In the fight against Democrat-imposed Somali fraud, GOP State Senator Michael Holmstrom (SD29) introduced an awful, anti-freedom amendment that allows the government to seize your money if you are traveling out of the country with more than $10K. The full floor debate can be seen here.

There is no doubt that money obtained through fraud is being flown out of Minnesota and into Somalia. This fact should be dealt with by enacting narrow policy to block such actions from occurring. Instead, Holmstrom wants to punish and seize the money of any American who travels out of the country with a large sum of THEIR OWN cash. As seen below, there is no process laid out for how Americans could have their seized money returned if they did nothing wrong. See amendment below:

Holmstrom attempted to add this Amendment to a bill, SF3868, which bans crypto-currency kiosks in Minnesota. Action 4 Liberty previously reported on the anti-crypto bill and how Minnesotans would no longer be able to buy or sell crypto at a physical kiosk out of fear of scammers. Of course, scammers can use gift cards and bank ATMs to fool unsuspecting people and this issue is not unique to crypto-currency.

Democrats offered a point of order/objection to the Amendment, arguing that it was not germane since it was unrelated to the specific topic addressed in the bill. Democrats will often use these procedural tactics to avoid votes or debate, but in this case, they were correct to argue that an unrelated Amendment should not be added.

While this was common sense to Action 4 Liberty, every single Republican voted that the Amendment was germane! This vote would indicate that most, if not all Senate Republicans, would have made this law if they could. See vote below:

As a newly elected Senator, it is clear that Holmstrom is not practiced at tailoring narrow and specific legislative ends. Proposing sloppy, wide-reaching, and anti-freedom measures is not the solution to Somali fraudsters. The government should not be able to seize money from someone just because they have a lot of it. A member of the Minnesota Freedom Caucus should know better than to limit the freedom of all who travel through Minnesota airports for the actions of Somali fraudsters.

In the end, the anti-crypto bill was passed in the Senate by a vote of 57-10. The bill now goes to the House. See Senate vote below:

A4L will continue to be a principled voice that never waivers in the battle for liberty. If legislators made their votes based on principles instead of political gamesmanship, our state would be much better off. A4L will continue providing Patriots liberty-based reporting that cannot be found anywhere else.