ST. PAUL — The Minnesota Legislature passed a $67 billion state budget and a $700 million bonding package by 1:54 a.m. Tuesday — roughly five hours before their 7 a.m. deadline.
Lawmakers started the day at 10 a.m. with 14 bills on the docket and 21 hours to pass them through both chambers. The bills included a repeal of coverage for undocumented adults under MinnesotaCare, $291 million to wastewater treatments and roads in the bonding bill, changes to the state’s earned sick and safe time, and tax provisions for data centers.
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Tuesday morning’s official adjournment came almost five months after the Minnesota Legislature’s kick-off Jan. 14, which featured a boycott from House Democrats and a hearing before the Minnesota Supreme Court on the Legislature’s disputes.
“The year that we’ve been through, it’s been what they call a historic year, with the divisions within both the other chamber and our own,” Sen. Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, said Tuesday at adjournment. “There are days where I can’t believe that we actually got to a point where we’re sine die, but here we are. We’ve balanced the budget. It’s complete. We won’t be shutting down on July 1.”
Lawmakers were tasked this session with a divided government of 101 Democrats and 100 Republicans, and a tie dynamic gracing both the Senate and House at different points in the session.
“We’re really proud of the work that we were able to get done this legislative session,” Speaker of the House Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, said after Monday’s adjournment. “As you watched the really rocky start to the beginning of the session, making history in a number of different ways, with the only tied Legislature for the second time in history, and the way we were able to navigate through that.”
House Leader Jamie Long, DFL-Minneapolis, said Monday that during this session there were “a number of efforts to roll back” many of the provisions the DFL trifecta of a Democrat House, Senate and governor passed in 2023 and 2024.
“So paid family medical leave will be going into effect Jan. 1, 100% clean energy is on track, kids are still going to get access to universal school meals, and we still have reproductive rights in Minnesota," Long said. "So we got a budget and we protected our wins.”
Earned sick and safe time, steelworkers’ unemployment insurance
The Legislature passed the state’s jobs and labor budget, , which included .
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The changes include allowing employers to require up to seven days’ notice for foreseeable sick and safe time use. It will also allow employers to request “reasonable documentation” if leave exceeds two consecutive workdays. The bill now heads to the House.
The author of the bill in the House, Rep. Dave Baker, R-Willmar, said he would have liked to see more relief for employers under rollbacks to the state’s safe and sick time and paid family medical leave laws.
“We certainly didn’t do enough this year to help businesses maintain and sustain the ability to keep employees going like we think we need to, because there are many of them that are leaving the state of Minnesota because of the way our policies are affecting them,” Baker said. “We have a lot of work to do to try to make Minnesota competitive again, because Minnesota is losing our edge.”
An earlier version of rollbacks on safe and sick time on May 7 would have rolled back the 2023 even further, allowing full exemptions for safe and sick time for farms with five or fewer workers and small businesses with three or fewer employees.
The jobs and labor bill also included unemployment insurance for “on or after March 15, 2025, and before June 16, 2025.” The bill did not include a change to the state’s non-compete ban, which as part of a May 15 budget deal with Gov. Tim Walz and leaders.
Data centers
Minnesota lawmakers passed a standalone bill Monday to address large-scale data centers as Meta builds a new center in Rosemount, with Microsoft and Amazon also in the state.
Under current law, data centers in Minnesota get a sales tax exemption on software, hardware and electricity for 20 years, or until 2042, whichever comes earlier. Monday’s bill, HF16, will change it to 35 years or until 2042 — whichever is later, not earlier. The bill would also repeal the tax exemption for electricity.
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As an environmental guardrail, the data center bill also includes a provision to require the centers to communicate with the Department of Natural Resources on water usage earlier in the permitting process, Rep. Patty Acomb, DFL-Minnetonka, said on Monday.
“I think we’re moving in the right direction,” she said. “We’re partway there, but it’s not, in my opinion, and I think in Minnesotans’ opinions, strong enough environmental protections.”
Rep. Andrew Mathews, R-Princeton, said he was disappointed in the bill and said neighboring states still have more generous provisions for data centers, even with the passage of this bill.
“The talk is ‘I want to make sure that we’re on the map for data centers, and we’re open for business, and that they choose us,’ ” Mathews said. “Minnesota is already at a very severe regulatory disadvantage, especially among our neighboring states and in this region, and that’s going to be getting worse.”
