Minnesota’s Democratic state representatives walked out Tuesday by failing to show up for the first day of the legislative session to deny a quorum to the state House amid a fight over how to run a chamber that will be evenly divided.
After Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, who controls the House gavel between sessions, adjourned the state House and said there was no quorum, state House Republicans acted anyway to call a legally questionable session in a half-empty chamber and elect a new president.
The 67 Republican members present voted unanimously to elect state Rep. Lisa Demuth as chair, although the appointment will be challenged in court.
State Rep. Melissa Hortman, the Democratic-appointed chairwoman, condemned the proceedings before they even began, saying she expected a “kangaroo court” and a “sham” proceeding, and noted that Democrats would go to court to try to stop them from carrying out business.
“We have to accept the election results even when we don’t like them. And the Republicans want to do this kind of crazy revisionist version where they just throw out the election results if they don’t like them, and we can’t let them trample on the election results like that. our democracy,” Hortman said before the session.
Voters elected 67 Democrats and 67 Republicans to the state House in November, and lawmakers began crafting a power-sharing agreement for the tied chamber, which requires a quorum of 68 to conduct business. But after a residency challenge removed one Democrat from office, forcing a special election on Jan. 28, and an incident of discarded absentee ballots put another’s victory in doubt, Republicans said they planned to take the control of the organism.
“It’s no longer a tie: Someone broke the law. The court ruled that he couldn’t take office. I think my Democratic colleagues are frustrated with that reality,” Demuth said in an interview Monday night.
By not showing up, Democrats are preventing Republicans from electing the state House speaker and naming committee heads without all expected members being present. The Democratic group plans to stay away from the Capitol until after the special election in late January, when another Democrat is expected to be elected, giving them more power in the House.
“At noon, we will have a total body membership of 133 members who are eligible to take the oath, 68 is usually a quorum, but under these circumstances, the way we are looking at it is that members are eligible to take the oath. the oath of office is 133, so that would give us a quorum of 67 members,” Demuth said.
Simon, the secretary of state, made it clear that he did not agree.
“If there are not 68 members present, I have no authority to take further action and will adjourn,” Simon said in a letter to leaders last week. He quickly adjourned the meeting after taking roll call and finding only 67 members on Tuesday.
The strike comes after negotiations between the parties failed, which lasted Monday night and into Tuesday morning. Democrats argue that the seat up for grabs in a special election is a safe Democratic seat, maintaining a legislative tie, while Republicans insist nothing is set in stone.
National Democrats have responded in kind: The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee announced a $100,000 investment in the party’s caucus to broadly support them and the candidate, David Gottfried, who is running for a seat that a Democratic candidate won in November. for 30 points.
Then there are the issues surrounding state Rep. Brad Tabke, whose victory in November was thrown into doubt when election officials discovered they had accidentally discarded 21 absentee ballots without counting them.
Tabke won by 14 votes in the initial count. After investigating the discarded ballots, a state court upheld Tabke’s victory on Tuesday, citing testimony from enough voters whose ballots had been discarded who said under oath that they had voted for Tabke.
But Minnesota law dictates that the state House of Representatives determines Tabke’s eligibility, meaning a Republican majority could force another election for the seat.
In a statement Tuesday, Hortman said Democrats have “no recourse” but to deny a quorum until special elections restore the 67-67 balance.
“Democrats are united in our willingness to fight Republican efforts to expel Rep. Brad Tabke from the Minnesota House of Representatives. “We cannot allow Republicans to engage in this unprecedented abuse of power and we will use every tool at our disposal to block it,” he said.
