After DFL's legislative spree, some top priorities remain
MINNEAPOLIS -- On Monday, the Minnesota Senate will take up a groundbreaking family leave bill, which would set up a state insurance program that would provide 18 weeks, or four-and-a-half months, of paid leave for family and medical needs.
Supporters say that would cover more than 900,000 Minnesota workers who currently don't have any paid leave.
This is the latest groundbreaking bill to be voted on this legislative session. Leading the effort in the Senate is Majority Leader Sen. Kari Dziedzic, who early in the session was diagnosed with cancer.
The list of accomplishments in this legislative session is unprecedented, and to some degree unexpected. The DFL has a much-discussed trifecta after the November election with the reelection of Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and DFL majorities in the House and Senate. But while the DFL majority in the House is six votes, the DFL majority in the Senate is just one.
In mid-March, Dziedzic announced she had cancer and had been operated on. Up until then, the pace of bills passing in both the House and Senate had been moving very fast. Could the DFL Senate caucus, with its one-vote majority and its leader sick, hold together for other key votes? The answer has been yes. The list of bills already passed, and that Walz has already signed, is the most in any session in decades.
Among the remaining issues is paid family and medical leave. The bill has already passed the House and it's up for a vote in the Senate. Dziedzic says her battle with cancer reminds her of why family leave is needed. She was a guest on WCCO Sunday Morning.
"I was lucky enough that I'm able to do my job from home. It's a lot of phone calls, a lot of Zoom calls, but I can do my job from home," Dziedzic said. "My hospital roommate, she had the same major surgery where they cut through the abdominal muscles. She had, you know, already used through most of her sick time so she was concerned...'I have to pay my bills.'"
But Republicans have long argued that family leave costs too much for small businesses, and for the state to administer. Republican Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson was also a guest on WCCO Sunday morning.
"A lot of those laws are not the type of things that will stop incidents like that, you know, if we're enforcing our current laws that we have on the books," Johnson said.
With just two weeks left in the session, it remains to be seen if the legislature and the governor can come to an agreement on finalizing the details on other bills including legalizing marijuana, finding a way to ease Mayo Clinic objections to the Nurses by the Bedside bill, as well as rebate checks for taxpayers and a massive $1.5 billion-plus infrastructure bill.
You can watch WCCO Sunday morning with Esme Murphy and Joseph Dames every Sunday at 6 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.