The Minnesota Legislature has 99 problems. The split House might not be one

When Nolan West rose to co-chair this year of the Minnesota House Children and Families Finance and Plan Committee his first edict was a seating chart Typically West explained in his Capitol office adorned by statuettes of Abraham Lincoln Ronald Reagan and an elephant Republicans sit by Republicans and DFLers perch by DFLers But on a committee with seven DFLers and seven Republicans the Blaine Republican decided that each DFLer would sit between two Republicans and vice versa Normally when someone says something stupid that you disagree with you lean over to your colleague and say Isn t that stupid West revealed Now if you re going to say anything you can genuinely have a side conversation and say Well what about this instead of digs and snarky comments The House is two months into a power-sharing truce between Republicans and DFLers a deal that was brokered because there are exactly members of each party in the legislative chamber the first House tie since It took not one not two but three trips to the state Supreme Court to confirm the House was indeed tied Even when the power-sharing agreement was implemented House leaders were skeptical the deal would take hold They are very suspicious of us We are very suspicious of them Melissa Hortman the House DFL leader stated at the time Fast forward to the present day and Hortman and her GOP colleagues see a split House as a secondary concern to hammering out a two-year budget to fund Minnesota s administration For the most of part it is working really well Hortman informed reporters before lawmakers took off for spring recess Legislators came back to the Capitol Monday I was pleasantly surprised that we had budget targets on time I ve also been pleasantly surprised by the number of bills that are complete The bipartisanship is remarkable in an era of national politics where members of Congress fall in line with party leaders and populace opinion polls suggest voters see the parties as representing different value systems It also comes as the state stares down a long-term budget imbalance and braces for achievable federal cuts Here is what has happened so far What the House has accomplishedHouse committees have advanced the majority of their spending bills First to review the power-sharing resolution made GOP Leader Lisa Demuth of Cold Spring House speaker and moved Hortman of Brooklyn Park from speaker to speaker emerita And each of these committees has an equal number of DFL and GOP lawmakers plus a chair from each party An early test of cooperation was budget targets which is where legislative leaders instruct committees on how much money to put into each spending bill For example DFL and GOP House leaders notified West s committee to spend million more for the Department of Children Youth and Families over the next two years compared to the Minnesota Management and Budget s February forecast Gov Tim Walz s budget recommended a million increase to agency funding That brings that part of the budget to billion for the two-year period that begins this July West and co-chair Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn DFL-Eden Prairie then wrote a bill proposing where the billion should go across areas like child care early learning and food banks Rep Nolan West R-Blaine reads a budget spreadsheet in his office on Monday April Credit MinnPost photo by Matthew BlakeThe resulting provision kept social services funding steady while adding a critical provision for West surveillance camera footage at child care facilities That issue was very essential to me and I was willing to spend on other things that I don t necessarily like West noted West proposed such monitoring after he revealed that his own child came home with bruises from a day care center The language that passed committee makes care centers already hit with a maltreatment overview take video footage and retain that footage for days West commented his partnership with Kotyza-Witthuhn went smoother than I anticipated The Eden Prairie DFLer concurred Though we had a rocky start to the session I m glad our GOP colleagues recognized that to do the critical work of funding state authorities we will need to work together Kotyza-Witthuhn reported in an email to MinnPost Other spending bills passing through committee include the biggest budget area funding the Department of Human Services which runs the state s Medicaid effort The House Human Services Finance and Agenda Committee agreed to an billion two-year package that undid scheduled increases in long-term care spending for Minnesotans on Medicaid During the hearing where the bill was finalized committee leadership was not exactly elated It s not fun announced co-chair Joe Schomacker R-Luverne This isn t easy This isn t fun But each side was able to find common ground on largely preserving Medicaid benefits amid federal threats to slash the effort This is not something we can say we re proud of stated co-chair Mohamud Noor DFL-Minneapolis But we re getting there As committees agreed to bills House leadership met weekly with their Senate counterparts and Walz I m really grateful for the conversations that have been taking place Demuth recounted reporters before the recess later adding I m really impressed by the work that is being done with our co-chairs What the House hasn t accomplishedNot every House spending bill has passed its initial committee The biggest is the K- training bill which has ignited passionate and at times surprising debates over stagnating learner test scores charter schools and subsidized school meals House Development Finance Committee co-chair Cheryl Youakim DFL-Hopkins explained Tuesday We are having productive discussions and are close on a final bill The House Wellness Finance and Approach Committee which funds the Minnesota Department of Physical condition and initiatives like infectious condition prevention has also not meted out a spending package And once spending bills are passed they go through the ringer of the House Procedures and Means Committee the full House and the so-called conference session where House spending measures are reconciled with Senate bills At each step lawmakers must keep an eye on writing a bill that Walz will like enough to sign into law Inquired if his House DFL brethren might jump ship and take DFL-controlled Senate positions in budget talks West revealed That s a question I have too But he added that the Senate and governor can t do it without us and that he expects the House to be much more aggressive than normal since its leadership represents all of Minnesota and not just a little over West s committee counterpart really had similar thoughts and wondered if the the greater part complicated part of negotiations had passed In a normal session the majority party is able to include their priorities and move through the House without much compromise Kotyza-Witthuhn explained in her email to MinnPost Power-sharing required that we essentially pre-conference agenda and budget items to pass a bipartisan bill out of committee Such optimism is being heard outside the House Neither Walz nor Senate leaders have indicated that a split House will keep the Legislature from passing a budget before they leave the Capitol the third week of May I keep hearing people talk about a special session in June mentioned Sen Minority Leader Mark Johnson R-Grand Forks at a press conference before the legislature recessed last week But as of right now things are looking promising to get to that May th deadline The post The Minnesota Legislature has problems The split House might not be one appeared first on MinnPost