Retired Crystal Lawmaker Has Been Through a Minnesota House Tie
At the Minnesota State Capitol this week, legislative leaders on both sides of the aisle tried to make sense of Tuesday night’s results.
Here’s Republican House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth of Cold Spring.
“We are at a 67-67 tie in the Minnesota House of Representatives,” Demuth said during a news conference Wednesday afternoon. “When we talked about balance, we wanted a little bit more than that. I will be fully honest with you.”
And here’s her DFL counterpart, House Speaker Melissa Hortman of Brooklyn Park.
“Minnesotans certainly sent us a tied Minnesota house,” said Hortman, during a different news conference. “What they are asking us to do is to work together and be productive, and we are fully prepared to do that.”
The last time there was a tie in the House was in 1979.
“That was the only time we were tied, and I think that was the only time, until now, in state history,” said former DFL Representative Lyndon Carlson of Crystal.
Carlson, the longest-serving legislator in Minnesota history, was a member of the House the last time there was a tie.
Lyndon Carlson served in the Minnesota House from 1973-2020.
“I was on the negotiating team, because then you had to figure out a way to share power,” he said.
Sharing power is something current House members will have to figure out, because there can’t be two House speakers.
In ’79, Carlson said it took them several weeks to come up with a plan.
“And our offer was that we’ll give you the speakership in exchange for having a one vote majority on the rules committee,” Carlson said. “The other caucus accepted that. And the rules committee pretty well drives the agenda of the legislature, and so that was a fair balance of sharing of the power.”
At the Capitol, Hortman was lukewarm on that historical precedent.
“The model the Minnesota Legislature adopted, the Minnesota House adopted in ’79 seems a bit archaic,” she said. “Seems like it’s really not a fit for modern times.”
So, how this all plays out remains to be seen.
Carlson, however, predicts that because this is a budget year, the two sides will find ways to work together.
“In the end, you do have to govern,” Carlson said. “And that will, in and of itself, drive some compromise.”
Related: Rep. Lyndon Carlson, Longest Serving Legislator in MN History, Will Not Seek Re-Election
