Neighbors,
This week was spent on the House floor passing our budget bill agreements with the Senate. We passed the Agriculture, Education, Environment, Health and Human Services, State Government Finance, Transportation and Tax budget bills through the House. Some of these bills also received their final passage in the Senate, and five have been sent to Governor Dayton for his signature. He has vetoed all five of these bills.
The Governor has said he plans to veto all of the budget bills we have negotiated in conference committees over the last few weeks. It seems that he would rather force the legislature into a special session than work with the Republican majorities in the House and Senate to come to a compromise. The Governor has been mostly absent from negotiations discussion for the past few weeks.
We hope he will get serious and start to seek agreements with House and Senate legislators before time runs out. We need to pass a state budget that serves Minnesotans well, and vetoing bills you have not made an effort to change is no way to govern.
I will keep you updated in this last week of session.
-Steve