The Minnesota Legislature took up three budget bills Friday as the deadline approaches to pass a two-year budget.
The House considered bills dealing with environmental and natural resource programs as well as state agency operations. The Senate acted on a bill to pay for health, human services and related programs. The three bills will be part of end-of-session budget negotiations among legislators and Gov. Mark Dayton.
Here are some key elements of those bills:
HOUSE ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES BILL
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ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Governance of Minnesota’s health insurance exchange could be in for a change, but MNsure won’t go away entirely.
The Democratic-led Minnesota Senate defeated GOP attempts to dismantle MNsure. Several MNsure-related amendments to a budget bill debated Friday failed on party-line votes.
Republican Sen. Paul Gazelka says Democrats were “doubling down on this dead horse.” Democratic Sen. Tony Lourey says it’s premature to make radical revisions.
The underlying bill would make some changes to the insurance marketplace that had its share of kinks in its first two years. Most significantly, it would turn MNsure into a state agency instead of continuing to operate as mostly independent entity.
Majority House Republicans are pushing for more dramatic restructuring. The House-Senate differences must be worked out ahead of the Legislature’s adjournment in May.
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ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Top Minnesota lawmakers said Friday they’re developing contingency plans that would allow state agencies to more easily access emergency response dollars if the spread of avian influenza intensifies in the nation’s leading turkey producing state.
While stressing it’s a work in progress, Republican House Speaker Kurt Daudt and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk said they’re aiming to give Gov. Mark Dayton’s administration flexibility and access to special emergency accounts in case the crisis hitting poultry farms worsens after the Legislature adjourns next month.
Bakk said that could entail making the bird flu response eligible for disaster assistance normally associated with severe storms or flooding.
“We are trying to consider some options where the governor would have some mechanism to respond without having to call a special session,” Bakk said.
On Thursday, Dayton declared a state of emergency over the H5N2 avian flu pathogen, which will streamline Minnesota’s response.
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KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) - The trial for a former police officer accused of killing a woman whose body was found in a suitcase along a rural Wisconsin highway won’t include information on another woman he’s suspected of killing, a judge ruled Friday.
Steven Zelich, 53, of West Allis, is charged in Kenosha County with homicide and hiding a corpse for the August 2012 killing of Jenny Gamez, a 19-year-old college student from Cottage Grove, Oregon. He’s also suspected of killing Laura Simonson, 37, at a Rochester, Minnesota, hotel in November 2013.
Zelich told investigators he killed both women accidentally during sex, according to court records.
Kenosha County District Attorney Robert Zapf had asked permission to tell jurors about Simonson’s death during the trial for Gamez’s death. In court filings, he stated the killings are “inextricably intertwined” and establish a pattern of conduct.
But Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder said Friday that since Simonson died after Gamez, it would be improper to use the information, the Kenosha News reported. Schroeder said if Simonson had died first, it would be different.
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