Partisan meltdown brings Minnesota's legislative session to a bitter end

Minnesota legislators were more than a month into a quiet session when the unexpected happened: Uber and Lyft threatened to leave the Twin Cities over an ordinance enacted by the Minneapolis City Council, and a Democratic state senator was arrested and charged with felony first-degree burglary.

The two events would upend the rest of the DFL-controlled body's session. Democrats scrambled to pass a bill that would prevent the rideshare companies from leaving parts of the state, causing other priorities such as a bonding bill and an expanded version of the Equal Rights Amendment to fall by the wayside. And the arrest of Sen. Nicole Mitchell opened a gaping partisan divide in the Senate, prompting Republicans to attempt to expel her and drag out debates in protest of her continued participation in the chamber.

Partisan tensions erupted in the session's final hours, as Democrats merged several remaining bills on higher education, transportation, gun safety and other issues into a monster 1,400-page omnibus. They suspended debate and passed the bill in a single vote. Cries of "tyranny" and "communism" echoed through the Capitol as dozens of Republicans shouted into their microphones in protest.

Several legislators and political observers said they had never seen such a spectacle, and questioned if the Legislature could recover from the meltdown.

"As a former Senate Minority Leader, it saddens me to witness the erosion of this institution. The minority must always have a voice in the legislative process," former DFL Sen. Melisa López Franzen said in a social media post. "May we find the courage to work together to restore the public trust and that of each other."

In dueling news conferences an hour after midnight, Democrats and Republicans blamed each other for the chaotic end to the session.

"This has been an absolute sham," said House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, who swiftly filed an ethics complaint against DFL House Speaker Melissa Hortman for shutting down debate. "It is very concerning what was done."

Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, said the Republicans' use of filibusters was "disrespectful to the institution" and required Democrats to take "extraordinary measures" before the midnight deadline.

Asked if there was anything Democrats could have done differently, Hortman conceded they could have passed some bills earlier in session instead of on the final day.

"We tried everything we could to prevent it," she said of the chaos. "I would have liked to have seen it end differently."

Before they left the Capitol, some DFL leaders expressed interest in imposing debate time limits next year.

Republicans countered that Democrats mismanaged the legislative clock in the final weeks.

On the second-to-last day of voting, the Senate ground to a halt as Sen. Omar Fateh, DFL-Minneapolis, was away from the floor for hours negotiating the bill setting minimum pay standards for Uber and Lyft drivers. Democrats control the Senate by a one-seat margin and needed Fateh on the floor to pass bills.

"We sat around for 11 hours. We could have been doing a bonding bill at that time," said Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks.

Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, defended the time spent negotiating the rideshare bill that now heads to Gov. Tim Walz's desk: "It was time well spent."

Hortman added that the rideshare bill took on "outsized importance" this year.

"The companies said that they would leave," she said. "That was an important issue for our state's economy and I think it took the time that it took to solve."

The Legislature ran out of time to pass an equal rights ballot initiative, a bill legalizing sports betting and a bonding bill for state infrastructure projects. But lawmakers passed an expansive cannabis policy bill to prepare for the launch of the state's recreational marijuana market, increased penalties for firearm straw purchases, and one-time funding for struggling emergency medical services providers, among other things.

Walz said Monday that his "glass is half full" about the session's end. He said he was happy the rideshare bill made it through but wished legislators would have passed a bonding bill and the Equal Rights Amendment.

"This is the process. Democracy is hard," Walz said. He ruled out calling lawmakers back for a special session.

Some couldn't help but wonder if the Legislature was headed in a more partisan direction.

"It's just not that fun anymore," Rep. Dean Urdahl, a Republican from Grove City, said in his retirement speech Monday. He bemoaned increased partisanship and chastised his own party for people on the "fringes ... who are attempting to take over."

Hortman said she believes legislative debates have become more "mean-spirited" in recent years, and that tensions within the Legislature reflect an increasingly polarized society.

"It makes it harder to reach across party lines," Hortman said. "That being said, the vast majority of the bills that we passed this year were bipartisan."

Star Tribune staff writers Briana Bierschbach and Josie Albertson-Grove contributed to this story.