Ramsey County Judge Leonardo Castro struck down Minnesota’s binary trigger ban Monday, citing a violation of the state’s “single subject” clause — and sparking conversation over the Minnesota Legislature’s use of “omnibus bills.”
Omnibus bills are single pieces of legislation that bundle several smaller pieces of legislation into one large bill. While the Minnesota Constitution states that bills must stay within the bounds of a “single subject,” topics outside the omnibus bill’s intended subject sometimes creep in.
In the case of the 2024 bill, Castro ruled against one provision banning binary triggers — a device added to a firearm that allows it to fire once when the trigger is pulled and again when it’s released — which had been added to “a bill for an act relating to taxation.”
The trigger ban wasn’t the only non-tax-related subject that made its way into the 1,400-page bill — constructed in the last hours of the 2024 session — others include lane splitting and filtering for motorcyclists, as well as a requirement for health plans to cover abortions and related services.
“This Court will go no further than severing the Binary Trigger Amendment from the 2024 Omnibus Bill. But make no mistake, during the late hours of May 19, 2024, lawmaking did not ‘occur within the framework of the constitution,’ ” Castro wrote in his ruling Monday.
“This Court respectfully suggests that if there has ever been a bill without a common theme and where ‘all bounds of reason and restraint seem to have been abandoned,’ this is it; and if there has ever been time for the ‘draconian result of invalidating the entire law,’ that time is now,” he wrote.
Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, said the court’s ruling affirms Minnesota’s single-subject rule, and that the rule is in place to “stop what Democrats did” in 2024.
“This decision is a reminder that the legislative process exists to put Minnesotans first, not to sidestep them,” Johnson said. “I applaud the court for reaffirming that the people’s business must be done in the light of day, not buried in last-minute sham hearings for mega-bills. Today’s district court ruling is a validation that the consequences for a total abuse of power are just beginning.”
Minnesota has long used omnibus bills, and they are not just created by Democrats. In 2018, Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed an omnibus bill Republicans sent to him that was roughly 1,000 pages long, citing the sheer size, among other reasons.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, parties regularly challenged Minnesota’s laws based on alleged violations of the Constitution’s single-subject clause, and courts struck down several of the challenged laws, according to House Research, a nonpartisan research department for the Minnesota House of Representatives.
“By the 1930s there were fewer challenges that cited the clause, and by the 1970s courts made it clear that they would give great deference to the Legislature,” House Research wrote in a 2020 report.
In recent years, there have been few successful challenges. In 2000, the Supreme Court found a section of a large omnibus bill unconstitutional, and in 2005, the Court of Appeals found the Personal Protection Act unconstitutional for similar reasons, according to House Research.
Including Minnesota, 43 states have a single-subject rule for their state legislatures, but not all of them take it seriously or have courts that strictly enforce it. Castro’s ruling Monday was a rarity in 21st-century Minnesota.
Lawmakers, state officials react
Other lawmakers echoed Johnson’s sentiments on Monday.
Speaker of the House Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, said the bill should be invalidated in its entirety, as Castro “respectfully” suggested in his ruling.
“This ruling is exactly what House Republicans warned about when the monstrous 1,400-page bill was passed without any meaningful feedback or even opportunity to access the bill: the process was flawed, and the bill should be invalidated,” Demuth said.
Rep. Paul Novotny, R–Elk River, said the 2024 end-of-session “mega-bill” that was “rushed” through both chambers late at night was “logrolling.”
“The court confirmed today what many of us warned about from the start: this was a bad policy, shoved into a bad bill, using a bad process,” he said. “Minnesotans deserve a Legislature that plays by the rules, respects the Constitution and conducts business in the open.”
Democratic leaders Jamie Long, DFL-Minneapolis, and Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, both said they were disappointed in the ruling regarding binary triggers, but did not comment on the judge’s warning against the use of the single-subject rule.
Attorney General Keith Ellison said at an unrelated press conference Tuesday that he couldn’t confirm whether his office will appeal the ruling, but that he will make an announcement soon.
For now, enforcement of the binary trigger ban — which went into effect Jan. 1 — is permanently prohibited.
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