Last week, the Judiciary Finance and Civil Law Committee of the Minnesota House discussed legislation to ban the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR) from maintaining a database of protected speech.
According to the bill’s author, Rep. Walter Hudson, R-Albertville, HF 768 “reinforces our constitutional rights, prevents government overreach, and maintains fair and effective anti-discrimination efforts. HF 768 is designed to uphold protected speech by safeguarding individuals’ rights to express their own opinions without fear of government monitoring.”
In 2023, Rep. Samantha Vang, DFL-Brooklyn Center, authored HF 181, which contained a provision requiring MDHR to collect information about non-criminal “incidents committed in whole or in substantial part because of the victim’s or another’s actual or perceived race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, national origin, or disability.”
According to Vang’s original bill, MDHR would “solicit, receive, and compile information” about these “incidents” from private individuals, community organizations, and schools. The data collected would then be compiled in a state report in both aggregated and dis-aggregated form.
During debate, Republicans lambasted the proposal as an Orwellian government database designed to collect protected, legal speech for non-disclosed purposes.
The provision was later changed, requiring MDHR to “analyze civil rights trends,” which includes collecting information from “community organizations that work directly with historically marginalized communities.” According to the change, the MDHR must then produce a report that “recommends policy and system changes to reduce and prevent further civil rights incidents across Minnesota.”
The updated provision, which included a $645,000 appropriation to complete the report on civil rights, was added to an omnibus bill, passed, and signed into law by Gov. Tim Walz in May of 2023.
Republicans have argued that the change, and the appropriated money, still allows MDHR to essentially carry out many of the functions of the original bill.
Talking to fellow legislators at last week’s hearing, Hudson said his legislation “ensures that individuals can express dissent, discuss sensitive topics, and engage in healthy debate without fear of being added to a database. Allowing a government entity to maintain a database on protected, perceived-offensive speech creates a chilling effect and discourages open debate and discussion.”
We should not tolerate the state collecting and maintaining data on non-criminal constitutionally protected speech.
We know where it leads.
It leads to police raids in Germany. It leads to speech monitoring in New York. It leads to the end of our First Amendment rights. pic.twitter.com/vx49AGiIP8
— Walter Hudson (@WalterHudson) February 21, 2025
The Republican lawmaker told committee members his bill will not stop MDHR from investigating “legitimate discrimination,” noting that existing law already has mechanisms to address speech that constitutes harassment, threats, and illegal discrimination.
During the committee hearing, Democrats expressed their support for free speech and said they were not opposed to the general idea of the bill. However, DFLers on the committee had several reservations about the bill.
Among them, one Democrat worried that the bill would prevent MDHR from tracking trends in thought and gathering aggregate data that could be used by policymakers. Another DFLer said the language of the bill was too broad and could prevent MDHR from collecting police reports or news clippings that incidentally contain protected speech.
Responding to these arguments, Hudson said tracking thought trends was not a legitimate government exercise, and even if collecting that data made sense, the previously proposed mechanism for collection would not be able to provide accurate data because it provides no way to determine the veracity of reported incidents.
Additionally, the GOP lawmaker emphasized that his bill says MDHR cannot “maintain” a database of protected speech. In short, Hudson explained that his bill would not prohibit the incidental collection of protected speech in the course of the MDHR’s duties, but would instead ban MDHR from maintaining a database of legal, protected speech for undefined purposes.
Prior to the committee hearing, MDHR submitted a letter regarding Hudson’s legislation. In the letter, the agency said “the language proposed under HF 768 would be challenging to implement given MDHR’s existing legal obligations and is also unnecessary” because data collected by the agency is already strictly regulated by existing law. The agency noted that it is “happy to work” with Hudson on alternative language.
Hudson addressed the MDHR letter in committee, saying, “Their premise seems to be: 1. We’re not doing this; 2. If you prohibit us from doing this it’s gonna make it really hard for us to do our job. Which strikes me as a little bit like a kid saying, ‘I am most definitely not taking a cookie out of that jar, but if you put a really tight lid on it, you’re really gonna ruin my day.’ Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Like, if they don’t need to monitor speech in the way that HF 181 explicitly enabled them to do, then why would explicitly prohibiting them from doing it somehow impede their operations of fulfilling their mandate?”
Following the discussion of the bill, HF 768 was “laid over,” meaning it was set aside and may be included in a later omnibus bill.
During his remarks about the bill, Hudson noted that there is still plenty of time to make changes to HF 768, and he is open to discussing the ideas of his fellow lawmakers.
Alpha News reached out to MDHR but did not immediately hear back.
Luke Sprinkel
Luke Sprinkel previously worked as a Legislative Assistant at the Minnesota House of Representatives. He grew up as a Missionary Kid (MK) living in England, Thailand, Tanzania, and the Middle East. Luke graduated from Regent University in 2018.
