And they're back! It seems like only yesterday that lawmakers adjourned, with the rough framework for a budget deal but most details left to be negotiated. Now the Legislature's back in session, with... a rough framework for a budget deal and many details left to be negotiated.
Still, with just over two weeks remaining before the state government needs a new budget, the mood around the Capitol is optimistic. "Not every single budget is completely finished but most are and will all be," Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka said today.
Hortman said the state government budget is done or nearly done, joining the transportation, commerce/energy, higher education and Legacy budgets.
Lawmakers have a working target of $500 million for a "bonding bill" to pay for infrastructure projects.
Gazelka today all-but admitted the Republican push to cancel or delay Walz's clean cars regulation is dead for the year.
The stickiest issue, policing might actually be making progress. Gazelka said today that negotiators had agreed on five components of a deal, though he only named one, a comparatively minor agreement for conservation officers to wear body cameras.
Budget bills will begin to move through the Legislature later this week.
This morning, Gov. Tim Walz extended his COVID-19 emergency powers for another month. Most of his emergency declarations, such as the state mask mandate, have since lapsed, but a few remain in effect. Walz argues he needs a state of emergency to properly allocate some federal aid. Legislative Republicans dispute this, and today House Republicans forced a vote to end the state of emergency. It failed 64-68. Both houses of the Legislature need affirmative votes to override the governor and end emergency powers, so Walz's powers will continue for another month, unless they're ended as part of a budget deal. [ Read more from Tim Pugmire]
Unlike the Legislature's past year-plus of work, the Capitol is open to the public for this month's special session. This means, as Brian Bakst writes, "Lawmakers haven’t had to confront protests, passionate pleas from affected people — or frankly one another — for a long time due to attendance restrictions." The public was involved right from the start today, with a protest outside the Senate building from a conservative group demanding "No deals with Dems" and criticizing Gazelka's alleged lack of "spine."
Conservative protesters on Monday, June 14, 2021, demanding a harder line from Senate Republicans in budget negotiations. Photo by Brian Bakst | MPR News.
Against this tension strives the so-called "Civility Caucus," which hosted a cooperation-boosting ice cream social near the Capitol as things got going. [Read more from Brian Bakst]
Many Minnesota businesses are having trouble hiring workers, and some blame the special COVID-19 unemployment subsidy, which provides $300 per week on top of existing unemployment benefits. That federal subsidy is scheduled to expire in September, but some businesses want Minnesota to end it early as some other states have done. Steve Grove, Walz's commissioner of employment and economic development, said other barriers such as finding child care or transportation may be bigger factors. Lawmakers are considering various options to boost employment, including state-funded signing bonuses. [ Read more from Mark Zdechlik]
Dig deeper: How much, if at all, are the enhanced unemployment benefits encouraging people to stay out of the workforce? A recent study estimated that "each month in early 2021, about seven out of 28 unemployed individuals receive job offers that they would normally accept, but one of the seven decides to decline the offer due to the availability of the extra $300 per week in UI payments. This implies a small but likely noticeable contribution of expanded UI generosity to job-finding rates and employers’ perceptions of worker availability in early 2021." [ Read more from Nicolas Petrosky-Nadeau and Robert G. Valletta]
An appeals court upheld the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission's approval of the Line 3 oil pipeline, a defeat for environmental groups who had hoped to block it in the courts. [Read more from Dan Kraker]
Israel's parliament elected Naftali Bennett as the country's newest prime minister, ending the record-setting tenure of new opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu. Bennett is the head of an odd coalition running from far left to far right, united only by their distaste for Netanyahu. [Read more from The Associated Press]
Meet the players: The New York Times over the weekend had two interesting profiles of key actors in Israel's ongoing political drama:
George Packer in The Atlantic proposes a new pop-sociology understanding of America's ongoing political battles — not two factions at war with each other, but four: a libertarian Free America, a meritocratic Smart America, a populist Real America and a revolutionary Just America. [ Read more from George Packer in The Atlantic]
Something completely different: Last week I read the classic post-apocalyptic novel "A Canticle for Leibowitz," which mostly holds up more than 60 years after its original vision of monks trying to retain knowledge in the centuries following nuclear war. Its ruminations on science, faith, power, history, secrecy and human weakness remain consistently interesting, even if you don't agree with author Walter Miller's protagonists. Do note that the book is absolutely suffused with Roman Catholicism — heroic monks and priests, extended Latin quotations, martyrs and saints, a miracle or two, even a debate over euthanasia — but as someone who is not Catholic by either creed or upbringing I still found it accessible.
Listen: The Legislature is back in session, with hopes to avoid any fireworks before the July 1 deadline. No matter how testy things end up getting over the next month, though, they probably won't descend into actual violence — a depressingly common and morbidly fascinating occurrence in some countries' legislatures. I introduce the idea of "parliament fights" mostly to introduce a very funny — but very profane — music video by DJ Shadow and Run The Jewels, in which a committee meeting descends from over-the-top trash-talking into a literal brawl. "Nobody Speak" is very much not safe for work! [Watch]
