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.”
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