Friends and neighbors,
It’s been a strange summer at the Capitol. First came the 21-hour Special Session, followed by a tragedy none of us could have imagined. The assassination of Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, and the shooting of Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette was a heartbreaking and deeply disturbing weekend that shook both families and our state.
I want to thank law enforcement for their incredible professionalism in carrying out a complex, coordinated manhunt involving local, state, and federal agencies. If you see an officer, please take a moment to thank them for helping bring a swift end to a terrible and dangerous situation. I wrote more about Representative Hortman and that weekend’s events here.
We had just wrapped up Special Session when the tragedy occurred and I haven’t had a chance to give you a full update on the outcomes of the 2025 session. So today, I want to focus on the legislative session and what happened during that whirlwind final stretch. Over the next several months, I’ll be sharing highlights and lowlights, what passed, what didn’t, and how it affects you, our community, and the state. Today, I’ll share some overall thoughts.
This year’s main task was making a new state budget for the upcoming biennium, which runs from July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2027. For context, the previous budget ballooned to $72 billion, the largest in state history. That spending spree burned through an $18 billion surplus and left Minnesota with a $6 billion deficit heading into this session.
Fixing that deficit was priority number one. When you spend irresponsibly, it forces the legislature to either raise taxes, cut programs, or find waste to eliminate. On the bright side, the pressure forced more serious conversations around fraud and abuse in state spending.
In the Senate, we passed a bipartisan bill to create a new Office of Inspector General dedicated to rooting out fraud in state government. It passed 60 to 7 with strong support. Unfortunately, House Democrats blocked it. That kind of partisan obstruction is exactly the kind of thing I hear frustration about from constituents across the district.
As for the deficit itself, about 70 percent of the state budget is tied up in health care and education, so those were the areas hit hardest. The most significant education cuts were delayed until the next budget in 2028 and 2029, when schools are set to lose $420 million. Of that, $250 million will be cut from special education.
To figure out where those cuts will come from, a Blue Ribbon Commission on Special Education will be formed. If they cannot find enough savings, the task will fall to the Minnesota Department of Education. That is not how it should work. Agencies should not be in charge of deciding cuts. While I am not a fan of the many commissions and task forces already out there, having this one make recommendations is better than leaving it to the agency alone.
One major win this session was stopping around $220 million from being spent on health insurance for illegal immigrants. Senate Republicans were united in opposing this. The new budget still allows children under 18 to remain covered, but adult coverage was rolled back. At a time when we’re trying to fill a $6 billion hole, it does not make sense to spend hundreds of millions on benefits for individuals who are not legal residents. Especially when our state agencies all received operating increases across the board.
These examples show how bad budgeting and misplaced priorities can hurt the very people we should be serving.
As Republicans in the minority, we are often in the position of trying to stop the worst ideas from becoming law. That means finding common ground when possible and standing our ground when necessary.
One of the biggest frustrations this year was how Special Session played out. During the regular session, we have public hearings and debates. While some negotiations happen behind closed doors, the process is at least visible. But once we go into Special Session, power gets concentrated into the hands of a few.
This year, negotiations were limited to Speaker Demuth, Speaker Emerita Hortman, Senate Majority Leader Murphy, and Governor Walz. The rest of us, along with the public, were largely shut out. Final deals were crafted behind closed doors and then presented to the full Legislature with little time for review or input.
Some will argue that most provisions had been discussed in committee earlier in the year. But that misses the point. Many of those items had not advanced or would not have passed on their own. When leadership bundles them into massive end-of-session deals, it bypasses the checks and balances built into the system.
Special Sessions have become routine. But that’s not how this process is supposed to work. It’s how we burned through an $18 billion surplus and ended up with a $6 billion deficit. It’s how we ended up with tuition hikes at the University of Minnesota and Minnesota State. It’s how we wasted tens of millions on a train line and nearly spent hundreds of millions on benefits for illegal immigrants.
Over the next few months, I’ll be breaking down the session bill by bill—the good, the bad, and the ugly. There’s a bit of all three.
I hope you’re enjoying the summer. It really is one of the best times of year in Minnesota. Thanks for staying engaged. I’ll be in touch soon.
Rich