The regulations issued by Minnesota's administrative agencies are compiled and published in Minnesota Rules. This is Minnesota's equivalent to the Code of Federal Regulations. While the terms "rules" and "regulations can be used interchangeably, Minnesota currently uses "rules" for its official publications.
Minnesota Rules is published by the Revisor of Statutes and has many of the same features as Minnesota Statutes: organization into chapters by subject; a single, consistent numbering system; and an index and other finding aids. Bound volumes are published every odd year, with pocket supplements in between.
The State Register, published weekly, announces new regulations, proposed regulations, and changes to current regulations. The table of "Minnesota Rules: Amendments and Additions" allows the researcher to quickly update a rule by its number. Issues 13, 26, 39, and 52 contain cumulating tables to aid the supplementation process.
Rules are delegated legislation, which means that the state legislature has given an administrative agency specific authority to make rules. These rules have the force of law. Rules can also be repealed by the agency, suspended by the legislature or overruled by the courts.
The Statements of Need and Reasonableness (SONARs), prepared by the agency as part of the rulemaking process, are available from the agency. The Legislative Reference Library has also collected them in an online archive since 2006.
For more information about rulemaking, see the House Research publications: Rulemaking: Process for Adopting Rules, Rulemaking: Expedited Process and Exemptions, and Rulemaking: Review of Adopted Rules.
An online archive collects the older publications of Minnesota Rules back to back to the 1982 reprint.
Related Topic: Finding Older Agency Regulations
