Tim Walz's Special Session gamble

Alpha News is reporting that "House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman said she thinks a 'one day' special session will take place [this] Saturday." Erin Murphy, the DFL Senate Majority Leader, is quoted as saying "We are making progress. It is as slow as molasses, but molasses is good. And we are going to get it done. I’m gonna cross my fingers."

That isn't the sound of confidence. The reason Sen. Murphy isn't confident is because "the major sticking points remains a contingent of DFL lawmakers who promised they would 'fight to the end' to oppose a repeal of public health insurance coverage for illegal immigrant adults, which Walz and legislative leaders agreed to last month as part of their global budget deal."

This week, I've talked with a handful of legislators. Each of these legislators told me that they've heard rumors that Sen. Murphy might need more than 17 GOP votes to pass the HHS Omnibus Bill in the Senate. If that's true, that means Sen. Murphy would lose more than half of the DFL in the Senate.

If these things are true and Gov. Walz calls for a special session without having an agreement in place, that's a huge risk on his part. The part about this being a "one-day special session' is fantasy. If that happens, it'll only happen through divine intervention. Otherwise, those DFL hardliners will be difficult to flip.

This is Gov. Walz's press availability:

House Speaker Demuth Budget Negotiations Media Availability:

This isn't a done deal. Here's why:

When pressed by reporters on Wednesday to reveal whether they have the votes they need from their caucus members to pass the health and human services budget bill, the answers Murphy and Hortman offered were somewhat ambiguous.

"We still have to caucus these bills that are not done being written," said Hortman. "So you can’t ask [legislators] to vote for a bill until the bill is done being drafted and then they can find all the things they like and don’t like about the bill," Hortman, of Brooklyn Park, added.

The thing that I haven't anything about is whether the DFL will threaten to primary any of their senators who don't vote for the HHS Omnibus bill. I wouldn't put it past the Senate DFL.

House Republicans have held firm thus far. Thus far, they haven't acted like 'Gazelka Republicans.' These Republicans have spines.

Senate DFL leadership is on pins-and-needles because of the HHS bill. House DFL members are nervous about next year's elections because they skipped the first 23 days of this year's session.

SPECIAL ATTENTION: Senate Minority Leader Johnson didn't sign the agreemente. That gives him additional latitude, especially in a special session. Sen. Murphy undoubtedly will have to sweeten the pot to buy votes to pass the HHS Omnibus Bill. Right now, in my opinion, he's holding the whip hand if a special session is called.