Action Alert: With three days left in Minnesota legislative session, tell your legislator to get Legacy funding done NOW!

We’ve got a late-breaking 2026 Minnesota Legislative Session emergency that demands the attention and action of every sportsman and sportswoman in the state.

At stake is $191 million in dedicated sales taxes that the Legislature appropriates for habitat via the Outdoor Heritage Fund. These are not general tax dollars, these are the Legacy dollars that citizens permanently dedicated back in 2008.

The Legacy bill currently remains mired in House Legacy committee with a mere four days left in the session. Several conservation groups issued action alerts on this matter 10 days ago, but the needle hasn’t moved.

Leaders from Minnesota conservation organizations are holding a press conference at 3 p.m. today, Thursday, calling on state lawmakers and Gov. Tim Walz to pass the Outdoor Heritage Fund appropriations bill.

Speakers will highlight a joint open letter signed by the conservation groups urging legislators to set aside governance disputes and advance the $191 million package supporting habitat, clean water and outdoor access across Minnesota.

The press conference is being held at the State Capitol Press Room at 3 p.m. Outdoor News will have a reporter there.

The quick message for readers is to call their state legislators, particularly in the House, and tell them to get HF3879 done. Since Legacy and Environment chairs have dawdled on this bill, citizens should specifically contact House leadership – that’s Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, and House Majority Leader Harry Niska, R-Andover, and DFL Caucus Leader Zack Stephenson, D-Anoka, and tell them that they need to crack skulls and wrap up Legacy by midnight on Sunday, May 17.

A little background: Every year, the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council recommends projects to fund with these dedicated sales tax dollars, and every year, the Legislature approves the spending. Any Minnesotan who spends time out-of-doors has seen the results of that funding in the form of fine habitat work that the DNR and nonprofit groups like Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants Forever implement. Here’s a list of what Legacy will fund this year.

But those 2026 projects are at serious risk of not happening. One legislator this morning told me the bill could be dead for this session. If that’s correct, it’s wholly unacceptable.

First, that has never happened in the 18-year history of this legislation. Second, if it doesn’t pass, that means 53 programs totaling $191 million in dedicated natural resources funding will sit until at least early next year.

Besides the loss of habitat on 69,000 acres as field work waits, those dollars become less valuable between now and 2027. Acquisition deals could risk timing-out, diesel fuel costs for contractors will increase, and America’s nearly 4% inflation rate will drive up other expenses.

Here’s the truly bizarre and infuriating part: No one has a problem with the merits of the actual Legacy bill. So what’s the rub? Three amendments that Republicans on the committee introduced.

Outdoor News reported earlier this week that Democrats and Republicans were negotiating, and they have since agreed on two of those three items: funding for the Roseau River project, and retooling the protocol for hiring a LSOHC executive director.

The third item – placing term limits on citizen members of council, and possibly applying those limits to members retroactively – remains in dispute at this writing.

I’m hearing that Democrats believe they’ve already compromised on two items with Republicans, and they’re not giving them the third. Petty as it might seem, sometime in politics, it’s all about counting marbles, and the House is evenly divided between Dems and Republicans. That’s why we have compromise.

As I wrote in my May 8 Outdoor Insights column, I have no problem with the language of the Republican amendments. I do have a problem with their timing and the risk they’ve created for this legislation not passing in 2026.

Locking in member term limits is not important enough to hold up these critical habitat appropriations. Draft a stand-alone bill for the 2027 session on the term limits matter, but get Legacy funding done now.

State Capitol insiders tell me there’s still just enough time to get this passed by Sunday, but it may require leadership to immediately rattle cages. Some say that leaders at the Capitol simply don’t consider this a priority. Readers of this column need to tell them otherwise.

Visit here for a list of all state House members, including leadership mentioned earlier:

Visit here for Legacy committee chairs and membership who should hear from the public:

Committee Co-Chair: Rep. Joe McDonald 29A

Committee Co-Chair: Rep. Samantha Vang 38B

Committee Co-Vice Chair: Rep. Roger Skraba 03A

Committee Co-Vice Chair: Rep. Samakab Hussein 65A