Minnesota Report
Because the DFL holds a single vote in the MN Senate, in spite of the encumbered member Sen Nicole Mitchell’s (DFL-47, Woodbury), sometimes referred to as The Ninja, ongoing court proceedings, all eyes should be trained on the Committee and Floor work of the Senate, until the House is fully seated. Nothing that happens is the House will have any relevance to what will be in play until that time.
All House floor and committee work is merely perfunctory, posturing or rather performance art. The two key events will be the Revenue Forecast to know what the available resources will be, and the Roseville Special Election in 40B. When the Special Election results are known and the newly elected member is seated, the actual session will truly commence and as the body of origin for all spending bills begins we will fully see where the budget is heading.
We are already expecting a series of Special Sessions is highly likely and it’s 1979 all over again. This is where those who experienced those sessions might have some unexpected insight. One distinct possibility is Republicans bring bills to the floor prior to the Special Election & pass them by a bare majority and use those bills as there position going into Conference Committees with the Senate which will mean the Senate will hold the defense position for all DFLers in the House, Senate and for the Governor. This makes the idea of multiple Special Sessions is all the more likely.
Everything that occurs in the House prior, only a series of dress rehearsals until after the March 11th Special Election in House District 40B.