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Democratic House seats remain empty in protest as Republican House members are sworn in at the beginning of the state legislative session in St. Paul, Minn., on Tuesday, January 14, 2025.Renuface Jones Schneider/ZUMA
Legislative business in Minnesota’s 2025-2026 state House session began Tuesday at noon Central Time; or perhaps it hasn’t begun at all. It depends whom you ask.
The 66 members of the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), Minnesota’s affiliate of the national Democratic Party, elected to its lower chamber did not show up; these Democrats argue that work can’t begin until after a January 28 special election takes place to fill an open seat in a blue district.
With that seat unfilled, the Republicans lead the chamber 67-66. It’s a temporary advantage the party has vowed to use to try unseating Democratic state representative Rep. Brad Tabke, which could help them cement the GOP’s interim edge for the remainder of the term. Perhaps more importantly, Republicans used the Democrats’ absence on Tuesday to vote in a Republican House speaker.
Whether that stealth vote for House speaker was legal is an open question: Minnesota’s secretary of state, the state legislature’s presiding officer, had already concluded legislative business for the day on account of the DFL absences—which prevented Republicans from meeting the quorum threshold of 68 members. Republicans ignored the secretary and held the speaker vote anyway. On Tuesday evening, the secretary of state said he intended to challenge the speaker vote in court.
Minnesota Democrats’ dilemma is much broader than control over one seat or a brief period in the minority. If the Republicans’ speaker vote is deemed lawful, they’ll have control over committee leadership and the speakership—and thus legislative priorities—for the next two years, even if the chamber becomes tied after the blue district’s special election in two weeks. On a broader scale, Democrats say that Republicans’ proceeding without a quorum is a continuation of the national party’s efforts to disenfranchise voters, such as through Donald Trump’s 2020 election denialism, as well as recent efforts by North Carolina’s conservative state Supreme Court majority to unseat a Democrat elected to the bench.
“A little over a week ago our nation marked the four-year anniversary of January 6th, when Donald Trump inspired a violent mob to storm the US Capitol and overturn a free and fair election. As we’ve seen in the start of 2025, Republican attempts to disenfranchise voters don’t stop there,” Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement to Mother Jones. “Minnesota Republicans are now attempting to subvert the will of the people and ram through Republican leadership in the state House when they did not win a majority of seats.”
Republicans did not win a majority of Minnesota’s state House seats in November. Instead, each party won 67 of 134 seats, which was expected to result in the DFL and Republican parties governing through a power-sharing agreement. (The Minnesota state Senate, which is evenly split 33-33 due to a recent death, is using a similar governing structure until their own January 28 special election.)
But over the last three months, two Democrats’ state House seats have come under scrutiny. Democrats (temporarily) lost the first seat due to their own unforced error. In one liberal district, Democrats elected a representative who had not met a requirement to live in the district for at least six months prior to the general election. After a December court ruling, that representative resigned. Though the party is likely to regain the seat after the special election, bringing the House split back to 67 legislators per party, insiders say it would take a true majority of 68 or more members to retake leadership.
The other seat at issue is that of incumbent Rep. Tabke, a Democrat who won by 14 votes. After the election, officials discovered they’d accidentally discarded about 20 absentee ballots before counting them, putting Tabke’s win on hold. But on Tuesday morning, a court upheld his win, after hearing testimonies from multiple Tabke voters whose ballots were thrown out. “Brad Tabke remains the candidate with the most votes legally cast,” the judge wrote. “This election is not invalid.”
Still, state Republicans say they do not yet recognize Tabke’s win, and may try to force another special election, this one in a competitive district that could net them another seat. Rep. Lisa Demuth, the GOP lawmaker ostensibly voted House speaker, said in a statement that the state’s constitution empowers each legislative chamber to judge election returns, and that the party will “evaluate this lengthy ruling and consider options in the coming days.”
Republicans also argue that they did have quorum on Tuesday afternoon. While legislative work typically requires a quorum of at least 68 of 134 members present, Republicans say that until the open seat is filled in late January, 67 members fulfills the quorum requirement. With that purported majority, they can try to make an even bigger one.
“Everyone hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” says Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor spokesperson Darwin Forsyth, “but denying quorum is the only tool that we have to prevent Republicans from expelling a duly-elected Democrat from the legislature.”
