by Luke Sprinkel
Republican leaders in the Minnesota House of Representatives and the Minnesota Senate called on Gov. Tim Walz to veto a 1,400-page bill that was passed in the final moments of the legislative session before many lawmakers even had a chance to see what was in the bill.
House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, and Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, made their request in a letter to Gov. Walz on Wednesday.
“We write to urge you to veto HF5247, the 1432-page conference committee report that was jammed through the legislature in mere minutes on Sunday evening in violation of House rules, Senate rules, Joint Rules of the Legislature, and the Constitution of the State of Minnesota,” said the GOP leaders in a letter to the governor.
Before time expired on the 2024 legislative session, Democrats folded many legislative items into a single, massive omnibus bill. More than 1,400 pages long, the bill was rammed through both the House and Senate over the objections of Republican lawmakers who said they did not even have a chance to see the bill before Democrats voted to pass it. Additionally, Republican efforts to speak on the bill and make related legislative motions were ignored.
Following the dramatic end to the legislative session, Democratic leaders claimed that such measures were needed because Republican delay tactics left limited time to pass legislation.
Despite this assertion, Democrats have controlled the House and Senate since January of 2023. As such, Democratic leaders maintain complete authority to schedule bills and dictate the legislative calendar across the months-long session. However, Democrats waited until the very end of session to take up many of their big-ticket legislative priorities.
Conversely, Republicans remain the minority party in both chambers and cannot control any of the aforementioned legislative functions. Writing to the governor, Leaders Demuth and Johnson rejected the notion that Republicans were responsible for the chaotic end of session.
“The claim that the minority parties in the House and Senate somehow obstructed the work of the majority, to the point that such drastic action was required, is simply untrue,” said the GOP lawmakers.
Demuth and Johnson continued, saying the Democrats in the House and Senate “contributed to the time crunch thanks to their mismanagement of the floor schedule.”
In asking the governor to veto the 1,400-page omnibus bill, the Republicans told Gov. Walz that “signing this bill would signal to Minnesotans that you explicitly endorse the outrageous and unprecedented breach of process that put the bill on your desk.”
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Luke Sprinkel previously worked as a Legislative Assistant at the Minnesota House of Representatives. He grew up as a Missionary Kid (MK) living in England, Thailand, Tanzania, and the Middle East. Luke graduated from Regent University in 2018.
