(C) Minnesota Reformer
This story was originally published by Minnesota Reformer and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Normalcy and history: Minnesota House finally gets to work, and with a first-ever Black speaker • Minnesota Reformer [1]
['Michelle Griffith', 'J. Patrick Coolican', 'Christopher Ingraham', 'More From Author', '- February', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar']
Date: 2025-02-06
The 2025 legislative session began over three weeks ago, but Republican and Democratic House members on Thursday shook hands and greeted each other with smiles while walking onto the floor, like they hadn’t seen each other in ages.
Indeed, many were seeing each other in person for the first time this year.
Minnesota House Democrats ended their boycott of the Capitol Thursday after Republicans agreed to a key demand: that Rep. Brad Tabke, DFL-Shakopee, retain his seat after winning a close victory in the south metro and a court challenge to the election contest.
Despite the attacks Republicans targeted at Democrats for the past three weeks for missing work, both sides appeared amicable and thankful to be able to return to normalcy.
House Democrats returned to the Capitol in the minority to provide the 67 Republican lawmakers a quorum — the minimum number of members required to conduct business. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that 68 members are needed. One seat is currently vacant because Democrat Curtis Johnson resigned after a judge said he didn’t live in his district. Democrats are expected to win a March 11 special election for the seat, which will bring the chamber to a 67-67 tie.
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon has been presiding over the chamber while Democrats boycotted, and each day quickly adjourned the House because there wasn’t a quorum.
On Thursday, after Simon declared there was a quorum, members cheered and whooped.
The House then elected Rep. Lisa Demuth as speaker for the entire 2025-2026 term, making the Cold Spring Republican the state’s first Black speaker of the House.
Despite Demuth’s gavel, bills cannot pass the House without 68 votes, so Republicans will not be able to pass bills without at least one Democrat.
Demuth was already elected speaker in January while Democrats were boycotting, but the Supreme Court later ruled the proceedings illegitimate because they didn’t have a quorum.
In her second speakership speech, which was similar to her first, Demuth encouraged “cooperation and civility.”
“As speaker, I will foster a culture of respect and constructive debate in this House. We can agree without being disagreeable,” Demuth said. “We can debate vigorously while seeking common ground. We can prove to Minnesotans that when their leaders work together, their government will work better.
The members then approved the negotiated agreement, which also grants Republicans the gavels of all committees, though that’s only until the special election, assuming it brings the chamber back into a tie. At that point, the two parties will share power.
But the new House Fraud and Agency Oversight Committee will retain a Republican majority even after a tie. Republicans will be able to investigate the wave of fraud throughout the DFL-led state government that has frequented headlines in recent years. The committee will not have subpoena power, however, which could limit the depth of the investigations.
Rep. Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, made the motion to vote on the agreement and acknowledged some misgivings, while defending the agreement’s necessity.
“There are provisions in this agreement that I guarantee every one of us — 133 members — agree with, and some provisions that every one of us … would prefer to be different. Many members of (the Republican) caucus would prefer that the election contest provisions were different,” Niska said, referring to some Republican House members seeking to unseat Tabke.
The House overwhelmingly voted in favor of the agreement, 131-2, with new Republican Reps. Drew Roach of Farmington and Tom Dippel of Cottage Grove voting against it. Roach said on X that unseating Tabke “should be the top priority.”
House committees will begin holding hearings on bills Monday.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://minnesotareformer.com/2025/02/06/normalcy-and-history-minnesota-house-finally-gets-to-work-and-with-a-first-ever-black-speaker/
Published and (C) by Minnesota Reformer
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/MnReformer/
