The 2024 legislative session is now more than a month in the rearview mirror.
Many of the new laws and expenditures passed by the DFL majority in the state House and Senate and signed by Gov. Tim Walz are beginning to paint a picture for voters this fall. Those voters will be charged with deciding which major party controls the House.
The list of bills the Democratic “trifecta” passed in its second session isn’t as long as it was in 2023. And there were more than a handful of high profile or polarizing proposals that DFLers were unable to push onto Walz’s desk.
Here’s a summary of the major legislation that passed the DFL majority House and Senate earlier this year that Gov. Walz signed into law.
The legislature:
- Established a state-mandated rideshare minimum wage structure to keep Uber and Lyft in Minnesota
- Amended a 2023 law that caused many police departments to pull school resource officers from high schools across Minnesota
- Implemented a “ban on book bans” in school and county libraries
- Increased the annual cap for the state’s labor commissioner to raise the minimum wage as indexed to inflation from 2.5 percent to 5 percent
- Passed a 1,400-page omnibus bill in the waning moments of session that:
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- Increased penalties for straw firearm purchases
- Banned binary triggers
- Amended a paid leave act with new provisions
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- Passed a junk fees bill that Republicans criticized as not going far enough to eliminate junk fees altogether
- Established the ability for college campuses to open “pop-up” polling places for students
- Passed a bill allowing homeless people to register to vote without writing down a physical address on voter registration applications
- Approved legislation allowing school boards to fill vacancies by appointment without having to undergo a special election if a school board vacancy occurs less than two years prior to the term’s expiration
- Expanded the ability for funeral homes to utilize “human composting” technology in lieu of traditional burial methods or cremation
- Eliminated belief-based vaccine exemptions for families enrolled in private daycare
- Required health insurers to cover “gender-affirming” care for minors
- Amended the Human Rights Act modifications from the 2023 legislative session to clarify religious liberty protections
Several pieces of legislation that failed to pass both DFL-controlled chambers include:
- A bonding bill Gov. Walz proposed that would have spent about $980 million on various capital projects statewide
- Equal Rights Amendment legislation
- A physician assisted suicide proposal
- A ranked choice voting “local options” bill
- A safe storage gun control bill
- A proposed ban on “rainbow flag bans”
- The “North Star Act” making Minnesota a “sanctuary state” for illegal immigration
- A childcare subsidy program for middle-income families
- A bill that would have legalized commercial surrogacy in Minnesota
Hank Long
Hank Long is a journalism and communications professional whose writing career includes coverage of the Minnesota legislature, city and county governments and the commercial real estate industry. Hank received his undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota, where he studied journalism, and his law degree at the University of St. Thomas. The Minnesota native lives in the Twin Cities with his wife and four children. His dream is to be around when the Vikings win the Super Bowl.
