The Legislature's tax bill, designed to give tax breaks to adoptive parents, students and businesses, has been delayed again.
After DFL Gov. Mark Dayton demanded the Minnesota Senate put a rush on the bill, the DFL controlled Senate moved to get it to his desk quickly. Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, said the Senate would pass the bill Thursday.
That would have quickly shot the bill over to the House for final passage and then on to Dayton for his signature.
But trouble in the Senate slowed it down.
"This is not where we just ram things through," said Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, R- Big Lake.
Kiffmeyer was one of many Republican Senators who refused to go along with the plan to approve the bill just a few hours after the measure was published on Thursday. Without Republican support, the Senate could not muster the votes to take up the bill.
Dayton, who directed his ire at DFL senators over the tax bill early in the week, focused it on Republican senators Thursday.
"Inexcusably, the Senate Republicans are now refusing to suspend the rules to permit prompt consideration of the bill on the Senate floor," Dayton said in a statement. "Senate DFL leaders, House DFL leaders, my staff, and I have worked closely together, so that this essential legislation could be passed today by both the Senate and the House, and signed into law this evening. There is no good reason for Senate Republicans (to) block the bill's passage today."