District 49 State Senator
Position: District 49 State Senator
Candidates
- Steve Cwodzinski (D) (incumbent)
- Marla Helseth (R)
JOB POSTING
Eden Prairie is seeking a part-time executive, referred to as a state senator, who will represent District 49 residents in the Senate or upper house of the state lawmaking body known as the Minnesota Legislature for the next four years. Their higher purpose is the enactment and revision of laws. In practical terms, this means senators work on state issues, such as funding the elementary and secondary education system, setting state tax policy, and funding state human service programs.
COMPENSATION
Salaries for Minnesota’s legislators were once set by legislators themselves. But voters amended the state constitution in 2016 and salaries are now prescribed by a Legislative Salary Council. The Council set the salaries of Minnesota senators and representatives at $48,250 per year effective July 1, 2021.
QUALIFICATIONS
Representatives and senators must be qualified voters of the state, be 21 years of age, and must have resided one year in the state. In addition, legislators must have lived the six months immediately preceding the election in the district in which they are elected.
ABOUT THE HIRING PROCESS
Minnesota is one of a number of states that elect state senators for terms that are sometimes two years and sometimes four years, depending on the proximity of the election to the redistricting or reapportionment that follows the federal census. Minnesota’s senators are elected in years ending in 0, 2, and 6. The 2022 election is for a four-year term in the Minnesota Senate. All 67 Senate seats are up for election this year. District 49 is all of Eden Prairie and the portion of Minnetonka that is south of Highway 7.
Candidate Profiles
These are the candidates running to be the District 49 State Senator. Click the candidate’s name to view each profile. Candidates are listed in alphabetical order.
Cwodzinski taught from 1983 until retirement in 2016, including 30 years at Eden Prairie High School teaching American history, government, and civics. As an educator, he was recognized with the Presidential Scholar’s Influential Teacher Award, Eden Prairie Teacher of the Year Award, and Southwest Metro Teacher of the Year Award. He was elected to the Minnesota Senate in 2016. He has served on the following legislative committees: Education and Finance Policy; Environment and Natural Resources Policy and Legacy Finance; and Veterans and Military Affairs Finance and Policy. Cwodzinski is the ranking minority chair of Local Government and Policy committee and DFL Senate chair of the Civility Caucus. As a teacher, he served as a union representative to Education Minnesota.
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Helseth has worked as a substitute school teacher and staff aide, while married and raising two children and managing the home. Previously, she was a model and an employee at Piper Jaffray and Fair Isaac Corp., as well as part of the restaurant industry. She has not previously held public office.
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EPLN Q&A
Question #1: If you could accomplish just one major thing during your term in office, what would you want that to be?
Click each candidate’s name to see their answer.
If I could only accomplish passing one major bill in my next term it would be to adequately fund our public schools. Our state and country face so many important issues, but I truly believe that all of those issues become easier to tackle when we have an educated populace that has the tools and knowledge to address these issues.
I would bring the education funding back to our 2003 levels and index it to inflation. This would allow school districts to not have to worry from year to year about how their budget will be impacted by petty politics at the Capitol. As a former teacher, I have seen firsthand how funding and investment from the state is turned into success for our students. Our students and educators deserve sustainable, consistent, and reliable funding from preschool all the way to vocational school and public universities. I’m excited for Minnesota to produce the next generation of entrepreneurs, innovators, and public servants. However, we need to supply our schools with the funds and tools to support them.
Erase the learning loss experienced by students caused by extended school closures. We now know we closed schools for too long and the results were detrimental to student mental health and academic progress. Extended school closures and other COVID-19-related revelations have resulted in massive drops in enrollment nationwide and in our state, and prove that more educational options are needed.
Minnesota used to be known as an education innovation state. In the not-so-distant past, DFL legislators, including Gov. Rudy Perpich, long supported school choice. We need to return to those days, when education reform could be accomplished in bipartisan fashion instead of being held hostage by teacher union politics.
