Good Monday morning! And welcome to yet another week of wintery weather and lots of action at the Capitol. I’m Dana Ferguson filling in for Mike Mulcahy this morning.
We’ll get a first look this morning at House lawmakers’ tax bill when it goes live at 11 a.m. and when DFL leaders will field reporters’ questions at noon. For months, the House tax committee has weighed potential tax cuts, rebates, credits and increases. They’ll walk through the bill at 1 p.m. and give a sense of which pieces made the cut. You can watch the committee hearing here . The bill isn’t final. Over the next five weeks, legislators will take testimony on the plan, amend it and take it to conference committee with members of the Senate, assuming it passes through the House.
Speaking of taxes, growing fractures around tax and budget plans will test the Democratic Farmer Labor Party’s so-far unified march through the legislative session where they control the agenda and the fate of a massive budget surplus. I have a story out this morning that looks at some of the divisions emerging around new tax and fee proposals up for consideration at the Capitol. As part of their $72 billion budget framework, DFL lawmakers have pitched tax and fee increases aimed at repairing roads, building affordable housing and boosting natural resource programs. Supporters say the state needs to bring in ongoing funds for those designated purposes but with a $17.5 billion budget surplus, some DFLers have called on their colleagues to pump the brakes.
Gov. Tim Walz is set to sign into law a bill that would replenish $40 million to the state’s disaster assistance account today. The move comes as flooding concerns surged over the weekend. Keep up with the latest flood forecasts, road closures and our interactive flood map here.
The Senate burned the midnight oil Friday evening into Saturday morning as they debated a trio of budget bills. And on a party-line vote, members passed an $880 million public safety spending plan. The Star Tribune’s Rochelle Olson reports that senators spent six hours debating the bill that would boost judges’ pay, direct more money to the public defender system and fund a variety of crime prevention and investigation efforts. "Today we're righting the ship. The ship for too long has been lurching in one direction," Senate Public Safety and Judiciary Committee Chair Ron Latz, DFL-Saint Louis Park, said. Republicans branded the proposal a "Get Out of Jail Free" card for criminals. Sen. Warren Limmer, R-Maple Grove, told reporters, "Quite honestly, I've never seen a more dangerous bill presented from the work of the Senate Judiciary."
Lawmakers are again pushing to get Minnesota’s first “green bank” up and running. Andrew Hazzard with the Sahan Journal reports that the proposed Minnesota Climate Innovation Finance Authority would launch as a nonprofit with a publicly appointed board. Green banks use public funding to leverage private investment and supporters say that puts them in a position to prioritize environmentally friendly projects. “It’s an opportunity to pool resources to leverage federal and private funding to bring in the clean energy transition here in Minnesota,” said Senator Tou Xiong, DFL-Maplewood, who is carrying the bill in the state Senate.
In the face of state bans or restrictions on abortion, people seeking the medication and procedures are traveling to states like Minnesota where they’re easier to access. NPR’s Mallika Seshadri writes that since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, states where abortion is legally protected are reporting record-high demand from out-of-state patients.
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