2025 Session Begins (Finally)

The 94^th Min­neso­ta Leg­is­la­ture con­vened (par­tial­ly) on Jan­u­ary 14^th and it’s been a roller­coast­er!  The House is where the major­i­ty of the tumult occurred and after much debate from both sides of the aisle, a pow­er-shar­ing agree­ment is now in place and they are con­duct­ing busi­ness (albeit delayed and also while approach­ing a spe­cial elec­tion that may shake things up again).

Mean­while in the Sen­ate, the untime­ly pass­ing of for­mer Major­i­ty Leader Sen. Kari Dziedz­ic in Decem­ber meant the cham­ber had par­ty bal­ance when it con­vened. Since then, Doron Clark won the vacat­ed seat in a spe­cial elec­tion, leav­ing the cham­ber with a one-seat DFL majority.

Despite this sur­pris­ing spec­ta­cle, this ses­sion promis­es to be a rel­a­tive­ly unevent­ful year. How­ev­er, if we’ve learned any­thing in recent years, it’s that things can change quick­ly in St. Paul.

As we work with clients through the first ses­sion of this bien­ni­um, there are two key con­sid­er­a­tions that make this year espe­cial­ly unique:

• Pow­er-shar­ing – The House cur­rent­ly has 67 Repub­li­cans and 66 Democ­rats with one seat vacant after Rep. Cur­tis Johnson’s res­ig­na­tion. To fill that seat, there will be a spe­cial elec­tion on March 11 (the seat is expect­ed to go to a DFLer). Under the lat­est pow­er-shar­ing agree­ment, the GOP will hold the gavels until the elec­tion in March, includ­ing in all com­mit­tees. Also under this agree­ment, Rep. Lisa Demuth (R 13A) will be speak­er for the next two years. This is a unique sit­u­a­tion and will require both par­ties to work close­ly togeth­er to effi­cient­ly pass a much-need­ed bond­ing bill before the May 19 dead­line. If they can’t get it done, it might require adding a spe­cial session.
• Bud­get deficit – This first year of the bien­ni­um is a bud­get year, which means this leg­isla­tive ses­sion will deter­mine Minnesota’s state bud­get for the next two years, the state’s fis­cal health wasn’t very promis­ing. The fore­cast pre­dict­ed a $616 mil­lion bal­ance at the end of the FY26-27 bien­ni­um, which is $1.1 bil­lion less than pri­or esti­mates. As a result, this ses­sion will fea­ture many com­pet­i­tive requests for few­er dol­lars, and leg­is­la­tors will have to make some dif­fi­cult decisions.

Col­lab­o­ra­tion and cash aside, we expect the fol­low­ing to be top issues this leg­isla­tive session:

• Bond­ing
• Cannabis reg­u­la­tion
• Fraud over­sight
• Trans­porta­tion funding
• Envi­ron­men­tal permitting
• Hous­ing pol­i­cy and funding
• Income and oth­er taxes

As always, we at Bell­mont are ready to help our clients pre­pare for, inter­pret and lever­age any type of ses­sion cli­mate, using com­mu­ni­ca­tions and thought lead­er­ship strate­gies to meet the moment and their busi­ness goals.

We’ve enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly hit the ground run­ning with sev­er­al of our pub­lic affairs clients to get mul­ti-faceted com­mu­ni­ca­tions strate­gies togeth­er and deter­mine the best mes­sag­ing for their pol­i­cy pri­or­i­ties and most influ­en­tial stake­hold­ers in this unique leg­isla­tive envi­ron­ment. We’ve also assem­bled strong sup­port net­works for our clients ahead of ses­sion, iden­ti­fy­ing like-mind­ed part­ners and advo­cates to ensure we’re all singing from the same song­book, with the strongest singer tak­ing the lead at the most oppor­tune moment.

Dur­ing ses­sion, our team keeps our ear to the ground on all things hap­pen­ing in both St. Paul and Wash­ing­ton D.C., mon­i­tor­ing bill progress, polit­i­cal winds, media nar­ra­tive and pub­lic per­cep­tion so our clients are ready to enter the con­ver­sa­tion when the time is right. In addi­tion, we craft per­sua­sive com­mu­ni­ca­tions mate­ri­als to dri­ve our clients’ con­ver­sa­tions in meet­ings with leg­is­la­tors and lob­by days, and even orga­nize press con­fer­ences at the Capi­tol. Final­ly, for those clients involved in pol­i­cy work, we equip them with action alerts, media mate­ri­als, reports, let­ters and more to ensure they and their net­works can com­mu­ni­cate effec­tive­ly and clear­ly to legislators.

It’s the busiest and best time of year for our pub­lic affairs prac­tice group at Bell­mont Part­ners and we look for­ward to help­ing our clients cham­pi­on change at the Capi­tol. If you would like pub­lic affairs com­mu­ni­ca­tions sup­port this year, please don’t hes­i­tate to reach out.