Good morning. The Twins winning streak ended, but still a good weekend for Minnesota sports. And yesterday's weather? Wowza!
Month of May weeks in the legislative session are always momentous but there’s a lot riding on this one. With only two weeks to go — and eight floor days where bills can actually be passed — there is an urgency to start wrapping up final bills. The Senate is where much of the action is in part because of Tuesday’s hearing on two ethics complaints. It’s difficult to see a rapid conclusion to those proceedings and there is precedent for the Senate deferring action until after a criminal case is finished. Dana Ferguson has our story setting up the week.
Meanwhile, in the House there will be a Rules Committee hearing today on the proposed constitutional amendment on equal rights, transgender care and abortion protections. The ballot measure would go before voters in 2026 — a year when a U.S. Senate seat, the governor’s office, both chambers of the Legislature and so much more — are at stake. The proposed language is here. The Senate approved a different version last year so there would have to be some reconciling in the session’s remaining time.
Floor action on the House bonding bill isn’t all that far off either. The $980 million borrowing plan surfaced last week, a draft of it anyway. We spoke with House Capital Investment Committee Chair Fue Lee on Politics Friday . He said the omission of money for a State Patrol headquarters building didn’t have to do with discord within his party over a fatal shooting during a traffic stop that has a trooper facing charges. He said lawmakers should at least consider adding the headquarters to a state emergency operations center project approved in an earlier session. The $22 million State Patrol headquarters proposal is a priority project for Gov. Tim Walz and would likely be viewed favorably by Republicans, whose votes are needed to pass the bill.
More congressional endorsements were conferred over the weekend. Republican incumbents Tom Emmer in the 6th District and Brad Finstad in the 1st District were given their party nods for new terms. For Democrats, Finstad rival Rachel Bohman was endorsed. So was state Sen. Kelly Morrison in the open 3rd Congressional District and former state Rep. Jen Schultz in her rematch with GOP Rep. Pete Stauber in the 8th. The dean of the Minnesota federal delegation, DFL Rep. Betty McCollum, won her party’s endorsement for a 13th term in the 4th Congressional District.
We’re waiting on some decisions from the Minnesota Supreme Court that could land this week. We could see a ruling on a Minnesota law allowing people convicted of felonies to vote once out of custody and another that could demote the Legal Marijuana Now Party. Timing on the latter is especially critical because candidate filing starts in just about two weeks. | 