American Experiment files brief with Supreme Court on quorum question

Center of the American Experiment filed an amicus brief with the Minnesota Supreme Court this week supporting the position that 67 members constitutes a quorum in the Minnesota House because they represent “a majority of individuals known to have been duly chosen and elected.” American Experiment was joined in their brief by Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, TakeCharge and the Minnesota Voters Alliance. They are represented by Ilan Wurman of the University of Minnesota Law School and Doug Seaton and James Dickey from Upper Midwest Law Center (UMLC).

The dispute will be heard by the Supreme Court on Thursday, January 23, 2025. It was initiated when House Democrats and Secretary of State Steve Simon both petitioned the Court to declare that “Respondents acted unlawfully on January 14, 2025, when they purported to organize the House, elect a Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, and took other actions in the absence of a quorum.”

The amicus brief argued that a quorum was present on January 14 and the actions of the House were lawful:

A hypothetical future representative to a now-unfilled seat has not yet been “chosen” by the electorate, is not a “member” of the house, and cannot exercise any of the functions the Constitution assigns to “each house.” This conclusion, which follows inescapably from the Constitution’s text and structure, is supported by the only available legislative history from the Constitutional Convention; by repeated decisions of this Court; by the settled interpretation of the federal constitutional provision from which Minnesota’s provision was drawn; and from Mason’s manual on legislative procedure.

A lawful quorum now exists in the Minnesota House of Representatives, and members of the minority party, in coordination with executive officials of this state, are effectively proroguing a legitimate session of the state house. The Court should reject such an assault on democracy.

“The Minnesota Constitution is very clear that the presence of a quorum in a legislative body is determined by a majority of the actual members elected,” said John Hinderaker, President of Center of the American Experiment. “It doesn’t say a majority of districts or a majority of future members.”

The complete amicus brief can be found here: