It’s been nearly three weeks since the 2025 legislative session ended without a budget deal.
And with a July 1 partial government shutdown on the horizon, DFL and GOP lawmakers and Gov. Tim Walz are still working behind the scenes this week to finalize negotiations that will fund state government for the next two years.
One of the major sticking points remains a contingent of DFL lawmakers who promised they would “fight to the end” to oppose a repeal of public health insurance coverage for illegal immigrant adults, which Walz and legislative leaders agreed to last month as part of their global budget deal.
During a media availability Wednesday, House and Senate leaders and Walz said they intend to honor that deal. But they acknowledged that a tied House and one-vote DFL majority in the Senate are making it difficult to finalize a deal that would trigger a special session.
“We are making progress,” Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, told reporters. “It is as slow as molasses, but molasses is good. And we are going to get it done. I’m gonna cross my fingers.”
House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman said she thinks a “one day” special session will take place on Saturday.
HHS budget shows reduction in line with MNCare repeal for illegal adults
Evidence that the final deal will contain that repeal was revealed this week in a health and human services budget spreadsheet that was posted online.
The spreadsheet was signed on May 30 by legislative leaders in both the House and Senate. It includes a nearly $57 million reduction in the MinnesotaCare budget for the next two years, and a $91 million reduction in the 2028-29 biennium. But as of Thursday, a final draft of a health and human services bill had yet to be completed.
When pressed by reporters on Wednesday to reveal whether they have the votes they need from their caucus members to pass the health and human services budget bill, the answers Murphy and Hortman offered were somewhat ambiguous.
“We still have to caucus these bills that are not done being written,” said Hortman.
“So you can’t ask [legislators] to vote for a bill until the bill is done being drafted and then they can find all the things they like and don’t like about the bill,” Hortman, of Brooklyn Park, added.
There has been some speculation that Democrats may be trying to negotiate with Republicans to make the MinnesotaCare repeal a standalone bill.
House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, told reporters that crafting the repeal as a standalone bill was “never part of the discussion.”
“If that would be broken out into a separate bill, there would have to be a guaranteed contingency … that that bill would both be passed and enacted,” Demuth said.
Walz wants to ‘button up’ a budget deal before more layoff notices go out Monday
The timing of a special session balances on a few roadblocks and impending deadlines. One is Friday is a holiday for Muslims, and Walz and leaders said even if they had their agreements finalized by Thursday, they wouldn’t hold the special session that day because of the observance. On Monday, the governor is required to send out more than 28,000 layoff notices to employees around the state if a budget is not agreed to.
“It’s my desire that this thing be buttoned up so I don’t have to send out those notices,” Walz said.
Also looming is a criminal trial set to begin June 16 for Sen. Nicole Mitchell, DFL-Woodbury, who is accused of felony burglary, stemming from her arrest in April 2024.
There’s also been no mention by any of the legislative leaders or Walz on whether a joint convention will be held to elect four new members to the University of Minnesota Board of Regents. Republicans have been publicly calling on Democrats to agree to make that a part of the special session, or else the governor will be able to make those appointments unilaterally.
Areas of the budget that would need to be passed during a special session include K-12, higher education, health and human services, transportation, energy, environment, and commerce.
A bonding bill is also possible, but not required to be passed before July 1. Republicans and Democrats are also deadlocked on what a final tax bill might look like as part of a special session deal.
Areas of the budget that legislators completed before the May 19 deadline include: judiciary, public safety, corrections, legacy, housing, agriculture, state government and veterans.
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.
