Update: May 6, 2014:

SF1614 passed in the Minnesota on a 48-18 vote; the margin is veto-proof.

The whip count "no" tally was one vote off as unknown/undecided Senators broke "yes," regardless of party.

The wide, bipartisan vote makes us wonder: why isn't Carly Melin showing the political courage to bring the Senate's companion bill, HF1818, to a vote in the House?

Instead, she seems chained to the cop-lobbyist sanctioned "compromise" observational study that would at most serve around 5,000 Minnesotans as opposed to the 35,000 or so people who may have their suffering eased by the Senate bill.

The House should rewind and get HF1818 (amended to match SF1641' final engrossment) on the floor. Melin has said in the past that the house version had the votes to pass. Quit playing patty-cake with law enforcement and get 'er done.

Update; May 5, 2014:

The bill is heading to the Senate floor, date TBA, after being heard in the full Senate Finance Committee and passing on a 14-7 roll call vote.

Here's the vote on the motion to recommend the bill to passed by the Senate:

Affirmative (Bipartisan)

Chair Cohen

Bonoff

Champion

Dibble

Latz

Lourey

Newman

Nienow

Pappas

Saxhaug

Sieben

Stumpf

Tomassoni

Wiger

Negative (All GOP)

Anderson

Fischbach

Ingebrigtsen

Limmer

Miller

Pederson

Westrom

These new committee votes leave the Whip Count at Yes: 27; No: 16; Undecided/Unknown, 23.

Update: SF1641 is moving through committees on the way to the Senate floor. It's more important than ever that Minnesotans ask their state senators about their position on the bill.[end update]

As Bluestem noted in our Minnesota House medical marijuana people's whip count:

The Minnesota legislature reconvenes Tuesday, April 22, and will scramble to conclude business by the end of day on May 18. One high profile issue, the legalization of medical marijuana, enjoys overwhelming popular support, according to recent polling.

And yet as Forum Communications' veteran political reporter Don Davis reports in his Minnesota political notebook: Minnesota marijuana issue remains clouded. Davis writes:

Medical marijuana legislation stalled in the Legislature until Dayton told reporters that lawmakers were “hiding behind their desks” from the issue. That prompted Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, D-Cook, to kick the issue into committee meetings. The Senate measure awaits a vote, while a House bill sits in a committee. Dayton says he will not sign a medical marijuana bill until law enforcement and medical organizations get behind one.

The Minnesota House whip count can be found here.

Curious where your state senator stands? Senate rules only allow five people to author a bill, so we don't quite have the same amount of information as we do for where House members stand.

Bluestem is asking readers to help fill in the blanks If your state senator hasn't gone on record on the bill, please politely contact her or him (click on the link under the names; if you don't know who represents you in the Minnesota Senate, click here) and ask her or him where she or he stands on SF1641.

When you get an answer, please email Bluestem your answer at sally.jo.sorensen {at} gmail.com or leave the answer in our comments.

We won't publish your name or comment (absolutely NO temporary, fake, or spoofed emails acccepted in comments), but we do need to have documentation of constituent contact before we add the information you've collected to the Whip Count chart below the fold (click on the "continue reading" link if you can't see the chart):