In Their Own Words
By Mitch Berg
Melissa Hortman folded her hand yesterday, and said the House DFL would come back to work. Lisa Demuth is the Speaker, and the GOP controls the committees, at least until after the 40B Special on March 11.
There are a few Republicans – largely from the crowd that thinks “Minnesota Gun Rights” is an actual gun rights group in Minnesota – who think it was a defeat for the GOP.
Let’s let a DFLer address that:
For someone who’s gotten a little fatalistic about Minnesota Republicans screwing every pooch that can be screwed, it was a very good day. This is not your fathers House GOP Caucus.
More please.
February 6th, 2025 at 8:22 am
There are a few Republicans – largely from the crowd that thinks “Minnesota Gun Rights” is an actual gun rights group in Minnesota – who think it was a defeat for the GOP.
Specifically Erik Mortensen from
A**holes 4 LarcenyAction for WIBERTY! He was bitching over the fact that this meant the GOP agreed to seat Brad Tabke. The irony there is the only reason Tabke won in November is the number of votes exceeding Tabke’s margin of victory went to Morty via write-in.This is not your fathers House GOP Caucus.
As such, it’s making grift groups like MGR and A4L all the more irrelevant.
February 6th, 2025 at 9:26 am
Minnesota Republicans caved again, agreeing to voluntarily give up power. Cheating Democrats win again. For what? To get the legislature working? Doing what? Cutting state government funding, laying off employees, investigating fraud… hell no. Democrats won’t allow that. We’re headed for a time wasting session with a flurry of last second cram-down legislation that won’t solve the problem.
Even Powerline’s Scott Johnson, a dyed-in-the-wool RINO, says, “Republicans are letting Democrats return from the far end of the limb on which they have crawled out without paying a fair price.”
Golden opportunity squandered.
February 6th, 2025 at 10:02 am
Big,
I’d be interested in seeing where Scott made that statement. What I saw on Twitter was, “This seems to me an overblown claim of victory.” Considering it was a retweet of the MNGOP and the Chair’s claim that it’s because of “overwhelming pressure from the grassroots movement,” I think Scott is accurate with his assessment. OTOH, its Plechash’s job to claim victory for the MN GOP and try to drum up donations. The DFL read the legal tea leaves and wasn’t confident SoS Simon would win.
At firs glance, the MN House GOP got everything they would’ve gotten had a single Democrat broke ranks and crossed the “Union” “Picket Line” and a Quorum was declared. The only thing they didn’t get was a MN Supreme Court Opinion smacking down SoS Steve Simon and allowing the 67 Republicans to issue some sort of enforceable summons to said DFLers. I’d remind any naysayers, that no matter how plain the language in the Constitution is on that issue, we have a whole Court of DFL loyalists that already gave the GOP a loss. Sure they also gave the GOP a “win” on the Special Election timing, but that had no long term effect. This upcoming Case was not a guarantee.
Sure, the DFL gets a fig-leaf concession from the GOP of a “Deal,” and Simon avoids another loss in the Courts (but being a quadruple Scofflaw versus only a thrice Scofflaw isn’t an issue for him). The GOP House got a guaranteed win by foregoing a possible, but not guaranteed, bigger win from the Courts. Any lawyer worth their retainer would tell their client to take the win and move on. Speaker Demuth can be magnanimous in Victory, which is her job as Speaker that needs at least 1 DFL vote to pass anything. The rest of us peasants can mercilessly mock the DFL for their useless tantrum. I know it’ll be part of the 2026 Campaign in my District, even if Peter Fischer finally retires. I also expect that it won’t move the needle very much because the electorate has no long term memory.
February 6th, 2025 at 10:19 am
Smith, check out Powerline, “Who’s Zooming Who” at the last paragraph.
Minnesota House Republicans need to take a day off for soul-searching. What are we doing here? What are we trying to accomplish?
If it’s bipartisanship and business as usual, that’s one thing. If it’s clawing back the state government from fraud and corruption, that’s quite a different thing. Achieving different objectives requires different tactics. We had leverage and power – just go home and let everything burn down until we get real concessions and meaningful changes – but we gave it away in exchange for Lucy promising that this time, she really would play fair, pinky-swear so the media would like us.
Thank God that Trump is advised by people who have their eyes on the ball, not the newspapers.
February 6th, 2025 at 10:59 am
Whether we like it or not, the Legislature had to convene this year due to it being a budget year. If that is literally the only legislation that gets through, I’m good with that.
just go home and let everything burn down until we get real concessions and meaningful changes
LOLOLOLOLOL.
That was *never* going to happen, especially with a DFL Senate and DFL gov.
It’s amazing how misguided some people are where they think a tied House = absolute GOP power. Get a friggin’ grip on reality, please.
February 6th, 2025 at 11:21 am
Big,
There is NO Chance of clawing back anything this Session. The absolute best the GOP can do with 1/2 of the House is stop the worst crap from happening without screwing themselves over for 2026 (which I think is going to be bad for the GOP in MN). Walz is Governor, and the Senate is DFL control. Again, the House needs 1 crossover for anything to get passed.
