Ewald at the Capitol

February 12, 2021

Hybrid Meetings, Revenue Update, New Republicans Move to Impeach Walz

Hybrid Meetings Begin

The Senate held their first hybrid committee hearings this week. It was the first time this session when multiple senators were in the same room for a hearing. While the Senate is moving to this hybrid model, legislators, lobbyists and the public will continue to have a virtual option to participate in the committee hearing process.

The House continues to reiterate its intention to remain completely virtual. The different approaches magnify the differences in how the House and Senate view the pandemic and will likely lead to an increased debate over a potential Mask Mandate Bill.

February 5, 2021

2021 Committee Deadlines, 2021 Priorities, and more

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2021 Committee Deadlines

In a signed letter on Jan. 26, House and Senate leadership came to an agreement on the 2021 committee deadlines, as follows:

March 12: The first deadline is for committees to act favorably on bills in the house of origin.
March 19: The second deadline is for committees to act favorably on bills, or companions of bills, that met the first deadline in the other house.
April 9: The third deadline is for committees to act favorably on major appropriation and finance bills.

There is no annual deadline for the introduction of bills. However, each year the Legislature establishes deadlines for committee action on bills. Committee deadlines are announced during the first half of a session in order to winnow the list of topics to be dealt with that year.

January 29, 2021

Governor Walz’s COVID-19 Recovery Budget

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On Tuesday, Gov. Walz outlined his $52 billion budget plan, calling it “Minnesota’s COVID-19 Recovery Budget.” The proposed budget emphasizes assistance to small businesses, help for working families affected by the disease or related fallout, and measures to get students caught up after a year of mostly distance learning.

Next, the governor’s budget will be broken up into individual appropriation bills that will be introduced to the legislative process. House and Senate committees will propose their own budget bills as well.

January 27, 2021

Gov. Walz’s 2-Year Budget Proposal

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Yesterday, Gov. Walz released his 2-year budget proposal for the 2022-23 biennium, totaling about $52 billion. The “COVID-19 Recovery Budget” focuses heavily on his administration’s ideas for economic and community recovery. In his announcement, Gov. Walz emphasized the following topics:

supporting small business,
driving economic recovery,
ensuring students catch up on learning, and
supporting working families.

January 22, 2021

Revenue and Economic Update, First Bill Movement, Vaccine Pilot Program

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Revenue and Economic Update

Minnesota Management and Budget (MMB) released a revenue and economic update, which showed a 4.3 percent increase over projection for general fund revenues in November and December. A huge variance over projection were net corporate tax receipts, which came in at a whopping 36.1 percent above forecast.

The next full Budget and Economic Forecast will be conducted in February and should be released in early March. Even with a more positive outlook in revenues than originally projected during the beginning of the pandemic, the state still faces a large budget shortfall to deal with in the current legislative budgeting cycle.

January 15, 2021

Committees Ramp Up, 2021 Priorities

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Committees Ramp Up

Committee hearings began in full this week, with 87 remote hearings conducted in total. Most of these hearings were introductory in nature, with introductions of members, legislative staff and agency staff, and overviews by staff and agencies.

Floor sessions this week in both the House and Senate took care of some additional basic business, such as mileage reimbursement for members and adoption of temporary and permanent rules for the body.

January 9, 2021

Start of 2021 Legislative Session, New COVID-19 Restrictions, Legislative Toolbox

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Start of 2021 Legislative Session

The 2021 legislative session began this week. Both bodies will be working in some hybrid fashion this year. Both the House and Senate will be holding floor sessions with very few members in person and the rest present remotely. The House will operate fully remote for committee hearings and the Senate will operate both fully remote and hybrid for their committee hearings.

Both bodies have now implemented technology that supports secure remote voting during floor sessions for efficiency. Prior to these systems being put in place, a vocal roll call had to be held every time a vote was taken, with each individual legislator responding “aye”, “nay” or “pass”. These votes took approximately 10 minutes each to complete in the House, where there are 134 members. The new voting systems will allow members to vote immediately, which is how the Legislature functioned pre-COVID-19 when all members were physically in the chambers.

December 21, 2020

COVID-19 Relief, COVID-19 Dial-Back Update, 2021 Legislative Session

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COVID-19 Relief Package

This week, in the seventh special session, the Legislature passed a $216 million COVID-19 relief package. Gov. Walz signed the bill yesterday. The package provides grants to small businesses and nonprofits and extends unemployment benefits.

$88 million will go toward grants for eligible breweries, wineries, distilleries, fitness centers, bowling alleys, restaurants, and bars. $14 million will go toward grants for movie theaters and convention centers. Lastly, $114.8 million will be appropriated directly to counties to distribute their own grants to local businesses and nonprofits.

One of the goals of this package was to get relief out quickly. All grants have been given a deadline for distribution by March 15, 2021.

Gov. Walz also extended his peacetime emergency powers for another 30 days.

December 7, 2020

2021 Session Preview, Budget News, Special Session VII

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Session 2021: On the Horizon

The Minnesota Legislature’s 2021 regular session begins on Jan. 5, 2021. Preparations for the new biennium are underway, including setting up the new committee structure. Committee topics and chairs are being finalized by both the House and Senate. The House will have 30 committees, and the Senate will have 29. This is a decrease for the House, which had 37 committees for the 2019-2020 biennium, but an increase for the Senate, which had 21.

Some of the new House committees include Preventing Homelessness, Preventative Health Policy and Behavioral Health Policy. New committees in the Senate include Human Services Licensing and Housing Finance & Policy. Also new for this biennium are the House and Senate committees on redistricting, which occurs following each census.

Committee membership should be released soon.

November 13, 2020

Special Session VI, New COVID Restrictions, and more

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Special Session VI

This week, Gov. Walz called the Minnesota Legislature into its sixth special session of the interim to extend his peacetime emergency authority. This time, neither body debated nor took up a vote to rescind the governor’s emergency powers.

Instead, the House Republican caucus offered a new plan aimed to give the Legislature the ability to amend or rescind individual executive orders. They brought forward concerns from multiple industries that some executive orders contradict themselves and some have caused unintended negative consequences.