Minnesota’s House of Representatives convened with all members present Thursday afternoon under a power-sharing deal that ended a weekslong boycott of the session by Democratic-Farmer-Labor lawmakers.

Under the agreement first announced by House leadership Wednesday night, Republicans will control the speakership until the end of 2026. Members elected Rep. Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, to that position on a party-line vote.

There will be some constraints on Demuth’s power, including on appointments to state commissions, but the House GOP negotiation team said it was pleased with the outcome, which came after a 23-day House DFL no-show brought the legislative session to a near halt.“Having a Republican speaker with very little limitations over the next two years is a huge win for Republicans, it is a huge win for Minnesota,” Demuth told reporters Thursday morning.

Demuth will be the first Black speaker and the first Republican woman to hold the position.

“I first want people to consider the fact that I’m qualified to do the job as speaker of the House in the state of Minnesota,” she said. “But I look forward to the day that it will no longer be a surprise or an unusual thing.”

Tie may return

Republicans also will control House committees while they continue to hold a one-seat majority over the DFL. However, when a 67-67 tie likely returns after a special election for a vacant seat in the Roseville area next month, the parties will have co-chairs on committees which will be split evenly between the parties.

One exception to that will be a GOP-created committee aimed at addressing fraud and waste in state government, which will be chaired by a Republican even if a tie returns. It will have five Republicans and three Democratic members, not enough votes for Republicans to file subpoenas without DFL support.

Still, Republicans say they plan to move quickly to introduce legislation to address fraud, which was core to their campaign messaging last year. Pandemic-era fraud by nonprofits cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid, prosecutors allege.

Shakopee House seat

As part of the deal, Republicans also agreed to seat DFL Rep. Brad Tabke, a Shakopee lawmaker whose election they disputed in court after 20 ballots went missing. A court ruled in Tabke’s favor, but Republicans would not commit to honoring the decision — which led House DFLers to boycott session while they had a one-seat disadvantage.

“This agreement honors and protects the will of the voters both in Shakopee and statewide,” said former House Speaker and DFL caucus leader Melissa Hortman. “That is what Democrats have been asking for from the beginning and I’m pleased that this agreement does that.”

Under the deal reached Wednesday, election contests go to the House Ethics Committee, which is evenly divided between the parties. If the DFL and GOP membership have a split decision on the election case, it won’t interfere with Tabke’s seating.

Hortman called the deal a balanced one, as no bills will be able to reach the House floor without cooperation between the parties when a tie returns.

Reaching a deal

House DFL lawmakers had been a no-show at the Capitol since Jan. 14 to prevent Republicans from moving forward with House business on their own.

During the past week, Republicans had turned up the pressure by filing a lawsuit to help them seek fines against absent DFL lawmakers who still collected pay.

In their lawsuit they argued the court should let them force DFL Secretary of State Steve Simon, who has been presiding over floor sessions, to recognize their motions — including the one on pay. The Constitution says House representatives can “compel” the attendance of absent members.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in that case on Thursday morning, despite Republicans filing a motion to delay arguments in anticipation of the deal with the DFL.

Hortman denied the lawsuit had anything to do with the House DFL’s decision to return because they were confident Republicans wouldn’t prevail as the House was not officially operating.

“We thoroughly researched that before we decided to deny a quorum, we knew what the risks were and we felt that the risks were worth undertaking. So we did not have concern about how that lawsuit would come out,” she said. “I think probably more than anything we had reached the moment where it was time.”

On another front, the state Republican Party said it was filing recall election petitions against members who didn’t show up.

No recall petition has prevailed since the state created the process in 1996, though Minnesota GOP Chairman Alex Pechash said they’d still be going forward with the petitions despite the House deal.

Demuth said she thought public pressure might have factored into the DFL decision to return.

Lingering anger

House DFLers and Republicans addressed reporters in separate news conferences on Thursday morning, prompting questions about whether the quorum dispute will do any lasting damage to relationships between lawmakers of either party.

“I think we’ll be able to work together well, but it will take some time,” Hortman said. ”Certainly everybody’s still pretty angry at each other.”

Demuth had a similar answer.

“We know there’s a lot of work to do, and we are going to have to mend fences and build some bridges so that we can work together well,” she said.

What led up to this?

November’s election resulted in a 67-67 tie between the DFL and Republicans, and the sides were negotiating a power-sharing agreement ahead of session.

But now the DFL is one seat down after a candidate in Roseville, Curtis Johnson, was disqualified for not living in the district he ran to represent.

Johnson defeated his GOP opponent by 30 points, so the House tie is expected to return after a special election on March 11.

Republicans still tried to use the opportunity to take control of committees, introduce bills and elect Demuth as speaker when the Legislature convened on Jan. 14.

Then DFLers challenged them in the Supreme Court and won in January, nullifying Republican actions.

The court said the House can’t move forward with business without at least 68 members — a majority of the 134 total seats. Republicans had argued they only needed a majority of 133 current members but lost.

That led to a situation where the House was stalled because there were only 67 Republicans present.

What’s next?

With the House operating once again, the Legislature is back in action. It’s an odd-numbered year, so lawmakers must pass a two-year budget by the end of June or risk a government shutdown.

House lawmakers on Thursday said they are confident they can piece together a proposal with tens of billions in funding for state government by the last day of session on May 19, despite the three-week delay.

The next major step in that process is a state budget outlook update on March 6, when the state will give new figures on revenue and spending projections for the next few years.

It’s after that update that the budget process typically begins in earnest.

The Senate has been operating with less drama. It started the session under a power-sharing deal when it was tied last month, but after a special election last week, there’s a one-seat DFL majority again.