Minnesota lawmakers grit teeth, pass state budget in crammed special session

An incensed Minnesotan took to the state s House floor Monday night to rail against a bill to fund transportation I just kind of want to get this off my chest here a little bit first This bill is a end of a broken deal Another speaker pointed out holes in rule outlining spending for the surroundings and natural guidance There is no happiness in this bill It truly was a compromise bill and as I like to tell my children when you compromise that means everyone is unhappy These dissenting voices were not irate members of the community or even renegade legislators Instead they were respectively Rep Kristi Pursell DFL-Northfield and Erin Koegel DFL-Spring Lake Park the co-authors alongside two Republican House co-chairs of the very bills they were railing against Like a college sophomore completing their tardy term papers in one night the Minnesota Legislature met Monday for a one-day only special session called by Gov Tim Walz Related What to know about Legislature s Monday special session to finish the budget Lawmakers grinded through bills in nearly hours that comprise about of the state administration s billion two-year budget the time spent on each bill dwindling into the night as legislators increasingly cleared their hoarse throats The Legislature passed the other before adjourning from their regular session on May Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy DFL-St Paul studies paperwork while members debate a bill during the special session to adopt a state budget Monday June Credit MinnPost photo by Tom Olmscheid While the House adjourned before p m the Senate stretched until a m Senate lawmakers boasted of infrastructure projects near their districts as part of the bonding bill and Ann Rest DFL-New Hope and chair of the Senate Taxes Committee teased colleagues on the Senate floor including calling Steve Drazkowski R-Mazeppa a woke flower child It marked the end of a budget writing process where a split House forged a powersharing agreement that was not hashed out until February Then once the regularly scheduled legislative session ended three weeks ago lawmakers began to meet privately to reconcile their differences It was a terribly worked out process Sen John Marty DFL-Roseville and chair of the Senate Finance Committee informed reporters after the Senate adjourned It s not the way we want to do things We care very much about transparency and this was not transparent During the special session s daytime portion the focus was on a standalone bill that bars undocumented immigrant adults from accessing reduced cost strength care from the state My colleague Shadi Bushra covered that story Here is what else to know about a special session that was occasionally illuminating and exhaustively long Legislators were pretty frustrated If nothing else the special session laid bare the testiness that occurred in the closed-door meetings of the past limited weeks This was especially the scenario in the House which has DFL and Republican lawmakers Take transportation Koegel the co-chair of the House Transportation Finance and Plan Committee thought she had a deal with the legislative leadership troika of Speaker Lisa Demuth R-Cold Spring Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman DFL-Brooklyn Park and Erin Murphy DFL-St Paul in which million from a transportation sales tax would go to the Metropolitan Council The Met Council would use the money to design a bus rapid transit system in the Twin Cities metropolitan area But the proposal is back to square one after final bill language posted Sunday squelched the project All of the leaders signed the spreadsheet for the program provision and then went back on their word Koegel noted as her daughter sat beside her listening to headphones and drawing If people saw what happened behind closed doors they d genuinely be appalled Nonetheless Koegel voted for the overall spending bill Inquired to explain her vote Koegel explained I did it begrudgingly We need to pass a state budget A similar dynamic took place with a bill to fund Minnesota colleges and universities Marion Rarick R-Maple Lake and co-chair of the Higher Learning Finance and Protocol Committee slammed her colleagues for abdicating their responsibility this legislative session to name new members to the University of Minnesota Board of Regents This means Walz will name four interim regents There really was no reason we couldn t get to the vote of regents Rarick revealed There has only been four times over the rest of state history where we didn t elect the regents But Rarick also reluctantly voiced yes on the bill The grousing seeped into legislative leadership During a Senate recess Senate Minority Leader Sen Mark Johnson R-East Grand Forks held a press conference to say that even though he signed a letter endorsing Walz s call for a special session he didn t in fact advocacy these spending bills Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson R-East Grand Forks speaks to reporters during the one-day special session at the Capitol on Monday June Credit MinnPost photo by Matthew Blake We are here in the present day not because we agree with this budget Johnson mentioned I want to be very clear with the inhabitants with folks out there it s not because Republicans agree with the budget Murphy the Senate Majority Leader responded with a report that read in part We are making hard but responsible decisions to reduce the budget without sacrificing core services and yet Leader Johnson seems to want even deeper cuts Besides robustness care for undocumented immigrants what were the other defining agenda disagreements of this special session None To be sure lawmakers had their own pet issues like Koegel Rarick and Nolan West R-Blaine who slammed increasing the cannabis tax from to And tax breaks for large figures centers were controversial enough that repealing the electricity tax credit but keeping other breaks became a standalone bill which both chambers ultimately passed after several floor speeches But the biggest spending changes capping the money paid to Medicaid providers and planning for million in special schooling cuts starting in mid- were subsumed in enormous bills that were just published A -page budget bill that funds elementary through high school instruction was finalized Saturday A -page bill that sets preponderance of the rules and financing of Diagnostic Assistance Minnesota s Medicaid plan came out Friday Lawmakers and their staff are human and had to choose what to concentrate on before Monday though legislative leaders stated reporters after the House adjourned that everyone had enough time to read the bills These bills are the compilation of five months of work Hortman disclosed The DFL House leader was in tears when sought about the budget deal to cut undocumented immigrant adults off MinnesotaCare But Hortman also noted that other accomplishments of the DFL trifecta remained intact House Speaker Emeritus Melissa Hortman DFL-Brooklyn Park talks with the press after the House adjourned the special session on Monday June at the Capitol Credit MinnPost photo by Tom Olmscheid Murphy also emphasized preserving these legislative changes I knew that this was going to be a complex negotiation but of the things we worked hard to achieve in that are key for families across the state of Minnesota almost all of them are preserved Murphy notified reporters after the Senate adjourned Indeed policies like free school breakfast and lunch unemployment insurance for hourly school workers and raising per-pupil funding for students were maintained in this year s budget Meanwhile Demuth commented that her Republican caucus accomplished a budget that certainly reduced spending in a common sense way and not raising taxes on Minnesotans cannabis vendors and customers excepted Besides kicking undocumented immigrant adults off of MinnesotaCare the IRL impacts of this session will take time to discern especially since anticipated federal Medicaid cuts by the Republican-controlled Congress and President Trump may lead to a second special session Murphy noted this possibility I m worried that Congress will act in July and make deep cuts to Medicaid in particular Murphy mentioned If the cuts are as deep as they re talking about we will have to come back to balance the budget The post Minnesota lawmakers grit teeth pass state budget in crammed special session appeared first on MinnPost