St. Paul, MN - Today, at the start of the 2025 Legislative Session, State Representatives Robert Bierman (DFL-Apple Valley) joined his House DFL colleagues in denying quorum in response to the illegal proceedings made by House Republicans - including their invalid election of a House Speaker and an unprecedented threat to deny the seat of a duly elected DFL Representative. Rep. Bierman released the following statement:
“Minnesotans deserve and expect leaders who will stand up for them, and who are capable of engaging in productive bipartisan communication and collaboration to get the job done. We’re not strangers to working with Republicans; working under the 2019-2020 and 2021-2022 allowed us the opportunity to work under the nation’s only divided state legislature- A DFL-led House and a GOP-led Senate. In those years, we were able to pass a state budget with targeted tax cuts, create an emergency insulin access program, ban holding cell phones while driving, and deliver emergency COVID aid to schools, businesses, first responders, and more.
We’re confident a fair power-sharing agreement can be reached- and until then, we plan to work in our districts, working on solutions that keep the residents of District 56 moving forward.”
House Democrats have engaged in power-sharing negotiations with Republicans since the conclusion of the 2024 election. This morning, DFL Leader Hortman offered a compromise to GOP Leader Demuth that would have Republicans run the Minnesota House for the next three weeks while they have a one-seat advantage, until after the outcome of a January 28th special election in a safe DFL district, at which point the Minnesota House would operate under the power-sharing agreement the two leaders negotiated over the past 60 days.
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