Question #2: Minnesota has a projected budget surplus of approximately $9.3 billion. Would you favor using any of this surplus, considering the current economic climate? If so, how?
Click each candidate’s name to see their answer.
I believe we have a duty to do three things with this budget surplus: make smart investments into our government services, provide taxpayers immediate relief, and set aside some of the surplus into a rainy day fund. These goals were outlined in the compromise that almost passed this last session and each of these three goals would receive about one-third of the surplus.
We have the unique opportunity to make generational investments into education, healthcare, and public safety that will make us healthier, safer, and more prosperous as a state. These investments keep Minnesota competitive and directly correlate to a high quality of life here for us and future generations. In addition to those investments into our government services, we need to make sure that folks across Minnesota get immediate relief through a check sent to each household in the state as soon as possible. Finally, while we are fortunate to have a surplus this year, we cannot predict what the next 5 to 10 years will hold. Therefore we must set aside some of the funds so that in years that are more difficult we don’t have to cut back on essential services.
The budget surplus is unprecedented – by far the highest in our state’s history – and should be returned to those who made it possible, the taxpayers of Eden Prairie and Minnetonka. Minnesota will never be a low-tax state due to our climate and quality of life. However, our personal and business tax rates are among the highest in the country, and Minnesota’s lowest income tax rate is higher than the highest income tax rate in 24 states. That is an astounding statistic.
The Legislature should use the surplus to reduce personal and small business tax rates and eliminate the state tax on seniors’ Social Security. We can provide meaningful tax relief and still preserve the education, healthcare, and environmental quality of life Minnesotans have come to expect.
Question #3: Violent crime increased across the U.S. during COVID-19, even as property crimes and burglaries decreased. What additional resources, if any, should be provided to law enforcement via the state budget?
Click each candidate’s name to see their answer.
There is no greater goal of a public servant than for them to make sure their community is safe. In order for our law enforcement to do the best job possible, we need to make sure that they are adequately funded. I propose using some of the budget surplus to help law enforcement, such as the Eden Prairie Police Department, recruit exceptional candidates and expand programs that have shown success.
When law enforcement has high recruitment standards and has the tools needed to attract outstanding candidates, our community is better served because the relationships between police and residents are stronger. We must continue to fund programs that reduce crime and recidivism, such as diversion programs for juvenile first offenders and having social workers on staff. The Eden Prairie Police Department has successfully implemented these programs, and I believe we should continue to fund them.
Finally, while property crimes are down, they are still important and can cost victims thousands of dollars. To address this, I co-authored a proposed bill that would help prevent catalytic converter theft by clarifying who can legally possess used catalytic converters.
For years I’ve lived and worked in South Minneapolis and loved it. Working in restaurants, I held crazy hours, and there were times I would walk home at 1 a.m. from Hennepin and Lake to Hennepin and 24th Street. The comfort that came from seeing police patrolling the area is now gone, and that’s sad to me.
The “defund the police” demands of prominent Minnesota DFL politicians have been extremely damaging to police morale, recruitment, and reform. It shouldn’t surprise us that this has resulted in crime spilling out from Minneapolis into Minnetonka and Eden Prairie. Downtown Minneapolis is less safe than it has been in decades and it has made parents reluctant to have their children attend the University of Minnesota due to justifiable concerns about armed robberies and on-campus safety.
Through local government aid, the state legislature provides hundreds of millions of dollars to local communities to address public safety issues. However, in 2022, neither Eden Prairie nor Minnetonka received any of these funds, while Minneapolis and St. Paul received nearly $150 million. (Source: https://www.revenue.state.mn.us/local-government-aid-lga-certification-cities). The local government aid formula should be adjusted to provide suburban communities critical public safety funding.
Question #4: Considering the new importance of state laws regarding abortion, what changes to Minnesota law regarding abortion and abortion access would you favor, if any?
Click each candidate’s name to see their answer.
