Dear Neighbors,
Needless to say, I have been receiving a great deal of correspondence related to the rocky kickoff of the 2025 legislative session. Under the circumstances, it's important that I weigh my words carefully. The stakes in the current standoff between House Democrats and House Republicans are extremely high.
On Tuesday, the Minnesota State Senate convened in an orderly manner and promptly ratified a 50/50 power sharing agreement that will govern at any time when neither party has a majority in that chamber. This will be the case until the late Senator Kari Dzeidzic’s successor is elected on January 28th, at which point one or the other party will regain power in the Senate. Minnesota’s Senators have committed themselves to working on a bipartisan basis over the course of this session.
The same offer is on the table in the House, as well. The House DFL has offered to allow House Republicans to organize the House and occupy the Speaker’s chair until the results of the special election in the January 28th HD40B special election are certified on or about February 3rd. At that point, House Republicans would continue to control the House with a 68 to 66 majority if the Republican candidate wins that contest, while the 50/50 power sharing agreement like the one in the Senate would kick in if the Democratic candidate wins and the chamber is once again tied.
House Republicans have rejected this offer and are insisting on maintaining complete control of the House for the entire biennium, even if the House soon reverts to a 67-67 tie, which is highly likely (HD40B is a very “blue” district).
This would mean that House Republicans would:
- control the Speaker’s gavel for the entire session
- chair all committees and have membership majorities on all committees
- completely control the flow of bills through the legislature
- selectively unseat Democratic members without cause, starting with representative Brad Tabke’s seat in Shakopee
- fire House DFL staff members at will
If the voters had elected a Republican majority in November, this would be an appropriate result. However, that’s not what the voters did. They sent us a tied House and for the next two months, the leadership of both House caucuses negotiated in good faith to arrive at the 50/50 power sharing agreement that the Senate ended up copying. Only once a court decided that the winning House DFL candidate HD40B in was not a legal resident of the district did the agreement unravel, forcing House Democrats to resort to “withholding quorum” as a strategy to preserve our rights and democracy.
A little historic perspective is in order. This is not the first time that the Minnesota House of Representatives has emerged from an election tied 67 to 67. The Minnesota House of Representatives was also tied 67 to 67 following the 1978 election, leading to power sharing negotiations between House Democrats and Republicans. These negotiations resulted in Republican Representative Rod Searle being elected Speaker, while Democrats were named chairs of the three most important committees. Searle wrote a book entitled “Minnesota Standoff” about the session, which was filled with intrigue. The parallels between that session and this one are eerie, though not exact.
There was a potential election challenge to one of the Republican representatives, Bob Pavlak, who was accused of making false statements about his opponent. However, when the District Court ruled in Pavlak's favor, Democrats dropped their plans to try and unseat him. This is in stark contrast to today's Republicans’ plans to attempt to unseat Democratic Representative Brad Tabke even after the District Court ruled unequivocally that Tabke had won his election.
About a week before the 1979 session was to begin, Democratic Representative Dick Kostohryz suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized when the session convened. Republican backbenchers tried to convince Searle to take advantage of the temporary 67 to 66 republican majority and take control of the House, but Searle convinced his Republican colleagues that this would be a short-sighted strategy. As he wrote in his book,
“To a group long out of power, this was a tempting strategy. I and the other IR negotiators urged the caucus to be patient with the negotiation process. We pointed out that our temporary 67-66 majority would not hold up when Kostohryz returned, and that it took 68 votes for a quorum to conduct house business. The DFL had already hinted that they might walk out of the chamber thus leaving the IRs one vote shy of a quorum. We encouraged caucus members to attend the negotiation sessions so that they could better understand the volatile, sensitive situation before trying to force us into an untenable position. In the end, the caucus gave us a vote of confidence. Our leadership, although tested, remained solid.”
Contrast Searle’s statesmanlike position with the current House GOP strategy of pretending that their current 67 vote plurality constitutes a quorum, and elbowing Secretary of State Steve Simon aside to “organize” a sham kangaroo House.
Under Minnesota state law:
The secretary of state shall attend at the beginning of each legislative session, to call the members of the house of representatives to order and to preside until a speaker is elected.
There being no 68-member quorum present on Tuesday, Secretary Simon adjourned the session until the following day, which is the only action permitted by law in the absence of a quorum.
All the purported actions taken by the House Republicans to “organize” the House occurred after the House had been adjourned for lack of a quorum and therefore have no effect. In fact, they are pure fantasy, and wholly illegitimate under all historic and legal context. Since then, House Republicans have obstructed Secretary Simon from fulfilling his legal obligation to “preside until a speaker is elected,” by preventing him from entering the House chamber.
The appropriate approach for a Republican challenge to Secretary Simon’s ruling on the quorum issue would have been to submit the question directly to the Supreme Court, themselves.
These issues are now before the state Supreme Court, which will hear oral arguments next Thursday and is expected to issue an opinion promptly, at which point the situation should normalize quickly. On a side note, the Republicans took this as an opportunity to enrich one of their members.
In the meantime, we all continue to “do our jobs” as best we can. For my part, I have meetings with local constituents and stakeholders including the City and the School District to discuss their priorities for the session. Most of my time is being spent finalizing my bills for the session; both meeting with stakeholders and working with staff to improve my bill language.
This includes bills to:
- control the cost of property damage insurance for homeowners associations
- require drug middlemen to pass drug rebates onto the patients taking the drugs
- require health plans to accurately report data about prior authorization and claim denials
- reform zoning practices to reduce the cost of housing
- establish a fair method of charging EV drivers for their road use
- my landmark data privacy law which takes effect this year
This too will pass. I have never had any trouble working with Republican co-authors in either the House or Senate on these kinds of bills. Until power sharing negotiations broke down, I was actively working with Republicans in both chambers on legislation and the designated co-chairs of the agreed-upon House committees were doing the same.
By all accounts, the 1979 session was productive until the end, when House Democrats tried to pull the same kinds of stunts that House Republicans are trying to pull, now, whereupon the session (predictably) blew up. Members treated each other with respect and the work got done on a bipartisan basis. I am still hopeful that we can get back to that point this year, as well.
For my part, I will return to the Capitol when we have a guarantee that the original power sharing agreement will be honored and that House Republicans agree to accept the legitimate election of Rep. Brad Tabke. Until that happens, I will work in our district to meet with constituents, lawmakers, and stakeholders to advance our community’s legislative needs.
My Work Representing You
Like my colleagues,I am working to represent you. Here is some of what I’ve been working on.
It was great to visit MNGI in Bloomington. MNGI is large enough that they are now required to publish their prices under my 2023 health care pricing transparency law. MNGI reports that they are in full compliance and thriving! Learn more here.
Thank you to Bloomington Public Schools for opening their doors for our legislative tour. Understanding Special Education needs was a focus of this visit and it’s an issue that will figure prominently in our budget discussions this year. I want to give a special thank you to the teachers who are so dedicated to this critical work!
I had a wonderful time touring The Works Museum with CEO Jill Measells. The Works is a STEM oriented museum for children focused on interesting children in future careers in engineering and the building trades. It draws much of its funding from the state Legacy Fund. It's always a pleasure to see what great work our public dollars can do!
Keep in Touch
Don’t hesitate to reach out if I can provide any assistance. Please follow me on my Facebook page for further updates and invite your friends and family to do so as well.
Thanks for the honor of representing you at the Capitol.
Sincerely,
Steve Elkins
Representative, District 50B
Minnesota House of Representatives
rep.steve.elkins@house.mn.gov