Good morning. A reminder to procrastinators: file your taxes! And to candidates: file your fundraising reports!

Amy Klobuchar has a commanding financial edge in the Minnesota governor’s race after her campaign said she pulled in $4.8 million since her late January entry. The Democratic U.S. senator clearly tapped into a donor network she’s built up through four Senate campaigns and a presidential run. After early expenses, the campaign said she carried $3.4 million into April. She has no notable opposition for her party backing, meaning she should be able to steam toward the general election without having to exhaust the money in the same fashion as Republicans to figure out their nominee. The full state campaign reports won’t be released until early Friday, but Klobuchar’s team said she got donations from every county in Minnesota (and probably many out-of-state donations, too). Campaign manager Joe Radosevich said the money comes from “tens of thousands of Minnesotans.” Because this is a state campaign, Klobuchar doesn’t have the ability to shift money from her federal fundraising account. That campaign fund had $2 million as of Jan. 1 and could remain parked there for the foreseeable future. Gov. Tim Walz, who dropped out of the race in early January, hasn’t said where the $3.9 million that he had in reserve as of the start of the year will go.

House Speaker Lisa Demuth is among the Republican candidates for governor releasing her first-quarter figures ahead of tonight’s report filing deadline. She said she had collected more than $226,000 in the span and had $543,000 available to spend as of April 1. She’s competing with several GOP candidates for the party endorsement. Demuth touted the figures as a sign of her campaign strength. “While other candidates’ fundraising pace has fallen off dramatically, we are just getting started,” she said in a written statement. Earlier this week, think tank founder Kendall Qualls said he had raised $123,000 over the same stretch but didn’t reveal his cash-on-hand figure. MyPillow founder Mike Lindell told MPR News that as of late March he had raised $1 million since his entry in December but he also was spending money at a fast clip, according to a prior fundraising report. Other candidates are working to keep pace with that trio in party backing at local gatherings and in fundraising. The party endorsing convention is in late May with an August primary likely to determine the nominee.

Over in the Senate race, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan posted her strongest fundraising quarter since entering last year. According to her DFL campaign, Flanagan pulled in more than $1.35 million from January through March and entered April with $1.15 million of that still available to spend. She has sworn off certain special interest donations, which is part of her campaign messaging. Flanagan trails her DFL competitor, U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, in overall fundraising, however. Craig’s campaign said last week she had scooped up $2.5 million for the quarter and has nearly $5 million in the bank. This one is almost certainly headed for an August primary.

The Minnesota House Rules Committee will debate a proposal today tied to GOP-desired impeachment proceedings against two top Democrats. Republican lawmakers are proposing setting up the standards for bringing constitutional officers up for impeachment with hearings taking place in the GOP-led Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Committee. Members of the Legislature’s Freedom Caucus said ahead of the hearing that they want impeachment pursued against Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison. House GOP leaders didn’t comment on the move Tuesday and it seems unlikely that the tied committee would advance the resolution. House DFL Leader Zack Stephenson said it is a waste of time when lawmakers are facing a dwindling clock to get things done. “It's a joke, and it's consistent with a lot of bad behavior that we've seen around this place,” Stephenson said. “Instead of trying to get something done on fraud or affordability or school safety or responding to Operation Metro Surge, they are placating the extreme right wing of their party. And I think that's really frustrating to average voters to see that kind of performative garbage happen here.”

A bill renaming a community solar garden program after the late House Speaker Melissa Hortman was signed by the governor Monday. The law rebrands a program that Hortman fought hard for in her time in the House. The program allows people to subscribe to a community solar garden and get credits on their power bills for the electricity the solar garden creates. It is now called the Melissa Hortman Community Solar Garden Program. Gov. Tim Walz said it was an honor to sign the bill into law. “I'm incredibly grateful to the House and Senate for honoring our colleague and our friend in such a meaningful program that was very, very special to her,” he said. “For Minnesotans to know that that good will amongst legislators is there. They got that work done together, and it is now signed into law. And at some point here, I think there will be more recognition of Speaker Hortman, and we will do something much more publicly.” Several other bills honoring Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman, have been introduced, including naming a state park, a state office building and a state highway. There's also a bill to create a garden on the Capitol grounds in her honor.

