ST PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota House Democrats have have delayed a vote on a $1.37 billion public works package in the hopes of securing the six Republican votes they would need to pass the long-delayed bill.
As the House and Senate prepared to convene Monday for their fifth special session of 2020, Speaker Melissa Hortman said she was confident of getting the necessary 60% supermajority needed to pass the package, commonly known as a bonding bill. But she conceded she didn’t have the 15 GOP votes that would have been needed to suspend House rules and rush the bill through Monday, so she postponed the vote until Wednesday.
The bonding bill is just one of the issues on the agenda for the October special session, which was called by Gov. Tim Walz as a legal necessity to extend the COVID-19 peacetime emergency in Minnesota for another 30 days.
Republicans, who hold the majority in the Minnesota Senate, have regularly sought to end the peacetime emergency in each special session.
In the past two sessions, the GOP has also used its cabinet approval powers to oust two Walz administration commissioners.