The Speakership and the Gavels is the big win of the Session because it allows the GOP to start holding those Fraud Hearings. Their only avenue to victory is shining a light on what has been going on and hoping enough swing voting independents finally stop giving the DFL the benefit of the doubt because they “have good intentions.”
The suggestion that the House GOP copy the DFL tactics come March is not a good idea. The MNSC would immediately grant the House DFL the authority compel attendance, and they’d even allow the DFL to pass Bills with only 67 votes. The GOP would immediately lose any moral high ground with the Electorate on the issue of refusing to show up, and the DFL friendly Media would mercilessly flog that horse through November of 2026. If that’s how the GOP tried to respond, I’d say it’s time to call it quits and evacuate the State.
This isn’t a pinky-swear they’ll behave and maybe the Media will like us this time (there are plenty of Republicans in leadership that know the Media will NEVER like the GOP). This is the DFL conceding. Yes, they will be able to save face a bit, but that’s a given in MN.
—–
And now I’m back after reading Scott’s article.
So the GOP and the DFL will have co-chairs. If it is what was originally planned, that means they’ll trade off, so the GOP will only have half the committees’ time to highlight the DFL Fraud Machine. But there will be the House Fraud and Oversight Committee. We’ll have to see how the Democrats try to deflect blame away from the Walz Administration. This isn’t great, but it’s acceptable considering the situation. And if the GOP actually wins the Special Election, all bets are off and the Power Sharing Agreement is moot, as unlikely as that win would be.
Tabke, Tabke, Tabke.
He’s the blunt truth. Tabke was always going to be Seated. Barring an Appeal from the Republican Candidate and a higher Court reversing the Lower Court’s Decision, that was inevitable. Even the Lower Court hemmed and hawed and questioned if it could even rule the Election invalid. The entire issue has been a hot potato that nobody wanted to actually grab. The procedural reality is that all 67 Republicans would need to vote to unseat Tabke, and there aren’t 67 votes in the GOP Caucus. Maybe there could be if there was also 33 or more DFL votes for it, but that’ll never happen. Former Rep. Pat Garofalo has repeatedly said on Garage Logic that this issue should be left to the Courts (while conveniently ignoring that the Court has simultaneously claimed a lack of authority on the issue), and while Pat doesn’t get a vote, I’m sure that there’s a solid block GOP Reps that agree with his position. You can call them squishes or RINO’s, but their votes are the ones that matter. If one of them is your Rep, have at the Endorsement/Primary Challenge. Tabke was being seated. This acknowledgement by Demuth window dressing.
February 6th, 2025 at 12:24 pm
Brad, the legislature does not ‘have’ to convene this year. It could convene IF it had a quorum, which the House presently does not. What happens if no quorum is ever present? The House cannot convene. What happens to the budget bill? Nothing, there is no budget bill. What happens to state government? It shuts down. All Republicans had to do to win was . . . nothing. The government would be shut down until after the next elections, or until after behind-the-scenes negotiations resulted in meaningful concessions.
It’s not me who thinks a tied House gives the stay-at-home party absolute power, that’s the Democrats’ position now as enforced by Steve Simon refusing to let the Republicans convene to compel absent members to attend. I’m not asking for a change, I’m saying that after the special election gives Democrats 67 seats, and they try to convene the session to demand a power-sharing arrangement, then Republicans would have had absolute power if they had the sense to use it by staying home. What are Democrats in the Senate and Governor’s office going to do? Move to compel attendance? They can’t, there’s no quorum, a ruling they sought and got and have been faithfully following. The shoe is on the other foot but the law is the same. Shut down.
February 6th, 2025 at 12:30 pm
Smith, “The MNSC would immediately grant the House DFL the authority compel attendance, and they’d even allow the DFL to pass Bills with only 67 votes.”
Awesome, then we’d know the law, instead of having to guess, instead of playing Calvinball by having Steve Simon make up the rules from day to day.
As for the media not liking Republicans, that’s the point of my first comment. People who govern with their eyes on the Op Ed page instead of their fundamental principles betray the trust of the people who voted for them.
February 6th, 2025 at 12:41 pm
In my humble opinion, too many legislators suffer from Le Petomane Syndrome: they’ve got to DO something.
No, you really don’t. In fact, we’d all be much better off if you didn’t. Half a poisoned loaf is not better than no poisoned loaf at all.
Go home. Stay there. Lock the door, pull the blinds, ignore the phone and the doorbell. Read a good book, maybe start with Conscience of a ConSeservative and go on to Machiavelli. And whatever you do, avoid television and internet like the plague.
February 6th, 2025 at 6:00 pm
Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph!
Hey, I’m not hearing a Harrumph out of you!
Seriously, I think there are Constitutionally mandated functions that need to occur, but yes, let’s have some real obstructionism.
February 7th, 2025 at 9:03 am
I have four neighbors that are very active in the MNGOP. They say that they expect the GOP representatives to do some serious butt kicking. They also say that Lisa Demuth is a true conservative, has a steel spine and will be an excellent speaker.