Expert on Minnesota Special Session: ‘Public Is Going To Be Surprised’
The most divided legislature in Minnesota history convened in St. Paul Monday morning for a one-day special session.
The goal for state lawmakers was to pass a two-year, $66 billion budget and avoid a government shutdown after failing to reach an agreement during the four-months long legislative session.
On Friday, Governor Tim Walz announced that legislative leaders had a deal in place before the full legislature returned.
That deal, however, has drawn serious concerns from legal and political experts.
“The public is going to be surprised in terms of what happens, and I don’t say that in a good way,” said Hamline Political Science Professor David Schultz. “Because, if the state legislature were a local government in Minnesota, they would be violating the open meetings law by doing all their negotiations behind closed doors. But they’re not covered by it, and therefore we don’t know all the details of a budget deal.”
Professor Schultz said many of the negotiations leading up to the special session happened with no opportunity for public comment.
With a looming budget deficit, and two parties with fundamentally different political agendas, both sides had to make major concessions.
Minnesota lawmakers gathered at the State Capitol on June 9 for a special legislative session.
How The Deal Got Done
Schultz says Republicans didn’t get a rollback of paid family leave like they had wanted. And for the DFL, health care for undocumented adult immigrants will be revoked.
That’s a major point of contention for members of the People of Color Indigenous Caucus, which includes several DFL lawmakers from the northwest suburbs such as Rep. Cedrick Frazier of New Hope, Rep. Huldah Hiltsley of Brooklyn Park and Rep. Samantha Vang of Brooklyn Center.
“They’re at odds with perhaps the rest of the Democratic Caucus that has said, well, although we would prefer to keep that in place, the only way we can get a budget deal with the Republicans is if we drop coverage for non-documented adults,” said Schultz. “And so, what we’re really seeing here is an impasse. An impasse both between the Democrats and Republicans and between the more centrist and the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party, all playing out in terms of their politics.”
As of Monday afternoon, the lawmakers were expected to pass 14 spending bills and adjourn the special session by 7 a.m. Tuesday.
Schultz admitted the lawmakers have a lot on their plate.
“Supposedly the drafting is done. Do we think that any of the legislators are going to be reading all these different bills? No. It’s not going to happen at all,” Schultz said. “So, what we’re going to see is probably a lot of really sloppy legislation that’s going to need corrections somewhere down the line. Will they finish it by Tuesday? Possibly. But it all depends on how well both the rank and file for the Democrats and Republicans buy into the deal.”
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