With fewer than 48 hours remaining this session, lawmakers are working on Saturday to pass several key bills before the Sunday deadline.
Minnesota legislators hammered out a budget framework late Wednesday that includes a rescue plan for HCMC, education spending, additional fraud investigators and technology upgrades for counties.
They’ve also passed high-profile bills in the past week, including a bill that makes grooming a felony, a housing finance deal and a bill that requires children’s social media accounts to be stripped of addictive features — though that bill needs one more vote from the House.
However, lawmakers still have key votes before the 11:59 p.m. Sunday deadline.
House Democrats continued pressuring Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth to let the House vote on a gun violence prevention package passed by the Senate, after their sit-in, which started at 9 p.m. Thursday, came to an end late Saturday morning.
“We are getting texts and live streams and videos and stories as we have for the last 36 hours from people across the state of Minnesota telling us to stand strong and stand firm for gun violence prevention,” Rep. Emma Greenman, DFL-Minneapolis said outside the House chamber Saturday morning.
Greenman’s district includes Annunciation Catholic Church and School, the site of the mass shooting in August that resulted in two student deaths.
“We know Minnesotans’ kids are watching what we’re going to do here, and they have been doing their job, asking us to choose them, not guns,” Greenman said. “And it is now our job to fight for them and fight to end this epidemic of gun violence that is so directly impacting them.”
Rep. Leigh Finke, DFL-St. Paul, helped organize the sit-in and said if the bill doesn’t pass this session, Republicans will pay at the polls in November.
“After Sunday, we take the tools of democracy out to the people, and we come back in January with a majority that is willing to pass this, and that's how this ends,” Finke said.
Advocates rallied outside the House chambers at 11:30 a.m. asking Demuth to bring the bill to the House floor when they meet Saturday.
“The people of Minnesota and across the country are asking for us to ban these weapons of war in our communities,” said Sen. Zaynab Mohamed, DFL-Minneapolis, at the 11:30 a.m. rally. She added that included Demuth’s daughter, who is a survivor of gun violence.
Two of Demuth’s children, including her daughter Shelisa, were inside the Rocori High School building during a mass shooting in 2003 and two were in the elementary school building nearby.
“Imagine being the first House Speaker in state history who is also the mother of two school shooting victims and conveniently deferring a gun control bill to the next legislative session,” Shelisa Demuth said in a Thursday post on social media.
Speaker Demuth has pushed back against criticism that she hasn’t allowed a vote on gun measures. Demuth said various individual gun bills have faced votes in the House.
Those votes just happened in committee, she said.
“What you've seen is bills brought forward in committee in March, fully vetted, but they failed in committee,” Demuth said on MPR News’ Politics Friday. They failed without Republican support.
Demuth said she’s not interested in passing legislation in large, catch-all omnibus bills.
“The Senate has chosen to send packages over,” Demuth said. Those packages include the gun violence prevention bill and a bill restricting the power of federal immigration agents in Minnesota.
“We are not doing that,” Demuth said. “We're doing individual bills.”
The House and Senate repeatedly recessed Saturday to work behind-the-scenes on major bills before they face floor votes. However, the chambers ticked off some smaller items in the meantime.
The House followed the Senate’s lead and unanimously passed a bill that allows poultry eggs to be donated for 30 days after their expiration date, when they are still safe to eat.
As egg prices have risen and more people use food shelves, lawmakers said they wanted to ensure unsold eggs don’t go to waste.
“We're going to see that ability for food waste reduction,” Rep. Andrew Myers, R-Tonka Bay, said.
“We're going to see that ability of thousands of volunteers at local food shelves across the state to get more good protein into those food shelves to help support our neighbors that are in need,” Myers added.
Lawmakers also couldn’t give up an opportunity for a good food pun.
“Let's just whisk this over to the governor,” said DFL Floor Leader Jamie Long of Minneapolis. “I know for one, I'm going to be voting shell yes.”
An anti-grooming bill making it a felony for an adult to groom — or seduce — a child is headed to the governor’s desk.
It was sent back to the House on Saturday after the Senate passed an amended version.
The bill would establish new training for mandatory reporters and expand the education department’s authority to investigate allegations of misconduct beyond three years.
Rep. Peggy Bennett, R-Albert Lea, urged her colleagues to pass the bill.
“It’s been a great process — bipartisan,” she said. “Let's just vote green to protect our kids from sexual predators and grooming in schools.”
The bill easily passed the House unanimously Saturday after passing the Senate unanimously Friday. It now heads to Gov. Tim Walz to sign.
The Minnesota Senate passed a bill allowing larger maximum prizes in meat raffles. Currently state law limits meat raffle prizes to a maximum of $70.
But as the cost of meat has risen, the cuts available at raffles have shrunken. The meat raffle bill increases the prize limit — which hasn't been raised in 40 years — to $200.
Sen. Zach Duckworth, R-Lakeville, praised his colleagues for their rare bipartisan work on his bill.
“It’s going to do a lot of good for local charities. In all seriousness, youth sports, a lot of great civic organizations, they're going to be able to raise even more money if this becomes law for a whole lot of really good causes out there. So, thanks everybody,” he said.
The bill still needs House passage and the governor's signature.