The recent Supreme Court cases have transferred the responsibility of establishing reproductive freedom rights to the states. I am in favor of passing the Protect Reproductive Options (PRO) Act, which codifies reproductive freedom in Minnesota law. The difficult and personal decision to have an abortion should be left between a woman and their doctor.
Right now, Minnesota is the only state in the Upper Midwest to have the right to an abortion and is a beacon of hope to those in other states that want bodily autonomy, which means the stakes in this election are higher than ever.
The Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs case overturned Roe v. Wade, and returned the authority to regulate abortion back to all 50 states. Minnesota’s position is unique in that it includes a state supreme court ruling, Doe v. Gomez, which means even with Roe overruled, abortion is still protected under Minnesota case law.
I value human life at every stage and in every environment; I am pro-life. Because abortion remains legal in Minnesota, as a state senator I hope to focus instead on supporting policies that provide broader and more comprehensive choices for women with unplanned pregnancies (especially black women who have more abortions than white women, but are smaller in population). I’m hopeful that helping pregnant women and providing more resources for them is something we can come to consensus on in our Legislature.
Question #5: Do you favor additional restrictions on the sale of guns in Minnesota, including a red flag law and restricting sales to anyone younger than age 21?
Click each candidate’s name to see their answer.
I absolutely do. Red flag laws temporarily remove guns from people that are a risk to themselves and others which keeps our community safe. As a teacher, I’ve seen the impact that gun violence has on our students, watching their fear and anguish ridden faces as they learn about yet another mass shooting. Laws such as this, universal background checks, restricting gun sales to anyone younger than 21 years old, and a ban on military-style semi-automatic rifles can keep us safe.
No single one of those laws would prevent every gun death, but together as a patchwork of protections they can prevent gun violence incidents. If any one of these laws prevents you or a loved one from being a victim, then they are worth the world. I will continue to advocate for keeping our community safer.
A red-flag law is not a restriction on the sale of guns, it is a procedure whereby a court can order the seizure of guns from a person who is deemed by the court to be a danger to themselves or others. There are many responsible 18-year-old male and female Eden Prairie and Minnetonka high school students who participate in their school clay target team, which is the fastest growing high school sport in the country. Would we deny them the opportunity to purchase a gun and continue competing? What about 19- and 20-year-old athletes competing at the college level, or training to join the U.S. Olympic Team? Let’s attack the real problem, which is prosecutors failing to bring stiff penalties to those committing crimes with a gun, instead of debating “feel good” measures that don’t address the problem but instead infringe on the constitutional rights of young adults to participate in shooting sports.
Question #6: With federal action wilting on climate goals, what additional Minnesota Legislature actions would you support, if any?
Click each candidate’s name to see their answer.
As a member of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Policy and Legacy Finance Committee, I am dedicated to finding solutions that protect our climate so that future generations can enjoy our environment.
These solutions include providing greater access to energy-efficient technology to businesses and residents while hastening the transition of our electrical grid to renewables like wind and solar. This is a crucial step in hitting our climate goals since six out of every 10 pounds of CO2 produced in Hennepin County are from our energy use. By 2050 Minnesota could and should run on 100 percent renewable energy.
We also need the Minnesota Legislature to help provide more access to low- and zero-emission vehicles and increase public transportation reliability to further reduce our carbon footprint. I support the proposed rule from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency that would have car dealerships stock more electric and low-emission vehicles in their lots.
Federal action is not “wilting” as is suggested; rather, recent activity at the federal level indicates that robust debate on climate legislation is in fact taking place.
When it comes to addressing this issue, market forces are having a much greater impact than heavy-handed government mandates. Car makers are building more electric vehicles; beverage companies are reducing the amount of plastic used in bottles; new homes and buildings are exponentially more efficient than just five years ago. There are countless other examples.
Additionally, in liberal states like California that have imposed aggressive regulations in an effort to address climate change, we’ve seen rolling blackouts, $6 per gallon gas and energy bills that are rising at double digit rates. Let’s not make the cure worse than the disease.
This page is part of EPLN’s 2022 Voter Guide. Get info on each of the races by choosing from below.
