee but didn't make it through the conference committee process was brought having to do with child-like sex dolls. Not something we want to really talk about, you know, gives us kind of the ick, but they're out there. And the BCA has raised the alarm and came to the legislature and said ‘we're seeing this. We'd like to address it through legislation.’
I did have a bill that addressed childlike sex dolls. Again, it passed through the Senate, didn't make it to the conference committee. The House had some concerns about it, so we're going to fix, hopefully, whatever the problems were that the House saw with it, and come back again with it next session.
Those are two things that I saw that I was working on. I did move through some, I think, changes and improvements to the earned sick and safe time laws to try to address misuse and some of the burdens put on our smaller businesses with earned sick and safe time laws again that moved through the Senate. Unfortunately, the House wasn't on board.
So, there were some things that, you know, we had momentum in one body that didn't move through the other body. And so hopefully we can continue to work on those issues and see if we can't get some of those through next session.

Can you tell me about the intents for the ESST (Earned Sick and Safe Time) bill and your thoughts on the implementation of ESST moving forward?
Sen. Seeberger: I heard from the small business community—and I was a small business owner myself—when we passed all the laws in 2023. I mean, phenomenal work that we did, but I think as a legislature, we have to look at what happens next.
We pass a law, and then how does it work? Are there problems? And if there's problems that are being identified by the stakeholders, I think it's up to us to listen to those concerns and do our best to address them. And that's where my bill came from.
The small business community raised some concerns about the burdens put on them, quite frankly, by all the new regulations. And that's something that I experienced myself as a small business owner and was able to speak to from personal experience.
So, the idea was to try to find that balance right where employees are getting the protections that they need, but our business community isn't overburdened by regulation, and that's what I think my bill did.
It carved out small family farms. It carved out micro businesses of three or fewer employees, and in my experience, when you're a tiny little business like me, and you've got just a couple of employees, A, they're either family members or B, they're integral to running your business and you're going to treat them right, which is what I did.
Then addressing some of the misuse by employees of earned sick and safe, so that was really the impetus going in. And in my view, it would have made the program better. It would have strengthened the program. And unfortunately, we didn't quite get all of those changes across the finish line.

Even though that bill did not pass, can you tell me about your thoughts on the program moving forward?
Sen. Seeberger: I think for the most part it's great. I think it works really, really well.
The idea being, if you need time off because you're sick, or someone in your family is sick, or you are in need of protecting your safety, or going to court for a domestic violence order, something like that, you can do that without getting attendance points taken away from you or adverse employer action taken against you.
It's a short-term fix. It's meant to be short-term, not a long-term thing like paid family medical leave and I think it's been working really, really well.
Unfortunately, I think the downside is in some folks who have a whole lot of PTO banked, like 300-400 hours PTO, the way the law reads right now, all of that is protected time, so a person can use essentially all of their PTO as earned sick and safe, which is great. But the business community raised a red flag around the potential misuse of that. So that's an issue we were trying to address, and unfortunately, we weren't able to do that.

About efforts to bring money to Hastings for water treatment plants: You had several bills towards this in various ways. Can you tell me a little about the process to get those funds and where that ended up?
Sen. Seeberger: Absolutely. So, we were looking at every conceivable angle to get some money for the water treatment plant, and I’ve been working on it for a couple of sessions.
Now, last year, I had $10 million in the bonding bill, and unfortunately, we didn't get that done, given we ran out of time.
So, this year, we took another run at it, through the bonding process, and again, this is where you sort of saw the difference between the Senate and the House.
The Senate was seeking a robust bonding package, which would have included local infrastructure projects. I had but anywhere between eight and $16 million in the bonding bill, just depending on how the numbers worked out for the water treatment construction.
Unfortunately, the House did not want to include local infrastructure projects in a bonding package, and that's ultimately what went out. So, no bonding money.
But what we do have is a new Emergent Contaminants Fund that's been set up, and Hastings is number one to receive funding through that. I need to follow up with the folks in charge of that to see what the final number is and what Hastings is eligible for, but there is money there in that fund for the project.
In addition, we were able with my help and the efforts of the city of Hastings, we were able to qualify for access to the 3M settlement funds. So, Hastings now qualifies for $16 million. Again, the math has to work out, but it's around $16 million in funds from the 3M settlement fund.
The other angle I looked at was in 2023 we were able to obtain $80 million for a reconstruction of the Hastings veterans home. What that money did was the state money qualified them for a federal match. Unfortunately, there's no federal funds coming. As you know, federal funds are being cut from every direction, and so that $80 million is just sitting there, and I looked into, can we cancel that bond or a portion of it, and redirect some of that money to Hastings water?
And the answer was yes, but unfortunately, it would have fallen in the bucket of bonding money again, and since the House wanted no infrastructure, local infrastructure projects that wouldn't have qualified. So that didn't work either.
I did a lot of work to identify money and identify funds that can be used to help pay for that, and I'm still working on that. We were able to phase the project so that each session we can add a little bit more money to it and offset the burden on the rate payers in Hastings.

