Dustin DuFault - SD49 Candidate for MN Senate

Minnesota Deserves Better!

Farm-raised in the Red River Valley. Chemical engineer. 25-year attorney & small business owner. Minnesotan for generations.

[Dustin DuFault - SD49 Candidate for MN Senate @dufaultformn]

I’ve talked to a lot of people in this district who are just tired.

Tired of voting when nothing seems to change.

Tired of the same pattern: Warnings ignored, money still moving, almost no one answering for it.

That is what I have been posting.

Just in the last week or so:

+ A Minneapolis homeowner in a house under 700 square feet, looking at an 11% city levy; that levy stays on Minneapolis parcels, but the habit shows up on our Hennepin County property tax notices we open here.

+ An insurer whose own investigator wrote “intent to fraud is evident,” per court filings FOX 9 reviewed, and the payments kept coming.

+ Minnesota’s own auditor found a facility with a death and four hospitalizations still got an average rating because the report card leaves maltreatment out.

+ Another home, licensed for six residents, was paid Medicaid for eighteen in a single month, a risk of incorrect payment the state still has to unwind.

The Legislature write the statutes. The governor’s agencies write the checks. Those agencies have been run by DFL administrations for the years this fraud scaled, and they kept paying after the flags were up.

I understand the exhaustion.

Checking out does not punish that system.

It protects it.

Don’t give up on this district. Don't give up on this state.

Minnesota Deserves Better.

[Dustin DuFault - SD49 Candidate for MN Senate @dufaultformn]

@billglahn "How I got away with it using this one simple trick."

[Bill Glahn @billglahn]

Any and all of this could have been done by Minnesota Democrats at any point in the past 16 years.

But they didn’t, did they.

[Moderate Mutt @ModerateMutt]

@dufaultformn vote for Dustin for Senate District 49A & 49B! Eden Prairie & Minnetonka !

[Dustin DuFault - SD49 Candidate for MN Senate @dufaultformn]

@jbeam123 Fun fact: Mille Lacs is roughly three times larger by surface area than the Sea of Galilee.

[Dustin DuFault - SD49 Candidate for MN Senate @dufaultformn]

@TheJusticeDept @AGToddBlanche Flashback: 2023

https://t.co/0adTKNnOWN

[Dustin DuFault - SD49 Candidate for MN Senate @dufaultformn]

@TheJusticeDept @AGToddBlanche Flashback: 2023

https://t.co/6iZrcG3cuE

[Dustin DuFault - SD49 Candidate for MN Senate @dufaultformn]

New statewide test results came out today, and they are hard to read. Less than 45% of Minnesota students met grade-level standards in math, down slightly from last year. Less than 50% met the reading test standard.

Here in SD49, Eden Prairie and Minnetonka schools have long performed well above the state average. Hopkins has room to grow.

But strong districts don't have walls around them. Every Minnesota kid who leaves school unable to read or do math at grade level makes life harder for our employers, our tax base, and communities, including ours.

At the Capitol, I will judge every education bill by one question. Does it help kids read, write, and do math? Keep the focus on fundamentals, give the Read Act time to work, and put money into classrooms rather than new mandates.

Minnesota Deserves Better!

https://t.co/ClAQyeCEOD

#mnleg #SD49 #EdenPrairie #Minnetonka #Hopkins #MNSchools

[Dustin DuFault - SD49 Candidate for MN Senate @dufaultformn]

Minnesota iron ore. Iowa steel.

Mesabi Metallics just announced an $18 billion plan. Roughly $3 billion finishes its mine in Nashwauk, the first new iron ore mine on the Range in about 50 years. The other $15 billion builds a steel mill in Lee County, Iowa, with an estimated 1,700+ permanent jobs and 5,000 to 6,000 construction jobs.

The ore is here. The company is headquartered here. The rail lines and the Duluth port are here. The mill is going to Iowa.

This never should have happened.

Three things I will work on in the Senate so the next one stays here.

Permitting. Firm deadlines for state agencies and an end to the endless litigation cycle, so a company gets a clear yes or no in months, not years.

Power. A modern mill like this runs on electric arc furnaces that draw enormous amounts of electricity around the clock. Companies build where power is reliable and affordable, and Minnesota has to be able to promise both.

Nuclear. Minnesota law still bans new nuclear power plants. That moratorium takes the best source of firm, carbon-free power off the table before a company even asks. Repeal it.

Minnesota Deserves Better!

#mnleg #IronRange #MNSenate #SD49

https://t.co/WTyBpIMzFY

[Dustin DuFault - SD49 Candidate for MN Senate @dufaultformn]

Minneapolis' own auditor just reviewed the city's violence-prevention contracts, and every taxpayer in Minnesota should read the findings.

Since 2023, the city has spent more than $36 million on alternatives to policing through more than 100 contracts with community groups. The audit found oversight so weak it raised the risk of fraud and opened the door to favoritism. Contractors submitted invoices with limited documentation. Records were kept in different places and formats. In several cases, contractors went around staff and appealed directly to the City Council and other officials to get contracts approved or disputes resolved.

When nobody checks the paperwork, nobody can tell you whether the money did what it promised. And this audit exists only because a Minneapolis lawyer sued the city in 2023 over the lack of oversight, and the 2024 settlement required it.

Minnesotans have seen this pattern before. Money goes out fast, controls come later, and the audit arrives years after the checks cleared.

At the Capitol, I will push to stand up the OIG's law enforcement division now, not in 2028. I will insist that grant dollars require documented deliverables before payment, not after.

Minnesota Deserves Better!

#mnleg #mnpol #SD49 #EdenPrairie #Minnetonka

https://t.co/FzweJrdBNG

[Dustin DuFault - SD49 Candidate for MN Senate @dufaultformn]

Ron Schutz built his career taking on corporations like Sony and La-Z-Boy in court. A stock portfolio can be sold or put in a blind trust. A track record can't be traded away.

