Minnesota moves forward with progressive bills. Now do the whole country!

Marijuana for recreational use will be legal as early as August 1, allowing for possession of up to 2 pounds of marijuana in your home.

What will take more time is setting up the business rules and regulations. The bill establishes a new Office of Cannabis Management tasked with oversight of a new legal marketplace that will allow licensed businesses to cultivate, manufacture and sell marijuana at retail dispensaries.

The sweeping 300-page bill will also automatically expunge low-level cannabis convictions and set up a board to consider expungement or resentencing of felony crimes. 

Minnesota will join 22 states, plus Washington D.C., that have legalized weed.

Gov. Tim Walz signed the bill setting new energy benchmarks for Minnesota in February, an effort to curb climate change’s impacts. By 2040, utilities must offer customers 100% carbon-free electricity.

Right now, renewable energy — like wind, solar, and hydropower — is the largest share of the state’s power supply at 29%, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. More than half of the state’s energy is already carbon-free with renewables and nuclear energy combined.

Minnesota’s biggest utility, Xcel Energy, said the legislation fits with its own energy goals, even though company officials are still figuring out how they will meet the new standard in the next two decades.

There is an avenue for utilities to request a “delay” in implementing the standard, framed as an “off-ramp” if meeting the clean energy standard is too expensive for ratepayers or the energy source is unreliable.

DFL lawmakers approved a state-run paid family and medical leave program that will allow workers to take up to 12 weeks of paid time for a serious medical condition, and up to 12 weeks to take care of family members, including bonding with a newborn. 

The benefits are capped at 20 weeks in a single year and workers won’t get paid their full wages.

Benefits will start in 2026 and that’s when a payroll tax increase to fund the program will kick in, too. That tax hike on businesses and their employees is the most contentious part of the bill. 

Almost 75% of Minnesota’s workforce does not have access to paid leave benefits today, according to an estimate from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

In late April, Walz signed three progressive bills into law on Thursday designed to make Minnesota a safe haven for LGBTQ people and others who come from other states where abortion is banned to seek the procedure in Minnesota. 

Two of the bills are “shield” laws designed to protect patients and providers from legal actions in other states where abortion and transgender medical care for minors are banned or restricted. 

While those two bills passed on party-line votes, more than a dozen Republicans joined Democrats in supporting a ban on the discredited practice of conversion therapy for LGBTQ people, which seeks to change their sexual orientation.

Inside the labor and economic development budget bill, Democrats included a provision requiring businesses to offer their employees “earned safe and sick time.”

Workers would be eligible to accrue a minimum of one hour for every 30 hours worked, for a maximum of 48 hours per year. 

They could use that time for medical appointments, short-term illness like a cold or flu or caring for a child who may be out of school sick.

This is different than the state paid family and medical leave program, which will be funded by a payroll tax and would cover more long-term absences.

A large K-12 education funding package that includes a $2.2 billion boost for schools includes indexing per pupil formula funding to the rate of inflation in future years, capped at 3%. There’s additional money to help with costs of special education programs, recruit more teachers of color and hire more school psychologists. 

Additional funding will support stocking schools with menstrual products free of charge to students, and keeping a supply of the opioid antagonist naloxone, as the epidemic fueled by illicit fentanyl intensifies. 

Personal finance, Holocaust and genocide education, and ethnic studies will be incorporated into school curriculum. And there are new benchmarks and requirements to boost literacy, after test scores plummeted during the pandemic.

Both chambers of the state legislature last week approved a ban on so-called “forever chemicals” PFAS in consumer products.

The legislation prohibits non-essential use of the substances in cookware, cosmetics, cleaning products and more starting in 2025. The bill also includes funding to help clean up water contaminated with the chemicals, and will phase out PFAS in firefighting foam.

In late January, Walz signed the “Protect Reproductive Options Act,” a bill that establishes a “fundamental right” to abortion access and reproductive care in the state in a post-Roe v. Wade landscape.

While a 1995 Minnesota Supreme Court decision protections abortion rights, Democrats framed the PRO Act as a second line of defense to ensure access at a time when other states are restricting the procedure. 

The bill also covers contraception, sterilization, preconception care, maternity care, family planning and fertility services.

In March, Walz put his signature on the universal school meals bill, providing free breakfast and lunch to all K-12 students, regardless of their parents’ income.

Schools must enroll in the federal program for free and reduced-priced meals to be eligible. The state would pick up the tab for the cost of covering everyone else who doesn’t qualify for the federal program, which is estimated to be $388 million in the next two-year budget. It increases after that.

The program could be operational by summer school in July.

Major gun regulations were into law after a public safety package passed through the Minnesota Legislature earlier this month.

The provisions create a “red flag” law, allowing family members, spouses, roommates, or law enforcement to petition a court to suspend someone’s access to guns if they are determined to be a danger to themselves or someone else. These extreme risk protection orders will go into effect next year.

But starting this summer, background checks will extend to private gun sales and transfers, not just purchases at federally licensed firearms dealers, plugging what gun safety advocates call a loophole. 

Earlier this month, Walz signed the “Democracy for the People Act” into law, an elections bill aimed at expanding voter access to the polls. It includes long-sought-after provisions from voting rights advocates.

The legislation implements automatic voter registration, allows 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote, and creates a permanent absentee voter list that will automatically send people who sign up a ballot each election.

The proposal also requires voting materials and sample ballots to be in languages other than English and prohibits voter intimidation at the polls, among other provisions.

Another change in a separate law will allow people with felony convictions to vote again upon release from prison. They were previously barred from the ballot box until they discharged their sentence, including probation or parole.

Starting next school year, thousands of Minnesota students who qualify can attend the state’s public colleges and universities for free under a new program.

Families making under $80,000 a year would be eligible for the “North Star Promise” scholarships, which will cover tuition and fees for residents who attend two- or four-year programs in the University of Minnesota or Minnesota State system or in-state tribal colleges.