Can you tell me about your involvement in getting Hastings into the 3M settlement fund? I assume you're talking about Well #5.
Sen. Seeberger: So, when I started working on this process, the MPCA (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency) was pretty adamant that Hastings was not eligible to participate in the settlement fund.
I had many, many meetings with the MPCA and with the trustees in charge of the settlement fund to identify potential paths forward and talk about Hastings’ participation. And it was a very frustrating process, and it was something that the city had been involved in for quite some time, also.
But I think it took kind of everybody working on this to finally get the link established to Well #5, and to sort of impart a little bit of urgency to it, right?
It wasn't moving very quickly at all. People really weren't in a hurry to make this connection or to honor Hastings’ request for participation in this fund. And I think with all of us kind of involved in the process cleanly, the determination was made and the eligibility was established.

You talked about plans for phasing these projects to get more money in future sessions. Can you tell me more about that?
Sen. Seeberger: When we first started working on this back in 2023 it was: here's the project, here's the cost, that's what we want. And when it became apparent that we weren't going to be able to fund the entire $70 million in one bonding bill.
Then we started thinking creatively, okay, how can we do this? What can we do? So then we worked with the city to do it in phases. The city said, ‘Okay, so for the first phase, or for the central project, we need this much. For the eastern project, we need this much.’
So it was figuring out, how can we maximize the ability of the bonding dollars that we have, or the state funds that we can find to offset as much as we can for any particular project, and that's what we were trying to do.
I give the city a whole lot of credit for being flexible and creative and working with me and the rest of the legislature to try to figure out how can we maximize state dollars and do as much as we can to relieve the burden on the taxpayers of Hastings.
It's really hard when you think about all the projects throughout the state of Minnesota, the limited pot of money, and how do we prioritize and impress upon both the Senate and House Capital Investment Committees that these are very real and very immediate needs.
That was tricky. I had the Senate ready to go again. I had the Bonding Chair ready to go with about $16 million if we could have done a robust bonding bill, and then again, unfortunately, the House said no. That's the frustrating part.

Returning to bipartisan cooperation—and maybe that's a decent jumping off point—I wanted to ask you about the Blue Dog Coalition, which was announced in December of last year, and the goal of that was “pragmatic, reasonable and balanced policies that reflect the values of all Minnesotans.” Do you think that was achieved this session?
Sen. Seeberger: I do. I think we did it in a lot of different ways. I think we did it in the energy bill that got done. I think you saw it in the ag bill that got done. I think you saw it in a lot of things that got done, and really sort of leading the way within our own caucus, within the DFL caucus, to show some strength and solidarity when it came to working across the aisle and finding common sense solutions and common ground with our Republican counterparts, because a lot of us in the in the Blue Dog Coalition, we are in split districts like me.
We represent everybody, whether they voted Democrat, whether they voted Republican, whether they consider themselves Independent, whether they consider themselves Libertarian. We represent them, and so it's our job at the capitol to advocate for them, not just the Democrats, right? And so that was the underlying principle toward what we were working on and I think in a lot of ways we did that.

Given the tragedy of Rep. Hortman, I have read a lot about toning down political rhetoric and taking the temperature down in politics; do you think that is enough of a response? If not, what else needs to happen?
Sen. Seeberger: I think that's a great starting point, and I think it's important. I do think that we need to be respectful and remember at the end of the day, we're all human beings. We all have families that are behind us to speak to this work.
I understand the frustration and that a lot of this is very emotionally driven, but we do have to remember that we are all human beings. We all want the same things. We just need to differ on how to get there.
We need to remember to be respectful, to settle our differences at the ballot box, to have civil and respectful debates on issues and leave it there.
Violence is never okay, threats are never okay, attacks are never okay.
That's where we cross the line, and I think we have to remember where that line is. Keep it civil, keep it respectful, and do our best to bring down the temperature a little bit, which I do think we need to do.

As you mentioned, that is a starting point. What else should be done then?
Sen. Seeberger: I think we have to figure that out as we go right? Sure, we're sort of at a tipping point right now. I think we've seen it go way, way, way too far, and so I think we're all sort of navigating where do we go from here? What does this mean? How do we bring down the temperature?
I mean, it's one thing to say, that's what we need to do. I think it's another thing for us to recognize how do we do that? And that's, I think, where we are in the process.
For me personally, how we do that is we speak respectfully. We don't pass along misinformation or disinformation. We don't try to fan the flames. We have civil discourse without insults and inflammatory rhetoric.
And you know, I'm a trained attorney, so that's what I know how to do. But I think a lot of people speak from emotion, and I understand why that happens, but at the same time, we have to remember that our words can really have an effect, and so we need to be thoughtful about what we say and about what we post on social media and how those words might be received, and just be a little more careful and respectful on how we talk about these important issues.