Caroline Cummings is an Emmy-winning reporter with a passion for covering politics, public policy and government. She is thrilled to join the WCCO team.
Minnesota lawmakers will return to the capitol on Monday to begin what Gov. Tim Walz and legislative leaders hope will be a one-day special session to pass the rest of the next two-year state budget.
They are set to start at 10 a.m. and end at 7 a.m. Tuesday. The focus will be on 14 bills, mostly spending plans for state programs and services. But there is also a bonding bill funding infrastructure projects and a compromise to remove undocumented immigrant adults from MinnesotaCare, a state health coverage program for low-income people.
House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, said in an interview on WCCO Sunday Morning that most of the bills were drafted and posted for the public to see after the provisions were largely negotiated behind closed doors.
Lawmakers will begin passing bills right when they gavel in, but it will likely be a long day, she conceded.
The special session will be the state's first since 2021. It comes after key negotiators and leaders worked almost around the clock the last three weeks since the regular session ended on May 19, trying to resolve sticking points in the most closely divided Legislature in state history.
There is a tied state House and one-seat DFL advantage in the Senate -- 100 Republicans to 101 Democrats. Because of that make-up, it is as if every individual lawmaker has their own veto power, Walz described the dynamic.
"It's not the state budget we would have put together, but it's a compromise, and we have to keep state government functioning," said Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, last week.
All sides had to make concessions to ink a deal, refine the proposals, and find a way to ensure passage of the necessary bills to fund state government and its services. They also had to make difficult decisions on where to find savings through cuts since the state is staring down a $6 billion deficit in future years.
"Right now, we have a very good state budget that is actually delivering the largest spending cut between biennium to biennium ever. really -- almost $5 billion of cuts," Demuth told WCCO Sunday.
Roughly 30,000 state workers were set to get a layoff notice Monday morning as part of protocol, since failure to pass a budget by July 1 means a partial government shutdown.
But the governor's office said that could be delayed until Tuesday morning, which is when the special session is set to end. If lawmakers complete all their work by that time, the state can avoid sending those messages to employees.
A majority of the bills that piece together the next two-year, roughly $66 billion budget are on lawmakers' to-do list Monday. Before the regular session ended last month, the Legislature approved funding for the court system and the agriculture and veterans affairs departments. But most of that work was unfinished.
Among the provisions in the public safety and judiciary budget that passed is the deal to close the Stillwater prison by 2029.
Lawmakers still need to sign off on funding for K-12 education, transportation, health and human services, and more. There is also a tax proposal, which includes increasing the cannabis tax from 10-15%, sparking pushback.
They also need to debate the proposal to remove undocumented immigrant adults from MinnesotaCare.