In the Senate
On Monday, the Senate heard several Department of Public Safety (DPS) agency bills that made small technical changes to the agency’s governing statutes. There was also a bill including additional school bus policy tweaks, signage for drivers on tow trucks, and other small technical tweaks.
Wednsday the Senate Transportation Committee did not meet.
In the House
On Monday, March 2nd, Chair Brad Tabke (DFL, 54A) held the gavel in the House Transportation Committee.
Chair Tabke brought his important community-based pedestrian safety bill ahead of the committee, which would create a process to expedite critical safety improvements as identified by residents in their committees across our state.
The committee heard the tragic story of a 9-year-old boy killed in Moorhead last summer. Instead of preparing for back to school or a trip to St. Paul for the State Fair, the boy was struck and killed by a municipal truck while in a crosswalk near his school in Moorhead. The community there, similar to the communities along Olson Memorial Highway where we work, had been asking for safety improvements in a known unsafe intersection. Instead, red tape and inaction at local and state agencies delayed needed safety improvements, resulting in lost lives.
The bill was ‘laid on the table’ for possible inclusion in an Omnibus Bill and had additional fiscal details to work out, but it’s great to see the chair lead a community-centered process to push agencies to listen and act to protect those most impacted by our traffic safety crisis.
The rest of the hearing focused on bills related to Capitol security, which falls under the jurisdiction of the transportation committee, seeking to ensure our elected officials are protected in the wake of last spring’s assassination of Melissa and Mark Hortman and the attempted assassination of Senator Hoffman, his wife Yvette, and daughter Hope.
This also included changes to Capitol security on and off the Capitol complex, and the designation of Highway 610 as the Melissa Hortman Memorial Highway.
On Wednesday, March 4th, Chair John Koznick (GOP, 57A) held the gavel in the House Transportation Committee for what became a contentious hearing on connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) in Minnesota.
In late 2025, Waymo began testing in Minneapolis, sparking an industry-led conversation on the future of these vehicles in the state. This has led the company to aggressively lobby for the adoption of a favorable regulatory framework that protects its interests over the interests of Minnesotans. We testified against this bill and were successful.
Political Theater
Many amendments were introduced and discussed in the committee to raise concerns about the agency bill and broaden the conversation. The GOP chair ran these amendments like an auction rather than a meaningful policy conversation, and, due to the short time and GOP pushback, they were not adopted.
Rep. Sencer Mura (DFL, 63A) moved to refer the bill to the labor committee as well as the commerce and state and local government committees, given the significant potential impacts on workers across the state.
Rep. Larry Kraft (DFL, 46A) introduced amendments to evaluate the impacts of CAVs on vehicle miles traveled, to strengthen reporting requirements, and to require additional study of the impacts on transit and on state environmental and climate goals.
The bill sparked a contentious debate over whether to lay it over for further committee work or send it directly to the Commerce Committee, with the GOP waiting to push the bill through. The motion to lay it over was defeated, but the vote to move it forward to Commerce fell short—8 yeas, 6 nays, and one abstention—which, under the power-sharing agreement, was not enough to advance the bill out of committee.
This represents the first real win for transportation advocates in 2026, and a step forward for protecting workers, advancing true, multi-modal transportation, and protecting progress towards a transportation system that works for all Minnesotans.
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