“Nope. No special session. Next question.

” So said Gov. Tim Walz on May 20 during a news conference just hours after the 2024 Minnesota Legislature ended in chaotic fashion. On the session's final day, DFLers pushed through a 2,800-page omnibus bill over literal howls of protest from Republicans.

While that package did fulfill some DFL priorities — including rideshare driver pay legislation, updates to the paid family and medical leave act and stricter penalties for “straw” gun purchases — legislators left St. Paul without voting on a capital investment package that would have totaled nearly $1 billion for projects across the state. We are not surprised by this outcome.

A bonding bill requires a 60% “supermajority” of votes in the House and Senate, which means it needed Republican support. We suspect that the GOP was never going to surrender this trump card while controversial bills such as the proposed Equal Rights Amendment remained in play, and the arrest of DFL Sen. Nicole Mitchell on felony burglary charges (and her continued voting despite the arrest) only added more fuel to the already-raging partisan flames of an election year.

Therefore, we can understand why Walz would immediately dismiss any call for a special session, and why legislators on both sides of the political aisle appear perfectly content to return home, claim whatever victories they can and focus all of their efforts on the upcoming election. That's the easiest course of action. But that.