Sen. Paul Gazelka was elected by his Republican colleagues Thursday to be the new majority leader of the Minnesota Senate.
Gazelka will join House Speaker Kurt Daudt, R-Crown, and DFL Gov. Mark Dayton as key elected officials who will set a two-year state budget next year that is expected to be more than $40 billion.
Although legislators have pledged to take up spiking health insurance premiums, tax cuts and transportation projects, some amount of gridlock is likely, given the yawning gap in priorities between Dayton and GOP lawmakers.
Gazelka, a socially conservative insurance agent who lives in Nisswa, took an unlikely path to Senate leadership this week.
Senate Republicans won a sweeping victory in Tuesday's election, flipping six seats to take a narrow 34-33 majority. But Sen. David Hann — the Eden Prairie minority leader who would be the natural choice to lead Republicans after steering them to victory — lost his re-election to Steven Cwodzinski, a retired teacher. So Republicans had to choose a new leader.
Gazelka, who was educated at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla., said he never considered caucus leadership until Hann lost. His wife told him he should go for it, Gazelka said at a news conference, surrounded by the entire GOP caucus.
Gazelka thanked Hann: "We will never forget all the work that he's done," he said. And he struck a conciliatory tone, saying, "You have to build bridges."
Gazelka said the caucus was united with a "sense of direction and destiny."
