Bipartisan legislation creating an Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to investigate fraud in Minnesota has stalled in committee. That legislation, SF 856, has already become the most-watched focal point of the 2026 legislative session.
Last week, the State Government Committee of the Minnesota House of Representatives held a hearing on SF 856. However, that DFL-chaired meeting ended in partisan acrimony.
On Tuesday, SF 856 was once again brought up for consideration by the committee. The bill’s author in the state House, DFL Rep. Matt Norris, again offered a major amendment to the bill that would remove the proposed OIG’s law enforcement powers.
GOP Sen. Michael Kreun, a co-author of the OIG bill in the Minnesota Senate, has referred to the law enforcement section as the “teeth” of the bill. Republicans have warned that Norris’ language would gut the OIG bill.
In committee, Norris said his amendment was an effort to fix alleged constitutional problems with the existing bill, fully fund the OIG, and add language that would help stop fraud before it occurs. Norris said his bill kept 90% of the bill’s existing contents.
However, Republicans blocked Norris’ amendment in a 7-7 vote. The House is currently split with 67 Republicans and 67 Democrats. As such, the House State Government Committee is comprised of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats.
This was the second time Norris tried to apply his amendment to the bill.
After Norris’ amendment was rejected again, he offered several smaller amendments to the bill which sought to change individual pieces of the bill rather than overhaul it entirely.
The GOP co-chair of the committee, Rep. Jim Nash, said he appreciated that Norris broke his original amendment into smaller pieces. Nash noted that some of Norris’ smaller amendments would be supported by Republicans in the committee.
However, Nash said his caucus would also oppose some of Norris’ amendments — but not because they did not like their contents. Instead, Nash indicated that continued work by the bipartisan OIG working group is the best way to find agreement on the bill’s contents.
“Please don’t hear when we may vote some of these down that its an outright ‘no,’ that we don’t want to do them, but more so that going back to the bipartisan, bicameral approach is really where this is going to shine and make this a better bill,” Nash told Norris.
The pending OIG bill was crafted by a working group of Republicans and DFLers from both the House and Senate. That group will continue working on the bill this session.
Ultimately, some of Norris’ amendments were approved in committee with bipartisan votes. Last year, the Senate passed the OIG bill in a 60-7 vote. Given the amendments applied Tuesday, the bill now requires repassage by the Senate in order to become law.
After the amendment process concluded, Nash made a motion to send the OIG bill to the House Judiciary Committee, saying, “it needs to be reviewed [there] as well.”
However, DFL co-chair Ginny Klevorn said the bill should stay in the State Government Committee for further work. Nash’s motion failed on a 7-7, party-line vote. In a statement released after the committee hearing, Nash slammed legislative Democrats.
“We had a robust conversation in committee today, we amended the bill, and everyone agreed that the bill needs to continue on,” he said. “Unfortunately, Democrats once again made themselves an obstacle to passage because Republicans would not allow them to weaken independence and gut enforcement capability for the office.”
Last week, Democrats blocked a Republican effort to bring the OIG bill up for a vote before the full House.
On Wednesday, Nash again tried to send the OIG bill to the House Judiciary Committee via a vote on the House floor. However, Democrats blocked that move. Klevorn said the OIG bill still had “things that need to be fixed,” and the State Government Committee was the appropriate place to do so.
Luke Sprinkel
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.
