June 2025 APG Column
Carolyn Treadway
When I read Sen. John Jasinski’s column last week, I was dismayed at how people can experience the same events and come away with a completely different perspective. That certainly is true in politics.
Mr. Jasinski characterized the 2025 legislative session as one in which the Democrats controlled legislation. But with a political tie in the House and a single Democrat seat advantage in the Senate, every piece of final legislation during this session demanded bipartisanship. Indeed, the Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth herself said, “…we have proven here in the House that Democrats and Republicans can find a way to work together. A lot of the things that were wanted by both sides did not happen…but I know this was successful because we were able to get the work done before a government shutdown.”
Bipartisanship can be messy and oftentimes challenging. The Legislature adjourned on May 19th without passing spending bills for health care, K-12 education, transportation, the environment, and a bonding bill.
Some legislators are miffed that negotiations between the House, the Senate and the governor occurred behind closed doors in bipartisan working groups from both the Senate and the House. In a perfect world, negotiations would have been in public. Unfortunately, however, we know how this would have turned out if 134 House members and 67 Senate members had debated in front of cameras. We’d be hunkering down for a government shutdown. One might ask if it is legal to negotiate this way. It is. Since 1990, the Minnesota Legislature has been exempt from the Open Meeting Law.
Mr. Jasinski alleges that bills were passed without public input. Not true. Each of the bills that made it through the working groups received public hearings during the regular session.
As part of the compromises this session, Democrats agreed to repeal MinnesotaCare coverage for undocumented adults and a bipartisan $700 million capital investment bonding bill passed.
In spite of the need to pare down the Department of Health and Human Services budget, new funding was appropriated for some much-needed programs, for upgrading the child welfare case management system and to improve care coordination of public health and social services at the local level. Mr. Jasinski may see these additions as bloat of state agencies, yet this funding has positive effects in Minnesota communities.
Mr. Jasinski implied that funding for Education took a big hit. Not true. The K-12 general education funding formula was protected from cuts. The bill will trim reimbursement for special education transportation, however. A commission also was established that will identify other cost-saving strategies within special education. I, for one, believe that efficiencies are needed in that program.
Republicans wanted to rescind Paid Leave as well as the Earned Safe and Sick Time laws. Democrats insisted on maintaining these worker protections yet compromised on reductions that eased costs for employers.
The final Government Finance bill didn’t contain cuts in County Program Aid and Local Government Aid as was originally contained in the Senate’s regular session bill. That would have shifted a greater tax burden to local taxpayers. This bill also contains numerous oversight provisions to identify and prevent fraud and provides greater oversight of state government through the Office of the Legislative Auditor.
While Mr. Jasinski contends that Minnesotans have been hit with massive new taxes, the truth is that revenue increases are mainly the result of tax receipts from cannabis sales, eliminating a tax exemption for electricity used by data centers, and repealing government aid for cannabis growers.
While I’d wanted to see significant funding increases and policy changes for Minnesota’s housing needs in this session, more got done in a politically-tied Legislature than I’d expected. Kudos to bipartisanship!
