Conference committee lined up

A start date for the joint House-Senate judiciary and public safety committee hearing has finally been set. It begins Monday, May 3, at 9 a.m.

Senate Judiciary Chair Warren Limmer, R-Maple Grove, will hold the gavel for the first session. After that, he and Rep. Carlos Mariani, DFL-St. Paul, will take turns, presiding every other day until accord is reached.

The Senate conferees include Limmer; Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen, R-Alexandria; Sen. Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park; Sen. Andrew Mathews, R-Princeton; and Sen. Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks.

House conferees will include Mariani; Judiciary Chair Jamie Becker-Finn, DFL-Roseville; Rep. Kelly Moller, DFL-Shoreview; Rep. Cedric Frazier; DFL-New Hope; and Rep. Tim Miller, R-Prinsburg.

At a press conference Thursday, House and Senate DFL lawmakers and Gov. Tim Walz made clear that the policing reforms contained in the House omnibus bill are the Democrats’ top priority for the closing weeks of session.

“We need Senate Republicans to join with us,” House Speaker Melissa Hortman told reporters. “At that conference committee, we have set that table. We have invited them. They must accept our offer to partner in this work.”

The House public safety and judiciary omnibus bill has many police accountability reforms. They include such changes as banning white supremacists from police departments, protecting the First Amendment rights of protesters during public demonstrations and new limits on no-knock warrants, to name a few.

“It’s never the wrong time to do the right thing,” Mariani told reporters. “Now is the time for the Minnesota Legislature to act on police accountability reform.”

The Senate version contains none of those measures and Senate Majority Leaders Paul Gazelka, R-East Gull Lake, gave no assurances Thursday that his caucus will entertain any.

While Gazelka held out some hope of accord on police accountability reforms while speaking to reporters at Capitol Thursday, he would not commit to backing any specific proposals. He did, however, rule out certain DFL proposals stripping police of qualified immunity protections, or making cops carry liability insurance.

Gazelka said that his own end-of-session priorities include ending the governor’s emergency executive authority and making sure that $2.6 billion in federal aid being directed to state government is not simply handed over to the governor to spend.

“Those two big issues will determine if we get done the way I hope we should get done,” Gazelka said.

Gazelka said that if the governor decides to spend the $2.6 billion “by himself,” and if he clings to his emergency powers, Gazelka will push the Senate to revert to a state government financing plan that he described as “lights on.”

That means government would remain open, but that the Legislature would approve just enough money to keep state agencies functioning at their current forecast levels of spending, with no new money coming their way over the next two years.

“That’s not the direction we want, but we will take that route rather than close Minnesota down,” he said. “But if the governor doesn’t want to work with us, that would be the direction that we go.”