Minnesota house Democrats played hooky on Tuesday, skipping the first day of the 2025 legislative session en masse to block their Republican counterparts from taking control.
House Republicans responded by ignoring a ruling from the Democratic secretary of state that they lacked a quorum to proceed and voted to elect house Republican leader Lisa Demuth as speaker.
“There is serious work that needs to be done here in the state of Minnesota,” Demuth said after the session adjourned, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune. “We look forward to when our Democratic colleagues choose to join us and choose to represent the areas voters have elected them.”
House Republicans accused Democrats of skipping work but continuing to collect their paychecks from taxpayers. But Melissa Hortman, house leader of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party said her colleagues had no real choice.
“We had to deny quorum to demonstrate the legal reality that [Republicans] cannot even convene the House of Representatives without bipartisan collaboration,” she told the Star Tribune, calling the Republican proceedings a “sham” and likely “unconstitutional.”
Minnesota Republicans took to X on Tuesday, posting a series of “missing persons” photos of house Democrats on the back of milk cartons. “HAVE YOU SEEN THESE MEMBERS? House Democrats were supposed to be in St. Paul today, but they skipped work and are planning to still collect a paycheck. If you see them, remind them their job isn’t ‘hide and seek’—it’s showing up to serve!”
Simon ruled that the house needs at least 68 of its 134 members present to establish a quorum and proceed with its business. In November, Republicans and Democrats each won 67 house seats, meaning the two parties would have had to negotiate a power-sharing agreement. But a December court ruling added a new wrinkle when a judge found that Democrat Curtis Johnson who decisively won a Twin Cities house seat was ineligible because he didn’t live in the apartment he’d rented to establish residency in the district.
The ruling seemed to give an edge to Republicans heading into the 2025 session.
Governor Tim Walz, who was Democrat Kamala Harris’s running mate last fall, called a special election on January 28 to fill the seat. Republicans sued earlier this month over the timing of the election. Alex Plechash, chair of the state’s Republican Party, said that calling a special election for a vacancy that hadn’t yet occurred “is a flagrant violation of Minnesota election law,” according to news reports.
“The Democrats supported a candidate they knew to be ineligible for the seat, and now they seek to cover up their past wrongful actions by calling an unlawful and hastily scheduled special election,” Plechas said.
Democrats accused Republicans of trying to use the courts to block the seating of their members.
Republicans are also challenging the results of another suburban house seat that Democrat Brad Tabke won by 14 votes, even though 20 absentee ballots in one district went missing and haven’t been included in the vote tally. A judge ruled in favor of Tabke on Tuesday, denying his Republican challenger’s request for a special session.
Minnesota Republicans are trying to reassert themselves after a rough couple of years.
In 2022, Democrats won a surprising but narrow trifecta in state government — control of the house, senate, and governorship — and used that power to turn the state into a progressive laboratory. Democrats enacted a “fundamental right” to abortion, hiked taxes, burned through a $17.5 billion budget surplus in a single session, turned the state into a “trans refuge,” and approved driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants.