State Rep. Bill Hilty Announces Bid for Re-election

With the close of the 2006 legislative session State Representative Bill Hilty has officially announced his intention to seek re-election to his District 8A seat in the Minnesota House of Representatives.  Hilty is running with the unanimous endorsement of District 8A DFL delegates awarded at the convention held in April.

Having served five terms, Rep. Hilty has long made clear his decision to continue his work in the Minnesota House, and not to seek the Senate seat made vacant this year by Senator Becky Lourey’s departure to bid for election as Governor. “The seniority I have acquired, and the working relationships that I’ve built will be very valuable to the citizens of our area” Hilty said, noting that all of the district’s senior representation would be lost if he were to go into the Senate as a freshman. “It’s important to me to be able to use my experience where it will carry the most influence for this district and its needs,” he said.

Minnesota House District 8A stretches from St. Croix State Park in the southeast corner to the northern precincts that encompass the Fond Du Lac Reservation.  It includes the northern and eastern portions of Pine County, the southern St. Louis County precincts of Arrowhead, Brevator, Culver, Stoney Brook and the city of Brookston, and all of Carlton County except Thomson Township and the cities of Esko, Scanlon and Thompson,

“The outcome of the 2006 session, while mixed on the whole, produced some substantial gains for House District 8A,” Rep. Hilty noted. “We were able to achieve funding for some major district projects in the bonding bill, including $41.32 million for a major expansion of the PPTC facility at Moose Lake and $12.39 million for the library and multi-use cultural center at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College in Cloquet as well as $500,000 for the St. Louis River Trail project in Cloquet, $500,000 for a major addition at the Cloquet Forestry Center and a $3 million grant to the City of Askov to deal with the very serious wastewater situation they are facing. There were also some disappointing omissions that we will have to deal with next time,” he said.

Rep. Hilty has become recognized as Minnesota’s legislative expert on elections issues, voting rights, electronic voting equipment, and ballot security concerns.  His work in this past session drew together all the groups affected by these issues – county auditors and election officials, voters’ rights groups, the handicapped community, election security and technology groups, and representatives from the Secretary of State’s office, as well as House and Senate committee members, to craft a bill, passed in the last hours of the session, which stands as a model for the nation, in assuring Minnesota’s voters secure, fair and accurate elections.

Hilty has served as DFL lead on the State Government Finance Committee since his second term—then the only second term member to have been appointed to a lead position. In the past session Rep. Hilty also served on the Civil Law and Elections committee, Regulated Industries, Gaming Division, and the Committee on Ways and Means.  His previous committee experience includes Government Operations and Veterans Affairs, Judiciary Policy and Finance, Labor Relations, and Commerce.  He has also served as a member of the Legislative Electric Energy Task Force.

Hilty described his priorities for the upcoming session as seeing that the consequences of these last years of Republican control in the House are reversed.  “It’s clear that Republican formula, as dictated by the Minnesota Taxpayers League, serving up bonuses to big business and monied interests, has hurt the hard-working, everyday citizens of our state.  There’s been an enormous shifting of the tax share onto the backs of low and middle-income workers and homeowners, and disproportionately so to Greater Minnesota,” Hilty said. “We need to reverse the direction of that shift and reverse the double-digit property tax increases that are killing us in rural Minnesota. That, and a return to more equitable funding for public education, has to be a major focus of the 2007 session,” he said.