Session Ends without a Budget Passed
We left St. Paul around 4:30 Monday afternoon to end the 2021 regular session without passing a budget, without any reforms to emergency powers, but with a budget agreement announced by Gov. Tim Walz, Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, and House Speaker Melissa Hortman.
While I am pleased the agreement does not raise taxes and prioritizes catching our students up who were hurt by COVID, the deal and the process of how it was reached leaves much to be desired.
First, the deal leaves the emergency powers of the Governor completely untouched. This is extremely concerning considering the emergency is over and the legislature— and people we represent— have been on the sidelines for almost a year. Not only are the powers not ended, the agreement makes no reforms in law to them while giving the Governor control over spending $500 million of federal aid and a line-item policy veto for the rest of the budget making process.
The other big problem with how this deal was put together, and how much of the governing has been administered with the current House Majority, is it was done amongst three leaders behind closed doors. You may remember the "Tribunal" last biennium when committee chairs would essentially take the proposals put together by conference committees to a room with the Governor, Speaker, and Senate majority Leader and they would tell them what would be acceptable.
This is not how we are supposed to govern. The Legislature is ceding far too much power to the Governor and legislators are ceding far too much to their leaders. This is not how our system is designed to work.
Caught up in the middle of these backroom deals and leverage games were real Minnesotans who have struggled over the last year. Small businesses who took out PPP loans to keep employees on payroll and workers who were displaced during the pandemic each are facing higher than expected state taxes. They were used as pawns for leverage and we ended the session still not making these common sense fixes—but with an agreement to fix it when coming back to pass a budget. These Minnesotans will have to either file an extension or an amended return due to these political games.
I hope we can come back during a special session soon and work together to put a better budget in place while ending the Governor's emergency powers and reforming them for the future. Minnesotans deserve an open and transparent process.
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