Week in preview: multi-hour — maybe multi-day — omnibus debates expected to continue

About the only thing certain at the Minnesota House of Representatives in the next week or so is that members will not be meeting Friday evening or Saturday.

Other than that?

Sunday session? Maybe.

Inordinate amounts of caffeine and maybe not always eating the healthiest of food? Probably.

Passing bills when most Minnesotans are asleep? Perhaps.

According to supplemental guidelines established by legislative leaders and Gov. Tim Walz earlier this year, all major finance bills are to be passed off the House and Senate floors, and conference committees appointed, by May 1. Conferees are to finish their work by May 13, one week before the legislative session must constitutionally conclude.

If the first couple days after the Easter/Passover break are any indication, it’s likely going to be a long ride getting to the first benchmark.

“There’s no reason we can’t get our work done in daylight hours. It’s really a decision by the minority (caucus). If they want to have a constructive conversation about the bills, we are ready for that. If they want to dig in and just delay and make things take forever, we’ll be here many hours,” House Speaker Melissa Hortman (DFL-Brooklyn Park) said at a Wednesday news conference.

“My frame of reference is, having raised two children, that it’s like putting pajamas on a toddler where we’re going to do it the easy way or the hard way, but we’re gonna do it. It will either take us several hours in the middle of the night to pass some of these bills, or we can do it during daylight when Minnesotans can participate and weigh in via text messages to us and emails to us.”

Going, going, going …

The House began its omnibus bill marathon Tuesday, passing its education finance bill after about 11 hours of debate that included the offering of more than 100 amendments. The body spent two hours on the jobs and energy bill late Tuesday prior to recessing before the clock struck midnight.

Bill discussion resumed about 9:15 a.m. Wednesday. It ended at 9:30 p.m.

After an hour-long recess, it was announced debate on the omnibus health and human services bill, a more than 1,100-page package, is to take place Thursday. In excess of 100 amendments are lined up; most offered by Republicans.

“We’ll pull out a number of things so that we can try to fix a really bad bill,” said Rep. Anne Neu (R-North Branch).

[MORE: Check out the upcoming proposed amendments]

The omnibus tax bill is also planned for Thursday floor action and omnibus transportation and agriculture bills Friday before members adjourn by 3 p.m. in observance of the last weekend of Passover.

“If necessary, we will come in on Sunday and we potentially would not be leaving until all the work was done,” Hortman warned. “I think that it’s irresponsible just from a management of people standpoint for the Republicans to adopt a tactic of just filing excessive amendments and causing delay.” 

Hortman said one member — whom, due to privacy, she would not name — had a “significant health issue” Tuesday. “We have a lot people whose health doesn’t do well after 19-hour days, consecutive 24-hour days.”

At a separate gathering with the media, House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt (R-Crown) angrily disputed the seriousness of health issue, clarifying a Republican member had an allergic reaction.

“She shouldn’t use people’s health to try to make a case that we should pull the wool over the public’s eyes about not knowing what’s in these bills and not having opportunities to debate them and vet them fully.”

Whenever members return after Saturday, a handful of omnibus bills will remain to be passed, including those related to environment, higher education, legacy, public safety and state government.

Although the process between now and May 20 may not always go smoothly, Hortman remains confident common ground can be found with the Republican-controlled Senate.

“(Senate Majority Leader Paul) Gazelka and I still feel really good. You have to look at the three new deadlines we adopted this year that have really driven progress,” she said. “ … A lot of action in the Legislature happens in the last four weeks. Hopefully, this time it’ll be over the last four weeks, not over the last like four days. Don’t look for kumbaya every minute of every day here. … There is supposed to be conflict; there is supposed to be strong disagreement, but I think just because you see that in the floor debate in both the House and the Senate does not bode ill for our future negotiations.”