Good morning, and happy Tuesday.
The legislative session is over. As MPR’s Brian Bakst reports, Democrats got everything they set out to at the beginning of the session: It was a year in which they legalized marijuana, guaranteed abortion access, boosted school aid, cut some taxes while raising others, and much more. The all-DFL power structure at the Capitol passed its entire agenda — one that Republicans fought but couldn’t stop. Debate in the session’s final hours echoed what dominated the early weeks. It centered on abortion, specifically a bill repealing laws around data collection, waiting periods and instructions to doctors — some things already weakened by a state court ruling. Democrats believe the abortion issue helped them outperform historical trends in last fall’s election. And with full control of state government this year came a gusher of progressive policies. “We have really run the table in a lot of ways in terms of the priorities that we've put forward and the work we've done," said House Majority Leader Jamie Long, DFL-Minneapolis. Long maintained two poster board lists of the DFL’s top 30 bills for the year. Every one of them has now been checked off.
More on the last day from Brian and MPR’s Dana Ferguson: Both chambers on party-line votes passed a vast health, human services, children and families bill on Monday. The proposal would create a new Department of Children and Families and boost funding for the Child Care Assistance Program and for homelessness prevention. It would also lay the groundwork for a public buy-in option for MinnesotaCare and make undocumented immigrants eligible to enroll in MinnesotaCare. Democrats said the bill would help more Minnesotans access health care and make it more affordable. “The reality is still that for many people, healthcare is too expensive and may even be out of reach all together,” House Health Committee Chair Tina Liebling, DFL-Rochester, said. “If you need care for mental health concerns, or come from a minority community, or are uninsured or speak a language other than English or are undocumented, are many other things, you could very well be left behind. Our bill begins to address all of these things.” Republicans said the bill included too many mandates and wasn’t crafted in a transparent fashion. They also raised concerns about allowing unauthorized immigrants to enroll in MinnesotaCare and paving the way to a public option. “When we go to this MinnesotaCare buy-in, that's going to cause real problems for providers, when they are now primarily being reimbursed at significantly lower rates than what the actual cost of care is,” Rep. Anne Neu Brindley, R-North Branch, said. “This is not magic. This is just math.”
And Dana notes, that nurse staffing bill lost most of its teeth in the final version that passed: The measure would create new violence prevention initiatives for hospitals, fund loan forgiveness and child care aid for nurses, and conduct a study on why nurses are leaving the field. After the Mayo Clinic pressed the state for an exemption from a broader plan that would have required hospitals to put in place committees to set staffing levels, and other hospitals pushed back as well, DFL lawmakers said they had to strip the provision from the bill to get it passed. “The work that we have been doing to keep nurses focused in this legislation and patients focused in this legislation really got subsumed by a fight among corporate entities, Mayo and the other corporate hospitals,” the bill’s author Sen. Erin Murphy, DFL-Saint Paul, said. “And it essentially dominated and replaced the debate that we've been having about nursing and patient safety. And that's unfortunate.”
Electronic pulltabs were the subject of contentious debate over the tax bill this past weekend. MPR’s Tim Nelson took a closer look : Electronic pull-tabs were legalized to pay the taxpayer's share of a new NFL stadium. After initially foundering, e-pulltabs have become a $6.3 million-a-day business in Minnesota. They paid off the stadium debt and filled state tax coffers. But lawmakers have put the brakes on what has been exponential growth of the games. A provision in this year's tax bill will prohibit some of their supposedly most attractive features, so-called “open all” games that allow a single touch to reveal all of a player's prize chances at once, as well as second-chance provisions. It's the latest skirmish in the long-running battle over gambling in Minnesota and who runs it. “The fact of the matter is that the courts have ruled that these things cannot mimic slot machines,” said Gov. Tim Walz. Tribal gaming agreements give them the right to certain forms of gambling, like slot machines. But the difference with e-tabs can be subtle — even too subtle for some people. E-pull-tab fans say the changes to the way they're played will make the games less attractive and be a serious setback for state charities and the more than $120 million a year that they give away. “We talk about e-tabs doing the great things for our community. St. Paul Park food shelves that we're giving thousands of dollars to a year. Food recovery. We're supporting our communities,” said Ray Kane, gambling manager for the Lions Club in St. Paul Park and Newport.
If you are tired of driving between the Twin Cities and Duluth, you will soon have another option — a train. MPR’s Dan Kraker has the story: After state lawmakers approved $195 million in funding for the Northern Lights line as part of the omnibus transportation bill that passed the Legislature over the weekend and is expected to be signed by Gov. Tim Walz, a passenger rail between the Twin Ports and Twin Cities is on the cusp of being revived. “This is going to open up so many connection opportunities for people going back and forth between northeastern Minnesota and Duluth and all routes to the Twin Cities and back,” said Sen. Jen McEwen, DFL-Duluth. The appropriation from the state makes up 20 percent of the Northern Lights project’s total cost of about $974 million, which has swelled from earlier estimates. That includes about $380 million for equipment, including locomotives and passenger cars. Despite the fact that the federal government is poised to pick up the lion’s share of the project’s costs, Republican critics have sharply criticized the rail line’s merits and questioned how many passengers would actually ride it. “It’s an absolute waste of money,” said Rep. Kurt Daudt, R-Crown. “And at some point somebody needs to stand up and say, you know what, didn't we learn our lesson from these other rail projects? And the answer to that apparently from Democrats is no."
And if you miss the Legislature, don’t worry. They’ll be back in February. | 