Yours includes a December 2021 meeting with people later charged in Feeding Our Future, one month before the FBI raids. That fraud cost taxpayers an estimated $250 million.

Minnesotans need an AG who stops fraud before the FBI has to.

Minnesota Deserves Better!
#mnleg #mnpol #SD49

[CiceroMN @cicero_mn]

I’m voting for Lisa and Ryan

I’m voting for the future

[Dustin DuFault - SD49 Candidate for MN Senate @dufaultformn]

@rivka95788 @becka_thompson

[Dustin DuFault - SD49 Candidate for MN Senate @dufaultformn]

@nathanmhansen @becka_thompson

[Dustin DuFault - SD49 Candidate for MN Senate @dufaultformn]

Here is what the story leaves out.

Hennepin County already has local sales taxes. Buy something in Eden Prairie or Minnetonka and you pay 8.525%, which is 1.65 points above the 6.875% state rate. That extra comes from a 0.15% Hennepin County tax, a 0.5% Hennepin County transit tax, and 1% in metro area taxes for transportation and housing that the Legislature added in 2023.

Several Hennepin County cities add their own tax on top. Minneapolis, Bloomington, Edina, Richfield, Maple Grove, and Excelsior are at 9.025%. Golden Valley is at 9.775%.

And the record property tax bills came anyway.

That is the difference between the two states. In Wisconsin, the county sales tax offsets the property tax levy. In Minnesota, each new sales tax has been added alongside the levy and dedicated to something else, and property tax bills keep climbing.

A Sherburne County commissioner named the real problem in the story, which is unfunded mandates passed by the Legislature. Giving counties another tax tool doesn't fix that. Stopping the mandates does.

Any change to county taxing authority should leave taxpayers paying less in total, not more. Levy relief that arrives as one more tax layer isn't relief.

Minnesota Deserves Better!

#mnleg #SD49 #PropertyTax #EdenPrairie #Minnetonka

[KSTP @KSTP]

Wisconsin counties use sales tax to cut property taxes, and Minnesota leaders are exploring similar options as property tax levies hit record highs. READ MORE at the link in bio.

[Dustin DuFault - SD49 Candidate for MN Senate @dufaultformn]

Here is what the story leaves out. Hennepin County residents already pay local sales taxes. Buy something in Eden Prairie or Minnetonka and you pay 8.525%, which is 1.65 points above the 6.875% state rate. That extra comes from a 0.15% Hennepin County tax, a 0.5% Hennepin County transit tax, and 1% in metro area taxes for transportation and housing that the Legislature added in 2023.

Several Hennepin County cities add their own tax on top. Minneapolis, Bloomington, Edina, Richfield, Maple Grove, and Excelsior are at 9.025%. Golden Valley is at 9.775%.

And the record property tax bills came anyway.

That is the difference between the two states. In Wisconsin, the county sales tax offsets the property tax levy. In Minnesota, each new sales tax has been added alongside the levy and dedicated to something else, and property tax bills keep climbing.

A Sherburne County commissioner named the real problem in the story, which is unfunded mandates passed by the Legislature. Giving counties another tax tool doesn't fix that. Stopping the mandates does.

Any change to county taxing authority should leave taxpayers paying less in total, not more. Levy relief that arrives as one more tax layer isn't relief.

Minnesota Deserves Better!

#mnleg #SD49 #PropertyTax #EdenPrairie #Minnetonka

[Dustin DuFault - SD49 Candidate for MN Senate @dufaultformn]

Two public records, side by side.

SEIU Minnesota's endorsement came with a condition. Before a candidate could be considered, he had to agree to its "Unions for All" pledge. That pledge commits a signer to SEIU's partisan legislative agenda before a single bill is written, including opposing right-to-work, supporting sectoral bargaining boards and joint employer liability, and using "all levers at my disposal" to help unions organize.

My opponent, DFL's Krish Subrahmanian, is SEIU's endorsed candidate for SD49.

I declined the same pledge in writing. I support workers' right to organize, but I don't sign pledge cards. I answer to the voters of this district, and my full, unedited answers to SEIU's questionnaire are posted at https://t.co/yVW0feWaoG for anyone to read.

Now follow the money. According to his most recent Campaign Finance Board report, more than half of his itemized contributions came from outside Minnesota.

For the same period, 96.1 percent of my itemized contributions came from Minnesota addresses.

One candidate committed his votes to an organization in advance and raised most of his itemized dollars from people residing outside Minnesota. The other said no to the pledge and is funded almost entirely by Minnesotans.

Eden Prairie and Minnetonka deserve a senator who walks into the Capitol answering to them, and only them.

Minnesota Deserves Better!

#SD49 #mnleg #mnpol #EdenPrairie #Minnetonka

[Gretchen Touchette @gretchentouche2]

@dufaultformn @amyklobuchar Outstanding answer and I learned alot from it that I did not know. If I were in your district I would vote for you in a heartbeat. Just looked at your web page. We need thoughtful politicians in MN government more than ever.

[Dustin DuFault - SD49 Candidate for MN Senate @dufaultformn]

Thanks for reading.

On broadband, you're right that it's been too slow. The federal BEAD program passed in 2021, and Minnesota's share is roughly $652 million, yet years later much of it is still working its way toward actual construction.

After D.C. made the program technology-neutral in 2025, about a quarter of Minnesota's BEAD locations are now slated for low-earth-orbit satellite service like Starlink. That's the right call for the hardest-to-reach homes. Starlink's Helene response was emergency connectivity, which it does very well; fiber is the long-term answer for most rural homes.

Rural Minnesota--where I was born and raised--needs both, without another five years of paperwork.