Legislative Update
Friends,
After missing the May 19 constitutional deadline, the Legislature reconvened this past Monday for a one-day special session to finish our work and pass the remaining pieces of Minnesota’s two-year budget.
While it’s frustrating that we needed a special session at all, and disappointing that so much work was packed into a single day of votes on large omnibus bills, this special session presented an opportunity to deliver some important results for Minnesota students, families, and our communities and healthcare system.
Here are a few takeaways:
Education Policy
This year’s education bill left the House floor so much better than what the Senate was willing to agree to and included some important steps in the right direction. We protected nonpublic pupil aid, which helps ensure continued support for homeschool, religious, and charter school families. Charter school funding stayed intact, and we made meaningful progress by establishing the Science of Reading as Minnesota’s literacy standard. This is a much-needed shift to help our students succeed.
We also added new guardrails on how the Department of Education can use litigation funds, helping ensure taxpayer dollars stay focused on students, not lawsuits.
But there were major concerns, too. While increasing the Department of Education's budget by $17 million, this bill cut more than $70 million from our schools. That’s a step backwards.
My bill that allows a childcare aide to substitute for a teacher during arrivals and departures passed, although I was unsuccessful in reappropriating department operational increases for early learning scholarships. We should be investing in classrooms, not growing bureaucracy. Our students and teachers deserve better.
Health Bill
We passed a strong and practical Health Bill that protects patients, preserves rural care, and prevents costly new taxes on Minnesota’s healthcare system. This legislation secures critical funding for hospitals and EMS, especially in Greater Minnesota, while pushing back on provider tax increases, a ban on hospital facility fees, excessive healthcare surcharges, and special interest group proposals that would have driven up costs for providers and patients alike.
During the floor discussion, I spoke about my work on several pieces in the health bill, including the new hospital directed payment program that will draw down nearly $1 billion in additional federal funding to help cover the costs for people on Medical Assistance. This innovative approach allows hospitals to fund their own reimbursement increases without draining public resources. I also discussed our progress creating a single pharmacy benefit administrator for our public programs – a move designed to boost transparency, negotiate better drug prices, and ensure long-term savings while supporting independent pharmacies and improving access to care.
And I’m pleased that we were also able to increase the reimbursement rates for mental health services. I fought hard to raise reimbursement rates and increase access while ensuring that the assessment placed on our managed care organizations was refunded, making sure that our fully insured market was held harmless.
You can watch my floor speech on the bill here: (Health Bill Remarks)
Human Services Bill
This bill includes serious reforms to help our most vulnerable neighbors while keeping government accountable. I’m especially proud of the work we did to support nursing homes, crack down on fraud, and improve services for people with disabilities.
We stopped the governor’s proposal to shift $400 million onto counties, protecting local governments from shouldering new financial burdens. We passed stronger anti-fraud rules to make sure dollars are going where they’re truly needed and made improvements around autism service providers.
We secured $95 million to support our nursing homes in managing new state-imposed costs, with a safeguard that requires any future mandate to be fully funded up front. We improved workforce standards to better support long-term care staffing, made targeted investments in substance use treatment and housing support programs, and provided $20 million over four years for the Priority Admissions program to help counties find secure placements for individuals who are mentally ill and dangerous. Most importantly, we avoided service waitlists and made sure Minnesotans can continue accessing essential care across the state.
Transportation Finance Bill
This bill prioritizes practical infrastructure investments by fully funding state road construction and maintenance. It prevents cuts to the State Patrol, blocks expansion of the electric bike rebate program, and focuses funding on important infrastructure projects instead of wasteful special interest spending.
Commerce Bill
The final Commerce bill includes a number of wins I was glad to support. It extends Minnesota’s reinsurance program, which will continue to help hold down premiums in the individual market and make health coverage more affordable. It also reigns in some of the overreach from last session, including important changes to lead and cadmium regulations that were on track to impact basic products like house keys.
Importantly, the bill cuts millions in wasteful cannabis grants, significantly reduces funding for politically driven program spending, and blocks new health insurance mandates that would have driven up costs. Proposals for a state-run auto insurance system and a grocery price-fixing scheme were also left out, a good sign that common sense prevailed in this negotiation.
Looking Ahead
With the special session now concluded and a full two-year state budget passed; the 2025 Legislative Session is officially over. We expect the Governor to sign these bills into law soon.
This session was rarely easy. There were long nights, tough negotiations, and a divided Legislature that forced both sides to come to the table. Transitioning from a “trifecta” was significantly challenging, but through it all, I stayed focused on the same priorities I’ve carried since day one: serving our communities and fighting for practical, effective policies that improve lives.
From strengthening healthcare access and education to securing infrastructure funding and making government more accountable, we’ve taken meaningful steps forward. I’m proud of what we accomplished and I’m already looking ahead to next year. My goal remains the same and I’m determined to build on this year’s progress so we can continue delivering real results for the people of Rogers, Dayton, Champlin, and all of Minnesota.
Thank you for working with me this session to produce meaningful change in Minnesota. I hope to see you at upcoming events back home!
Sincerely,
Representative Danny Nadeau