A $4 billion higher education budget bill passed by the Minnesota House cuts funding for a program that supports student-parents. 

The Student-Parent Support Initiative (SPSI), passed in the 2023 legislative session, gives money to programs that help students with children succeed in higher education through one-on-one support, emergency grants for unexpected medical bills, childcare support, scholarships and more. 

Twenty-three percent of undergraduate students at Minnesota colleges and universities are parents, and nearly half of them are single mothers, according to a 2020 report from the Center on Equity in Higher Education. 

The price of driving electric vehicles in Minnesota may well increase as lawmakers look to wrap up work on a transportation funding plan. 

The House transportation budget bill raises a yearly surcharge paid by electric vehicle owners from $75 to $200. When the House debated and passed the bill on April 28, Democrats proposed an amendment to limit the increase to $100, but it failed on a 67-67 vote. 

The overall bill passed with bipartisan support 85-49. The Senate transportation budget bill includes an identical increase.

The Minnesota House and Senate have voted to respond to the avian influenza epidemic, but they still have to agree on the scope of the effort.

The House included more than $3 million in funding for bird flu prevention in its budget bill, which passed on a bipartisan vote of 130-3 on April 24. Overall, the bill increases funding for the entire agriculture budget by $17 million. 

Commonly referred to as “bird flu,” avian influenza has decimated poultry farms and spread to dairy cows across the U.S. As of April, there have been 70 confirmed human cases in the U.S., with the first reported death in January of this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

As the Legislature assembles a new two-year budget for public safety needs, some lawmakers are concerned that crime victims and incarcerated people will not get the help they need due to limited funding. 

The $3.66 billion budget bill that the House debated on April 25 increases state spending for the next two years by $50 million for public safety and $30 million for courts.  But state agency officials and even the bill’s authors say the increase isn’t enough to maintain some current services.

A state-funded program that helps people get down payments to become the first in their families to buy homes will become permanent if the Legislature passes the House omnibus housing budget bill. 

The program, established in 2023, helped 600 families become homeowners in the first seven months of its existence, according to Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis. Of those 600 families, 90% were from underrepresented communities, Agbaje said.

One provision of the larger budget bill would make the program permanent and change the maximum loan amount from $32,000 to 10% of the home price. Agbaje said the change would allow more homes to be accessible to more people as home prices are high in Minnesota.

The Minnesota House passed an omnibus agriculture bill on April 24 that includes a second round of funding for a University of Minnesota seed bank project that university officials say they didn’t have a hand in developing.

The bill would spend $250,000 in each of the next two fiscal years on the project which is meant to create a repository for a variety of seeds, including grains, grasses and legumes, that were grown in Minnesota prior to 1970. Seeds brought to the state by immigrants for crops traditionally grown in their native countries are also meant to be included.

Minnesota House Democrats blocked a Republican-backed bill that would have given millions to “crisis pregnancy centers” that discourage patients from getting abortions. 

House File 25 by Rep. Natalie Zeleznikar, R-Fredenberg Township, would have granted $3 million in fiscal years 2026 and 2027 to crisis pregnancy centers, which offer services to pregnant women while dissuading them from turning to abortions. 

The bill would have provided an additional $1 million in the same years to maternity homes, which are group housing centers where women with nowhere else to go can live if they are pregnant or just gave birth. 

In a push to expand protections against child exploitation as technology advances, the Minnesota Legislature is considering passing a bill to tackle the rise of artificial intelligence-generated child sexual abuse material and child-like sex dolls. 

Currently, it is not illegal in Minnesota to use artificial intelligence (AI) to create images of child sexual abuse or to own sex dolls modeled after children.

SF 1577, sponsored by Sen. Judy Seeberger, DFL-Afton, would amend the state's sex offender registry laws and sex crime punishments to include those who create, possess or distribute AI-generated child sexual abuse material. The bill also proposes legal restrictions on the possession of sex dolls resembling children under the age of 12. 

After compromises and emotional discussions, the House Transportation Committee approved an omnibus budget bill, despite some committee members from both political parties expressing dissatisfaction with the contents.

The bill contains nearly $10 billion in spending over the next two fiscal years for roads, bridges, transit and airports. It also contains a host of policy measures, but some of the sharpest debate came over provisions that didn’t make it into the massive bill. 

Minnesota House Democrats blocked a Republican-backed bill that would have given millions to “crisis pregnancy centers” that discourage patients from getting abortions. 

House File 25 by Rep. Natalie Zeleznikar, R-Fredenberg Township, would have granted $3 million in fiscal years 2026 and 2027 to crisis pregnancy centers, which offer services to pregnant women while dissuading them from turning to abortions. 

The bill would have provided an additional $1 million in the same years to maternity homes, which are group housing centers where women with nowhere else to go can live if they are pregnant or just gave birth.