With less than two weeks to go before the 2024 legislative session wraps up, Minnesota’s Legislature is working overtime to pass a flurry of omnibus bills and negotiate a bonding bill, with the Senate also tasked with considering explosive criminal allegations against a sitting member.
Though DFL majorities didn’t have a massive surplus to work with unlike last year, the supplemental budget bills passed by the House last week would provide additional funding for workforce development programs, housing, roads and bridges and education.
While the Senate’s schedule for much of the week was lighter, a marathon 19 hour session running from Friday into Saturday morning saw the upper chamber pass several controversial bills, none more so than an update to last year’s cannabis legalization bill.
On Monday, the combined Energy and Agriculture omnibus package authored in part by local Sen. Nick Frentz, DFL-North Mankato is expected to be approved by the Senate. A conference committee will then look to move quickly to reconcile the bill with House-passed legislation.
The bill includes Sen. Frentz’s signature proposal to streamline permitting for clean energy projects and power lines, which passed the Senate as a standalone proposal last month with the support of every DFLer but just one GOP Senator, Jim Abeler of Anoka.
DFLers say that the legislation is needed to ensure that Minnesota’s public utilities can actually deliver on the ambitious goal made last year of ensuring that 100% of the state’s electricity supply comes from carbon-free sources by 2040.
In line with the goals laid out in the Next Generation Energy Act of 2007, Minnesota’s public utilities have already moved aggressively to shift towards carbon-free energy, cutting greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector in half from 2005 to 2020.
However, Sen. Frentz’s bill requiring utilities to deliver 100% clean power by 2040 was extremely controversial, passing strictly along party lines. Republicans deemed it the “blackout bill, warning it would leave the state’s electricity supply expensive and unreliable.
While the permitting reform proposal has the backing of a robust coalition of business, labor and environmental groups, Republicans such as Sen. Rich Draheim of Madison Lake argued it was far too limited and should apply to other industries.
“This is a glaring example of Democrat favoritism,” Draheim said in a statement after the bill passed. “Instead of helping every Minnesota industry that is being crushed by our excessively burdensome red tape, they tailored a bill to help only their preferred renewable energy sectors like solar and wind.”
As the legislature’s DFL majorities continue to advance a series of omnibus bills largely along party lines, Draheim expressed frustration and disappointment that the DFL has failed to include a variety of amendments and proposals he and other Republicans have brought forward.
That said, among the flurry of bills passed recently are a handful which did manage to attract bipartisan support, such as a Health and Human Services omnibus package which passed the Senate overwhelmingly and pension reforms which the House approved unanimously.
A spirit of bipartisanship will need to continue in order for legislators to be able to move forward with a bonding bill, traditionally the centerpiece of an even-year legislative session and a stated priority for DFL and Republican legislative leaders alike.
Under the Minnesota Constitution, bonding legislation which includes borrowing requires approval of three-fifths of both chambers, a threshold which the narrow, ideologically cohesive and heavily metro-based DFL majorities elected in 2022 fall well short of.
Last week, the House Capital Investment Committee moved forward with a bonding bill which includes just under $1 billion in borrowing. More than $300 million of that is earmarked for local projects, with the exact local projects to be funded yet to be determined.
Area legislators have a list of local projects they hope to see funded, from park improvements in Faribault and Northfield to the North Zumbro Sanitary Sewer District which would replace aging wastewater treatment facilities serving Goodhue, Pine Island, Wanamingo and Zumbrota.
The remainder of the bill is earmarked for state agency funding. Among the largest appropriations in the bill is $48 million to construct a Bureau of Criminal Apprehension office and lab in Mankato, a project championed by Sen. Frentz.
On the other hand, the $74 million proposal to demolish and replace Minnesota State-Mankato’s Armstrong Hall was not included in the draft bonding bill despite support from Sen. Frentz and leaders in the Minnesota State University System.
Even though the state passed a $2.5 billion bonding package last year, demand for bonding dollars is as always far outstripping their availability, with state agencies, local governments, nonprofits and other entities submitting over $7 billion in requests.
Though legislators in both parties have expressed appetite for a bonding bill, efforts to build the necessary bipartisan coalition could be complicated by growing partisan rancor, especially in a Senate that has been roiled by burglary charges against Sen. Nicole Mitchell, DFL-Woodbury.
Draheim and Sen. Bill Lieske, R-Lonsdale, are among 11 GOP Senators who have filed an ethics complaint against Mitchell, which will receive a first hearing before the Senate Rules Committee’s Subcommittee on Ethical Conduct on Tuesday.
