I spent Easter week working in the district and want to thank everyone who took the time to attend my Congress On Your Corner gatherings. Many of you offered good suggestions and thoughts about tax reform, the economy, health care, the IRS and other issues.

The following week in Washington was especially busy -- several legislative initiatives to combat sex trafficking that I am authoring passed through committees and are headed to the House floor for votes. Also, my bill to mint a special coin for our National Parks 100^th anniversary passed overwhelmingly on the House floor. There is no cost to the taxpayers and all of the proceeds from the coin sales go to support our National Parks. You can watch my statement on the House floor here.

And, I received the ‘Gold Mouse Award’ by the Congressional Management Foundation for Citizen Engagement on Social Media. This award was given for the innovative way I interact with constituents like you through my Correspondence Corner videos. You can look at this week’s video here.

As always, please feel free to contact me if I can assist you or your family in any way. And of course, join the conversation online by visiting my website, Facebook page, Twitter, and don't forget to watch my weekly video, Erik's Correspondence Corner.

Stopping Sex Trafficking

Each year 100,000 children in the United States are exploited, the majority of whom are young girls. Sex traffickers prey on the vulnerable and up to 90 percent of runaways eventually end up in the sex trade. Minnesota is the number one state in the country per capita for runaways. I'm leading efforts to take action. The Judiciary Committee passed my bill, the Stop Exploitation Through Trafficking Act, which ensures that trafficked minors are treated as victims, instead of being incarcerated as criminals. By getting these victims protective services, counseling and building their skills we can bring these young girls out of the shadows.

We can also make critical improvements to the foster care system to better prevent these vulnerable youth from trafficked. Several provisions I authored were included in legislation passed in the House Ways and Means Committee. Studies have shown that 60% of likely sex trafficking victims were runaways from foster care or group homes. Both of these bills now move to the House floor for votes.

Helping Our Veterans

A recent report from the Veterans Administration shows that over 300,000 veterans are waiting on claims that have gone unanswered for more than 125 days. We must keep the promises made to the men and women who serve our country. This week, I joined my colleagues in the House to pass additional funding to reduce the backlog and incentivize the VA and Department of Defense (DoD) to integrate their electronic health records systems. Currently, service member’s records must be requested from the DoD when they enter the VA system, causing costly and unnecessary delays.

IRS Problems Continue

It's outrageous, but true. A recent inspector general report found that IRS employees who haven't paid their taxes were paid millions of dollars in bonuses.  This is the same agency that continues to ask for substantial budget increases and has been plagued by other scandals. I joined several of my colleagues to introduce legislation specifically prohibiting the IRS from awarding any performance-related awards to workers who haven’t paid their taxes.

The Results are In

On my recent telephone town hall, I asked "Do you think Congress should pass a balanced budget?" The results are below: