Minnesota House Democrats aren’t releasing details yet, but say they’ll propose a 1.5-billion-dollar bonding bill for state public works projects — larger than the roughly 1.3 billion dollars Governor Tim Walz wants. Senate Capital Investment Committee Chair Dave Senjem from Rochester says the House number “doesn’t get any traction at all” in the Republican-controlled Minnesota Senate “My bill would be 165 million. I’m not gonna put it up against a 1.6-billion-dollar bill. Effectively that’s to say that, probably for this session, there [is] probably not gonna be a bonding bill unless it be something at the end that would be pretty small in nature,” Senjem says.
Republicans say it’s a year for lawmakers to deal with the state budget, not bonding. Democrats argue a robust bonding bill will generate thousands of construction jobs as it improves Minnesota’s infrastructure.