Governor Dayton Vetoes Tax, Spending Bills, GOP Responds.

Governor Mark Dayton announced Wednesday, May 23, that he had vetoed the omnibus tax and emergency education aid bill along with the supplemental budget bill. With the exception of the capital improvements bonding bill, the governor's veto prevented that vast majority of the legislative work in 2018 from becoming law.

"We agreed that we must reform elder care, address the opioid epidemic and ensure safe schools for our children. Yet instead of coming together to find shared solutions to these critical issues, you have deposited them into a 989 page budget bill, with 51 policy provisions, which I oppose. The legislative gamesmanship was terrible, and I will not sign the result," Governor Dayton wrote in his veto message.

Republican members, including Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka and House Speaker Kurt Daudt, decried the veto, saying that many Minnesotans will be hurt by the governor's actions. "In the end it feels impulsive, it feels vindictive and it didn't help anybody in Minnesota," Gazelka said of the vetoes. Republicans distributed a list of people who will be impacted by the veto, and the list included many of the groups who appeared before legislators in 2018:taxpayers who will need to complete more complicated tax forms; students in schools without new gun-protection safety features; people fighting opioid addiction and victims of elder abuse.

During his press conference on the vetoes, Governor Dayton did not negate the possibility of calling lawmakers back into a lame-duck special session following the November election to pass tax conformity measures.