Plenty of work ahead as legislative session winds down — or spills into overtime

With the sun setting soon on the Minnesota legislative session, there’s plenty of work to do.

The regular session will end in a week, on May 19. Rumblings of the need for a potential special session have started to pick up.

That’s because as of this Monday morning Gov. Tim Walz and the Legislature still haven’t completed the budget framework that will guide completion of the two-year spending plan.

Without those numbers in hand, conference committees can’t fully negotiate to bring their bills into alignment. Several had to put off talking through any finance issues because they did not have numbers.

“Since we do not actually have a budget target, our intention is to now recess to the call of the chair, because hope springs eternal,” said Sen. Aric Putnam, DFL-St. Cloud, while heading the conference committee on agriculture, veterans and military affairs late last week.

On Friday, legislative leaders suggested they were close to getting those numbers out. But the high-level talks were largely put on hold until later in the weekend due to the annual fishing opener. Several traveled to north-central Minnesota to fish on the same lake as part of the Governor’s Fishing Opener.

House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, said the goal is to land a budget lunker and that continued talks would get the sides closer.

“I would say they’re definitely progressing. That’s the only reason that things keep moving forward,” she said. “You know, if people get stuck, then we no longer meet. We are only breaking to be fishing. That is the only reason. We will all be out there together, in some way, shape or form. So if you hear we’re not meeting, it’s because of fishing but it’s not because anything is broken down.”

Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, said Friday she expected there to be more than fishing talk on the pontoon with Walz and the other state leaders. 

“We will continue to talk about the work that we need to complete before the session is done, while we’re catching fish like crazy,” Murphy said as she geared up for the outing. “And I am looking forward to being out in the sun and maybe in a slightly different environment to continue the important work that we’re doing to complete the session for the people of Minnesota.”

On the budget, key sticking points must still be ironed out. 

Some lawmakers are pressing to make revisions to the state’s earned safe and sick time law. Small businesses and family farms want to be exempted. And Republicans have teamed up with a small group of Democrats to keep that in play — over the objection of other DFLers.

Another involves immigrants without legal status and whether they should be able to access MinnesotaCare’s premium based coverage. The state’s hospital association likes that provision because it cuts down on these patients making costly visits to the emergency room. But Republicans say it comes at a cost to the state and argue those people shouldn't be eligible any longer.

Republicans want to roll back unemployment benefits extended to school bus drivers and other hourly school workers to make it easier to retain them. The benefit was enacted just a couple of years ago. School districts have said it is putting a strain on their budgets because they have to pay into the unemployment fund.

Some Democrats favor sunsetting the program, too.

Lastly, there’s a budget cut some Republicans, along with many Democrats, don’t like. Walz wants to cut rising costs for waivers used to help people with disabilities get individualized care in their residences. Walz says those costs are rising at too high of a clip and wants to cap them.

“Right now, the strange situation we’re in is that Republicans don’t want to make the cuts that are necessary,” Walz told MPR News in an interview last week. “And look, I know they’re hard, but I’m making the case these programs that we care so deeply about, especially in the human services space, is if you don’t make them fiscally sound for the years to come, you’ll lose those programs in the long run.”

But many say they aren’t willing to go that far because it might just shift costs to county governments.

There have been some areas that seem to have found strong bipartisan support.

The state could see the creation of a new agency of sorts — the office of inspector general. A bill to create that passed in the Senate last Thursday on a vote of 60 to 7. That bill is still moving through the House, and there are some differences in approach. But both bills seem to have support that crosses political aisles.

A bill dealing with driving while impaired offenses passed both the House and Senate that would increase punishments for people with multiple DWIs. It would add safeguards, including increasing the length of time a person has to use an interlock device, to reduce future offenses.

With mostly agreed-upon bills still not passed with one week left, it appears the session could push into overtime.

“The closer we get to the 19th, the harder it is for our staff to actually do the work that we need to get completed in order to finish the budget,” Murphy said. “So I want to make sure that we are giving everyone who works here and everybody who serves here the time necessary to do the job and do it with distinction and do it well. So I’m a little worried about the time frame from that perspective.”

Both chambers resume their work Monday.

MPR News senior politics reporter Clay Masters contributed to this story.

• Aggressive immigration enforcement makes musicians rethink U.S. tours
• Trump defends the prospect of Qatar gifting him a plane to use as Air Force One
• Trump is looking to use the IRS for his own political ends. Nixon tried it too
• The U.S. and China announce a deal to cut tariffs, temporarily easing trade war