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>> Rep. Carlson thank you for joining us. >> Oh, you're very welcome.
>> tell us a little bit about yourself, your district, and your professional career?
>> A little about my personal background, and the native Minnesotans and the my professional
career was that of the teacher says. I'd taught social studies and for 34 years, and ran for
the Legislature in 1972 for the first time and was fortunate enough to be elected and
reelected ever since. I would be remiss if I didn't mention my family, I'm married and
my wife is Carol and we had three children $1.20 sons and they're all adults and we now
have six grandchildren. So we thoroughly enjoy it when we have some free time and so on with
spending time with grandchildren and a little more difficult with three of them happen to
live in northern Kentucky but fortunately three of them live in here in Minnesota and
originate from five as the youngest, and the oldest actually graduated from high school
and is in the United States Marine corps. >> can you tell us a little bit about your
district a? >> I represent a suburban district, I represent
about half the city of crystal, a vast majority of New Hope and I have three precincts in
Plymouth. It is a suburban district is the parts of those communities that I have carefully
developed the suburbs, there's a little bit of growth yet from time to time and all three
of the city's but it's a fairly limited >> what are your top legislative priorities?
>> I have always been very interested in education. When you look at my history and a legislature,
when I was first elected I was very involved with health care issues. Then a few years
later that evolved into more and more involvement with education and for many years I chaired
one Education Committee or another. Currently I chair the House Ways and Means Committee
and an hour charges basically the state budget we sat on the funding guidelines if you will
all recall them targets for each of the funding divisions so we determine with a state budget,
it would be spent on health and Human Services, how much would be spent on education, and
go right on down the list of the different funding committees. That is our all main role
is as early in the session and so these days that having a good solid balanced budget is
a major priority but I still remain interested in other issues and as I mentioned education
health care the environment is an important issue in my view as well and if anything that
is growing in importance in recent years. >> what is the most difficult aspect of being
a legislator? >> the most difficult aspect is time management
frankly. " during the legislative session it becomes a very busy place, and so the ability
to manage your time a especially if you're the chair of a committee or if you're the
ranking member if you happen to be in the minority of a committee. Managing your time
and the issues that come before you is very important. I think I have good communication
with your constituents that is truly a positive and so communication is vitally important
as a legislator. Meeting with different constituents in your district, but then if your committee
chair you also have a responsibility and it goes back to time management again of meeting
with various groups that may not necessarily speak from your district but they're impacted
by the decisions you might make at ask a committee chair. For example when I chaired the education
division of appropriations, one of our responsibilities was the funding for higher education. So you
would meet with students who may be attending the University of Minnesota or one of our
state universities the mayor may not have been constituents but you have those state
wide responsibilities so you meet with people literally from around the state. Of course
you pay close attention to your own constituents as well.
>> if you could go back and visited the time, what time would you travel to and wind?
>> I am happy with the current timeline but if I were to go back in time a very interesting
experience for me was literally my first term years ago because you're learning the process,
but I'm not one that generally looks to the past very often other than you have that backlog
of experience through the years. I would guess that oil being involved currently with issues
and having a chance to take a fresh look at the needs of the people in the state of Minnesota
so I would say the time I would only want to visit a station is the current time frame.
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