A brief break, and a busy agenda ahead in St. Paul
By Briana Bierschbach
Good morning. Happy Thursday and first day of the Minnesota Legislature’s spring break. They’re back to work on Tuesday, but in the meantime we can goof off a bit and go outside and play in the snow while it’s still here. I’m off tomorrow for a three-day staycation, a word I used to hate but now embrace because it’s thrifty and fun to act like a tourist in your own city. I’m going to see a movie in the theater during daylight hours and hit the happy hour specials at some of the best (see: busiest) new restaurants (see: Kim’s). Tell me your amazing plans for the break so I can steal them for myself.
When lawmakers return, they’ll have to pick up the pace to get through all their work in the final month and a half of session. We’re starting to see some broader policy bills working their way to the floor, but we’re still waiting to see what happens with the ERA amendment, a handful of gun bills, sports betting and the bonding proposal. Only one of the bills we’re tracking has made it to the governor’s desk so far.
UBER: There’s also intensified pressure on lawmakers this session to piece together a statewide package of standards for rideshare drivers after the Minneapolis City Council passed a minimum pay ordinance that prompted Uber and Lyft to say they’ll leave the city.
“All the parties — the drivers, Uber and Lyft, the governor’s office — are working on a deal,” Sen. Matt Klein, DFL-Mendota Heights, told my colleague Josie Albertson-Grove, who checked in on the negotiations. Klein chairs the Commerce Committee, the legislation’s next stop once negotiators agree on changes to a bill sponsored by Sen. Omar Fateh, DFL-Minneapolis.
After Gov. Tim Walz vetoed Fateh’s minimum-pay bill last year, he ordered a working group to study how to regulate rideshare apps to create a base pay for drivers in line with state and local minimum wages. Joel Carlson, who has lobbied for Uber for more than a decade, said the company backed all 24 of the working group’s recommendations released in December, but the sticking point for them is still base pay. There’s also concern about making new rules that ultimately turn drivers from contract workers to employees.
“The more you move away from the independent nature of the work,” Carlson said, “the closer you get to employment status.” Read her story for more on the negotiations.
CANNABIS: Ryan Faircloth has a story up on five cannabis law changes being discussed at the Capitol this year that you might not be paying attention to, from social equity changes to capping the number of cannabis business licenses that can be issued in the market’s first two years.
