Good morning and welcome to Monday, which happens to be the last day of the legislative session. If you were outside in the beautiful weather and weren’t paying attention to the news over the weekend, let’s recap:
On Friday night the Minnesota Senate passed the bill to legalize marijuana for adults 21 and over and sent it to Gov. Tim Walz for his signature. The governor plans to sign it. Possession will be legal starting in August, and it will take much longer to set up a system of licensed retailers. Here’s the MPR News story.
On Saturday legislative leaders reached a bipartisan agreement on a $2.6 billion capital improvements plan, paid for with a mix of bonding and cash. Republicans agreed to put up votes to pass it in the Senate after Democrats agreed to spend another $300 million on nursing homes over the next four years. Here’s the MPR News story.
Over the weekend the Legislature passed a tax bill that includes a child tax credit, some rebates based on income, an expanded number of Social Security recipients who won’t pay state taxes, property tax cuts and $300 million in spending for public safety. Republicans didn’t vote for it because it raises taxes on corporations and it changes electronic pulltabs to make them less like slot machines, which the GOP says will greatly reduce money going to charities. Here’s the MPR story.
And Sunday the Legislature passed a transportation funding bill that raises the tax on gasoline by indexing it to inflation and adds a new 50-cent fee on deliveries more than $100, with an exemption for food. It would also raise the sales tax in the metro area by 0.75 percent, mostly to fund transit. The gas tax indexing would amount to an effective increase of 5 cents per gallon by fiscal year 2027. It would raise $155 million in the next biennium and $266 million after that. DFL Transportation Committee Chairs Scott Dibble and Frank Hornstein said the new funds would go toward repairing roads and bridges and building out transit options in the state. Hornstein called it a “historic and transformational” bill that covers all modes of transportation across the state. MPR’s Brian Bakst has more on the two big items that passed over the weekend.
And all the way back on Friday (which was only three days ago, right?) Gov. Tim Walz signed a public safety bill with those new gun restrictions in it. The plan makes Minnesota the 20th state to enact what are known as red flag protections designed to remove firearms from those deemed a danger to themselves or others. It also expands criminal background checks to private transfers of firearms. “I understand our rights as Americans to do these things. But I refuse to allow extremists to define what responsible gun ownership looks like and to make this about the Second Amendment,” Walz said. “This is not about the Second Amendment. This is about the safety of our children in our communities.” Here’s the MPR News story.
And even the New York Times wrote about a bill passed by the Senate yesterday and the House last week that would set a minimum wage for rideshare drivers: Drivers for Uber and Lyft are known as gig workers because they are treated as independent contractors, meaning they are responsible for their own expenses and are not guaranteed a minimum wage, health care or other benefits. If the legislation is signed by the governor, it will require Uber and Lyft to pay their drivers at least $1.45 per mile they drive a passenger — or $1.34 per mile outside the Minneapolis-St. Paul region — as well as $0.34 per minute. It also establishes an appeals process through which drivers can request a review if they feel they have been improperly deactivated from the platforms, and requires additional transparency around how drivers’ earnings are calculated.
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