As Scott noted earlier, the month-long standoff in Minnesota’s House of Representatives came to an end last night, as the Democrats, who have boycotted the session since it opened on January 14, have agreed under intense pressure to go back to work. Because I disagree with Scott’s evaluation of the outcome, I am writing separately.
Absent last night’s agreement, there would not have been a quorum in the House (under the Minnesota Supreme Court’s incorrect ruling of a week or two ago) until the Democrats returned to the Capitol around St. Patrick’s Day. At that point, in all likelihood the membership would be tied 67-67, and a power-sharing agreement would have been negotiated that included splitting the speakership on some basis. Essentially nothing would have gotten done this year, with a tied House.
The agreement reached by the parties’ leadership last night was a win for the Republicans in two key respects. First, Republican Lisa Demuth will be the Speaker of the House for the next two years–the first black Speaker in Minnesota history. That would not have happened absent the agreement. While the Speaker of the Minnesota House is not as all-powerful as in the U.S. House, having the Speaker is a huge advantage in a body that in all likelihood will be tied 67-67 as of next month.
Second, a top GOP priority for this year was the establishment of an anti-fraud committee in the House. If last night’s deal had not been struck, no such committee would have been established, as no Democrat would vote to investigate the mammoth frauds that have occurred on Tim Walz’s watch. Under the agreement, not only will the anti-fraud committee be established, it will be the only committee that will not have equal representation. Rather, the anti-fraud committee will be 5-3 Republican–the five Republicans are an all-star cast–so the committee will actually be able to get something done. When the committee convenes in a few days under Republican leadership, the first witness to testify will by American Experiment’s Bill Glahn, and American Experiment’s Scandal Tracker, which Scott reproduced in his post, will be entered into the record.
What did the Republicans give up in exchange for these significant gains? Essentially nothing. They agreed to seat Brad Tabke, a Democrat who won last November with a 14-vote margin. It developed that election authorities in his district threw away 20 ballots without counting them, so Republicans called for a new election. The election contest was tried, and the judge ruled in Tabke’s favor, holding that he had legitimately won, and no new election was required. (Democrats called witnesses whose ballots had allegedly been destroyed, who testified that they voted for Tabke.) Some conservative activists wanted House Republicans to refuse to seat Tabke, but GOP leadership never had the votes to do this. The only reason Tabke wasn’t seated is that, like the other Democrats, he never showed up at the Capitol to take his seat. The Tabke issue has always been a fig leaf; Democratic leadership used it as a pretext to justify their shutdown, and now are using it to pretend they got something out of the deal, when they didn’t.
So, why did the Democrats’ leadership cave, to the dismay–loudly expressed on social media–of that party’s rank and file? Because they were subject to enormous pressure. My organization ran a campaign that drove 20,000 emails to Democratic legislators from their own constituents demanding that they end the shutdown by showing up to work.
In the end, the Democrats couldn’t justify not showing up to work, especially since they continued to draw pay. GOP leadership did an excellent job by standing firm, buoyed by public support, and ultimately concluding an agreement that was significantly better than anything they could have achieved by standing still until 67 Democrats showed up in mid-March.
There is still one joker in the deck: the special election in House district 40B. That is the district where there was a successful election contest because the DFL candidate committed perjury; he didn’t live in the district where he ran. 40B leans heavily toward the Democrats, and Democratic leadership has already counted it in their column by claiming that the House is split 67-67, when in reality it is 67-66 unless and until the Democrats win that seat next month. In all likelihood they will do so, but special elections can be unpredictable. I suspect influential Republicans will make an investment in that seat and try to “steal” it from the Democrats. If that happens, the vote will be 68-66 in favor of the GOP, and there will be no more power-sharing agreement.
All of this illustrates the fact that the state of Minnesota is now evenly balanced. Democrats control the Senate by a single vote, and that only because one of their members was able to get her trial on a first degree burglary charge delayed until after completion of the session. Republicans are on the upswing, in Minnesota as across the country, and the battles being fought now are preparation for what should be an epic campaign season in 2026.
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