A historic biennial session of Minnesota’s Legislature came to a chaotic, heated and intensely partisan close on Sunday night, with DFL legislators using their narrow majorities to muscle through a mammoth “mega-omnibus” bill over the objections of outraged Republicans.
At a record-shattering length of 1,430 pages, the mega-omnibus includes the nine major pieces of legislation passed by both chambers and negotiated in conference committees, including the Energy and Agriculture omnibus bill sponsored by Sen. Nick Frentz, DFL-North Mankato.
Republicans were quick to accuse House Speaker Melissa Hortman and Gov. Tim Walz of hypocrisy, noting that both had harshly criticized the 990-page “omnibus prime” bill passed by the GOP-run Legislature in 2018, and vowed at the time to never back similar legislation.
Under the Minnesota Constitution, each bill is supposed to adhere to just a single subject. However, enforcement of that provision has become increasingly lax in recent decades, with both parties advancing steadily larger omnibus packages.
Hortman and other DFLers argued that in the wake of “unprecedented delays,” the mega-omnibus bill had become necessary in order to deliver final passage of bills previously backed by both chambers and refined by the conference committees.
Rep. Jeff Brand, DFL-St. Peter, said that House Republicans broke with tradition and acted in bad faith when they slowed down debate on a bill to put a proposed Equal Rights Amendment on the 2026 ballot, an effort which ultimately failed after failing to secure Senate passage.
“Over the past two weeks, an enormous amount of filibustering has happened in the House,” Brand said. “You’ve had people talking about cheeseburgers for two hours straight.”
While legislatures in other states have put fairly strict time limits on how long a member can speak, the Minnesota House has traditionally allowed free flowing debate, with members able to speak on a topic as often and as long as they want.
In response to last week’s lengthy debates, Hortman repeatedly cut off lengthy debates by “calling the question,” and indicated that should the DFL maintain its House majority in this fall’s elections, strict time limits on debate could be coming, a move Brand said he could support.
Republicans had a very different take on the end of session. Retiring Reps. Brian Pfarr, R-Le Sueur, and John Petersburg, R-Waseca, said that the DFL majority had crossed a line in passing the mega-omnibus bill with just minutes to go until midnight.
“The majority didn’t abide by any of the rules that were set up,” Petersburg said. “The party that proclaimed itself the champion of oppressed people became the oppressor.”
Pfarr said that given that the DFL majorities have had full control of the legislative process for two years now, things should have gone much more orderly. He compared the effort to override all debate and minority objections to the bill to what one might see in a third world country.
Notably, the complex negotiations to reach agreement on a rideshare pay bill consumed much of the session’s final hours, helping to doom not only the ERA but also efforts to pass a bonding package and reach a long-awaited agreement on sports betting legalization.
Bonding is traditionally the signature accomplishment of an even numbered legislative session. With a three-fifths vote in both chambers required to pass a bill, it’s also one of the only pieces of legislation that this legislature’s narrow majorities couldn’t pass on their own.
Legislators did manage to pass a historic $2.5 billion bonding package last year, which will help to ease the sting of failing to pass one this year. Still, with more than $7 billion in requests having poured in from across the state, legislators hoped to pass a roughly $950 million bill.
A last minute attempt by Democrats to pass a cash-only $71 million bonding bill passed in the House but the Senate was unable to pass it before the midnight deadline. Frentz said that the failure to agree on a bill was for him the biggest disappointment of the session.
Though many Republicans had hoped to secure major funding for key infrastructure projects in their districts, Sen. Bill Lieske, R-Lonsdale, said that after the extremely partisan and controversial finish to the session, no Republican would sign on to support a bonding bill.
With the bonding bill dead, the rideshare bill will go down as one of this session’s most notable accomplishments. Struck in the final hours of the session, the deal included a 20% bump to driver pay but was toned down enough to convince Uber and Lyft to drop their threats to leave the state.
Last year, a rideshare bill which included even more robust increases to driver pay passed the House and Senate, after Fateh used his leverage as a member of the DFL’s precarious one-seat Senate majority to revive a bill that appeared to initially stall.
Gov. Tim Walz issued the only veto of his tenure thus far to stop it after Uber and Lyft warned that it could increase ride costs by 50% or more. Fateh accused the Walz of betraying a pledge to sign the bill if it came to his desk, which Walz denied.
