The state’s plan will boost the primary subsidy for low-income families and increase pay for child care workers through monthly grants to providers across the state.
If the pending settlements are approved, current fees on drug-makers and distributors — worth around $20 million a year to Minnesota — would likely be all-but canceled under the terms of a bill passed by the Legislature in 2019.
Rep. Rena Moran said she thought the DFL “did pretty darn good” on equity issues in 2021 considering the Minnesota Legislature divides power between a DFL-controlled House and a GOP-controlled Senate.
A voicemail from Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka to then-MPCA Commissioner Laura Bishop about Enbridge’s controversial oil pipeline project offers a rare glimpse of political machinations at the Minnesota Capitol.
From farming pollution to broadband access, meat processing capacity and lack of child care, how Minnesota legislators addressed the issues facing Greater Minnesota this year.
The state’s new tax credit for TV and film productions will cost taxpayers $5 million a year over the next four years.
In just the last three months of the 2020-21 two-year state budget — April, May and June — collections were 28.7 percent, or $2.12 billion, more than was expected in February.
The three people who are deciding who will be part of the group coming up with a plan — Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, Gov. Tim Walz and House Speaker Melissa Hortman — have their own ideas about who should qualify for the money.
Unlike other Walz appointees left unconfirmed at the Legislature’s adjournment Wednesday, Ho was not given any assurance that what several DFL senators referred to as a Sword of Damocles wasn’t still dangling overhead.
GOPers blamed the agency’s Clean Cars rules — but was Bishop just a pawn in a bigger political game?
The Republican-controlled Senate is scrutinizing Gov. Tim Walz’s appointees in a continuation of the special legislative session.
The Legislature finally finished a $52 billion two-year state budget with a few hours to spare before a partial government shutdown. At the same time, the state met at least one measure of a successful vaccination effort: 70 percent of residents 18 years old and older with at least one shot.
In conjunction with the deal, Minnesota lawmakers approved almost $30 million to cover the share of the money owed by local governments along the pipeline routes.
Issue after issue was introduced in both the Minnesota House and Senate with the knowledge that they were unlikely to pass into law.
Working until 2 a.m. Wednesday, the House and Senate completed 11 of the 13 omnibus spending bills that will fund government for the next two years, including a compromise public safety bill that contains a handful of new police accountability and criminal justice reform measures.
And why that strategy may have considerable limitations.
For weeks, Minnesota legislative leaders predicted that a series of budget bills would not only be adopted early enough to avoid a shutdown, but to avoid even the preparations for a shutdown. So how’s that going?
Notably, the bill does not limit traffic stops for offenses like expired car tabs or a broken tail light.
Lawmakers have now agreed to 12 of the 13 bills that will likely make up Minnesota’s $52 billion state budget. The one thing left to wrap up: the bill tied to public safety, corrections and the judiciary.
Included in a bill negotiated between the DFL-led House and the GOP-majority Senate, the change has the potential to draw blowback from the federal government.
