Minnesota Legislature
House closes 2024 session in chaotic fashion, trading bonding for budget boosts
By Rob Hubbard
After 2023 produced a record $72 billion in biennial funding, Minnesota’s legislative leaders were dampening expectations for anything resembling an encore. Tweaks and bonding seemed to be the chief items on the agenda.
Before the session started, House Speaker Melissa Hortman (DFL-Brooklyn Park) said, “The state’s borrowing bill will be the biggest order of business.” House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth (R-Cold Spring) said early in the session that fixing an issue with potential use of force by school resource officers was a top Republican priority, and a bill was signed into law relatively early in the session to address that issue.
On Sunday, both chambers of the Legislature finished their business for the year by the midnight deadline, and bonding bills fell by the wayside in the closing hours as DFL priorities in the House shifted toward getting a state equal rights amendment on the 2026 statewide ballot, cutting a deal for drivers with the companies that run rideshare services Lyft and Uber, and approving more than $450 million in supplemental funding for the current biennium.
Recent Dailies
Conferees adopt report to spend $43 million more on education in fiscal year 2025
By Brian Basham
Continuing what began last year is the theme of an agreement that’d put more money toward education.
Conferees to the education supplemental budget bill adopted the conferen...
Cannabis conferees successfully hash out differences, expand bill’s scope
By Tim Walker
(CORRECTION: Concerns raised by Rep. Nolan West were inaccurate in original story)
The cannabis regulation bill grew Wednesday. And conferees found it to be, as the kids sa...
House passes new requirements meant to keep kids out of child welfare system
By Jonathan Mohr The Minneapolis NAACP filed a federal civil rights complaint in March that alleges Minnesota’s child welfare system discriminates against Black children and their families, espe...With clock ticking, bonding chairs lay out $330 million list of proposed local projects
By Margaret Stevens
Is it GO or no-go?
That’s the perennial question about capital investment with a 60% supermajority required to pass a bill funding projects with general obligation bonds. It...
Energy, agriculture and commerce conferees size up contrasts in House, Senate bills
By Rob Hubbard
As conference committee reports go, the one dealing with energy, agriculture and commerce is quite the combo platter. Not only will it send appropriations from multiple funds in...
Jobs conference committee’s tough task: solve ‘vast differences’ in bottom lines
By Tim Walker The conference committee on the jobs and economic development and workforce development supplemental budget bill met for the first time Monday and took care of some easy tasks, ...Tenant-landlord bill agreement would protect domestic violence victims, omit prohibition of income discrimination
By Miranda Bryant The conference committee on a bill to modify residential housing tenant and landlord provisions reached an agreement Monday. The proposed legislation would, among other thin...Week in Review: May 6-10
By HPIS Staff
It was another long week with hours of debate on supplemental budget bills that have now, mostly, been passed off the House Floor, meaning conference committee season has fully ...
Human services conferees start work of compromising on budget bills
By Miranda Bryant The House and Senate have different human services policy and program appropriations in their supplemental budget bills. The process of compromising began Friday at the first me...Conference committee dives into transportation, labor, housing bill
By Margaret Stevens
A few days after each body passed extensive, multi-provision bills, conferees started reconciling differences on the transportation, labor and housing supplemental budget bill F...
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Ways and Means Committee OKs proposed $512 million supplemental budget on party-line vote
By Mike Cook
Meeting more needs or fiscal irresponsibility is one way to sum up the differences among the two parties on a supplemental spending package a year after a $72 billion state budg...
Minnesota’s projected budget surplus balloons to $3.7 billion, but fiscal pressure still looms
By Rob Hubbard
Just as Minnesota has experienced a warmer winter than usual, so has the state’s budget outlook warmed over the past few months.
On Thursday, Minnesota Management and Budget...
