Senate DFL leaders announced Sunday that Sen. Nicole Mitchell would be relieved of her committee assignments and would not caucus with DFL lawmakers while her burglary case proceeds in the courts.

Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, said in a statement that the situation is “tragic” and questions remained unanswered, but she stopped short of blocking Mitchell from participating in floor votes.

“While the case is under review both in the Senate and in the courts, Senator Mitchell will be relieved of her committee assignments and removed from caucus meetings,” Murphy said.

Murphy announced last week that an ethics probe into Mitchell’s arrest has started and the Senate Ethics Subcommittee is scheduled to meet May 7 to take up a complaint filed against her.

The announcement comes just under a week after Mitchell’s felony burglary arrest and as lawmakers ready for the last three weeks of the legislative session.

Neither Mitchell nor the Senate DFL caucus has said whether she will be in attendance this week. Even in her absence, she’ll loom large over what could get accomplished or fall by the wayside this year.

Last week, Mitchell was excused for both days the Senate came in. The first-term Woodbury legislator said in a statement that she had no plan to resign. Her term runs through 2026.

Sen. Nicole Mitchell’s empty seat is pictured during a session at the Capitol in St. Paul on Wednesday, April 24. (Ben Hovland / MPR News)

DFL leaders have not publicly called for her to step down and have said they’ll consider green-lighting her remote participation on a day-by-day basis.

“She’s elected to represent the people in the district that sent her here and they deserve her representation,” Murphy told reporters last week.

Senate activity on bills ground to a stop in Mitchell’s absence and questions remain about what could pass in an evenly divided chamber.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Melissa Hortman said the situation wouldn’t impact the trajectory for the DFL-led House. That chamber is set to vote on a raft of budget and policy bills this week including three that would add new gun restrictions on Monday.

“The conclusion I’ve reached is that we need to put our heads down and keep doing our work,” Hortman, of Brooklyn Park, said. “The senator is innocent until proven guilty, there are further dates scheduled in her criminal proceeding. I’ve gone back and looked at the record in the House and there have been cases where some very serious charges have been leveled against an individual and they remained serving and they remained voting until the charges were resolved.”

Democrats’ priority bills could hinge on the one-vote advantage in the Senate. Without Mitchell, the chamber stands at a 33-33 split. There is no tiebreaker vote.

If she steps down or continues to be away from the Capitol, bills that Republicans view as too partisan may stall. And if she comes back, Republicans have said that they could grind things to a halt as a protest of her participation.

“If they’re going to rely on somebody who’s under investigation for first-degree burglary to get their bills through, instead of working with Republicans in a bipartisan manner, shame on them,” said Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks. “This is about doing what’s right for Minnesota, not getting a political agenda through at this point.”

As budget touch-up bills and policy proposals move forward in the House, Republicans have sought to moderate them but haven’t had much success. House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, said she hopes that DFL leaders take GOP feedback into account and trim bills so they can pick up bipartisan backing.

“With (a) potential tie in the Senate, our votes are actually going to be needed on anything else that’s brought forward,” Demuth said. “We know that we could look at things that are not partisan, but need to be done finding a way to strip out any of the concerning things or the junk that might be in and finding ways that we could come to an agreement and be able to and serve the people of Minnesota.”

Without that sort of moderation, it remains to be seen if the bills will just hit a wall in the Senate or if Mitchell will return and provide the vote to get them through.

Negotiations are also underway for a public construction projects bill. Legislative leaders met last week to talk through parameters for the bill and for other measures that might be used as leverage to pass it.

Unlike other proposals, the bill requires a three-fifths majority of each chamber to pass because it lets the state take on debt to fund projects. Hortman said she asked GOP leaders to offer up their conditions for the bonding bill and accompanying proposals.

GOP leaders have floated a funding boost to emergency medical service providers in rural Minnesota as a condition of their support. The governor and DFL leaders have set a $16 million target, but EMS providers say they need significantly more than that to stay afloat.

GOP leaders also called for less state spending and opposed any new tax increases this year. Depending on how the ethics investigation into Mitchell’s arrest plays out, they could also ask for a fast-track for that as part of their negotiation.

Lawmakers don’t have to pass anything this year. They approved a two-year budget last year so the state government won’t shut down if they go home without passing a bonding bill or other spending bills.

DFL leaders said they remain hopeful that they can get their priorities across the finish line before the Legislature’s May 20 adjournment date.

MPR News senior politics reporter Clay Masters contributed to this report.

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ANAHEIM, Calif. >> Kyle Farmer didn’t think much of it when he left a tangy summer sausage that he received as a gift from Cloverdale, whom he did an advertisement for last year, on a table in the Twins’ clubhouse.

Maybe a hungry teammate would grab it and have a nice snack.

Instead, it seems as if that sausage has turned into a good-luck charm for the Twins, who have turned their season around with seven straight wins and now make sure to tap the sausage before they head to the plate.

“Maybe it’s because of the sausage that it’s all happening in the first place,” manager Rocco Baldelli surmised.

Perhaps it is, seeing as the sausage first appeared in the dugout while Minnesota was getting shutout against the White Sox earlier in the week. The Twins had been held scoreless for the first five innings of Thursday’s game. But once the sausage appeared in the dugout, they rattled off five straight hits.

Why, exactly, did the sausage make its way into the dugout in the first place?

