What did — and didn’t — get done at the Minnesota Capitol this session

The most closely divided Legislature in Minnesota history was unable to pass all of its state budget bills before adjourning Monday night with plans to come back for a special legislative session.

Lawmakers — 101 of them Democrats and 100 Republicans — wrangled over how to balance a state budget with a projected $6 billion deficit in the coming years. But even policy proposals unrelated to spending struggled to get oxygen in the nearly deadlocked Legislature.

Here’s what major proposals did and didn’t pass — and what remains to be done.

DWI reforms: A bill that substantially strengthens Minnesota’s drunken driving laws following the Park Tavern tragedy last year was passed with broad bipartisan support.

The bill was crafted after a drunken driver plowed into the busy restaurant patio in St. Louis Park, killing two people and injuring nine others. The driver of the vehicle, Steven Frane Bailey, 56, of St. Louis Park had a blood alcohol level four times Minnesota’s legal limit.

The legislation boosts timelines for DWI offenders to participate in the ignition interlock program before their license can be reinstated. The so-called “car Breathalyzer” device prevents people from driving if they’ve been drinking.

Closing Stillwater prison: Despite pushback from Republican lawmakers over striking a deal behind closed doors, both the House and Senate agreed to legislation that enables the state to close its largest prison. Gov. Tim Walz and legislative leaders unveiled plans to close the Stillwater prison as part of a deal to balance the state budget and included it in an omnibus public safety bill. The bill passed with bipartisan support in the House but on a party-line vote in the Senate.

The 111-year-old Stillwater prison has been beset with safety problems and has no air conditioning.

Cutting funding for NLX train: Lawmakers diverted $77 million out of a total $195 million earmarked for a train from Minneapolis to Duluth called the Northern Lights Express (NLX). They voted to approve the funding just two years ago.

House Transportation Committee Co-chair Erin Koegel, DFL-Spring Lake Park, said she thought the remaining $118 million would be sufficient to fund the state’s portion of the project should it receive a grant for the project from the federal government.

The diverted NLX funding will instead fund unemployment insurance for hourly school workers, such as janitors and bus drivers, who aren’t paid during summer breaks. School districts have said they can’t afford to pick up the costs of the program.

School unemployment insurance: Republicans sought unsuccessfully to roll back the hourly school worker unemployment passed in 2023 by DFL lawmakers, saying school districts couldn’t afford to take over the program when the state stops funding it.

But the redirected NLX funding will provide for the program.

Pension improvements: Minnesota lawmakers voted to improve teachers’ “career rule,” allowing them to retire at age 60 with lower early retirement penalties so long as they have at least 30 years of experience.

In the same legislation boosting pension spending, lawmakers improved cost-of-living adjustments for public safety officers to ensure the buying power of their pension payments doesn’t increase dramatically with inflation.

Sports betting: Once again, state lawmakers couldn’t find enough support to legalize sports betting. Minnesota is one of 11 states that haven’t allowed gambling on sporting events since a U.S. Supreme Court decision opened the door in 2018.

A Minnesota Senate committee rejected a proposal to legalize sports betting, preventing it from being taken up on the Senate floor. A separate committee earlier this month rejected even funding a study of sports betting.

Office of Inspector General: While lawmakers considered several bills meant to root out fraud after the largest pandemic-era one was perpetrated in Minnesota, a bipartisan bill meant to establish an Office of the Inspector General didn’t make it through the Legislature by Monday.

Lawmakers did, however, step up business filing fraud prevention, allow government agencies to disclose data related to suspected fraud in public programs and they voted to allow agencies to withhold payments to public program participants if there’s evidence they have “committed fraud to obtain payments.”

Republicans brought the inspector general bill back up in the House late Monday evening less than two hours before the Legislature’s midnight adjournment. Democrats argued the bill had not been vetted.

Social media company tax increase: Democrats’ proposal to impose a first-in-the-nation tax on social media giants didn’t make it far in the closely divided Legislature. The proposal would have charged social media companies with more than a million Minnesota users $165,000 plus 50 cents per month per user over 1 million users.

Nuclear moratorium repeal: Early in the legislative session, Republicans pushed to lift a decades-old moratorium on construction of new nuclear power plants. Supporters of nuclear power see it as necessary to provide stable power to the grid as more coal plants are retired and wind and solar farms are built. Opponents raised concern about safe storage of radioactive waste from nuclear power generation.

Funding for stadiums: Minnesota lawmakers, already in a tight budget year, were loath to provide funding for professional sports stadiums, including a $395 million request from the Xcel Energy Center and officials in St. Paul. They later cut the request to $50 million.

The Minnesota Vikings requested funds from electronic pull-tab gaming to help keep up U.S. Bank Stadium, but that proposal didn’t receive a hearing in the House or Senate. The Twins sought the extension of a sales tax to maintain Target Field.

Unemployment for Iron Range: Minnesota House members voted unanimously to extend unemployment insurance for steelworkers laid off from facilities in Minnesota’s Iron Range for an additional 26 weeks. In the waning hours of the legislative session, they brought the proposal up as a stand-alone bill as the larger jobs package it was a part of was not going to pass before midnight, but the Senate didn’t act on the legislation.

Health care for undocumented immigrants: The biggest conflict in the Legislature this session was over offering MinnesotaCare to undocumented immigrants. The budget agreement Walz and legislative leaders struck would remove adults but allow children to remain covered.

Democratic blowback appeared to imperil the deal, which didn’t get a vote before lawmakers adjourned. They’ll have to come back to pass budget bills before July to avoid a government shutdown and are expected to make a decision at that time about covering undocumented immigrants.

Bonding package: Legislators didn’t get a bill to fund road, bridge and other infrastructure projects across the finish line before they adjourned. Communities across Minnesota are hoping for state funds to help clean up drinking water and take care of other needs.

When legislators return for a special session, they could take up bonding.

Tax changes: The House and Senate have each advanced lengthy tax bills, but they have yet to convene a conference committee to reconcile differences between the two. The House bill, for example, would create a free alternative to TurboTax for state income taxes while the Senate version would not.

Transportation bill: The transportation budget conference committee worked through some initial differences last week, but work has since stalled. Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, told reporters Monday that the Republican co-chair of the House Transportation Committee, Rep. John Koznick, has tried “adding new conditions and earmarks that don’t have any business in this year’s transportation bill.”

House GOP Speaker Lisa Demuth replied that House Republicans “are absolutely not holding a single thing up.”

Paid family leave: Top lawmakers struck a deal to decrease slightly the cap on payroll taxes businesses must pay to fund Minnesota’s paid family leave program, which is set to begin in January. Republicans had sought a delay or rollback of the program, citing concerns from business groups, but were unable to get any more substantive legislation through.

The payroll tax, which may vary from year to year, would be capped at 1.1% rather than 1.2% if lawmakers agree to the compromise struck by Walz and legislative leaders when they return for a special session.

Nathaniel Minor and Janet Moore of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.