When you wait more than a full week to publish an end‑of‑session wrap‑up, you’d better have something unique to say. The benefit of being a little late to the party is that there’s been more time to digest what actually happened during the just-completed Minnesota legislative session.
(Especially when last-day delete-everything amendments made a confusing process even harder for the public to follow. In my opinion, when you can trip up legislators and veteran political journalists maybe we’ve gone a little too far with the delete-alls.)
Of course, the noise is ramping up, and the spin cycles are just getting started. But I’m choosing to focus on more good news than a lot of people expected this particular legislative session to produce.
Related: The trust deficit meets reform this legislative session
Most Capitol insiders started the year thinking that this year would be the legislative equivalent of a dental appointment: necessary, mildly unpleasant and best gotten through quickly. Leaders set expectations low from the start, and the public absorbed that message. But once you look past the drama, the session produced some genuinely encouraging developments — alongside some familiar challenges that still need work.
So, in the spirit of constructive optimism, here are three things that worked and three things that could work better next year.
Things that worked well:
1. Single‑subject bills actually worked the way they’re supposed to.
This might be the wonky sleeper success of the entire session. Narrower bills — focused on one topic, not fourteen loosely-related provisions — created space for agreement. They didn’t get bogged down in ideological baggage or become bargaining chips in some sprawling end‑of‑session mega‑deal. They just… passed.
That’s not nothing. In a year when expectations were low, the Legislature got a surprising amount done precisely because many bills were shaped tightly enough to find common ground. And while leaders were the ones who set the bar low, it was committee chairs and rank-and-file members who deserve credit for creating the conditions that let these smaller, more focused bills move.
It turns out that when you don’t try to combine every provision and problem in one bill, you can actually solve a few.
2. The tied House showed that shared power is possible.
“Shared power” is one of those theories that sounds ideal to the public, but is excruciating in practice to those who have to do it — especially for the people and an institution that have become dependent on very entrenched roles and positioning. And yes, it was often excruciating to watch, when it didn’t work well. But the tied House proved something important: divided government doesn’t have to mean paralysis.
It required patience, creativity and more relationship‑building than most legislators bargained for. It was almost never easy. But the fact that the House functioned at all — and occasionally functioned well — is a testament to the members who chose cooperation over chaos.
I also am 100% sure that this second year of the tie wouldn’t have worked without the example set by Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman in the first year. She paved the path. It was obviously much harder to navigate without her presence and participation, but for those legislators who tried to do her proud by “being the peace” — thank you.
We’re coming up on an ugly time for cross-party relationships: campaign season. So no matter which candidates and which parties come out on top in November, I’m hoping that those relationships don’t disappear. They’re the kind of muscle memory that can make future sessions less brittle and more productive.
3. Bipartisan, bicameral working groups quietly did real work.
The Office of Inspector General and the Homeowners Bill of Rights workgroups were not flashy, but they were effective. (Effective probably because they weren’t flashy, and the triumphant press conferences came after the bills had passed, not beforehand.)
These groups gave legislators time to dig into nuance, understand unintended consequences, and craft policy that reflected more than one worldview. They also built trust — slowly, quietly, and in ways that don’t show up in floor speeches.
Transparency advocates are right to be frustrated with behind-the-scenes dealmaking. We bellyache a lot about leadership negotiations and conference committee reports written behind closed doors… and of course there’s the rarely-discussed fact that all of the caucuses meet in private, and those meetings are where real decisions are actually made. But from a policymaking standpoint, these bipartisan, bicameral groups demonstrated that when legislators have time and space to think together, they can produce thoughtful, durable work.
Three things that didn’t work as well — or, more optimistically, three opportunities for next year.
1. The “all-or-nothing” approach this legislative session left too much on the table.
The most visible example was the gun bill, but it wasn’t the only one. Too often, the choice seemed to be, get everything you want or walk away and hope the next election gives you a better hand. That’s not governing. That’s gambling.
Incremental progress isn’t glamorous, but it’s how most durable policy gets made. The one‑year vehicle tab fee reduction was a good example of taking a step instead of insisting on a leap. There could have been more of that — on multiple issues and in several committees — if the appetite for “all or nothing” hadn’t been so strong with some members.
Next year, there’s an opportunity to rediscover the value of “something is better than nothing.”
2. The obsession with winners and losers is exhausting, and counterproductive.
The post‑sine die spin cycle always turns into a scoreboard: which interest group won, which party won, which faction won. It’s a terrible way to evaluate a session and an even worse way to motivate legislators.
When the focus is on who gets credit, the incentive is to avoid compromise. But when the focus is on getting to yes, and representing the interests of the most Minnesotans possible, the incentive shifts toward problem‑solving.
There is definitely room for a culture shift here. (I’m not sure if there’s an appetite — that’s a different question.) Legislators who approach next session with a mindset of “how do we get this done?” instead of “how do we claim the win?” (or, “how do we keep the other side from getting a win?”) will find more paths forward than they expect.
3. Majority–minority dynamics still bring out the worst habits.
This is not unique to this session, this state, or this year. But it showed up again in the final week when a bill that had been shepherded by a member of the minority had the lead author swapped to a member of the majority.
Moves like this, swapping of chief authors or cloning of popular bills, are petty. They’re unnecessary. And they undermine the very relationships that make the rest of the session’s successes possible.
Related: The legislative session’s test of leadership
The true measure of how much power someone has is how much of it they’re willing to give up. A thank you is due to the legislators who care more about the work than the spotlight. We need more of them in public service.
And now, as the fictional President Bartlet would say, what’s next?
Now we shift from legislating to campaigning. Filing is open. The DFL and Republican state party conventions are happening this weekend. The lawn signs will sprout soon, and the inbox fundraising appeals will multiply like dandelions.
But before the campaign noise completely takes over, it’s worth remembering that this session — messy, imperfect, occasionally frustrating — also showed what’s possible when legislators choose to work together. The opportunities for improvement are real, but so are the bright spots.
If this was the “low‑expectations” session, imagine what could happen when voters hold their legislators to higher expectations.
Shannon Watson is the executive director of Majority in the Middle, a St. Paul-based nonprofit. She’s also a longtime State Capitol observer and provided occasional Voices commentaries during the 2026 legislative session. You’ll find Watson’s previous Middle Aisle columns here.
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