WILLMAR — Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy voiced optimism that Minnesota legislators will find a way to work together and make progress on the issues most important to Minnesotans despite the apparent need for power sharing in the House of Representatives, and the end of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party trifecta.
The DFL legislator from St. Paul said during a visit to the West Central Tribune on Monday, Nov. 18, that she and her colleagues have an obligation “to work with everybody else and find a way forward.”
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Murphy will lead a Senate in which the DFL remains in control with 34 Democrat to 33 Republican seats, following the special election in which DFL’er and former Sen. Ann Johnson Stewart was returned to office.
In the House, the chamber is tied with 67 Republican and 67 DFL seats with two election recounts pending.
“I have faith the members of the House will figure it out,” Murphy said of the need for a power-sharing agreement in the House. “When they have achieved that, it will be our partner.”
Current House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, and current House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, jointly announced the House committee structure on Monday, according to House Session Daily, the online news source provided by House Public Information Services. Membership will be equally divided and chaired by DFL and Republican co-chairs, according to the post.
The two chambers of the Legislature need to approve a balanced budget and find common ground on key issues. Affordable housing, child care and workforce availability were the priority issues Murphy said she heard from people during a visit Monday morning to the Middle Fork Cafe in New London.
Along with those issues, Murphy spoke of moving forward an agenda focused on infrastructure needs, including roads and bridges, community facilities and water infrastructure.
She is hopeful that the Senate Capital Investment Committee will advance a bonding bill early in the 2025 session after the demise of the bill last session. She said it was very frustrating that the bonding bill had become politically leveraged when it should be an issue of its own.
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“It really does wrap us up in a way that we can’t finish, (and) that happened last session,” she said.
Retired Rep. Dean Urdahl, outgoing House Republican lead on the Capital Investment Committee, had voiced his frustrations at the end of the session over the failure for a bonding bill to be passed.
Murphy championed DFL accomplishments while it held both chambers and the governor’s office. She described the DFL’s 2024 agenda as “square on” with what Minnesota asked to be done.
She also defended the paid family leave legislation that has come under criticism from many rural Republicans.
“You shouldn’t have to risk your job to care for your family, whether you have a new baby at home or you’re caring for an aging parent,” she said.
She said her caucus would be open to tweaking the law, if the need to do so is seen after it’s implemented and its actual costs are known.
The challenges ahead are familiar and new. Finding a way to make child care available and affordable to a family budget remains vexing, she said. People can’t afford it, and people can’t make it work as a business, she said.
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“It suggests to me that there needs to be more funding available to make it work,” she added.
Murphy said the thing she probably worries about most going into the next year are federal cuts that she anticipates from President Donald Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress. She hopes to work with Minnesota’s federal delegation to prepare for the issues ahead. She said the state does not have the resources to replace what the federal government could take away.
The Senate leader believes her party can win back voters in the rural areas it has lost by doing more to connect with residents one-on-one.
“I don’t know that we can legislate our way into the hearts and minds in communities we don’t represent right now, but we can find connection and meaning and belonging if we spend time with one another,” she said.
She applauded DFL Sen. Aric Putnam in District 14 in St. Cloud for his work in connecting with rural residents in that regard.
Murphy has served in the Legislature since 2006, including six terms in the House. She is serving her second term in the Senate. The last time the House was tied between the parties was 1979.
As for her optimism that the Legislature will find compromise and common ground, Murphy said: “You don’t run for office for the easy work. There is something very satisfying and rewarding in raising your hand and taking the oath of office and getting to work with people who don’t always share the same ideology, but they share values around what we want and expect for and hope for our families and communities.”
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The Trust Project
