Minnesota’s state Senate this week considered legislation to provide public-school students access to free meals, and the bill’s author, state Sen. Heather Gustafson, made a compelling case. The Democratic legislator explained that roughly one in six children in the state face food insecurity, and providing them with school meals would make a world of difference.
“Being hungry makes learning almost impossible,” Gustafson said. “Let’s feed the kids.”
As NBC News reported, one of her colleagues didn’t quite see it that way.
A Republican state senator in Minnesota said Tuesday he was voting against a bill to provide free breakfast and lunch for school students in part because he’d never encountered anyone in the state who was hungry.
That summary might sound like an exaggeration. It’s not.
“I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that is hungry,” state Sen. Steve Drazkowski said in his floor remarks. “I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that says they don’t have access to enough food to eat.”
Minnesota Republican state Sen. Steve Drazkowski on bill providing free school breakfast and lunch: "I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that is hungry. Yet today. I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that says they don't have access to enough food to eat." #mnleg pic.twitter.com/H7JsyfsGWw
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 14, 2023
It’s a striking perspective. This Republican lawmaker hasn’t met Minnesotans struggling with food insecurity, so therefore, he doesn’t see the point in providing food to hungry children.
There are a handful of angles to this that are worth keeping in mind as the story gains national attention. The first is that families struggling with food insecurity exist, whether politicians know them personally or not. A Washington Post report noted, “There were 5.5 million visits to Minnesotan food pantries in 2022, a record high and an increase of 1.9 million visits from the previous year, according to the nonprofit Hunger Solutions Minnesota.”








