State Sen. Gary Dahms, R-Redwood Falls (left) and State Rep. Paul Torkelson, R- Hanska (right) provide a roundup for the 2026 Minnesota Legislative session during a town hall at the New Ulm Public Library. Torkelson called the series of town halls the held Tuesday as a “farewell tour,” as the two legislators will be retiring at the end of the year.

NEW ULM – Tuesday’s legislative town hall held at the New Ulm Library was part of a farewell tour for State Sen. Gary Dahms, R-Redwood Falls and State Rep. Paul Torkelson, R- Hanska.

The two state legislators hold joint town halls at the beginning and end of each legislative session, after 18 years in the House for Torkelson and 16 years in the Senate for Dahms, this will be their last town hall as both will be retiring after this year.

Both legislator were optimistic about their final legislative session.

“I think, given the circumstances, this was a pretty good session,” Torkelson said.

His main goal of the session was to pass a bill to update the technology that is used by Minnesota counties to administer social programs such as medicaid and SNAP.

Torkelson said much of the technology used to administer these programs was designed in the late ’80s or early ’90s and he said it was inadequate for the current decade.

The bill was passed by both the House and Senate with bipartisan support.

Torkelson said that when the bill passed through the State House floor, the only complaint was that it came decades too late.

Another major goal of the session was the passage of a bonding bill, which was successful. The bill included $4 million for New Ulm’s Center Street lift station.

New Ulm Public Utilities Director Brett Fleck attended the town hall and thanked Dahms and Torkelson for their support of the lift station project.

“We will be able to complete that project with those funds and remove a big risk to the Minnesota River,” Fleck said.

Dahms said they had tried to get this item on previous bonding bills and were happy to get it approved this year. He said it helps that the New Ulm community’s previous bonding requests were minimal.

Torkelson said the House bonding committee visited the Center Street lift station last year and could see the need was real.

“Some of my colleagues don’t like borrowing money because it adds debt to the state, but for the right kind of projects it makes sense,” Torkelson said.

He believed infrastructure projects like the lift station were appropriate uses because many small towns cannot afford to make these necessary improvements on their own.

Dahms and Torkelson also discussed the infusion of $205 million to Hennepin County Medical Hospital (HCMC).

Torkelson said without these funds, HCMC was prepared to close down this summer.

He explained the money did come with conditions that HCMC established a professional board to manage the hospital.

Torkelson said HCMC provides a lot of specialized care to patients across the state and the legislators believed it was important to maintain the hospital to keep the pressure off other hospitals.

Funding was also set aside for any hospital facing a crisis in the state. The hospitals can apply for the funding, similar to a grant program.

Torkelson said many hospitals are facing these problems and the legislators will probably need to deal with this going forward.

Dahms said there were several other small changes made this session that received less fanfare, such as the one-year freeze on vehicle tab costs. He said the tab fees have been increasing, but this year, legislators were able to negotiate a one-year decrease for 2027.

Dahms also addressed the gun control legislation. He said a gun control bill passed in the Senate but did not make it through the House.

Dahms voted against gun control legislation. He said he did not want to start eroding gun rights, because he was concerned it would create a slippery slope with further laws taking away gun rights. He did not want to diminish Second Amendment rights.

“We need to deal with the issues,” Dahms said. “Guns are not the issue. We have a lot of mental health issues and we need to try to deal with those issues.”

Torkelson said gun control has been a controversial issue for a long time and remains a divided issue. For this reason, he wanted to focus on improving school safety to prevent shootings like the one that occurred at Annunciation Catholic Church earlier this year. However, Torkelson said the DFL did not want to pass legislation for additional school safety funding without action on gun control.

Torkelson said gun control was never going to pass, so school safety funding never passed.

Torkelson pointed out that a red flag law was passed in the state last biennium that would help take guns away from people with mental issues. The idea behind the law is a citizen can report a person believed to be unstable who has access to guns.

Torkelson admitted he did not vote for the red flag law, but it did pass and said it should be utilized.

“We didn’t really promote that as well as we should have,” Torkelson said.

At the close of the town hall, the legislators were asked about how and why Minnesota was hit by a wave of financial fraud.

Torkelson said it began with the COVID pandemic. He said there was a lot of money coming from the federal government with the goal of preserving the economy, but in the process, the federal government was loose with the rules.

Torkelson also believed the administration was concerned about appearing racist for attempting to shutdown Somalian run businesses.

He said it created a perfect storm for fraud that became difficult to stop.

Torkelson said an Inspector General bill was passed this session. The Inspector General position will have enforcement authority. Torkelson believed this would reduce some of the fraud going forward, but believed the state would not get back all its lost funds.

Dahms said that as the fraud investigations continue, more information comes out about additional fraud. He believed more people would be charged and some money would be recovered, but believed much of the funds was lost. He said much of the money was sent to countries without reciprocity agreements and the government could not recover it.

Dahms said the current goal was to get control of the fraud situation to prevent it from continuing.

Dahms and Torkelson thanked the community for their time and support in their tenure as legislators.

Torkelson said it is bittersweet to leave because there are always projects to work on, but he said there is always a time to move on.

Dahms also thanked his constituents, saying, “I know we’ve had our differences over the years, but that breeds conversation.”