Legislative chaos goes bicameral: Mitchell issue returns to tied Senate; House can’t officially meet without DFL

So the Minnesota Supreme Court settled the ugly partisan dispute over math on Friday. Does that mean the state Legislature can get back to normal, convene the House and Senate and officially convene the 2025 session?

You’re not from here, are you?

The House remained where it was on Jan. 14, a body that Secretary of State Steve Simon says does not have enough members present to organize itself and do anything except adjourn. And as though it was jealous of all the public and media attention the House was enjoying, the previously placid Senate launched into a reprise of the fight last year over a member charged with a felony.

Both bodies continue to lack clear constitutional majorities to do much of anything – although the Senate is at least properly convened and has an end of turmoil in sight. Tuesday’s special election in the overwhelmingly DFL 60th Senate District will return the DFL to a 34-33 majority sometime next week.

The House? Not so much. The soonest a special election can be held to return the House to a 67-67 tie is mid-March – seven weeks.  

The Senate began the day with Republican leaders passing the word that they would try to expel DFL Sen. Nicole Mitchell of Woodbury. It was similar to motions made last year, but the Senate GOP and DFL are in the midst of a bit of a love fest after agreeing to temporarily share power while the body is temporarily tied 33-33. The Senate caucuses take turns, alternating which side presides over the Senate floor and which party holds the gavel in committee meetings.

While that will end when DFLer Doron Clark is sworn in to replace the late Sen. Kari Dziedzic in Senate District 60, the amity has been almost unsettling, given 21st century politics and the end of the 2024 session. That was when DFLers passed much of the work of the session via a single 1,400-page bill with no debate allowed.

The two-week era of good feelings is what made the Monday motion to expel Mitchell seem like both the ghost of sessions past and the ghost of sessions future simultaneously.

Mitchell’s trial on felony burglary was to have begun in Becker County Monday. But she belatedly invoked the privilege given members of the Legislature to not face trials during the legislative session. Her won’t start until June. Mitchell was arrested April 22 in the basement of her estranged stepmother’s house in Detroit Lakes. She has said she entered the house to retrieve belongings of her deceased father, but her stepmother called police when she stepped on someone in her bedroom.

Sen. Jordan Rasmusson, R-Fergus Falls, said it was both the alleged crime and the use of her Senate privilege that led him to move to expel her Monday.

“Today, the trial was supposed to start up in Becker County and she used her privilege to delay that proceeding,” Rasmusson said. “She just continues to play the process off against itself.”

The odds were long, as it would take a two-thirds vote to expel Mitchell. Sure, some fellow DFLers aren’t happy with her, but they might not go so far as to vote to expel her. And then those odds got longer when the DFL avoided the vote by moving that the motion was out of order. Senate rules require an investigation and hearing, and those have been halted until the trial concludes.

“This debate today is about fundamental principles,” said Senate DFL leader Erin Murphy, of St. Paul. “The rule of law. Due process. Representation. And your ability to have a trial by jurors, by your peers.” Murphy has said Mitchell should not make the decision on whether to resign until a trial is concluded, leaving open the chances of her removal should she be convicted.

That DFL leadership turned the up-or-down vote on Mitchell’s worthiness to serve into a procedural vote is significant. By unwritten rules of legislative bodies, members are allegedly free to vote their conscience on bills and issues. But they commit to vote with their caucus leaders on procedural votes. Even Mitchell voted to uphold a ruling by DFL Senate President Bobby Joe Champion that the expulsion motion was out of order, a ruling upheld on a tie vote of 33-33.

But that’s legislative process and parliamentary procedure. Beyond that, the motion yet again showed the awkward box Mitchell has placed her DFL colleagues in. Murphy has said she wanted the trial to begin this week to resolve the charges once and for all. Absent that, Mitchell continues to be banned from committee membership and remains disinvited from DFL caucus meetings.

Later in the day, the House switched places with the Senate when it became the more-tranquil chamber. Not tranquil exactly, but more so than the Senate.

In an abbreviated repeat of the first day of the session way back on Jan. 14, Simon convened the House. After a prayer, a moment of silence for Holocaust Remembrance Day and a taking of the roll on the electronic voting machine, he adjourned the House because it lacked a quorum. While there were 67 Republicans in their seats, Simon acted on a Friday ruling of the state Supreme Court that it takes 68 votes for a quorum to be present. With House DFLers continuing their boycott, that number wasn’t reached and won’t be reached until they return.

Related: After calling Minnesota House ‘dysfunctional,’ Supreme Court rules in DFL’s favor

Simon did not entertain motions from the GOP that would have had them decide when the House will reconvene and then order the missing members be docked their pay and per diem until they return. Simon has said no action can be taken minus a quorum. The GOP pointed to constitutional provisions that allow less than a quorum to approve adjournment and to direct missing members to be compelled to attend.

Rep. Harry Niska, the No. 2 leader among House Republicans, said Simon should have taken the motions and suggested the issue of how much power the secretary of state should have might call for a return to the court.

“The state Supreme Court helped contribute to this mess. They may have to clean it up,” the Rogers Republican said.

House GOP Leader Lisa Demuth has returned to her seat on the floor two weeks after being elected the first Republican woman speaker and the first person of color of either party to hold the job. That is just one of the actions taken by the GOP since Jan. 14 that was nullified by the court. After the brief session Monday, the Cold Spring lawmaker repeated her calls for DFL members to attend.

“House Republicans, now on week three, are here to do the work that we were elected to do by the people of Minnesota,” she said. “We will continue doing that. We are hearing from across the state that the best thing that could happen is that Democrats show up for work, get to work with their Republican colleagues and find a pathway through.”

There have been negotiations between DFL leader Melissa Hortman and Demuth but they have not been successful. If a quorum is achieved, Republicans will have a 67-66 majority, at least until a special election is held in Roseville to fill a seat won by the DFL in an election that was voided because the winner does not live in the district.

Until then, Demuth could be elected speaker and keep that job for the two-year term of this Legislature. That would remain even when the DFL regains a 67-67 tie. And Republicans could try to unseat a DFL election winner from Shakopee over their concerns about election irregularities.

Rep. Brad Tabke won on election night by 14 votes, prevailed in a recount and won a court review of the election. DFLers have said they won’t show up until Demuth agrees to let Tabke serve unthreatened by removal by the GOP. They also want Demuth to agree to a co-speakership once the Roseville election is resolved.

Related: Is Minnesota House GOP ignoring the courts in dispute over Tabke’s seat? Not really

Hortman was mostly matter of fact late Monday afternoon. The Brooklyn Park DFLer, who had been the House speaker from 2019 through 2023, said talks with Demuth continue and she was optimistic an agreement could be reached.

“The Minnesota Supreme Court decision clarified things for both Democrats and Republicans,” Hortman said. “We know where the white lines are spray painted on the field. Hopefully with three days behind us and three days in front of us maybe we can get to an agreement.

“My hope would be for sure by the end of the week, if not tomorrow,” Hortman said.

Editor’s note: Peter Callaghan wrote this story for MinnPost.com. Callaghan covers state government for MinnPost. 

This article first appeared on MinnPost and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

MinnPost is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization whose mission is to provide high-quality journalism for people who care about Minnesota.