Unforced errors put DFL House in worse-than-a-tie position, but GOP’s high hopes for a majority could end in court

If the Minnesota House was a tennis match, what has happened to the once-majority DFL caucus would be described as unforced errors.

It was the voters in a handful of districts that turned their four-seat majority into a 67-67 seat tie with Republicans. But since then, the 2025 session has been knocked on its head by a pair of missteps that the DFL House and a pair of DFL elected officials can’t blame on anyone else.

The tie is gone, for now, because a DFL candidate in Roseville didn’t live in his district when he filed for office – or perhaps ever. The 40B DFL caucus and the House DFL campaign committee should have known rather than taking Curtis Johnson’s word for it.

Now a special election to potentially regain that tie is in limbo because the legal declaration signed by Gov. Tim Walz upon the advice of Secretary of State Steve Simon was ruled illegal by the state Supreme Court. Lawyers in both the secretary of state’s office and the governor’s office relied on the wrong section of state law in deciding how soon the election can be held. An election first set for next Tuesday now could be delayed until mid-March.

Walz cited legal interpretations by his counsel, Simon’s counsel, the attorney general’s office and outside lawyers for why he called the election for Jan. 28. Now his office states that he can’t issue the election order until Feb. 5.

That same Supreme Court could partially bail the DFL out, or it could not. It will hear cases Thursday filed by the House DFL and Simon challenging the GOP’s organization of the House. If it agrees with the challengers that 68 votes, not 67, are required to meet the constitutional definition of a quorum, then all that the House GOP has done so far will be voided as well.

But even a court ruling won’t resolve everything. That would be too easy. If the court decides the House needs 68 people present to be a legal quorum to begin the session, the House can’t get to that number unless the House DFL ends its boycott. And that boycott won’t end until the GOP agrees it won’t try to unseat Rep. Brad Tabke of Shakopee, House DFL leaders have repeatedly said.

Tabke was found by election officials and a district court judge to have won reelection in District 54A by 14 votes. But that opinion released more than a week ago isn’t enough for the House GOP leaders to resolve the standoff. They have said they will likely stand in judgment of the judge and could decide to call a new election based on their own reading of the facts presented in court. That is within their constitutional authority, but removing an elected member who prevailed in a court review has never happened.

Won’t a DFL victory in the Roseville special election settle things? Won’t that restore the 67-67 tie and force the DFL and GOP to work cooperatively as was agreed to before Johnson lost his residency challenge?

Again, too easy. Even if that special election in a dominantly DFL Roseville district restores a tied House, the GOP can move to not seat Tabke anyway. That’s because he would be prevented from voting on the matter, and the GOP could prevail with a majority of all members. Unlike a bill that needs 68 votes, a motion to not seat Tabke only needs a majority of those present.

Without an agreement between House GOP leader Lisa Demuth – speaker of the House in the eyes of the GOP members – and former DFL House Speaker Melissa Hortman, the boycott likely will not end, despite a DFL victory in court or at the ballot in Roseville.

There are two different sections of state law that determine when Walz can call a new election. The section of law that Walz should have followed, according to that unanimous Supreme Court ruling, says in the case of a vacancy created by a successful election contest, the governor must wait 22 days from the start of a legislative session to sign the writ. Once signed, state law dictates how many days must pass before an election can be held.

That is likely on March 11.

The same section of law creates a shortcut: If the House passes a resolution stating it does not plan to review the court’s decision, governors can sign the election writ within five days of passage. The House did pass such a resolution on its first day. But was it a legitimate first day of the session in the House? The GOP obviously thinks so:

“The Minnesota House passed a resolution on January 14 which allows the Governor to take action within 5 days – his failure to do so would prevent the writ from being issued until February 5, leaving voters in 40B without representation until March at the earliest,” said House GOP Leader Harry Niska on Friday.

But the timing of Walz’s actions are wrapped up in the same House battle as everything else, because Walz doesn’t recognize the legitimacy of the GOP-only quorum. A top aide rebuffed the usually ceremonial committee of the House sent on the first day to inform Walz that they were ready to begin work. Members of his administration have not responded to requests to appear before House committees. He has publicly sided with the House DFL and Simon’s interpretation of the constitution and statutes that 68 members must be present to even gavel in the House on its first day. Deciding now that the resolution declaring a vacancy in Roseville is legitimate is, therefore, unlikely.

Related: Here’s what happened when Republican House members carried out legislative tradition to tell governor the house is organized

In the meantime, Johnson could well be a duly elected member of the House. That is because in siding with GOP challengers of Walz’s first writ, the Supreme Court also invalidated his declaration that the seat is vacant. The House resolution did the same thing, but at least until the Supreme Court rules after Thursday’s oral arguments, that resolution is in question.

Besides, if DFLers show up with Johnson in tow and he with a certificate of election in hand, the House GOP could quickly move to not seat him as a sort of practice run for a later Tabke unseating. And just like that, the House would be back to a 67-66 GOP advantage.

The difference, however, would be that the DFL members could no longer boycott as a way of denying the House a quorum to organize because they’d given up that bargaining chip by showing up at all.

The Supreme Court has issued a pair of rulings recently that sided with GOP claims against DFL positions: Friday’s ruling on the special election and a complaint about how GOP election judges are appointed in October. And GOP leaders have said they think the current court will be fair and will abide by its ruling. That doesn’t change the fact that the seven-member top court is made up of justices first appointed by DFL governors. One of the most recent – Justice Karl Procaccini – had been Walz’s chief counsel and has recused himself from this case.

The rhetoric has been heightened by the stakes. House DFL Leader Jamie Long calls the House GOP’s organization of the House a coup and compares it to the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol. Lawyers for House GOP leaders this week termed the DFL position on the quorum and Simon’s legal authority to have that determination “a separation-of-powers nightmare” and an “attempt at a hostile takeover of the House.”

Both the House and Senate leadership have said they will follow the court’s interpretation of the constitution and laws implementing the constitution. But as already shown, that is unlikely to resolve the conflict.

On Tuesday, Hortman said she didn’t know if the House boycott of the chambers would last until the Roseville election is settled. A DFL win at the Supreme Court would change the bargaining positions of the two parties – Demuth, for example, would not yet be speaker, and her chamber would no longer be open for business. But Hortman said she thinks a negotiated agreement is a better path to a solution than the courts.

“Both of us have huge downsides, and those are uncertainties that you can control through a settlement agreement,” Hortman said. “If you go to court you have no idea what will happen.”

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.

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