What did you hear? What did you find out from these experts?

Yeah, we heard from a few families who have really struggled to find childcare in the Northland.

One mother in particular told a story of having to switch their kids' daycare four different times by the time they were three years old.

Just imagine what that does to a child's development.

to their wellbeing, to making new friends and socializing with others.

That's the type of thing that Northland families are facing.

And so I've really made it a priority to look at funding for stabilizing childcare in the Northland so that we don't lose more home providers and center providers, but also affordability.

How do you express to the lawmakers who are Metro and in other parts of the state how the Northland is so unique and how, I mean, it's such a large area that it's different when it comes to taking care of this part of the state?

We're trying to run a positive campaign and talk about issues, and they're just running negative ads that are about scaring people and not exactly grounded in a lot of truth.

And it's so ironic because it's out of Minnetonka.

They're calling me Metro Grant, but it's...

this dark money group spending money in northern Minnesota.

So it's quite laughable.

And I would just say there's an ad running in my race where it's trying to make fun of me for my hair and being this pretty boy image, right? But what's creepy is that they have this AI image that they use.

And I have an ear that I was born with that was a little...

I want to hear yours, Senator.

I mean, Senator Hauschak, can this be fixed?

I think it can.

And I just want to give one example of how this is so detrimental to northern Minnesota in particular, because we used to have targeted tariffs, both under President Obama, President Trump and President Biden on steel.

I think that's a good deal.

We need to protect the domestic steel industry.

Unfortunately, with these new tariffs on Canada, we have automobiles that travel across the border from Detroit and Ohio back to Canada, back and forth multiple times for different parts of the construction of those vehicles.

Every time those vehicles cross the border, we're adding a tariff to the border crossing.

And I don't know how you work through it, if that's where the leadership's going to come from.

Do you think there should be a special session to deal with this, at least right now?

Certainly, I would advocate for a special session to help provide economic relief for my region.

I don't know if we will get one.

Special sessions are a difficult thing to negotiate.

All the parties have to come together to sort of determine what that special session will be about because once the governor calls it, it's really up to the legislature to control and decide what the discussion is, what gets voted on, and all of those things.

And your audience might know that that Minnesota is the tightest legislature in the country.

We have a 50-50 tie in the House, and we have a one-seat majority in the Senate.

If there were a special session, what are your top two or three items that you would really want to make sure were included to support northern Minnesota?