The Minnesota House will likely be tied 67-67 between the DFL and Republican parties, breaking the two-year-long DFL trifecta.
Minnesota House Republicans flipped three House seats to end the DFL trifecta, however, with one of the elections mandating a recount another seat is still in play.
House DFL incumbents Rep. Dan Wolgamott (DFL-St. Cloud) and Rep. Brad Tabke, (DFL-Shakopee) won by the thinnest margins in the Minnesota general election on Nov. 5. Wolgamott initially won by 28 votes before an updated count increased his lead to 191 votes, meanwhile, Tabke won by 13 votes.
Scott County, which covers Shakopee, is recounting Tabke’s votes election starting Thursday, according to the KSTP.
The Minnesota Constitution forbids the House from having two speakers at the same time, so if the recount in Shakopee does not flip the result, the parties will need to come up with a power-sharing agreement, MPR News reported. That agreement could mean one party gets the House speakership while the other holds important positions in House committees.
“I think one really good thing about having a power-sharing agreement is you wouldn’t have that kind of dynamic on the floor where one party lays down on the railroad tracks and another party feels like they have to go to extraordinary means to pass bills,” current House Speaker Melissa Hortman (DFL-Brooklyn Park) said in a press conference.
Given the national shift toward Republicans this election, University political science Professor Dan Myers said Republicans breaking the DFL trifecta is not surprising. Myers said the DFL trifecta was thinly held by a few seats in both the House and Senate.
“Nationally we saw a shift towards Republicans,” Myers said. “We probably saw a little bit less of one in Minnesota and probably even less of one at the house, but just a couple hundred votes in the right places was enough to change the balance of power.”
In a Nov. 7 press conference, Hortman said while disappointing, this tie is an opportunity to show bipartisanship and compromise.
“We would prefer to have the majority, and I know the Republicans would prefer to have the majority, but this is a golden opportunity to show people that we can get along and we can get things done,” Hortman said in the conference.
Expected Republican speaker Lisa Demuth (R-Cold Spring) said in a press conference that the tie accomplished the Republican’s goal of bringing balance back into the state legislature. Demuth mirrored Hortman’s sentiments and said this is an opportunity to “work across the aisle.”
“This is the opportunity for us to work together with our colleagues, the Democrats, across the aisle and find ways to best serve Minnesotans,” Demuth said at the conference.
Myers said the recounts will likely change the results so he expects the state legislature to accept the 67-67 tie.
“With recounts, we find out that actually our election systems work pretty well,” Myers said. “That’s close enough that it’s possible, but it would be pretty unusual for it to (change).”
The last time the Minnesota House had a tie was in 1979, when it was decided that the secretary of state would hold the House speaker’s gavel until the tie was broken by a majority, according to the Minnesota House of Representatives website.
Myers said it’s difficult to predict how the next legislative session will turn out until a budget is passed. However, Myers said he is cautiously optimistic that there will be efforts to compromise and possibly pass a bonding bill, which was not done last session.
There is still a chance one party could gain a complete majority in the House this legislative session, Myers said. If a House member steps away from their seat due to health problems or if they resign, one of the parties would briefly hold the majority until a special election.
“My guess is it would be unusual if no one during the entire session resigns or has serious health problems or something else,” Myers said. “The other question I think is whether this turns into an R or DFL majority at some point during the session.”
