Governor Tim Walz today signed his first two bills into law at the State Capitol. One of the bills provides $13 million in critical funding to the state Licensing and Registration System–MNLARS. The second bill funds environmental and infrastructure projects across the state of Minnesota. Walz says the bills are a bipartisan success story. Walz says “we came to a compromise that’s in the best interest of Minnesota taxpayers and Minnesota citizens, we compromised and provided services across the breadth of the state and we did so in a manner that’s befitting to bipartisan common decency in governance.” Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka agrees that the bipartisan cooperation is a good first step and he says as lawmakers head toward a May 20th end-of-session deadline “this is what I want it to look like, you have Democrats and Republicans, the Governor, the Speaker, myself and leaders from both bodies, both sides of the aisle, are here saying we got it done and we got it done on time and it’s something we can all be proud of.” Gazelka added, “it shows that we can as the only divided government in the United States actually function in way that’s good for Minnesota. So I too am very proud of it, have great working relationships with the governor and the speaker, that bodes really well for Minnesota.” Here is an excerpt from the press conference and bill signing: