New Minnesota laws are set to go into effect Tuesday, July 1. The Legislature wrapped up is business in a special session that ended several weeks ago following the regular session.
Here are some of the more notable changes:
Boating permits
Minnesota will now require safety training for some boaters as part of a new licensing program that will expand to include more people in coming years.
As of July 1, those between the ages of 12 and 21 have to take a water safety course and test to get a watercraft operators permit before operating a motorboat.
The online course offered by the state Department of Natural Resources has a $34.95 one-time fee and the permit is good for life.
Right now, the permit requirement applies only to people born after June 30, 2004, but by 2028 it will expand to people born after 1987. No one born before that will have to get a permit.
Visitors from out of state are exempt if they don’t use state waters for more than 60 days. Backers say the boating license requirement will improve safety.
Boats of anglers fill the St. Louis River estuary for the May 12, 2018, Minnesota fishing opener in Duluth, Minn. (Clint Austin / Forum News Service)
Minors in content creation
Minnesota has a new law aimed at protecting children and teens involved in online content creation.
Someone who profits from online videos where 30% or more of the content uses a minors’ likeness will have to keep records on how often the minor appears and how much money they make from videos.
Creators also will have to create an account to pay the minor until they reach adulthood. Starting at 13, minors can ask a creator to delete any content where they appear.
People between the ages of 14 and 18 are allowed to make online content and must receive the profits.
Kids under 14 are banned from working in online continent creation. If they do appear, they are entitled to all the profits.
Free water requirement at events
Ticketed entertainment events with 100 or more people in attendance will have to provide free water, allow attendees to bring their own in unopened water bottles or allow them to bring an empty water bottle.
Under the new law, venues can restrict the kinds of bottles attendees can bring and areas they can bring water as long as there is an area within the ticket space where water is available.
New cannabis tax
As part of a tax bill deal this year, Minnesota is raising the tax on legal cannabis sales from 10% to 15%. That’s on top of the regular sales tax rate of 6.875%, bringing the total tax on products like beverages and edibles containing THC, the psychoactive part of cannabis, to just under 22%.
It will be higher still in cities and counties with their own sales taxes. St. Paul, for instance, has a total sales tax rate of 9.875%, making the tax on local cannabis sales almost 25%.
A selection of products for sale at Gray Area Cannabis on St. Paul’s Grand Avenue on Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Lane splitting, filtering
Motorcyclists can now pass other vehicles by riding between lanes in traffic that is headed in the same direction, a practice known as “lane splitting.”
There are some restrictions. Motorcyclists can’t go any more than 15 mph faster than other traffic. The max speed for lane splitting is 25 mph.
“Lane filtering” is where motorcyclists move between lanes of stopped traffic. The maximum speed for lane filtering in Minnesota is 15 mph. Neither splitting nor filtering are allowed in roundabouts, school zones or in one-lane work zones.
End of ‘shotgun-only’ zone for hunting
For more than 80 years, hunters in the southern parts of Minnesota were banned from using rifles and instead had to shoot large game with slugs from shotguns, muzzle loaders and handguns.
A bill that passed during the June special session ends that restriction, which had been in place since 1942.
Supporters of the change, including the National Rifle Association, say it’s an antiquated rule from a time when the state was trying to increase its deer population. Backers also say there’s little evidence that the shotgun-only rule had any positive safety effect.
New state symbols
This year’s state government package creates new state symbols. The state constellation is Ursa Minor, also known as the Little Dipper.
One of the seven stars in Ursa Minor is Polaris, also known as the North Star. Minnesota’s motto is L’etoile du Nord, French for “the star of the north.”
Minnesota also has a new state fossil. The giant beaver, or Castoroides ohioensis, joins other state symbols after a years-long push spearheaded by the Science Museum of Minnesota.
Giant beavers are thought to have been extinct for around 10,000 years, and fossils have been found in Minnesota. They were roughly the size of a small bear, according to museum materials promoting the giant beaver as the state fossil.
Castoroides ohioensis, a prehistoric giant beaver, which was found in the Twin Cities area and in Freeborn County. The beaver weighed more than 200 pounds and was the size of a small bear. (Courtesy of the Science Museum of Minnesota)
Education changes
This year’s education bill funds schools but it also included a few policy changes.
Districts will be able to start the school year before Labor Day in 2026 and 2027 when the holiday falls on Sept. 7 and Sept. 6, respectively. A provision of the K-12 education budget gives schools the ability to start as early as Sept. 1 in those years, when Labor Day is on the Sept. 7 and Sept. 6, respectively.
The education bill also allows high school students to administer opioid overdose-reversing medication to other high school students.
Anti-fraud measures
State agencies can withhold payments to programs for 60 days if they believe it is more likely than not that they are defrauding the government. The state also boosted whistleblower protections.
State lawmakers have been working to develop more counterfraud measures in the wake of the Feeding Our Future case, where federal prosecutors say fraudsters made off with $250 million in pandemic meal aid meant for needy children.
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