Minnesota Democrats walk out in protest of GOP speaker vote: report

The legislative session in Minnesota opened Tuesday to a brutal proxy fight and a Democratic-led boycott over who will control the House chamber after voters in November sent an equal amount of Democratic and Republican lawmakers to the state House.

Democratic state representatives refused to show up to the state Capitol in Saint Paul after negotiations collapsed over a “power-sharing agreement” for how to manage the tied chamber, NBC News reported. Their shunning of the first day of the state’s legislative session effectively denied the state House the quorum it needed to elect a new speaker.

Nevertheless, Minnesota Republicans pressed on and elected a new speaker anyway, though as NBC News noted, the move is “legally questionable” and expected to be disputed in court.

State Rep. Melissa Hortman, the Democrats’ speaker-designate, previewed the political clash even before the speaker vote began. She said in a statement on the eve of the legislative session’s opening day that Republicans “are not legally entitled” to conduct House business being one member shy of the required 68-member quorum.

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“It is extremely concerning that Republicans are escalating this situation to the point where they declare they will take unlawful action to ignore Minnesota’s secretary of state and conduct a kangaroo court in the Minnesota House of Representatives,” Hortman said Monday. “Republicans are trying to use a two-week, one-vote edge to seize control of the Minnesota House for two years. This would ignore the will of the voters."

The state’s Democratic caucus plans to stretch their protest for nearly three weeks until after a special election is held in late January, according to NBC News. A residency challenge removed one Democrat from office, and “an incident of tossed absentee ballots” called another Democratic lawmaker’s victory into question, the network reported.

Minnesota’s Democratic Secretary of State, Steve Simon, made clear he disagreed with the House GOP’s reasoning for moving forward with the speaker vote and “promptly adjourned the session after taking the roll call and finding just 67 members on Tuesday,” NBC News said.

Meanwhile, former Democratic vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz will deliver his sixth State of the State address Tuesday night, according to media reports.