Minnesota Senate trims members' postage allotment by 10% as amendment to resolution passes

The Minnesota Senate on Thursday adopted Senate Resolution 13, which sets postage budgets for calendar year 2025, after approving an A3 amendment that trims members' postage allocations by about 10%.

Senator Johnson moved the A3 amendment to reduce the line-item amounts on page 1, line 5 — deleting “1,300” and inserting “1,170” — and to proportionally reduce additional postage provided to committee chairs and majority and minority leaders. "What the A3 amendment does is simply takes us down, our postage budget 10%...this is a small amount of sacrifice but I think is necessary, to make sure that we are being fiscally prudent, within our operations here at the Senate as well," Senator Johnson said on the floor.

The amendment drew pushback from Senator Murphy, who supported maintaining the 2024 postage amounts and described direct mail as an important communication channel. "I worry a lot about our ability to continue to communicate directly with people around the facts of the matter and the truth," Murphy said, adding that mail remains a tool for reaching constituents along with in-person events. After debate and a roll call request, the amendment was adopted and the…