Bonding package
The $700 million bonding package passed Monday with $165 million in water and wastewater treatment projects, $42 million in local road improvement, $20 million for local bridge replacement and $7 million to veterans homes. Until Monday, the state had gone without bonding appropriations for two years after failing to pass a bonding package in the 2024 legislative session.
The bonding package also carried $55 million in funding for the Miller Building at Anoka Metro Regional Treatment Center — funding that over .
Renville County Sheriff Scott Hable said on June 5 that the lack of mental health beds in the state, and the current pause on the state’s 48-hour rule — which required Minnesota’s Department of Human Services to transfer inmates who are civilly committed to a state-operated mental health facility within 48 hours — has caused jails to “literally become warehouses for the mentally ill.”
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Sen. Jordan Rasmusson, R-Fergus Falls, said Monday the investment for the Miller Building was “a critical expansion of direct care and treatment capacity.”
“Adding 50 additional beds ... will help ensure that we don’t have Minnesotans who are languishing in jail waiting to get the mental health treatment that they need,” he said. “That’s responding to our sheriffs, to our county attorneys who have been demanding more capacity.”
MinnesotaCare repeal for undocumented adults
The repeal of undocumented immigrants under MinnesotaCare has been known for some time, as it was part of by leaders and Walz on May 15, but the Legislature made it official on Monday.
The People of Color and Indigenous Caucus held a press conference first thing Monday morning, decrying the repeal of MinnesotaCare for undocumented adults.
“Today, of course, is the day the Republicans are going to kill people,” Sen. Alice Mann, DFL-Edina, said Monday. “Breast cancer, colon cancer, cervical cancer, all of these things will go undiagnosed and people will die … I would like to say that is a sad day in Minnesota, but truly, it is a disgusting day in Minnesota.”
Rep. Jeff Backer, R-Browns Valley, chair of the House Health Finance Committee, said the bill is “about being fiscally responsible.”
MinnesotaCare, a state-funded health insurance program established in 1992, was expanded in 2023 to include undocumented immigrants after the Minnesota Legislature passed the measure. This expanded coverage launched in January 2025.
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The Minnesota Department of Human Services reports that as of April 24, 20,187 people enrolled list “undocumented” as their status — 24% of those are children, or roughly 4,800. Of the 20,187, 4,306 had claims for the program, resulting in a total cost of $3.9 million in paid claims, according to DHS.
“I know there will be people who will stand up today and say us Republicans want to hurt individuals; that is so far from the truth, folks,” Backer said. “If we do not focus on the Minnesota health care system … the whole system will go into cardiac arrest, and that doesn’t help anybody. We need to focus on helping our lawful Minnesotans.”
The repeal of MinnesotaCare for undocumented adults passed the House around 2 p.m. in a 68-65 vote. House Leader Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, issued the sole Democratic “yes” vote. The measure passed the Senate around 5 p.m. in a 37-34 vote, with four “yes” votes from Democrats: Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul; Sen. Grant Hauschild, DFL-Hermantown; Sen. Rob Kupec, DFL-Moorhead; and Sen. Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope.
As part of the budget deal, Murphy and Hortman agreed to be the sole Democratic votes, if necessary, to pass the repeal. Murphy said on the floor before casting her vote that “I will vote for this, but it is one of the most painful votes I’ve ever taken.”
Hortman said after the House adjourned Monday that in 20 years, she doesn’t “remember ever having to vote for something as painful as that,” but that it was a condition Republicans “required to fund state government.”
“I know that people will be hurt by that vote,” she said. “We worked very hard to try to get a budget deal that wouldn’t include that provision, and we tried any other way we could to come to a budget agreement with Republicans, and they wouldn’t have it.”
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Other provisions passed
Other bills passed Monday include , the state’s environment and natural resources budget, which includes provisions to streamline the state’s ; , the state’s human services budget with $300 million in net cuts targeting nursing homes and disability services; and , the state’s tax bill including a gross receipts tax bump from 10% to 15%.
Monday’s special session came after weeks of closed-door negotiations following the regular session adjournment on May 19. During , the Legislature passed seven of 17 budget bills and signed 26 stand-alone bills into law, including teacher pension reform, DWI reform, closure of the Stillwater prison, and a new state fossil — the giant beaver.
The Legislature passed $5 billion cuts to the state’s budget from the last biennium and $2 billion in net cuts over four years. Cuts came in heavy for the state budget this session as lawmakers stared down a projected by 2028-29.
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