At 11:00 am this morning, Governor Mark Dayton announced that he was calling a special legislative session for today, July 19, at 3:00 pm to pass the budget bills for the 2012-2013 biennium. Passage of these bills will end the state government shutdown which has been in effect since July 1. The special session is expected to last for two days. The Legislature will suspend the rules to take up the necessary bills and pass them, although the process of passing all ten finance, tax and capitol bonding bills is expected to continue into tomorrow.

So far, six of the ten necessary budget bills have been posted on the legislative website at http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/ss2011/. According to the agreement between the Governor and the legislative leaders, no amendments to the bills will be allowed.