The Upper Midwest Law Center is representing the Central Minnesota Builders Association and Rochester Area Builders Inc. in a new lawsuit challenging Minnesota’s 2024 omnibus law as unconstitutional under the Minnesota Constitution’s single-subject and title requirements.
UMLC announced the lawsuit Monday at a press conference at the Minnesota State Capitol. Watch it here.
Passed in the closing minutes of the 2024 legislative session, the 1,400-page law combined nine previously separate omnibus bills and 73 articles covering a wide range of subjects. The lawsuit challenges provisions affecting Minnesota builders, including stricter residential energy-code requirements, a new 14-part test for classifying construction workers as independent contractors, and contractor registration requirements.
These requirements will impose serious new burdens on Minnesota’s construction industry. In particular, the lawsuit alleges that at a time when housing costs are already historically high, the omnibus bill’s residential energy mandate will increase the cost of a new two-story house in Minnesota by an average of $44,000.
“The Minnesota Constitution does not allow lawmakers to bundle unrelated subjects into one bill and force an all-or-nothing vote,” said Nicholas Nelson, Senior Appellate Counsel at the Upper Midwest Law Center. “If the Legislature is going to impose significant new burdens on the people of Minnesota, the Constitution requires that it consider them one subject at a time and give each an up-or-down vote. A court has already found that this law violated that requirement. We are asking the court to apply those same constitutional limits to provisions that directly affect Minnesota’s building industry.”
In Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus v. Walz, a district court struck down the law’s binary-trigger ban after finding the omnibus law unconstitutional, per Minnesota’s Single Subject and Title Clause. The Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed that decision on May 26, 2026.
“Builders and small businesses should not be subject to sweeping regulations enacted through an unconstitutional process,” said Doug Seaton, President of the Upper Midwest Law Center. “The Legislature is bound by the Constitution, and this case asks the court to enforce those limits.”
The lawsuit asks the court to declare the 2024 omnibus law unconstitutional and block its enforcement. At a minimum, it asks the court to invalidate the provisions affecting Minnesota’s building industry.