Governor Tim Walz touted bipartisan cooperation as he signed a 20-plus-billion-dollar public school funding bill Thursday at a Saint Paul elementary school. “This is really something special. We proved to the rest of the country that we could come together as one of the nation’s few divided governments,” Walz said. But Hamline University political analyst David Schultz expects problems the next time lawmakers come back to Saint Paul, because he says much of the budget negotiations occurred with “very little transparency” and very few people involved. “It leaves lots of people feeling like they were marginalized during this legislative session…. I think it doesn’t set us up well for next year,” says Schultz.
Carleton College analyst Steven Schier also sees problems the next legislative session because of a number of high-profile policy issues unresolved during the 2019 regular session: “Equal rights, probably conversion therapy, abortion restrictions, private school scholarships — those are just a few where I think deadlock is almost certain to occur,” Schier says.