Minnesota House Dems Skip Work, Will Be Paid Anyway

The power struggle is real in the Minnesota House of Representatives as the parties stumbled this week at the start of the session.

Voters sent 67 Republicans and 67 Democrats to the 134-seat chamber, an even split, promising plenty of deadlocked decisions.

Sure enough, lawmakers managed to make it awkward on Tuesday, the session’s first day. It is unclear what was accomplished because, while Republicans were raring to go; Democrats were a no-show, with the intention of preventing a quorum.

The 67 Republicans believed they had a quorum and voted anyway, naming Rep. Lisa Demuth as speaker. A court will decide if that will stick, or if a new vote must be held when the Democrats finally decide to show up to work. Yes, they get paid for this stuff, starting at $51,750 a year.

While they were once evenly split, there was a development that put Democrats at a disadvantage.

Democrat Curtis Johnson won a seat in the house but, oops, he should have never run because, as a judge decided last month, Johnson had not lived in the district for six months before the election, a state requirement. He was not eligible to take that seat. Now there were 67 Republicans, 66 Democrats, and one empty seat to be filled by a special election.

Hello, Republican majority.

Majority matters in lawmaking chambers. The majority leads committees, decides which measures make it to the floor, and which go up for a vote. It’s tough to accomplish an agenda without the power of a majority.

Before this happened, Party leadership in the House started work on a power sharing agreement, a spokesperson for the House Republican caucus told The Federalist, but once Democrats lost that seat it became the minority party. The power sharing agreement was not needed. Minnesota law gives the majority the power to organize the House on its own.

Section 3.05 of Minnesota Statutes requires the House to meet “At noon of the day appointed for convening the legislature,” which was Jan. 14, for an organization meeting.

The Democrats decided to do their own thing. Maybe they had to wash their hair. Perhaps they went snowshoeing. Whatever it was, Democrats did not put their meat in the seats of the House Chamber except for Democrat Secretary of State Steve Simon, who was present and has some tasks between sessions. Here is where the quorum controversy figures in.

Republicans say the quorum — the minimum number of members present for a vote to count—is based on the number of members sworn in. Currently that is 133 members, making the quorum 67, the number present Tuesday.

Democrats argue the quorum is based on the total number of seats, 134, making the quorum 68. Simon declared the House had no quorum and could not conduct business, so he adjourned the session.

Republicans voted after that. A court will decide if their vote stands.  

On Sunday, House Democrats met at the Minnesota History Center to take their oath of office early and issued a press release saying they had no intention of showing up to the regular session so they could deny Republicans a quorum.

“We would like Republicans to honor the will of the voters,” said Democrat Melissa Hortman said in a Jan. 13 statement. “We’re working to successfully conclude negotiations with House Republicans and remain hopeful that we will have a power-sharing agreement before Tuesday, January 14th. Denial of quorum is a legitimate parliamentary tactic. Michigan House Republicans used the same tactic in December 2024.”

It is like one team skipping the Super Bowl because their star quarterback was injured. It’s cheating. If your team is not ready by game day, it’s tough luck.

“They’ve indicated that they will not show up until either we give in to a power sharing agreement based on an election that has not happened yet, or they will show up when [the vacant seat] is filled,” the GOP spokesperson said.

The special election will be held in late January or in February. That too is disputed. Gov. Tim Walz is supposed to wait 22 days after the session starts before calling for a special election, but he already called for it to be held Jan. 28. Republicans have challenged his improper timing in court, the spokesperson said.

Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.