Quote of the Week:
"The crisis has reached crisis levels!" Department of Human Services testifying on workforce shortages in the health care sector.
Recent posts by Tom Lehman, NAIFA-Minnesota Lobbyist
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Legislative Update For the Week of January 31st
Topics: Advocacy State Advocacy
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Reinsurance Victory!
As you can read in the story linked below, legislative leadership has agreed to extend reinsurance for another year -- through 2022.
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No Budget Means Special Session
The lack of an agreement by Governor Walz, House Speaker Melissa Hortman and Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka on overall spending targets means the session ended with a whimper on Monday without passage of the budget bills needed to keep state government operating on July 1. Conference committees met last week, but with no budget targets they could only adopt non-controversial policy provisions. There have been only 3 sessions out of the last 11 budget sessions during which the Legislature completed its work on time.
Topics: Advocacy State Advocacy
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No Budget Targets With 10 Days to Go
The 2021 session is scheduled to adjourn in 10 days, but legislative leaders and the Governor have no agreement on overall spending and individual finance bill spending targets.
Topics: Advocacy State Advocacy
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Legislature Begins Final Two Weeks of Regular Session
The 2021 legislative session is scheduled to adjourn on Monday, May 17th and decisions that will affect NAIFA members are about to be made. House and Senate conference committees will begin meeting this week to reconcile differences in how the two bodies dealt with taxes, spending and hundreds of policy issues.
Topics: Advocacy State Advocacy
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Legislative Update For the Week of April 19th
Reinsurance Conference Committee Set to Begin
Topics: Advocacy State Advocacy
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Legislative Update for the Week of April 5
Legislature Reaches 3rd Committee Deadline
Friday was the 3rd Committee Deadline, the date by which all finance bills must be reported to the House Ways and Means Committee or the Senate Finance Committee. All Finance Committees in the two bodies were busy this week marking up their finance bills, some of which are scheduled to be heard in Ways and Means or Finance next week.
Topics: Advocacy State Advocacy
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Legislative Update For the Week of March 22nd
Legislature Takes Break for Easter and Passover Holidays
The Minnesota Legislature is on its Easter/Passover break until 8:30 a.m., Tuesday, April 6. When the Legislature reconvenes, it will have just six weeks before the scheduled May 17th adjournment date. The biggest pending issue when legislators reconvene will be finalizing a two-year biennial budget for the biennium beginning July 1.
Topics: Advocacy State Advocacy
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Legislative Update For the Week of March 15th
It’s 2nd Committee Deadline!
Hundreds of bills that escaped dying last Friday with the 1st Committee Deadline died Friday at midnight with the arrival of the 2nd Committee Deadline. The deadline process winnows down the bills that have been introduced over the past weeks from over 4,500 to hundreds, most of which will be folded into omnibus finance bills.
