Minnesota House Democrats to file suit over GOP’s election of speaker

Minnesota House Democrats said Tuesday they will file a number of lawsuits asking the Minnesota Supreme Court to find that Republicans’ attempt to elect a speaker and conduct business without them was unlawful because they lacked a quorum.

Democratic House leader Rep. Melissa Hortman of Brooklyn Park said she expects the Supreme Court justices will find House Republicans acted unconstitutionally when they ignored Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon’s declaration that there was no quorum in the chamber Tuesday. Republicans continued the session without him and elected their own speaker.

Republicans say their 67 members are all that’s required for a quorum of the current 133 sworn House members, and that they had the right to overturn the ruling of the chair Tuesday.

“What I expect is that the Minnesota Supreme Court would find that the Minnesota House was not duly organized today, that (those) who participated in the sham session violated Minnesota state law and ignored the constitutional requirement of quorum,” Hortman said at a press conference in Shakopee Tuesday. She declined to offer more detail about the lawsuit or lawsuits that will be filed. 

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House Democrats did not appear at the Capitol Tuesday as they attempted to deny the 68-member quorum Simon said is required to conduct House business.

Their goal was to prevent Republicans from using their temporary, one-seat advantage – expected to end after a Jan. 28 special election in a heavily DFL-leaning district – to elect a GOP speaker. They also sought to block Republicans from refusing to seat Rep. Brad Tabke, a Shakopee Democrat who won by 14 votes in a contested election in District 54A. 

During their news conference, Democrats were flanked by Shakopee voters they said would be disenfranchised if Republicans moved to deny Tabke his seat in a bid to force a special election. 

Tabke’s election was contested by Republicans because election workers discarded 20 ballots before counting them. Tabke beat Republican challenger Aaron Paul by just 14 votes, raising the prospect that those lost ballots could have swung the election in his favor. 

Just hours earlier on Tuesday, however, a district court judge ruled that Tabke won reelection and denied Republicans’ request for a special election. District Court Judge Tracy Perzel found that the missing ballots, if counted, would not have changed the election outcome. 

But the judge’s ruling is advisory only: The House and Senate each ultimately have the authority to seat their own members, so a GOP-led House could ignore the judge.

“It’s just really frustrating that … Republicans are trying to steal the election from the voters of Shakopee,” Tabke said Monday.

Hortman said her caucus will continue to boycott the Legislature because Republicans have not given her assurance that they would refrain from attempting to deny Tabke his seat.

She said that despite the boycott, relations remain civil.

“This is not personal. We have a dispute about how to operate the Minnesota House, but we don’t have a dispute with each other personally,” Hortman said. 

Editor’s note: The Minnesota Reformer is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to keeping Minnesotans informed and unearthing stories other outlets can’t or won’t tell. 

Michelle Griffith wrote this story, which originally appeared in the Minnesota Reformer on Jan. 14. Griffith covers Minnesota politics and policy for the Reformer, with a focus on marginalized communities.