Minnesota House repasses Senate File 3045, adopting conference committee report on state government operations

The Minnesota House of Representatives adopted the conference committee report on Senate File 3045 and repassed the bill as amended, the clerk announced after a roll call showed 116 ayes and 18 nays.

The measure, described by lawmakers as a package addressing state government operations, includes funding for House operations and staff and contains provisions related to elections and campaign finance that sponsors said reflect “common sense” changes. The conference report was signed by four of four conferees on the part of the House and four of five conferees on the part of the Senate, according to a reading on the floor.

Representative Cleburne, identified on the floor as the bill—s author, asked members to adopt the conference committee report. "I move that, we adopt the conference committee report. And members, we've we all know, the contents of this bill. We've researched it. We've talked about it in our caucuses," Cleburne said, urging support for the measure.

Representative Freyberg told the chamber that the bill's elections and campaign finance provisions reflected bipartisan compromises and technical fixes. "The elections portion and the campaign finance portion of this bill represents a lot of common sense provisions," Freyberg said, and offered to answer questions at later stages.

Representative Nash noted operational funding included in the bill. "First, I want to make sure that as we are in the last night of session that we also recognize that this bill funds our desk staff here. It funds the chief sergeant at arms and their staff there, and that it funds the staff that supports you every single day," Nash said.

Representative Alten Dorf characterized the elections changes as bipartisan and the result of listening to counties and election stakeholders. "We went into this looking for technical changes on the election side, correcting things, listening to the counties, listening to the people that have stock in elections, and wanted to pass a bipartisan bill," Alten Dorf said.

Representative Freiberg singled out one provision she had opposed in prior years and offered an apology to Chair Kegel for resisting a curriculum provision. "Chair Kegel, I want to make a public apology to you," Freiberg said, adding that the Science Museum had developed curriculum related to the provision and thanking Representative Myers for reintroducing it.

On the motion to adopt the conference committee report and to repass the bill as amended, the clerk called the roll. After the clerk closed the roll, the clerk announced, "There being 116 ayes and 18 nays, the bill is repassed as amended by conference and its title is agreed to." The clerk then gave the bill its third reading as amended by the conference report.

The conference report itself was addressed to Senate President Bobby Joe Champion and Speaker of the House Lisa M. Demuth, and the cover statement recorded the conferees' signatures as noted on the floor. The transcript did not specify the bill's effective date, the full list of statutory changes by section, or the precise text of the elections and campaign finance provisions; those details appear in the enrolled bill and conference report.

Votes at a glance: Senate File 3045 — Adopt conference committee report and repass as amended by conference; Roll call: 116 ayes, 18 nays; outcome: repassed as amended by conference.