Welcome to the ‘season of disappointments’ — where bills make it (or don’t) at Minnesota Capitol

Minnesota lawmakers will near a key deadline this week before the final sprint of the legislative session.

Friday marks the third legislative deadline, which means that any bill with a state spending component has to move through key finance committees in each chamber.

The funnel is the latest reckoning for the massive stack of bills at the Capitol. 

“We are in a season of disappointments,” House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, said in describing this point in the 2024 session. “And there are those bills that just won’t make it.”

Policy bills have been moving and had their deadlines already. But this week marks the time to get budget touch-up bills and others with a price tag through committee so they’re ready for floor votes in the last five weeks of session. There are workarounds for late breaking bills; tardy proposals need a special accommodation from an extra committee in either chamber.

But ahead of the filter, here’s a look at some of the measures expected to make it and others on the cusp.

What’s on the fence?

As lawmakers move a raft of supplemental budget bills through committees, some DFL priorities are getting thrown overboard due to financial constraints.

DFL lawmakers had proposed adding a public option to MinnesotaCare — the state’s health insurance program for low-income people. But last week they said they don’t expect to move forward with that this year due to the hit to the state budget.

Leaders have also said that the so-called “Missing Middle” bill that would bar local governments from blocking some higher-density housing due to zoning restrictions would not advance.

“I think it’s an intriguing policy proposal whose time has not yet come in Minnesota,” Horman told reporters earlier this month.

Other plans might have to get scaled back to meet the realities of the state’s finances.

DFLers came in with proposals to require coverage of various kinds of health care services — from prosthetics to abortion, to in-vitro fertilization to wigs for cancer patients. And legislative leaders said they’re running the numbers on which of those services the state can afford this year.

Plans to boost subsidies for families to cover the cost of child care could also be shrunk down from initial proposals, as could a proposed pilot program to provide universal basic income to low-income Minnesotans.

Legislative leaders have been trying to moderate expectations with their caucuses and groups that have come to the Capitol asking for money. After a significant spending year last year, Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, said she’s reminding folks that it’s not a budget year.

“In the second year of the biennium, there are often supplemental budgets but they're not the same size or scale of what we do in a budget year,” Murphy said. “And it is important, I think, to remember that we made a significant move on child care last year and we’re going to continue to build on that both with policy and in setting the budget next year.” 

A proposal to legalize sports betting in Minnesota has a roughly 50-50 shot this year, Hortman said. DFL lawmakers have also worked quickly to pass a bill that would block proposed historical horse racing bets.