Minnesota Legislature Reaches Halfway Point in Session

April 7, 2022

The Minnesota State Legislature has approximately six weeks left in this year’s legislative session. Going into the annual one-week Easter/Passover break next week, the Legislature still has much to do. 

April 8 is the legislative deadline for committees to act on major appropriation and tax bills. This leads to what are called omnibus bills, single large bills that contain many similar legislative initiatives. These bills need to make their way through committees in both chambers leading up to the deadline. 

These bills will eventually be heard by each chamber’s respective finance committees before going to the floor for a vote by the entire body. Following a floor vote, a conference committee made up of an equal number of members from both chambers will be formed to work out differences between the two bills. If the conference committees can reach final agreements on the various omnibus bills, they will go back for repassage by both bodies before being sent to the governor for signature. 

While the omnibus bills are moving through the process, two other major items have yet to be agreed upon at the Legislature: funding for unemployment insurance and for frontline worker pay. 

The state of Minnesota’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund ran dry following the initial months of the COVID-19 crisis. The state had to borrow money from the federal government to keep dispensing state unemployment checks.  

Senate Republicans want to pay off the federal debt and then refill the fund to its previous amount. House DFLers want to repay the federal loan and then fill the state’s fund enough to only cover current unemployment checks, and then gradually build up the trust fund through a premium hike. 

A second major issue left unresolved involves bonus pay for the state’s frontline workers. The Minnesota House passed a $1 billion package to administer $1,500 checks to an estimated 666,000 Minnesota workers. The Senate has argued that the agreement last year was for $250 million, and the checks should go to a smaller pool of people, primarily healthcare workers. 

Leaders of the two bodies, along with the governor, will need to agree on these provisions before the Legislature adjourns on May 23.