About a month from the Legislature's conclusion, top lawmakers and Gov. Tim Walz have begun meeting to map out negotiation priorities. Walz met this week with caucus leaders. He says the cadence will pick up after major bills take shape. Walz said department commissioners are also ready to step in. "I believe probably later this week or early next week, we will meet bipartisanly in leadership to try and sketch out a plan,” he said. “I think our team believes that there are pathways there to getting done what needs to get done for Minnesota, reducing costs for folks, making sure that we're investing in bonding and we're taking care of the things." Compromise has been tough to come by so far on taxes, gun laws and response to immigration enforcement.

Minnesota to feds: Where’s the Medicaid money? The federal government has yet to release more than $240 million in Medicaid reimbursements to Minnesota. In March, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services accepted Minnesota's plan to make changes to several Medicaid-funded programs. It had previously frozen the funds over concerns about fraud and demanded a better plan to head off vulnerabilities. Gov. Tim Walz said CMS should free up the money now that a fix got a green light. “It's absolutely detrimental,” he said. “Again, I would make the case on this for those legislators sitting upstairs, if you're worried about your rural community and you're worried about the property tax or whatever, you need to be worried that your hospital is going to close, you need to be worried that your recipients aren't going to get their Medicaid payments." The state has covered downstream costs with the expectation that federal reimbursement will come soon.

Last week, House Republicans rolled out a tax plan that includes around $1 billion in rebates tied to property taxes. A bill that would do that and more was brought before the House Taxes committee Tuesday. The bill, introduced by Rep. Greg Davids, R-Preston, would appropriate $4 billion to make one time refund payments to owners of residential homesteads and some agricultural homesteads. Davids says the number is not set in but says it's scalable, depending on money availability. He pushed back on criticism that it would leave the state in a tough financial spot. “We're state reps, we have to be looking very, very closely at the state budget and make it work,” he said. “But the people in the state also need their budgets to work.”  Rep. Matt Norris, DFL-Blaine, said the plan wouldn’t help renters. “They would be left out,” he said. “So if the goal of this proposal is to help those Minnesotans who are struggling to make their family budgets work this bill, unfortunately, I feel misses the mark.” The bill was laid over for possible inclusion in an omnibus tax bill.

House members won’t be back in their regular office building until the 2028 legislative session. State administrators told members yesterday that the $500 million renovation and expansion of the State Office Building is on track to be completed in summer 2027. Then after installing furniture and a final clean, move-in should happen in September 2027. Republicans have criticized the project’s price tag while DFLers fought for the project , saying the building needed serious updates to improve safety and accessibility. But more than two years into construction, both parties are anxious to get back to their regular offices. Their temporary offices in the Centennial Building have less privacy and meeting space. Administrators say the project is within budget and it takes time to get the building up to code.

A constitutional amendment to increase public school funding may face voters in November. A bipartisan bill proposes amending the Minnesota Constitution to allow more money to be withdrawn from the Permanent School Trust Fund each year and sent to schools. The fund has been around since Minnesota’s founding and is fed by mining and timber proceeds. The State Board of Investment says the fund has done well in the stock market and doubled in the past 10 years, so more money could be put to use. Jill Schurtz, the head of Minnesota’s Investment Board, told senators yesterday that present law “favors the future over the current instead of balancing the two.” Her colleague, Andrew Krech, said the amendment would bring the fund in line with similar education funds around the country, get more money to schools, and still ensure the fund will grow. Some Republicans have expressed concern that the amendment overshoots its goal and instead of balancing present and future needs of schools, it prioritizes the present over the future. Despite that, the bill passed the Senate Finance Committee on a bipartisan vote yesterday and will be heard in its second House committee today.

You can finally count Tom Bakk out. The canny Iron Range carpenter-turned-lawmaker who for almost three decades carved out a niche as a Capitol dealmaker has shut down his campaign fundraising account … for governor. Bakk last ran for the office in 2010 — departing well before any actual ballots were cast in that race — yet always kept people guessing by leaving the “Bakk-Minnesota’s Next Governor” campaign fund open. He’s among the rare lawmakers to leave and return to his party caucus — DFL — multiple times; the first time was a brief break after the 2003 session when he parted with the DFL House caucus but rejoined ahead of the 2004 session. He went on to become Senate majority (and minority) leader for the DFL from 2011 to 2019. For his final two-year stint in 2021-22, he broke again from the DFL and along with another northern Minnesota senator became independents aligned with the GOP caucus. In closing his account Monday, Bakk shoveled out $21,250 in leftover funds. That includes a $500 donation to the DFL Sen. John Hoffman and $250 to the Senate DFL. The rest went to two northeastern Minnesota charities: The WC Heiam Medical Foundation got $18,000 and Never Surrender received $2,500.