Minnesota Democrats ask state Supreme Court to resolve state House power struggle
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon and House Democrats have asked the state’s highest court to intervene party political power struggle that disrupted the start of the 2025 legislature.
Simon, a Democrat, petitioned the Minnesota Supreme Court late Tuesday to declare that he remains legally the speaker of the Minnesota House for the time being, and that Tuesday’s election of GOP leader Lisa Demuth as speaker was invalid. He asked the court to endorse his position that 68 members are needed for the quorum to appear before the chamber can take official action.
“Because the members of the House of Representatives did not have this constitutionally required quorum on January 14, Representative Demuth was not properly elected Speaker and the House cannot conduct business,” Simon’s attorneys wrote. “Until a quorum is present and a Speaker is properly elected, the Secretary remains the Speaker of the House and his role should not be usurped.”
House Democrats are boycotting the opening day of the session in an effort to deny Republicans a quorum and prevent them from exploiting a temporary one-vote majority to dethrone one Democrat and advance the Republican agenda.
Democrats also filed a petition with the Supreme Court late Tuesday, asking the Supreme Court to ban Republican lawmakers from conducting business until at least 68 members are present, and to declare that any actions taken in the meantime “are without lawful authority and therefore be null and void. ”
Demuth called the lawsuits an attack on the constitutional separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches.
“As a member of the executive branch, Secretary Simon has no authority over the proceedings of the House of Representatives, and his role is strictly ceremonial in nature,” Demuth said in a statement.
House Republicans planned to convene a floor session at noon on Wednesday, even as Democrats planned to continue the boycott for a second day. Republicans argue that only 67 members are needed for a quorum because one seat is empty.
The November elections resulted in a tie in the House of Representatives at 67-67, and top leaders from both parties began working out a power-sharing deal under the assumption that they would be evenly split this year. Only one judge declared at the end of last month that a newly elected Democrat did not actually live in his district. That gave Republicans a temporary 67-66 majority until a special election can take place on January 28. Because the district is heavily Democratic, the election is expected to restore the tie.
Democrats are especially concerned because Republicans have threatened to use their two-week majority to reject Democratic Rep. to seat Brad Tabke of Shakopee. He won by just 14 votes in another race, with local officials saying 20 ballots were accidentally destroyed without being counted. A court declared Tabke the legal winner and rejected a GOP effort to force a special election in his swing district.
Attempts to revive a power-sharing deal failed. The House of Representatives’ top Democrat, Melissa Hortman, of Brooklyn Park, said at a news conference Tuesday that Demuth will not commit to letting Tabke keep his seat in the latest negotiations, even though she has offered a deal that would leave Demuth could have acted as a speaker for the entire session. .
State law states that the secretary of state will call the House to order at the beginning of a legislative session and preside over it until a speaker is elected. But the Democratic side of the room was empty when Simon convened the body.
After a clerk attended and only the 67 GOP members responded “present,” Simon declared they did not have a quorum of 68 and was suspended. But Republicans stayed put and chose Demuth as chairman — a move Democrats denounced as an “illegitimate sham with no legal authority.”
This is the first time the Minnesota Legislature has faced such a boycott, but similar staging tactics have been used in other states.
Unlike the House of Representatives, the Minnesota Senate met quietly on Tuesday. The Senate is tied 33-33 ahead of a Jan. 28 special election to fill a deceased senator’s seat. This is expected to restore Democrats’ 34-33 majority. But Senate leaders quietly reached a power-sharing deal that included co-chairs from both parties.