Senate Republicans unveil public-safety package seeking MRRA repeal, sentencing transparency and restored training funding

Senate Republican leader Mark Johnson and several GOP state senators on Monday outlined a public-safety package that would repeal the Minnesota Rehabilitation and Reinvestment Act, change how the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission operates and restore funding for a law-enforcement training fund created after the 2016 fatal shooting of Philando Castile.

"We're here today to talk about the next part of our Minnesota First plan," Johnson said, opening the event and framing the proposals as measures to "put Minnesotans first" by keeping criminals in prison and "supporting our law enforcement."

Senator Michael Croon, R–District 32, said his bill "would repeal the Minnesota Rehabilitation and Reinvestment Act," and argued the law reduced time-to-parole eligibility from two-thirds of a sentence to one-half. Croon said the MRRA was applied retroactively and claimed it "puts 92 percent of Minnesota's prison population on a path to early…