Minnesota / State / 2026 Regular Session

Laws of Minnesota 2026, chapter 96 Unfroze verification for veterans of the Secret War in Laos and widened their benefits

Catalog reconciledEnactedProgram createdScope changed

Signed 2026-05-14

Struck the sentence in Minn. Stat. 197.448, subd. 2(b) that forbade the commissioner of veterans affairs from accepting verification applications until the legislature enacted criteria and a protocol, which had left the route for unnaturalized special guerrilla unit and irregular forces claimants dormant since the section was created in 2025. New subdivisions 3 and 4 hang verification on the applicant filing a VA preneed determination of eligibility for burial in a national cemetery, and create a special consideration route for anyone VA refuses, accepting chain-of-command affidavits, two affidavits from men who served alongside the applicant, wartime photographs, newspaper articles, and membership certificates from named Lao and Hmong veterans organisations. The benefits list gained sections 43A.09, 43A.11, 43A.111, 197.46, 197.48 and 197.481, and lost sections 197.65 and 197.987 without relocating them. Section 1 adds an SGU Veteran designation to the driver’s licence and state ID effective January 1, 2027. The same act rewrote state veterans cemetery eligibility, replaced the $130-a-day state active service pay floor with E-5 basic pay, repealed the 5 percent pension stipend in 192.49, subd. 2, and let the commissioner temporarily close a veterans home on a federal termination notice. Tracked because published guidance still describes the $130 floor and the 5 percent stipend as current, and because the dormant-to-live change in 197.448 is invisible from the statute text alone.