Minnesota House Finally Strikes a Deal
by Sam Richie, AASPMN Lobbyist
After an extended standoff over leadership and committee structure of the Minnesota House of Representatives, leaders of both House caucuses announced a revised power sharing agreement for the 2025-26 biennium that ended the more than three-week stalemate and brought all 133 members of the House to the chamber for the first time in 2025.
House Democrats had been boycotting the legislative session in order to deny House Republicans the quorum needed to conduct business after a judge ruled that then Rep.-elect Curtis Johnson (DFL-Roseville) did not meet residency requirements and vacated his election. The judge’s ruling, combined with Republican threats not to seat Rep. Brad Tabke (DFL-Shakopee) following voting irregularities in the district that he won by a handful of votes, had thrown the previously negotiated 67-67 power sharing agreement into disarray.
Republicans had attempted to use their temporary 67-66 majority to restructure House committees and to elect their own Speaker of the House in an effort to cement a majority for the rest of the biennium. In an effort to prevent this outcome, Democrats took the dramatic step of boycotting the start of the 2025 legislative session altogether. The result was a bizarre juxtaposition of House Republicans holding committee hearings with only GOP members present, while Democrats took meetings with constituents and lobby groups in their districts and posted about their work on social media.
The final agreement will see Republican Rep. Lisa Demuth (R-Cold Spring) become the first Black woman to serve as Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives. Along with the speakership, the House Republican Caucus and its current 67-66 majority will have control of all committees pending the upcoming special election in House District 40B. That seat is believed to be a safe win for the Democrats, so once a special election takes place in early March the House will likely return to a 67-67 tie. If and when that occurs, the negotiations will result in a power sharing agreement with each House committee having two co-chairs and equal committee membership for each caucus, as had been agreed back after the November general election resulted in a 67-67 tie.
The deal negotiated by Speaker Demuth and “Speaker Emeritus” Rep. Melissa Hortman (DFL-Brooklyn Park) also calls for the creation of a new Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Committee, a top priority for Republican members. Republicans will have a 5-3 majority on the committee and maintain that regardless of the special election results.
Things on the Senate side have operated slightly more smoothly over the opening weeks of session, although also not without intrigue. The Senate had an opposite situation arise. Rather than starting with a temporary majority and moving to a power sharing agreement, the Senate began the session with a power sharing agreement in place and has since moved back to a DFL majority following a special election to fill a Minneapolis area Senate seat. While the power sharing agreement is no longer in force, a handful of Senate committees have continued to trade off gavels between Democrats and Republicans, although how long that continues remains to be seen.
The next big inflection point for the 2025 Legislature will be an update to the budget forecast, which will inform lawmakers if there is a surplus or deficit to contend with as they get down to the business of setting the next two year state budget. The previous budget forecast from November indicated a modest surplus in the short term, but warned of a looming deficit in the next biennium. Lawmakers’ spending decisions will be greatly impacted by what they learn in the update they will receive in early March.
Want more? Check out the March 2025 issue of AASP-MN News!