As the complaint details, Mitchell was charged with felony burglary last month. According to the complaint filed by the Becker County Attorney’s Office, she broke into her stepmother Carol’s home at 4:30 in the morning through a basement window.
Sen. Mitchell was booked into the Becker County Jail on April 22 but granted a conditional release the following day. In a Facebook post, she characterized the incident as an attempted welfare check made out of concern for a family member in declining health.
Claiming that “a much different picture will emerge when all of the facts are known,” Sen. Mitchell said she firmly denies the accusation of burglary, though she also told police that she came to the home in search of items of sentimental value, including her father’s ashes.
The complaint states that when police arrived, they found the basement window propped open by a bag identified as Sen. Mitchell’s, in which was a laptop Sen. Mitchell claimed Carol had given to her. Carol denied giving Sen. Mitchell the laptop and when turned on, it displayed Carol’s name.
In an interview with 5 Eyewitness News, Carol Mitchell pushed back on several other claims made by Sen. Mitchell and her attorney and stated that she remains traumatized by the incident and believes that Sen. Mitchell intended to inflict physical harm upon her.
The 11 GOP Senators argued that based on the facts laid out by the Becker County Attorney’s Office, Sen. Mitchell committed an act of premeditated, felony burglary which ran afoul of both state law and the Senate’s ethics standards.
“As outlined in the criminal complaint, Senator Mitchell’s actions not only represent a felonious violation of state law, but they also clearly betray the public trust and bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute,” the Senators wrote. “In addition, the public’s trust was blatantly violated when Senator Mitchell published a post-release statement that directly conflicts with statements she made to law enforcement officers just one day prior.”
Though Republicans have called for Sen. Mitchell to resign, the Senator says she has no plans to do so. While stripped of committee assignments and no longer allowed to attend DFL caucus meetings, an effort to prevent her from voting failed along party lines.
Without Sen. Mitchell’s vote, the DFL would effectively lose its one-seat majority in the Senate as there is no tie-breaking procedure. DFL Senators claimed stripping Sen. Mitchell of her voting privileges would constitute a disenfranchisement of her constituents.
Should Sen. Mitchell be forced to step down, the District she currently represents would likely elect another DFL Senator. Though Republicans were competitive in the district fairly recently, it is one of many suburban seats that have become significantly bluer over the last decade.
In the meantime, the Subcommittee on Ethics will be set to determine appropriate next steps for the Senate. The committee is unusual in two respects — it can meet year round, unencumbered by the legislative calendar, and it is evenly split between DFLers and Republicans.
Sen. Frentz argued that due process must be allowed to play out as not all of the facts of the case are yet known. He suggested that the Subcommittee could wait until after the criminal process concludes to take action and said it’s likely that Sen. Mitchell will continue to vote this session.
Republicans warned that with Mitchell potentially casting the deciding vote on bills, the integrity of the legislature could be called into question. Instead of using Mitchell’s vote to pass legislation along party lines, they said DFLers should take a more bipartisan approach.
“Instead of letting a charged felon cast the deciding vote on a partisan agenda, Democrats should collaborate with Republicans and advance a bipartisan agenda that benefits all Minnesotans,” said Sen. John Jasinski, R-Faribault, in a statement. “Senator Mitchell’s actions are a stain on the integrity of the legislature. No one is above the law, and a first-degree felony charge is an extremely serious matter.”
Frentz
Sen. Nick Frentz, DFL-North Mankato, is working not only to advance the Agriculture and Energy omnibus bill which features his permitting reform bill but also bipartisan pension reforms, which passed in the House unanimously last week.
As Vice Chair of the bicameral Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement, Frentz helped to craft an agreement which provides $28.5 million in one time funding to allow the state to lower the retirement age for teachers hired after 1989 from 66 to 65 in 2025 instead of 2026.
A grab bag of other changes will come at limited cost to the state, including updates to the state’s volunteer firefighter pension plan, bring pension plans for local correctional employees in line with those at state-run institutions, and allow student loan payments to be counted as an employee’s contribution to retirement savings, allowing for an employer match.
As a member of the Capital Investment Committee, Sen. Frentz is also intimately involved with the crafting of the bonding bill, and has a long wish list of local projects beyond the two big asks from Minnesota State University-Mankato and the Bureau of Criminal Apprehensions.
Among the local projects Frentz hopes can secure some funding from the pot of over $300 million in local project funding are upgrades to St. Peter’s Gorman Park, North Mankato’s Caswell Park and Mankato’s Riverfront Park and water treatment projects in Lafayette and Eagle Lake.
