Shane Mekeland

I am a lifelong Minnesotan. After many years of working in the real world, I decided to run for the Minnesota House in our former district, 15B. Now, four years later, I am running again to continue providing our area with a conservative voice in the House as we work to fix problems affecting all of us. My top priorities for this term are to re-build our economy, eliminate our state’s projected shortfall, provide tax relief and reduce state regulations that are crushing our cities, towns and businesses in Minnesota.

For those things to happen, we first must end the governor’s emergency powers and allow the Legislature to participate in the decision-making process. The Governor’s strategy simply isn’t working. It is crushing our economy and taking an unnecessary toll on vulnerable populations in nursing homes and other care facilities.

The best thing we can do is re-open our economy and let people get back on the job instead of handcuffing workers with inconsistent and arbitrary mandates. We have a strong business community in Minnesota. I want to partner with employers to find solutions and I also will fight to cut and reform taxes, reduce regulations that prevent job growth.

We also need to right-size our government because it is bloated and simply too large for taxpayers to support, particularly with a looming shortfall largely created by the governor’s state shutdown. We should take a serious look at shrinking state bureaucracy and eliminating redundancies. Let’s improve our government’s efficiency through real reform to help solve the challenges we face.

Public safety has become a major issue for our state and Gov. Walz must be held accountable for his failed leadership that allowed our Metro cities to burn after peaceful protests over the tragic death of George Floyd morphed into violent riots with looting and arson. We must stand up for our law enforcement workers and fight back against extreme and dangerous proposals to defund or abolish them.

Much work remains at the local level, whether it is helping friends and neighbors through tough times or passing new laws. I am proud of the collaboration I led between farmers and others to spare the waste of hundreds of hogs amid last spring’s shutdown of meat processing plants. I also am pleased to be advocating for local projects such as redevelopment in Becker to replace jobs and fortify the tax base after Democrat-imposed mandates forced the Sherco plant to be shuttered. The Foley wastewater plant also is feeling the burden of MPCA bureaucracy and needs to be replaced.

I am fiercely pro-life, pro-family, and pro-Second Amendment.  I am also pro-10th Amendment, which means I believe in state sovereignty against unconstitutional infringements by the federal government. And I support an all-of-the-above approach to energy to help deliver affordable, reliable power to Minnesotans instead of following ill-advised liberal policies that would cause instability in our state.

Thank you for your support and I would be honored to receive your vote this Nov. 4 so I may return to St. Paul and continue representing the people of District 15B.