Minnesota state Democrats to stage walkout to ban new GOP president

Democratic state representatives in Minnesota staged a walkout Tuesday, failing to show up on the first day of the legislative session to deny the state House a quorum amid a fight over how to run a chamber that should be divided equally.

“We have to accept the election results even if we don’t like them. And the Republicans want to do this kind of crazy revisionist version where they just reject the election results if they don’t like them, and we can’t let them trample on our democracy in this way,” said Rep. Melissa Hortman, Democratic chairwoman.

Voters elected 67 Democrats and 67 Republicans to the House of Representatives in November, and lawmakers began crafting a power-sharing deal for the tied chamber, which requires a quorum of 68 to conduct business. But after a residency challenge unseated one Democrat — forcing a special election for Jan. 28 — and an incident of rejected mail-in ballots called another’s victory into question, Republicans said ‘They planned to take control of the body.

“There is no more equality: someone broke the law. The court ruled that he cannot take office. I think my Democratic colleagues are frustrated by this reality,” the leader said of the Republican majority Lisa Demuth in an interview.

By not showing up, Democrats are preventing Republicans from electing a speaker of the House of Representatives and appointing committee leaders without all expected members present. The Democratic caucus plans to stay away from the Capitol until after the special election in late January, when another Democrat is expected to be elected, giving them more power in the House.

“At noon we will have a total membership of 133 members eligible to take the oath, 68 is usually a quorum, but in these circumstances the way we look at it is that members are eligible to take the oath. the oath of office is 133, which would give us a quorum of 67 members,” Demuth said.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat who controls the body’s gavel when out of session, disagrees.

“If there are not 68 members present, I have no authority to take further action and will adjourn,” Simon said in a letter to leaders last week.

The walkout comes after the failure of negotiations between the parties, which took place late Monday and Tuesday morning. Democrats argue that the vacant seat slated for a special election is a safe Democratic seat, thus maintaining legislative equality, while Republicans insist nothing is set in stone.

National Democrats responded in kind, with the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee announcing a $100,000 investment in the party’s caucus to support candidate David Gottfried, who is seeking a seat that a Democratic candidate won in November by 30 points.

Then there are the issues surrounding state Rep. Brad Tabke, whose victory in November was thrown into question when election officials discovered he had accidentally thrown out 21 mail-in ballots without counting them.

Tabke won by 14 votes in initial counts. After investigating the rejected ballots, a state court upheld Tabke’s victory Tuesday, citing testimony from a sufficient number of voters whose ballots were rejected and who testified under oath that they had voted for Tabke.

But Minnesota the law stipulates that the State The House of Representatives determines Tabke’s eligibility, meaning a Republican majority could force a new election for the seat.

In a statement Tuesday, Hortman said Democrats “have no recourse” but to deny quorum until the special election restores the 67-67 balance.

“Democrats are united in our desire to fight Republican efforts to expel Rep. Brad Tabke from the Minnesota House of Representatives. We cannot allow Republicans to engage in this unprecedented abuse of power and we will use every tool at our disposal to block it,” she said.