Constitutional Crisis Day 13: the unicameral experiment

The state Senate is now the only remaining legislative chamber.

On Friday afternoon, the all-Democrat MN Supreme Court sided with the minority House Democrats to wipe out the first two weeks of the 2025 legislative session. The House had been operating since January 14 under the control of the majority (67-66) House Republican caucus.

Democrats have vowed not to return to the House chamber until March 17, at the earliest. At that point, Democrats anticipate that the result of a special election for District 40B (Roseville/Shoreview) will have returned their caucus to a 67-67 tie with the Republicans.

Here’s where it gets tricky. The legislative branch in Minnesota is (thankfully) only part-time. The House and Senate sit, at most, for only 16 weeks a year, from mid-January to mid-May, after accounting for holidays and breaks. The 66 House Democrats and 6 Democratic Supreme Court justices have colluded to wipe out the first seven weeks of the 2025 House session leaving only nine remaining.

Plenty of time, you say? Not really.

Using the analogy of a TV game show, a legislative body exists to consider “bills” and pass “laws.” You start with about 3,000 “contestants” (bills) sent to committees for review. Only a few hundred bills move on to later rounds, ultimately producing only a few dozen “winners” that are passed into laws.

When Democrats finally allow the game to begin in late March, we will already be in the late stages. Bills are winnowed down for further consideration via “deadlines,” your bill moves forward in the process, or it dies for the year.

Under the rules, a bill has to continue making progress in both the Senate and House to remain alive for the year. By late March, we will already be up against the 2nd deadline,

In layman’s terms, by March 17, it will already be too late for the legislature to pass any “policy” bills for the year, in regular order, leaving only “budget” or tax bills alive for consideration. By that date, the two policy-only House committees will have to shut down for the year (before they even “officially” began to operate), leaving only finance committees still able to function before the last deadlines.

I, too, generally favor the sentiment that the government which governs the best, governs the least. However, the one bit of useful policy that had a real chance of passing the 2025 legislature were anti-government-fraud measures. Among the two non-starting policy-only House committees would be, conveniently, the anti-fraud one. There is no counter-part Fraud Prevention committee in the state Senate.

As for budget bills, the remaining House finance committees will have only a little more than two weeks to operate and pass bills before the 3rd deadline arrives in early April. Third deadline will be followed by an Easter/Passover break. After members return from the break, there will be only four weeks remaining in the legislative year.

What about a special session, you ask? Only the Governor can call a special session. Traditionally, these sessions are one-day events, with the final results being pre-negotiated before the call is issued.

In the meantime, Minnesota will join Nebraska as the only states with a unicameral (single-chamber) legislative branch. Nebraska has 49 “senators”; Minnesota has 66 currently, with one vacancy.

Since January 14, the state Senate has operated with a 33-33 partisan tie, under a universally-praised “power-sharing” agreement. I’m not kidding about the universal praise. From MPR News last Thursday,

‘The chamber that chose cooperation’: Minnesota Senate sees smoother sailing under temporary tie

That power-sharing agreement will end on Tuesday, with a special election to be held to fill the vacant District 60 (Minneapolis) seat.

It’s a near certainty that after Tuesday, Senate Democrats will again be in a 34-33 majority, ending the brief power-sharing deal. It’s the same one-seat majority that produced America’s most left-wing legislative result in 2023-24.

And keep in mind that, for another year, Democrats must rely on the tie-breaking vote of accused felon Sen. Nicole Mitchell (DFL-Woodbury), who keeps managing to postpone her felony burglary trial.

The upshot of all the chicanery will be to wipe out, effectively, the 2025 session of the state House of Representatives, leaving only the state Senate, standing.

Will the 2025 Senate be as radically left as the 2023-24 version? A group of eight allegedly moderate Democratic senators have declared themselves the “blue dog” caucus, pledging a more centrist approach for 2025.

Keep in mind that these eight voted 100 percent in lock-step with their fellow Democrats the past two years. But with the 2026 elections less than two years away, they feel the need to appear more moderate to voters back home.

That MPR story cited above quotes blue dog leader Sen. Grant Hauschild as stating, without evidence:

Sen. Grant Hauschild, DFL-Hermantown, said he welcomes the GOP perspective on a host of issues — especially on spending, which gets a lot of attention from voters in his large rural district along the North Shore and the Iron Range.

We’ll see whether welcoming a perspective can be converted into more centrist governing after years of one-sided results. For his part, the Center’s John Phelan is unimpressed with the work of the blue dogs, so far in 2025.

It’s not widely appreciated how significant the Republican surge was in the 2024 Minnesota elections. President Trump has earned more votes, and a higher percentage of votes, each time he has appeared on the state ballot (2016, 2020, and 2024).

Voters in November 2024 chose to end the Democratic monopoly on power in Minnesota. But the state Supreme Court members have colluded with fellow Democrats to sideline the House of Representatives in 2025, lest it fall into Republican hands., even temporarily.

In 2024, Minnesotans voted for more conservative government. Let’s see if they can get it.