Tied judiciary committee halts bill to boost security for Minnesota courtrooms, judges

A $4.8 million supplemental budget bill to fund extra security measures for judges and judicial branch staff failed to gain approval of the House Judiciary Finance and Civil Law Committee Thursday.

It failed along party lines.

Committee Co-Chair Rep. Tina Liebling (DFL-Rochester), who sponsors HF3874, said failing to protect judges increasingly under threat is “very troubling.”

“The need for security is very real, and across the country we’ve even seen horrible cases of violence against judges, so this is an absolutely serious thing,” she said.

The bill would appropriate $3.5 million in Fiscal Year 2027 with ongoing appropriations that would add up to $4.8 million in 2028-29 and each subsequent biennia.

[MORE: View the spreadsheet]

The bill’s genesis was a supplemental budget request from the Judicial Branch that the committee heard March 5.

Of the proposed spending, the bill would make a one-time $1 million appropriation in Fiscal Year 2027 for the Safe and Secure Courthouse Initiative, a competitive grant program for government agencies to fund courthouse security assessments, equipment, technology, construction, or training needs. Recipients would have to provide 50% matching funds.

Judges and other judiciary staff, per the bill, could spend up to $1,000 to install a home security system and get up to $100 per month for security monitoring services.

Opposition to bill

Republican opposition focused on provisions that would have appropriated $644,000 in Fiscal Year 2027, with $2 million of ongoing funding in each biennium thereafter, to fund the judicial branch’s employer portion of the Minnesota paid leave program.

Launched Jan. 1, 2026, the program provides job-protected leave and partial wage replacement for most workers in the state. It’s funded by payroll premiums that are typically shared between employers and employees.

Rep. Matt Bliss (R-Pennington), who unsuccessfully offered an amendment that would have deleted the paid leave program funding, said businesses across the state pay their premiums into the program from their own profits without help from the government.

“It’s taking about $2 million a year out of our taxpayers’ pockets to cover something that’s an unfunded mandate for the rest of us and I disagree that our government matters more than our private businesses,” Bliss said.

Sans the deletion, all seven Republicans voted against the bill.