“I guess Pop grabbed it and brought it in the dugout,” Farmer said, referring to hitting coach David Popkins. “I hope it lasts the whole year and doesn’t get moldy or anything.”

Hey, whatever works.

The Twins’ sluggish start had seen them spend the first 20 or so games as the worst-hitting team in the majors. But the offense finally seems to have started clicking — in their last seven games, they’ve scored at least five runs in each, highlighted by a 16-run outburst on Saturday against the Angels. On Sunday, for the second straight day, they collected 17 hits.

Eagle-eyed observers first noticed the sausage when it was flipped to first baseman Carlos Santana after he hit his third home run in as many days on Saturday.

As he approached the dugout, Santana leapt up and snagged it.

“It worked,” Santana said. “Everything in baseball, when it works, we do it.”

Later in Saturday’s game, right fielder Max Kepler was also seen clutching the link in the dugout after hitting his first home run of the season.

“Everyone touches it before we go to the plate,” Farmer said. “You just kind of tap it. Every at-bat. … It just happened kind of organically.”

The sausage — yes, the Twins only have one — resides near the bat rack in the dugout during games. It was stashed in catcher Ryan Jeffers’ bag on the way to California. Jeffers suggested that, at some point, the original item might need to be replaced by a non-perishable sausage.

The Twins’ manager is all for it — “it’s bringing us lots of hits and runs,” Baldelli noted, though he shares some of the same thoughts that Jeffers has.

Yes… we apparently have a HR Sausage now.

No… we don’t know why. pic.twitter.com/KTFEzSsLsW

— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) April 28, 2024

“I’m not even an adult, but slightly concerned as more of an adult than maybe some of the people in the other room that the package is going to open up and the thing hasn’t been refrigerated in many days,” Baldelli said. “There is no doubt when that thing opens up, whoever is touching it is in deep trouble. There is no doubt in my mind that we are carrying around something that is very, very unhealthy to the human body.”

This is Minnesota’s second sausage-related storyline this season as center fielder Byron Buxton was nearly run over by one of Milwaukee’s famous racing sausages earlier this season.

That led Farmer to proclaim it “the year of the sausage.”

“I guess we’re going to keep touching the sausage,” Farmer said. “Baseball players are messed up.”

Many of her teammates played a full season overseas since the Minnesota Lynx were last in action.

Diamond Miller, meanwhile, played one game in Hungary, her time overseas cut short by needing knee surgery.

The second-overall pick in the 2023 WNBA draft, Miller anticipated spending the offseason working hard to further develop her game after a rookie campaign that saw her average 12.1 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists in 26.1 minutes per game in 33 contests and be named to the league’s All-Rookie Team, along with center Dorka Juhász.

Instead, Miller took a long-term career view of having the surgery versus trying to play through the problem.

“This is the best I’ve been feeling since the surgery,” the second year forward said Sunday on the opening day of Lynx training camp. “We’re just constantly working through it, constantly talking to my doctors, talking to (Trainer) Chuck (Barta) doing what I need to do off the court to make sure I can play on the court.”

It took about six months for Miller to get prepared for the rigors of the upcoming 40-game season; that included dribbling while sitting.

“It’s definitely tricky when you’re injured (and) you’re not capable of playing to your full abilities, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get better, it doesn’t mean you can’t work on the
game, it’s just modified,” she said.

If one didn’t know, coach Cheryl Reeve said you couldn’t tell Miller is coming off surgery.

“Players like Diamond are so competitive,” Reeve said. “Diamond hasn’t played in a very long time, but players like that think they can get right back to where they were the last time they played. I think she looks very good. She did everything.”

The Lynx open the regular season on May 14 in Seattle, three days before the teams meet in Minnesota’s first home game. However, the Lynx have their lone home preseason game on Friday.

Backcourt stabilization

Kayla McBride should again start at shooting guard, but the point guard position has been bolstered by the acquisitions of veteran guards Natisha Hiedeman and Courtney Williams.

For Williams, the energy Minnesota showed in wanting her, was key in her wanting to sign with the Lynx as a free agent for her ninth season. The Lynx facilities are also a plus.

“It’s top tier,” she said. “It makes you want to get in the gym, it makes you want to get better.”

Williams started every game the past three seasons for Atlanta (2021), Connecticut (2022) and Chicago (2023). For her career, she’s averaged 12.1 points and 5.4 rebounds per game.

“We really needed Courtney, just her energy, her effort, her intangibles that are not always on the stat sheet, is something that she brings to the table, and it’s something us young cats
constantly need,” Miller said.

Williams knows she’ll be a “talker” on the team.

“I like to show up every day and run my mouth, so I can lead by example,” she said as Miller stood beside laughing. “I’m definitely going to be a voice so she can see it and everybody else can hear and feel it, as well.”

Hiedeman, a five-year veteran acquired from Connecticut via trade, started 40 games for the Sun last season, averaging 8.5 points and 2.7 assists. She is a career 39.2% 3-point shooter, an area where Minnesota struggled last season.

Reeve sees more than just an offensive upgrade with the new additions.

“The defensive side of having some athleticism and speed means we’re going to be able to dictate a little bit more, be a little bit more bothersome at the point of a team’s offense,” Reeve said. “The ability to penetrate and get to the 3-ball there were some really good moments with that today.”