Unfinished Democratic priorities dim along with the party’s hold on power in St. Paul
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Democrats in the Minnesota Legislature hoped to shepherd through their unfinished priorities when lawmakers came back to St. Paul in 2025 but that unchecked legislative dominance they exerted before is gone.
That spillover to-do list included an expansive equal rights amendment, a broader public health insurance option and more protections for low-income renters.
Those and others pursued by DFLers are now in doubt. A tighter budget will also dampen prospects for new proposals in the coming year.
As the new session begins, Republicans will hold at least shared power in the Minnesota House and possess a slight edge at the outset. They’ll also have a tied Senate for part of the session.
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While lawmakers are due to debate a long list of topics well into May and adopt a new two-year budget, the opening days could be filled with fights over who is in charge.
Republicans have their House edge after a residency dispute forced out a Democratic fall winner in the suburbs. The Senate spilled into a tie after the death of DFL Sen. Kari Dziedzic of Minneapolis. Special elections are set for Jan. 28 to fill both seats.
The final hours of the 2024 legislative session devolved into shouting in both the House and Senate. Lawmakers ran right up to a midnight deadline on May 20 after many DFL priorities passed in one bill while Republicans loudly protested in both chambers.
The massive bill included requirements around coverage for abortion-related services, protections for ride-share drivers, stiffer penalties for illegal gun transfers and much more. It was a partisan end to the second year of full Democratic control of state government.
“We were completely steamrolled by the Democrat majority,” a visibly frustrated then-House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth said at a press conference after the final gavel fell. “Our voices were not heard.”
Demuth could become the next speaker when the Legislature begins, although Democrats say they might sit out the opening weeks to prevent Republicans from doing much with what might be a temporary run of chamber control.
As for Gov. Tim Walz, he still has two years on his term after his unsuccessful run for vice president.
“I would hope we would find some common ground of where we would come back,” Walz said last week.
He had just signed an executive order to establish a centralized unit within the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to investigate suspected fraud. He also put forward a slate of legislative proposals aimed at weeding out fraud.
“There’s going to be enough things for us to argue about. This is one we agree on,” Walz said.
Calls of waste, fraud and abuse have been a rallying cry for Republicans, but they characterized the Walz proposal as “smoke and mirrors” and “too little too late.”
Beyond that, Democrats could find it difficult to advance the priorities they left behind in 2024 — after passing a bonanza of new laws cheered on by the political left.
Democrats struggled to close ranks around the equal rights ballot measure, the public insurance option and a politically fraught bill to offer additional protections to undocumented immigrants.
The equal rights amendment was the closest to the finish line, awaiting final votes as time wore down on the prior session.
Proponents wanted to put a question before voters in 2026 asking whether they support barring discrimination based on a person’s race, class, sex and gender identity.
“[An Equal Rights Amendment] will become especially important if there is a Republican federal trifecta that takes some of those rights away from us by federal law and preamps Minnesota state law,” Rep. Melissa Hortman told MPR News right after the 2024 session. “At the moment, it’s not additive in terms of the legal rights that Minnesotans have.”
Now, there is a Republican trifecta in Washington and Democrats don’t have the same power they used to in St. Paul.
With Republicans having just the slightest edge of power for now, those Democratic priorities look like they’ll stay on the shelf.
“Democrats had a full trifecta. If they had actually had the votes to pass that they would have, and they didn’t have the vote,” Demuth said. “So, I don’t even see where that’s part of the conversation right now.”
In the other chamber, DFL Senate Leader Erin Murphy said she thinks there’s room for compromise among the two major parties.
“There are lots of places where there is support to make real progress for people,” Murphy said. “Whether we think about mental health care, health care reform, the ability to earn a living and support your family, to afford child care and a safe place to live.”
MPR News senior politics reporter Dana Ferguson contributed to this story.
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