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By Sydney Kashiwagi

Richard Tsong-Taatarii/The Minnesota Star Tribune 

Hello and welcome back to D.C. Dish! 

Getting a budget over the finish line. Before we get to D.C. though, in Minnesota, state lawmakers were able to pass a $66 billion, two-year budget late Monday night, averting a partial government shutdown and addressing a looming deficit, my colleague Ryan Faircloth reports.

Faircloth and my colleagues Allison Kite, Nathaniel Minor and Walker Orenstein have been at the state Legislature around the clock monitoring the budget snafu and the special session. 

It took lawmakers three weeks longer than expected to get to final passage, and there was a lot of chaos in between, Faircloth notes. Lawmakers negotiated billions in spending behind closed doors and put state employees on edge, who could have been laid off without a budget deal before July 1. 

Monday's passage brought to an end one of the rockiest legislative sessions in recent memory. It started with an acrimonious boycott in the House and stretched into a special session after dissent from rank-and-file lawmakers put in jeopardy the fragile budget agreement. Legislative leaders had spent the weeks following the regular session’s adjournment nailing down support from their members, some of whom were unaccustomed to political compromise.

Even though they managed to pass a budget bill, another special session could still be coming later this year if sweeping Medicaid cuts are included in the final passage of President Donald Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" in Congress. Read more. 

What's in and out of the bill? Kite and Minor have compiled a list of key proposals that passed — and a few that didn’t — in the Legislature’s one-day special session. Read more. 

No health care for undocumented adults. As part of the deal, lawmakers voted to strip health care coverage from adult undocumented immigrants, a decision that took more than five hours to debate as Democrats pleaded with lawmakers not to leave people without care. Read more. 

During the debate, Minnesota House Rep. Kaohly Her said her family “broke the law” to come to the U.S. from Laos following the Vietnam War, though she later said in a statement they came “legally as refugees." Read more. 

Meanwhile, in Congress, high-profile Minnesotans are set to make appearances on the Hill this week.  

Hegseth and McCollum to face off. Rep. Betty McCollum will grill Minnesota native Pete Hegseth this morning at 9:30 ET at a hearing of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, where she serves as its ranking member. You can tune in here. Hegseth is set to speak before the committee marks up the defense appropriations bill.

McCollum declined to preview what she plans to ask the defense secretary, but her office assured me her questions will be “hard hitting." Overall, McCollum is opposed to the 2026 defense funding bill because of its “divisive policy riders” and because she disagrees with its sweeping cuts. 

Walz heads to D.C. to talk 'sanctuary policy.' On Thursday, Gov. Tim Walz will appear before the House Oversight Committee, which asked him and the governors of Illinois and New York to attend to testify on their states' “sanctuary policies.”

Walz's arrival in Washington is highly anticipated by some Minnesota Republicans. 

Stauber to question Walz. Though he is not on the committee, GOP Rep. Pete Stauber told me he'll attend and was given permission by the committee to question Walz. He declined to preview what he plans to ask him. "I'll see him Thursday, how's that?" Stauber said. 

Rep. Tom Emmer put together a video titled: "Protecting Illegals, Not Minnesotans: That’s the Walz Way" ahead of the hearing using different clips of himself, President Donald Trump and others bashing Walz.

"He's likable until you start to get to know Tim Walz and his policies," the video begins. It's not clear whether Emmer will also attend the hearing.

"If Tim Walz thinks he will be able to defend his abysmal record before Congress, then he’s even more of a buffoon than I thought," Emmer told Fox News. "I only have one thing to say to Timmy as he heads to Washington this week: GOOD LUCK."

Democrats anticipate theatrics. Meanwhile, some of the Minnesota Democrats I caught up with before the hearing said they expect it will politicized. 

"To be be honest, I don't think there's ever legitimate work that gets done on the Oversight Committee; it is more of a circus," said Rep. Ilhan Omar, who may try to attend to support the governor. "So, I can see it being people trying to get their little clips and not trying to actually solve anything on that committee."

"I think Republicans are going to try to politicize the entire thing as they always do," Rep. Angie Craig said. She may try to make an appearance, too. "But I have full faith and confidence that Tim Walz will do a terrific job."

Finstad passes "sanctuary city" business related bill. Ahead of the hearing, Rep. Brad Finstad passed his "Save SBA from Sanctuary Cities Act" out of the U.S. House last week. 

The bill would require local and/or district offices of the Small Business Administration to move if the SBA determines that its office is located in a "sanctuary jurisdiction."

All of Minnesota's four Republicans in Congress supported the bill; none of the four Democrats did. 

"This important legislation codifies two of President Trump’s pro-business executive orders that protect SBA employees and safeguard our entrepreneurs by relocating SBA offices out of sanctuary cities," Finstad said in a statement. "In doing so, it ensures that communities which uphold the rule of law will have access to the resources they need to better serve small business owners."

A Minnesotan in Washington questioning his new role. Newly elected Democratic National Committee Chair and former longtime Minnesota DFL Chair Ken Martin says he has no plans to leave his post following a report in which he questioned if he could do his job amid party infighting.

“I’m not going anywhere. I took this job to fight Republicans, not Democrats. As I said when I was elected, our fight is not within the Democratic Party, our fight is and has to be solely focused on Donald Trump and the disastrous Republican agenda,” Martin said in a statement following the report. “That’s the work that I will continue to do every day.”

Martin’s statement follows a report from Politico, which published a recording of him questioning his role during a meeting with other DNC members. In recent months, news about the DNC has been dominated by headlines of the party’s vice chair, David Hogg, vowing to spend millions to oust incumbents he views as “ineffective”. Read more. 

Walz has no public events scheduled for today. 

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