The Minnesota Legislature’s 2024 session was headed toward a chaotic and partisan finish on Sunday, as Democrats rushed to pass several major bills — at times cutting off debate to do so — and Republicans bemoaned that they were shut out of the process.
With just hours left before its midnight deadline, the DFL-controlled House passed a bill setting minimum pay standards for Uber and Lyft drivers that would prevent the companies from leaving parts of the state.
The House also passed an expansive equal rights ballot initiative that would ask Minnesota voters if they want to enshrine equal rights and abortion protections into the state Constitution in 2026.
Democrats in the Senate had yet to take up either of those priority bills only hours from the deadline. And it appeared unlikely that lawmakers would pass a bonding bill to fund state infrastructure projects or legislation to legalize sports betting.
“We are working very hard to bring the last of our work across the line,” Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, said Sunday afternoon. She accused Republicans of “putting down roadblocks after roadblocks” to drag out debates.
Murphy said she believed her caucus had the votes to pass the Equal Rights Amendment bill but that “time is the biggest factor for us.”
The Senate, which Democrats control by a single vote, found itself playing catch-up on Sunday after it stood in recess for 11 hours on the day before. Sen. Omar Fateh, DFL-Minneapolis, was missing from legislative action Saturday as he spent the day in closed-doors negotiations on the Uber and Lyft bill. That brought all other work to a standstill.
Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, said Democrats mismanaged the legislative schedule by not completing more work on Saturday. He said it was “disingenuous” for Democrats to criticize Republicans for wanting to thoroughly debate bills.
“The games that have been played lately in this chamber are unbelievable,” Johnson said. “Yesterday, we sat around for 11 hours. We could have been doing a bonding bill at that time.”
Republicans were outraged on Sunday morning when Senate DFL leaders, in an attempt to move more quickly, cut off debate over cannabis regulations. Johnson said partisan relations had grown “a lot worse” on the final day of the session.
Murphy defended the decision. She said the discussion had already spanned about five hours and Republicans were “adding more names to the list to continue a debate that really wasn’t about the policy.”
Legislators passed the cannabis bill, which allows for the commercial cultivation of marijuana to start this year, and sent it to Gov. Tim Walz’s desk. They also passed legislation providing $24 million in one-time funding for struggling emergency medical services providers.
The House had so far avoided cutting off debate, even after hours of discussion over the past week on bills such as those banning junk fees. But House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, suggested it would be possible. She said she saw more delays in the Senate, especially since Sen. Nicole Mitchell, DFL-Woodbury, was charged with felony first-degree burglary last month.
“At a certain point in time, when the Senate experienced some unexpected events, the Senate GOP decided they were entitled to co-govern,” Hortman said. “The thing that concerns me about the Senate is the grotesque abuse of process by the Senate GOP.”
The House and Senate passed other omnibus bills on Sunday. A bill to allow any city to implement ranked-choice voting failed to pass the House; Democratic Reps. Rick Hansen, Michael Nelson and Gene Pelowski joining Republicans to oppose it.
The prospect of a bipartisan bonding bill looked unlikely early Sunday evening. Republicans had said they did not have enough of a say in the process this year. A three-fifths majority vote is required for the state to borrow money with a bonding bill, so DFLers need some Republican support to pass it.
“Everything is still at risk, because we have been completely shut out of the process,” said House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring.
Hortman criticized the approach of withholding votes on a bonding bill.
“It is a path that is full of failure when people tie unrelated things to the passage of a bonding bill,” she said.
Though DFL leaders held out hope that other bills would be passed before the midnight Sunday deadline, leaders said the odds of legalizing sports betting were extremely slim. Hortman said the issue was “on life support,” and Murphy said: “It feels like the opportunity to do sports betting has faded.”
Both chambers approved and sent to Walz a ban on Historic Horse Racing (HHR), a rebuke to the state’s Racing Commission, which voted to legalize it this year. Opponents say the games are tantamount to video slot machines and violate the gambling compacts with the state’s American Indian tribes.
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