Supreme Court move shuts down House investigation into fraud

It’s been portrayed as a narrow decision answering the question of “What is a quorum, 67 or 68?” As always in such matters, the decision was handed down on a Friday afternoon to minimize media coverage.

But the implications of yesterday’s state Supreme Court decision will echo for years.

The all-Democrat state Supreme Court decided in favor of the House Democrats. The practical effect of the court decision was to wipe out all the actions taken so far by the House Republican majority since the 2025 session (and Democrat boycott) began on January 14.

Republicans had scheduled a full calendar of committee hearings for what would have been Week 3 of the session. Twenty (20) bills were scheduled for hearings next week. The Supreme Court canceled all those hearings.

As fate would have it, the very first hearing canceled was to have featured your correspondent, Monday at 8:15 a.m. in the Capitol building:

This would have been the first-ever meeting of the newly formed Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy committee, chaired by Rep. Kristin Robbins (R-37A, Maple Grove). You can see my committee handout here and read my pre-filed, written testimony here.

But it wasn’t “fate,” the timing of this shutdown is no coincidence. Since January 14, the House Republican majority has been meeting (without the boycotting Democrats). Republicans have been conducting the business of the chamber in the usual and traditional fashion with a single exception.

That one exception was the creation by Republicans of the Fraud committee, a move which Democrats had opposed. The Supreme Court decision reset the committee list to the list that existed last year, without the Fraud committee.

Despite (or perhaps because of) their Supreme Court victory, Democrats have vowed to continue boycotting House proceedings until March 17. By that date, Democrats figure that they will have won a special election for District 40B, returning them to a 67-67 tie in the chamber.

Another significance of the March 17 date is that the day falls after the first deadline for committees to act on legislation. As a practical matter, this late restart will mean that no “policy” bills can be moved forward in 2025, only bills that address spending and/or taxes.

For those readers cheering “yay!” keep in mind that the only policy bills that were likely to pass in 2025 were those addressing the state’s rampant fraud problem.

So, by picking “68” instead of “67” the state Supreme Court:

-Cancelled anti-fraud and agency oversight hearings

-Disbanded the House anti-fraud committee

-Prevented anti-fraud bills from being passed in 2025

Perhaps it was all for naught, anyway. The state Senate is still operating, and Republicans took advantage of a temporary 33-33 tie in that chamber to force a series of oversight hearings of the state Department of Human Services (DHS).

At Wednesday’s meeting, outgoing DHS Commissioner Jodi Harpstead appeared and provided her philosophical musings on the subject of fraud. Her testimony begins at the 40:45 mark of this two-hour meeting video.

At the 1:00:25 mark, we get to the heart of the matter. Comm. Harpstead states:

We would always expect to deal with some measure of fraud.

She adds at 1:00:47:

What’s an appropriate level of oversight and examination of fraud?

“None,” being her apparent answer judging by the results of recent years. At 1:01:20 Harpstead channels Matthew 24:6, speaking of “fraud and rumors of fraud.”

The purpose of a system is what it does.