On Monday, some completed conference committee reports were passed by the House and sent to the Senate, but several more lay dormant, the committee co-chairs from the two chambers unable to reach agreement.
So it’s on to a special session, but how soon Gov. Tim Walz will call one remains to be seen. The timing is likely to hinge upon how far apart the various unconcluded conference committees are in crafting their final reports.
“We’ll continue to do the work, and when the work’s ready, I’ll bring them back for a one-day special session and we’ll button things up,” Walz said Monday afternoon before meeting with legislative leaders.
Next steps?
Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman (DFL-Brooklyn Park) said legislative leaders and the governor have given all conference committees a deadline of 5 p.m. Wednesday to finish their work. She predicted the earliest a special session could start would be Friday, and urged conference committee chairs to focus on getting the budgeting portion of their bills fleshed out and to let go of any policy differences standing in the way of reaching agreement.
What’s left?
Still left unfinished are agreements that would set budgets for the next two biennia in the areas of commerce, education, energy, environment and natural resources, health, higher education, human services, labor and workforce development, and transportation.
And then there’s the tax bill, which would determine the how and how much of collecting revenue to fund all state programs. Neither the House nor the Senate had an omnibus tax bill voted upon by the time the two chambers adjourned Monday, although the House bill did make it to the floor last week before being tabled.
In an early stage of its legislative life is a bill for capital investment — known as a bonding bill — which would ascertain what infrastructure projects would be funded by state borrowing in the 2026-27 biennium.