Brand
A member of the House Transportation Committee, Rep. Jeff Brand, DFL-St. Peter, authored several polarizing new requirements for railroads which were included in the Transportation, Labor and Housing omnibus supplemental budget bill.
New rail safety provisions in the bill include provisions to limit the size of trains to 8,500 feet, require additional wayside detectors and limit hours worked by yardmasters. Republicans expressed concerns that the provisions would increase railroad costs.
Brand countered that the new provisions will provide essential safety protections for those working in potentially dangerous railroad jobs. Another Brand-authored provision designed to make it easier for railroad workers to report dangerous spills made it into the Transportation policy omnibus.
With several local projects on the docket, Brand expressed optimism that a bonding bill could come together yet this session, potentially including local projects like upgrades to St. Peter’s Gorman Park and even a bike trail from Mankato to St. Peter.
Draheim
Despite a pledge from Senate Taxes Committee Chair Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, that this year’s legislative session would include no tax increases, Sen. Rich Draheim, R-Madison Lake, accused the DFL of looking for sneaky ways to tuck tax hikes into almost every bill.
Draheim expressed particular concern about the cannabis omnibus bill, which was authored by Sen. Lindsey Port, DFL-Burnsville, and Rep. Zack Stephenson, DFL-Coon Rapids, the authors of last year’s cannabis legalization bill and made updates to that legislation.
In addition to fixing drafting errors in the initial legislation, the cannabis update bill was focused on speeding up the timeline for getting commercial cannabis dispensaries up and running, so as to allow the commercial cannabis market to begin flourishing before the end of the year.
Under the law passed last year, some legislators apparently intended to repeal all penalties for juvenile use and possession, which was apparently thwarted by an unrelated section of Minnesota law which imposes a petty misdemeanor when a crime has no specific punishment.
A petty misdemeanor is the lowest level of offense in state law, with no jail time and punishment limited to a fine of up to $300. Republicans expressed concerns that such a small punishment for youth marijuana use would badly undercut efforts to keep the drug out of the hands of youth.
Draheim and other Republicans were frustrated that the DFL majority rejected proposed amendments to increase the penalty for youth marijuana use to a misdemeanor and treat underage cannabis use the same as underage alcohol use.
That said, Sen. Jordan Rasmusson, R-Fergus Falls, touted several Republican-led amendments which the DFL adopted, including provisions to accelerate required cannabis and substance use requirements in schools and require more robust labeling on cannabis products.
Pfarr
Rep. Brian Pfarr, R-Le Sueur, expressed concern over several gun control provisions which passed the House largely along party lines, which would require lost or stolen guns to be quickly reported to law enforcement, expand firearm storage requirements and increase the penalty for “straw purchases” from a gross misdemeanor to a felony.
Rep. Kaela Berg, DFL-Burnsville, suggested that strengthening the ban on straw purchases could help provide tragedies like the one that took place in her district on February 18, where a man killed three first responders responding to a domestic abuse call.
While the killer was legally prevented from purchasing firearms, he was allegedly able to acquire two AR-15 style guns through “straw purchases” made by his girlfriend. The ban on “straw purchases” did pick up three Republican votes, from suburban Reps. Jeff Witte of Lakeville, Mark Wiens of Lake Elmo and Andrew Myers of Tonka Bay.
Other Republicans indicated they would have considered supporting it had it not been coupled with a measure to ban “binary trigger” devices, which allow a semiautomatic weapon to fire more than one shot with a single pull of the trigger.
An effort to remove the binary trigger provision from the bill was proposed by Rep. Paul Novoty, R-Elk River and failed by the narrowest of margins after Reps. Dave Lislegard of Aurora and Dan Wolgamott of St. Cloud voted for it. A staunchly pro-gun DFLer from the Iron Range, Lislegard was the only DFLer to oppose the entire bill.
The proposals to require lost or stolen guns to be quickly reported to law enforcement and expand firearm storage requirements were both introduced and advanced in the House last year as well, with the support of local Rep. Kristi Pursell, DFL-Northfield.
However, the proposals ran into trouble in the Senate, with Sens. Grant Hauschild of Hermantown, Rob Kupec of Moorhead and Judy Seeberger of Afton expressing concerns. The trio ultimately agreed to allow universal background check requirements and a new red flag law to be added to the public safety omnibus bill.
A strong opponent of gun control, Pfarr voted against all three bills and expressed optimism that the Senate would not take them up. He expressed particular concern over the gun storage requirement, saying it would turn many rural, law abiding gun owning families into criminals.
“Honestly, (it) would make a criminal out of me,” Pfarr said. “We’re not focusing on those who are breaking the law.”
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