Walz and DFL legislators promised to revisit the topic in 2024, with the Governor using his executive authority to convene a working group of stakeholders, in order to develop a framework for legislation that could satisfy all parties involved.
In the meantime, the Minneapolis City Council passed a more generous rideshare ordinance over the veto of Mayor Jacob Frey, leading Uber and Lyft to threaten to pull out of Minneapolis and potentially surrounding suburbs altogether.
Earlier this month, a group of DFL legislators including House Majority Leader Jamie Long announced that they had reached a “compromise” with the Minneapolis City Council. However, a lack of support from Uber and Lyft ultimately led that particular effort to fizzle.
Notably, the final agreement will override Minneapolis’s ordinance at the insistence of Uber and Lyft. The minimum pay rates of $1.28 per mile and 31¢ per minute hew closely to the proposed rates of $1.20 per mile and 35¢ per minute proposed by Frey.
While apparently acceptable to both Uber and Lyft and MULDA (the Minnesota Uber/Lyft Drivers Association), neither side was exactly overjoyed by the agreement. In a statement, Uber’s Josh Gold warned that prices would increase, while MULDA’s Eid Ali promised to push for more.
Even with the acquiescence of Uber and Lyft, the legislation passed with minimal bipartisan support. Pfarr argued that slapping additional regulations and pay requirements on independent contractors was a heavy handed approach, and warned that it could set a poor precedent.
That said, Pfarr said he understood the pressure on lawmakers to find some sort of agreement that would keep Uber and Lyft from leaving, with a majority of the Minneapolis City Council appealing prepared to let its ordinance go into effect.
With the overwhelming majority of Uber and Lyft rides taking place in the Twin Cities, Sen. Nick Frentz, DFL-North Mankato, and other Greater Minnesota legislators were not intimately involved with negotiations and said it was not a top concern for their constituents.
Rep. Kristi Pursell, DFL-Northfield, did describe the agreement as a “great relief” and offered praise for her colleagues who helped to negotiate it. Pursell said that the bill would fulfill a “moral obligation” to protect and uplift struggling workers.
Pursell
Rep. Kristi Pursell, DFL-Northfield, saw several proposals she had championed make their way into the mega-omnibus package, while others fell by the wayside as a result of 11th hour negotiations in conference committee.
One provision in the mega-omnibus bill which was authored by Pursell will clarify the definition of public waters, while another will create a new working group to explore the potential to offer farmers carbon or ecosystem services credits.
Pursell was also able to get her bill to require products labeled as honey actually be honey, barring products mixed with water or artificial sweeteners, but her bill to require Environmental Impact Statement for large animal operations didn’t make it into final legislation.
In the Pension bill, Pursell fought successfully for language that will allow people to count their student loan payments as the employee contribution to retirement savings so they can receive an employer match.
Declaring that “the minority party has a right to speak but we have a right to govern,” Pursell said that she is proud of the DFL’s accomplishments this session and predicted that the controversy surrounding the final days would soon be forgotten.
“The story for a short time might be how chaotic things looked and sounded in the chambers close to midnight, but all that theater will fade and these bills will make people's lives better,” she said.
Lieske
Sen. Bill Lieske, R-Lonsdale, was able to get several bipartisan provisions passed as part of the mega-omnibus bill, including legislation to relax strict regulations around cottage foods while preserving health and safety and his bill to restore estray reporting requirements.
Even with the inclusion of an agriculture omnibus bill he praised, Lieske described the process as a “nightmare” and said that almost no one in the legislature truly knew what was in the bill they were asked to pass late on Sunday night.
Lieske expressed concern about both the process and merits of the rideshare deal, warning that it would significantly increase the costs of a ride and that legislation to keep Uber and Lyft in Minnesota should have been reached long before the second to last day of session.
While the legislature may be adjourned for now, Lieske, Sen. Rich Draheim, R-Madison Lake, and other GOP Senators will continue to push the Senate Subcommittee on Ethics to take action against Sen. Mitchell, who they accused in a complaint of violating the public trust.
The subcommittee will take up the issue again next month and continue to work through the summer, though DFL members of the committee don’t seem to be any hurry to bring the case to a clearer conclusion.
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