Not much of a holiday weekend for Minnesota lawmakers who have yet to come to an agreement on the details of a new two-year, $66 billion budget agreement.
Republican Speaker Lisa Demuth (Cold Spring) and DFL Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman (Brooklyn Park) held a bipartisan briefing on Thursday expressing some optimism but also saying time is running out.
"Even though it's slower than we would like, things are going well," says Demuth. "It doesn't appear that anyone has quit or given up, and that is a very good sign in the right direction, that our co-chairs in the House and then of course meeting up with the Senate are having the conversations to get things wrapped up as soon as possible."
Hortman says the pressure is on.
"We have to send layoff notices to any entity that's not funded by June 1st," Hortman adds. "And so, that is really the next deadline that comes after May 19th and human beings are deadline driven."
Hortman says it's been difficult dealing with some of her caucus members. Many were upset by a compromise agreement House and Senate leaders - along with Governor Tim Walz - announced going into the last weekend of the legislative session that took state-funded healthcare away from undocumented immigrants in Minnesota.
"You can't just repeat your member's arguments at the leadership table," Hortman explained. "That's not leadership. You have to kind of recognize so-and-so is being difficult, maybe by behaviors, or maybe by positions on issues, or movement on a spreadsheet, and that it's our job once we put our name on an agreement to help effectuate the agreement. Even when some of our own members are stumbling blocks to the agreement."
Governor Tim Walz signed four bipartisan bills into law on Thursday. The bills include measures to fund unemployment insurance for hourly school workers and strengthen laws against DUIs in response to the deadly crash at Park Tavern last September.
But the actual state budget is still the sticking point for lawmakers who will have a busy weekend of meetings. The fact that there is a tie between Democrats and Republicans means much of the work needs to be done together which Demuth says can work.
"In a way we've called ourselves Team House, in a way, even though we see things a little bit differently," Demuth said Thursday. "But our co-chairs have worked together well over the last few months and I think this is an indication that we're supportive of our co-chairs. We're supportive of our caucuses, and we support that (it) has to be done for the State of Minnesota and the people here."
Continued Disagreement About Health Coverage
Some DFL lawmakers continue to be unhappy about the end of coverage for Minnesota's undocumented residents - outside of children which would still receive state-funding health insurance. That includes Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy (DFL- St. Paul) who did appear to go along with the proposal at their bipartisan gathering announcing the framework of a budget deal one week ago.
On Friday's WCCO's Capitol Clash on the Morning News, former Minnesota State Senators Jeff Hayden (DFL) and Amy Koch (R) both noted there is more debate on how to move forward with that protion of the budget.
"I will note that, Leader Murphy did say that the Immigrant health care issue that kind of blew this thing up, or at least visibly blew it up," says Haydn. "She was adamant that it had to be a stand-alone bill, which I thought was significant."
But Demuth says it absolutely should be part of the health bill and not a standalone bill. GOP lawmakers say they're afraid if it does pass, the governor could veto it. Hortman did say Thursday that the governor has said he will stand by his part of the agreement and not veto it.
So, would that bill pass as a standalone bill in a deadlocked Minnesota House? Koch doesn't think so.
"Well, that's the problem," adds Koch. "Because it'll be requiring some amount of money to be spent potentially in ways. The omnibus bill serves a purpose in that. It allows folks to say, 'well, I like 60% of this, or 70% of this, and 10% I really don't like. But I'm, I'm gonna vote along with it.' You don't have that control with a standalone."
Lack of Public Meetings
Much of what is happening now has been behind closed doors. While not all that unusual, both Koch and Haydn say not enough is being discussed publicly to keep people informed.
"Even just this bill and this fix highlights why they should be meeting more in public," notes Koch. "Speaker Emerita Hortman said, 'you know, these conversations are sensitive and you can't always have in public.' Sure, nobody's an idiot. We all know that behind the scenes, there are some conversations that have to be had behind the scenes. But a lot of these discussions and sort of vetting of the solution on this could absolutely take place in public and actually for the better. Because then you'd have some public buy-in."
Haydn agrees that meeting publicly can provide solutions for lawmakers as well, noting that when lawmakers passed the funding of school lunches and breakfast for kids, they didn't means test it and track how many low-income students you had to feed. When that wasn't tracked, school districts started missing subsidies for low income kids.
"I also think that it really helps you to kind of figure out the unintended consequences and so you get to see how much it costs, what the potential issues and enrollments are," says Haydn. "And then when the public comes in handy, and these are school superintendents or whoever the experts are, just citizens, they can tell you the unintended consequences."
Predictions: When Will The Budget Be Done?
As for timing, both Koch and Haydn agreed that the first week of June looks like a good target to get this done.
"I think it will be the first week of June when they actually have the special session," says Koch. "I think they negotiate a little more next week and they run out of time because of the holiday, and it goes into the like Tuesday of the following week, the 2nd, the 3rd of June sometime in June."
Haydn agreed.
"Yeah, I think she might be right," he said. "I was hoping that they get done Tuesday, Wednesday. One, that gets everybody to go home and get some rest and figure it out. But the layoff notices will start to go out in June because they have to statutorily start telling people, 'listen, if the government or your portion of the government budget isn't funded, those layoff notices go out.' I think that that there's an increasingly amount of pressure throughout the state when you do that. So, I do think that they'll get it done that that same week."