Welcome to Almanac at the Capitol.

I'm Mary Lahammer coming to you live from the House Gallery, where lawmakers have been pulling a lot of late nights working on budget and policy bills.

We will talk to a couple of committee chairs about how that model is going.

In just a moment, later in the show, we'll talk democracy and government.

But first, a look at the governor and legislative action so far this week.

Governor Walz went to Harvard for a forum on national politics, again taking on President Trump.

If you leave a void, Donald Trump will fill it.

So how is Tim Walz filling that void right now?

Well, I'm governing in Minnesota, the state that ranks first in health care, education, access to education, biotech research, higher ed.

I think this is a time to show an alternative model of governing and what governing can look like.

If you elect us, here's what you're going to get.

If I ever have 100 days to live, I would spend it in the Trump administration, because it's like a lifetime.

It's been 100 days of destruction.

You think we can survive 550 more?

That's the real challenge.

- You're not running for president.

- I am not.

- We do have a little bit of audio here that I wanna play.

- Walls agrees with me that this piddly, stupid stuff running small people out of business is terrible.

- The House Fraud Committee questioned the Attorney General about ongoing issues in the massive Feeding Our Future fraud.

- I'm concerned about the seeming focus and priority on keeping grant recipients in business, as opposed to defending the state agencies and maintaining the integrity of taxpayer funds that are going to these recipients for the purpose of providing services to people.

- Whenever there's a crisis, we also have got to put on our detective hat because fraudsters try to make use of those tragic incidents to enrich themselves.

- We agree and we look forward to working with you, Attorney General.

We are adjourned.

Thank you.

The next bill on the calendar for today is House File 2431 budget bills continue to move in a bipartisan manner, including higher education.

This bill is the result of robust negotiations between myself and my co chair representative Marion Rarick, and I'm very proud of the fact that we work together even with a zero target to fix the state grant program.

That huge hole, $239 million, was the equivalent of one entire year's worth of state grants going out to students.

So we had zero new money, and we had to fill and fix a huge hole.

And the League of Women Voters of Minnesota defended democracy in a nonpartisan rally.

The art of compromise, and I've spent most of my three years down here trying to find that level of compromise and recognizing that, you know, we can be hard on issues, but let's be soft on people.

Let's do that.