Minnesota House Announces Conference Co-chairs, Budget Forecast Released

December 5, 2024

Last week, leaders from the Minnesota House of Representatives announced new committee chairs for the 2025 legislative session.  

House caucus leaders Rep. Lisa Demuth (R – Cold Spring) and Rep. Melissa Hortman (DFL – Brooklyn Park) released the names of members to jointly oversee 24 House committees. They also announced that membership of committees will be divided equally between DFL and Republican members, given the current 67-67 partisan split in the House.  

Committee chairs hold authority over which bills receive hearings and are typically tasked with authoring omnibus budget bills. In this case, the appointment of co-chairs is unprecedented. The only other example of a tied House is 1979, and co-chairs were not part of the power sharing agreement at that time. 

“No session is like another,” said Dave Renner, MMA’s director of advocacy. “The decision to assign co-chairs demonstrates leadership’s dedication to bipartisanship. With equal number of Democrats and Republicans on each committee, we can expect bills to have bi-partisan support to get committee approval.” 

The House Health and Human Services Committee will be co-chaired by Rep. Jeff Backer (R – Browns Valley) and Rep. Robert Bierman (DFL – Apple Valley). Both are experienced lawmakers who have served on the committee in the past. 

“Representatives Backer and Bierman are two capable and responsible lawmakers, and I think they’ll work well together,” said Chad Fahning, MMA’s manager of state legislative affairs. “Both have authored MMA priority bills as recently as last session – Backer authored legislation to establish a POLST registry and Bierman has championed our physician wellness and prior authorization reform efforts.” 

Both lawmakers were endorsed for re-election by MEDPAC, the MMA’s political action committee, in 2024. 

Committee rosters are expected to be announced in the coming weeks. No agreement has been reached on who will be the Speaker of the House. The state constitution requires that the House elect a single presiding officer charged with overseeing the 134-member body, but it is less clear whether there are other ways to share power. 

Lawmakers will be tasked with developing a state budget for the coming biennium. Minnesota Management and Budget announced December 4 that the state has a projected $616 million budget surplus in the short-term but warned of a forecasted $5.1 billion budget deficit for the 2028-29 biennium. The announcement greatly decreases the chance of additional state investments that do not come with a revenue-generating source.