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By Briana Bierschbach

The Minnesota Star Tribune

Good morning and welcome back. Hot Dish took a long weekend while the Legislature was on spring break. At least some of the legislators took a break, while others spent their time off in and out of negotiations over budget bills. More on that later. 

And the State Patrol estimated 8,000 to 10,000 people spent their Saturday at the Capitol protesting the Trump administration's environmental policies. Janet Moore, who was there, notes the crowd seemed aggrieved on any number of the administration’s policies, including tariffs, deportations and potential cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Anti-Trump protests were held in cities and towns nationwide, as well.  

Now, lawmakers return to work and what one Capitol staffer (who shall not be named) referred to as "Hell Week." It's the week major budget bills make their way to the final boss committee stops: Ways and Means in the House and Finance in the Senate. A peek at the legislative agenda for today shows a pile up in both. After they pass committees, the budget bills are ready for full floor votes in both chambers so the two bodies can start reconciling their differences in conference committees. 

Another name for this phase of the session: the season of disappointment. Rep. Robert Bierman, DFL-Apple Valley, who co-chairs the House Health Finance and Policy Committee, said the reason it's called that in most legislatures is "because you never get everything you want. You have to negotiate, and you have to compromise."

That quote was ripped straight from an Allison Kite and Ryan Faircloth story about the sticking points that remain as legislators return to work with one month left of session. The education and health committees in the House missed their self-imposed deadline to finish their budget bills and top leaders have been working throughout the break to come to an agreement. 

Some of the biggest sticking points left to iron out include whether to trim education spending or increase it. Gov. Tim Walz and Senate Democrats have both proposed trimming more than $680 million over the next four years. The House is calling for a $40 million education funding increase in the next two-year budget and no net change in the following cycle.

The House health committee chairs are also negotiating to determine how to cut a combined $225 million over the next four years from their portion of the budget. Republicans want to cut health care for unauthorized immigrants in Minnesota, which Democrats don't support. Read more. 

In the two weeks since she got a layoff notice from the Minnesota Department of Health, Amy Saupe has been contingency planning with her family while frantically trying to wrap up projects connected to a 14-year career in the prevention of foodborne illnesses.

Today her initial layoff will be rescinded after the department said it made errors in the first round of notices. What she doesn't know: Will she get a fresh layoff notice — or find out that her job is now secure?

Her situation highlights the widespread unease settling over Minnesota’s sprawling government workforce, which has seen its first layoffs from sudden cuts to state funding from the Trump administration. Some agencies rely on federal funding more than others to support their workforce, and employees at the Department of Health knew they were especially vulnerable to layoffs because the agency relies heavily on federal funding to pay for programs and staff. But Gov. Tim Walz has said all state agencies should be planning as if their federal funding could be cut at any moment. Read more. 

Walz will receive a briefing from the Minnesota National Guard this afternoon.

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Minnesota U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, a Democrat who is not seeking re-election, was a guest panelist on HBO’s "Real Time with Bill Maher" on Friday night. The discussion was typically wide ranging and occasionally spicy, writes Janet Moore, who tuned in and sent this feed. 

Here’s Smith’s take on the wrongful deportation and imprisonment of a Maryland man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison: “Our Constitution is quite clear,” she said, noting Abrego Garcia “deserves due process. You can’t just be shipped off. Now there’s all this innuendo over what he did or didn’t do, that’s why we have courts.”

Smith defended Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s recent White House visit, saying she was ambushed by Trump in a news conference and was ridiculed for placing a folder over her face while being photographed. “I think one of the problems we have as a Democratic Party is that we don’t talk enough to people who disagree with us,” Smith said. “The reason we lose is that we don’t go and talk to people who don’t like us.”

On Trump’s “chaotic” tariffs: “He pisses off all our allies so we have no way of mounting any kind of global strategy to contain China when we need to,” Smith said.

On government regulations that may hinder economic growth: “If the Democratic Party is only defending the status quo and not figuring out how we can do things differently and better we’re not going to ever be in a place where we win back the majority of the Senate, we’re not going to be in a place we need to be.”

She defended her friend Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who launched a marathon speech on the Senate floor railing against Trump. “There is not the one right solution” for Democrats, she said, adding “if there are 20 people in Winona, Minn., who want to stand on the curb every Thursday waving signs, that’s great.”

Noting that Smith was wearing a royal blue blazer, the same color as the spacesuits the all-women celebrity space crew donned aboard the Blue Origin space mission last week, Maher asked what she thought of the controversial launch. “You’ve got to be really, really rich to spend that amount of money shooting your wife into space,” Smith said, referring to Blue Origin’s founder Jeff Bezos’ fiancée, Lauren Sanchez. Maher appeared momentarily flustered by her reply.

GOP lawmakers are holding a news conference this afternoon to "sound alarm on the surge of illegal immigrants enrolling for free health care, paid for by Minnesota taxpayers," according to a news release.