A Disappointing End to Session
by Senator Paul Utke

At the time of writing this column, regular Session has adjourned. Our constitutionally mandated adjournment date of May 19 has come and gone, and folks want to know what passed, what didn’t, and the state of the legislature. I wanted to provide an update for anyone curious about what has (and hasn’t) been happening in St. Paul.

As a reminder, our state is facing a $6 billion deficit. When this became clear in February, it was obvious that hard decisions would have to be made this year. Democrat leadership broke our state’s budget over the past two years, and we knew we needed to get things back on track.

Before we adjourned our regular session, we were able to get a handful of bills passed through the process: Veterans, Housing, Legacy, State Government and Elections, Public Safety, Agriculture, Human Services Policy, and Pensions. Unfortunately, some of our largest budget bills failed to complete the process in time. As a result, many things are left on the table: Health and Human Services, Education Finance, Taxes, and Transportation to name a few.

Make no mistake, the reason we are behind is because House Democrats elected not to show up for the first 3 weeks of session. During that time, the Senate got to work hearing and moving bills, but the House remained at a standstill. We were elected by the folks in our districts to come here and advocate on their behalf, yet those legislators decided not to do that work, instead opting to get paid for not showing up. As a result, we have a $6 billion deficit yet to be addressed, and most of our budget bills remain undone.

What does this mean? Well, what you should know is that a special session is imminent. Because we are in “interim” until that point, that means committees and conference committees are dissolved. In their place are “working groups,” which are meant to operate like committees. These groups are to meet and hash out the differences between senate and house bills, ultimately putting together one budget bill for each area. Though these groups have been encouraged to operate just like a conference committee – meaning public hearings, publicly accessible documents, and full transparency – they haven’t been doing so. Instead, many of these discussions have been had behind closed doors. That’s concerning.

If these working groups cannot come to a consensus, final bills will be decided in a backroom meeting involving the Governor and a small set of leaders. By the time those decisions are made, a special session will be called, and the bills will be on the floor – that means we will not be able to amend them in any way, and many of us won’t know what’s in those long bills until they are brought forward for a vote. Folks, is this how you expect your government to operate?

There’s a lack of transparency in this process. Minnesotans are tired of backroom deals being made away from the public eye. These discussions involve laws that will affect every single family in this state, yet details are being hidden away. When we have a process like this, it’s important for the public to be able to provide input. Meetings should be held in public, testimony should be allowed, and other senators should know what’s in these bills before they come up for a vote. We need to be able to communicate with our constituents to let them know what’s at stake, but because of how locked away these details are, much of Minnesota remains in the dark.

I’m disappointed we couldn’t end on time, but I’m even more disappointed with how opaque the entire process has become. The bottom line is that Democrats have failed Minnesotans time and time again – they’ve proven they cannot govern in a trustworthy way. I will continue advocating for transparency in this process, because it’s what Minnesotans expect and it’s the right thing to do.