Legislative Update – June 11, 2025
Dear Neighbors,
On Monday, legislators completed our work, passing a state budget that funds our government for the next two years. Throughout the legislative session, I’ve fought for a state budget that invests in our district, improves the lives of working Minnesotans, and protects us from the chaos we’re seeing in Washington, D.C. A tied House requires compromise. While many of the bills have provisions with which I disagree, they also make progress in building a Minnesota that works for everyone.
DFLers successfully stopped numerous efforts to roll back the progress made in 2023 and 2024, especially worker protection measures such as Paid Family and Medical Leave and Earned Sick and Safe Time, ensuring that individuals don’t have to choose between their health and a paycheck.
Minnesotans will still have reproductive freedom and universal free school meals, and our state’s strong clean energy, environmental protection, and gun violence prevention laws remain intact because DFLers held the line while still compromising where we could find bipartisan solutions.
Post-Session Town Hall
I hope you can join Senator Ann Johnson Stewart and me for our Senate District 45 Post-Session Town Hall on Tuesday, June 24, from 6:30-8:30 pm at the Wayzata City Council Chambers (600 Rice St. E, Wayzata, MN 55391).
This session has truly been unlike any other I’ve been a part of, and I’m looking forward to sharing more about my experience working with a tied House and how we were able to make progress despite the challenging circumstances. We’ll also take questions and want to hear from you about what you’d like to see the legislature address next session.
You can RSVP and share the event on Facebook here.
Energy and Data Center Legislation
As the DFL co-chair of the House Energy Committee, I’m proud of the Energy budget bill we passed this year. Coming into this session with a tied House, we knew that there would be an effort to roll back Minnesota’s landmark 100% Clean Energy by 2040 Law. I’m glad to report that not only did we protect that law, but we are also continuing critical work to support innovation and job growth in the clean energy economy.
This year, I focused much of my work as co-chair on addressing large-scale data centers that are coming to Minnesota as tech giants expand their networks. These data centers have immense power needs and a large environmental footprint. Just one large-scale data center can use as much power as the city of Minneapolis, 100 million gallons of water to cool, and hundreds of backup diesel generators.
We understand that more data centers are coming, and they can be a real boon to our economy—if done with the proper guardrails in place. That’s why my colleagues and I fought to include consumer protections, environmental protections, and assurances that these centers won’t jeopardize our clean energy goals into our data center bill.
Let’s be clear, these companies want to come to Minnesota for our cool climate, strong workforce, and to benefit from our clean energy system. It’s only fair to ensure that these billion-dollar corporations don’t shift costs to the average Minnesotan or damage our environment in the process. There were many protections I fought for that weren’t included in our law this year, but this is just the beginning of our conversation on data centers, and I’ll continue working on this issue in the future.
Other Budget Bills
Before the regular session adjourned last month, we passed budget bills on Veterans and Military Affairs, Agriculture, Housing, Judiciary and Public Safety, and State Government and Elections. We also passed our Legacy bill funding projects that preserve our environment and arts and cultural heritage, a pensions bill helping our public employees, teachers, firefighters, and police, and a human services policy bill.
During the special session this week, we passed budget bills for Commerce, Environment and Natural Resources, Health, Children and Families, Higher Education, Human Services, K-12 Education, Taxes, and Transportation. I also voted for a pair of Capital Investment bills that improve our state buildings, transportation, and water infrastructure. You can read about each of those bills in more detail at the linked articles from the House nonpartisan staff.
Legislative Interim
Although the work of the 2025 session is complete, my job as your state representative doesn’t end. I’ll continue meeting with constituents, colleagues, and our partners both inside and outside government to lower the cost of living for hardworking families on things like housing, child care and health care, and daily essentials like groceries.
Even during legislative interim, my office staff are available to serve our district. If you have any questions I can answer or ever need assistance navigating a state government matter, please do not hesitate to contact my office. It is an honor to represent you in the Minnesota House of Representatives.
Staying in touch
Please reach out if you have any questions or feedback you would like to share. You can contact me by email at rep.patty.acomb@house.mn.gov or call my office during business hours at (651) 296-9934.
Sincerely,
Patty Acomb
State Representative