Analysis: At halfway point, Legislature has passed three bills

ST. PAUL - The Minnesota Legislature is halfway through its 2015 session, with little to show for it. As usual.
In the nine weeks under lawmakers’ belts, committees discussed hundreds of bills from 1,533 House members have introduced and 1,447 that have come from senators.
Some bills passed through one or more committees and await further committee consideration (bills often must go through several committees), while others are ready for full House or Senate votes. A few have passed one chamber or the other, but not both.
Gov. Mark Dayton this year has signed three bills considered urgent: to provide disaster relief funds, to plug holes in the current budget (and delay commissioner pay raises) and to match the state with federal income tax laws to make filing returns easier for Minnesotans.
Many not involved in state government wonder why there has been so little progress, but those who have been around awhile know this is the way it always is.
As bills that involve spending money (which is most of them) move through the committee process, they receive hearings and testifiers tell legislators why they are good or bad ideas. After the testimony is done in all committees, chairmen simply hold onto the bills to be considered part of major spending measures.
“Omnibus” spending bills usually incorporate all the spending for a specific segment of programs, such as natural resources. A committee chairman will take the various spending bills that have been reviewed and fold his or her preferred programs into the omnibus bill, which then can be amended by the committee and the full House and Senate.
A little more than a week ago, state fiscal experts announced the state has a $1.9 billion budget surplus, a number that allows Democrats in control of the Senate and Republicans in charge of the House to establish their budget proposals. Dayton says he plans to release a revised plan in the next few days.
The big full House and Senate spending votes come near the end of the next nine weeks of session (not including a week and a day lawmakers take off for an Easter-Passover break).
The bottom line is that people from around Minnesota testify for and against funding bills early in the legislative session, then lawmakers debate spending as the session nears its May 18 end.
As for the relatively few bills that do not involve money, the House and Senate will debate many of them in the next few weeks, before most of the attention turns to the money omnibus bills.
However, unlike some states, Minnesota bills are not required to receive votes, or even committee hearings. In most cases, committee chairmen and legislative leaders of the majority party can decide whether bills advance.
So just because a bill is introduced, or even if it passes out of committees, it may never receive a full House and Senate vote. In fact, a majority of bills that lawmakers introduce never are heard from again.
 
Don Davis covers Minnesota government and politics for Forum News Service. Read his blog at capitolchat.areavoices.com/ and follow him on Twitter at @CapitolChatter.