Simon says no quorum, Republicans elect Demuth speaker

— UPDATED at 5:43 p.m.

Depending upon how you view a situation, you could say that Tuesday’s Opening Day for the House of Representatives found the chamber either half full or half empty.

In any case, 67 Republicans were at their seats upon the session’s noon launch and no one was seated at the desks reserved for DFL members.

Acting as presiding officer, Secretary of State Steve Simon called the House to order, a roll call was administered by the clerk pro tempore, Rep. Peggy Scott (R-Andover), and the chief judge of the state’s Court of Appeals, Jennifer Frisch, administered the oath of office to the 67 Republicans present.

Then Simon ruled that, not having achieved the benchmark of 68 legislators necessary to meet a quorum requirement, the House would be unable to take up further business. He adjourned the body, thus concluding its official business for the day.

But, within minutes, Rep. Paul Anderson (R-Starbuck) assumed the speaker’s position that Simon had vacated and the Republicans — contending that their 67 members of a currently 133-member body constitute a quorum — voted to overrule Simon. They then unanimously chose Rep. Lisa Demuth (R-Cold Spring) as speaker.

“The House GOP took their oath of office and then they promptly turned around and violated it,” Rep. Jamie Long (DFL-Mpls) said during a Tuesday news conference at the Scott County Government Center. “What we saw today was an attempted coup. This is the type of thing that we don’t expect in Minnesota. We expect it in Third-World countries.”

DFL speaker-designate Melissa Hortman (DFL-Brooklyn Park) expects lawsuits to be filed directly to the Minnesota Supreme Court contesting the Republicans’ actions, and she hopes for rulings on an expedited basis. As detailed at a pair of dueling press conferences last week, the DFL absences were in response to House Republicans’ stated plans to leverage their current 67-66 advantage into two years of Republican control of the speakership and committee chairs.

Simon released a statement that his authority to preside over the House until a quorum is established was violated.

Rep. Lisa Demuth, alongside her husband Nick, sends greetings to family members seated in the House Gallery before Tuesday’s opening of the 2025 legislative session. (Photo by Michele Jokinen)

"I have made very clear to both caucuses and the public ahead of convening my legal conclusion that 68 members are required for the House to conduct business. I anticipate that the courts will provide clarity both on that issue and on the understanding that the person who holds the Secretary of State’s office is the presiding officer until a Speaker is legally elected – an event which has not yet occurred.” 

That one-seat gap could close after a Jan. 28 special election in District 40B. After election night in November, the party split in the House was 67-67, but the winning DFL candidate was later found to not meet a residency requirement.

As for the traditional swearing-in of DFL House members, that was accomplished Sunday at the Minnesota History Center, where the oath of office was administered by Kevin Burke, a senior district court judge from Hennepin County.

What has happened so far?

Hortman continued trying to negotiate a potential power-sharing agreement Monday night and Tuesday morning.

“What I’ve proposed is that, for the first three weeks, where they have the one-vote edge but not a majority, that they would function as a majority,” Hortman said at a Monday news conference. “They would elect Demuth on the first day; they would chair all of the committees. We could temporarily go down one DFLer on each of the committees so they would have a one-vote advantage on each of the committees. And then, when the period of the imbalance was over, we could revert to the power-sharing provisions that we’ve already negotiated.”

“That is not the full story,” Demuth said Tuesday. “What we are offering is to come in, I am the speaker of the House and we look forward to working with them over the next two years in a reasonable way. … It is up to House Democrats should they want to engage with us again. We are waiting to hear back.”

At a Jan. 6 news conference, Demuth said Republicans would initiate recall petitions against DFL members not present at Tuesday’s first floor session. They also said that they intended to unseat Rep. Brad Tabke (DFL-Shakopee) because of the loss of 20 absentee ballots in a race he won by 14 votes and call for a special election.

But a district court judge ruled Tuesday morning that Tabke’s opponent would have been unable to make up the deficit, based upon testimony from voters whose ballots went missing.

So how long will DFL members’ boycott of House floor sessions last? Hortman gave some sense of that in a statement Tuesday morning.

“Given Republican statements this morning indicating their intent to ignore the election results and the court’s decision, Democrats have no other recourse to protect the will of the voters than to deny quorum until the special election in 40B has concluded and that new member is sworn in,” she said.

The Senate is also currently down one member after the death of Sen. Kari Dziedzic (DFL-Mpls), leaving that body with 33 members from each party. But DFL and Republican leaders announced a power-sharing agreement to which they say they’ll adhere until after a Jan. 28 special election in Dziedzic’s district.

— Session Daily writers Todd Abeln, Brian Basham and Tim Walker contributed to this story.