House and Senate Republicans shut out of key legislative conference committees
DFL conferees for a public safety and judiciary bill are likely to discuss gun restriction provisions left out of the Senate version.
Last week two major conference committees — one on the public safety and judiciary omnibus bill (SF2909) and another on the environment, climate and energy bill (HF2310) — were formed without appointment of Republican legislators in the House.
House Republicans expressed frustration in both of those instances, which they say breaks with past precedent of the majority party appointing at least one member from the minority party to a conference committee.
Specifically, House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth said Democrats are “shutting out” Republican voices in the environment, climate and energy bill by only appointing House DFLers to that conference committee who live within 20 miles of the State Capitol.
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The conference committee on the public safety and judiciary omnibus also includes no Republicans from either the House or the Senate. For context, all of the conference committees on major omnibus bills during the 2021 budget year featured bipartisan membership.
While the House version of the public safety and judiciary omnibus bill includes two controversial gun restriction provisions, the Senate version does not.
Conference committee co-chair Rep. Kelly Moeller, DFL-Shoreview, told media last week she “will be advocating very hard for those proposals” in a final bill that comes out of conference committee.
While Senate DFLers have said they are working hard to ensure they have enough votes to pass universal background check and red flag bills, it’s not yet known if they will get support from two freshmen DFL senators in Greater Minnesota on the Senate floor, or from senators in suburban swing districts. One of the public safety bill conferees is first-term Sen. Judy Seeberger, DFL-Afton, who made news over the weekend when she published a tweet describing herself as one of several “moderate lawmakers who wish we were passing bills that were a little more, you know, moderate.”
