Minnesota GOP Leaders Urge Governor to Veto ‘Kitchen Sink Bill’ Passed Amid Chaotic End to the Legislative Session

(KNSI) — House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth (R-Cold Spring) and Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson (R-East Grand Forks) have written a letter to the governor asking him to veto what they called a “kitchen sink bill” passed in the final chaotic moments of the 2024 legislative session.

In the letter, they say the bill violates the rules of the House, Senate, the Joint Rules of the Legislature and the state Constitution.

Republicans say Democrats violated the Joint Rules by skirting debate and demanding a vote on the tax bill, which was assembled in committee with fewer than three hours to go before the deadline. The bill also incorporated measures from eight other bills that would not have passed both the House and Senate before midnight. The package was thousands of pages and was not made available online or in print before the vote, angering lawmakers who were shouting their objections over a voice vote.

Joint Rules say conference committee reports “must be limited to provisions that are germane to the bill and amendments that were referred to the Conference Committee. A provision is not germane if it relates to a substantially different subject or is intended to accomplish a substantially different subject or is intended to accomplish a substantially different purpose from that of the bill.”

Demuth and Johnson cite Article 4 Section 17 of the Minnesota Constitution, which states, “No law shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title.” The title for the 1,432 page conference committee report known as HF5247 alone is six pages, including dozens of individual subjects expressed in the title and tell Governor Tim Walz, “It is inconsistent with the oath you swore to uphold the Minnesota Constitution to sign this bill into law.”

The letter says that signing the bill would signal to voters that the governor would “explicitly endorse the outrageous and unprecedented breach of process that put the bill on your desk.” It also accuses the Chair of the Committee of reporting incorrect bill numbers when listing the bills that were set to be adopted, causing further confusion for anyone attempting to track the bill’s contents.

“Despite this stunning lack of transparency,” the letter says, “the bill was brought immediately to the House floor and pushed to a vote despite dozens of objections and privileged motions ignored by the Speaker of the House. The Senate followed suit soon after.”

Demuth and Johnson noted the Democratic trifecta of a majority in the House, Senate and Governor’s office and blasted the DFL for blaming Republicans for obstructing the work of the majority to the point that “such drastic action was required, is simply untrue.”

The letter accuses Democrats of mismanaging the floor schedule, contributing to the time crunch, alleging the Senate spent over 13 hours in recess while the House debated and passed bills.

It closes by saying that signing the bill endorses a process “that will have serious consequences for both chambers for years to come” by creating an environment “where rules, transparency, and process are second to the whims of partisanship is unhealthy for our state and for the legislature as an institution.”

Demuth and Johnson ask Walz to “to do what is right – not just what is politically expedient for you and your party” and veto the bill.

Read the letter here.

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