As the stalemate in the Minnesota House approaches its fourth week, both sides seem to agree on one thing.
Let’s never, ever do this again.
Bipartisan interest is forming in the idea of changing state law to create a mechanism to break any future ties in the state House of Representatives. That could prevent another circumstance where the 134-member chamber lands in a 67-67 deadlock.
“It’s sort of an unnatural situation,” said House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman, who noted that on the federal level, the vice president can break a tie in the U.S. Senate. “There’s a whole lot of things that are cropping up here that we don’t want to happen again.”
Rep. Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, said a tiebreaker is an “interesting conversation that maybe this experience can lead to some bipartisan agreement on.”
After the November election, the Minnesota House was evenly split for the first time in decades. Without a way in state law to break a tie, Democrats and Republicans had been negotiating a power-sharing agreement until December, when a court ruled that DFL candidate Curtis Johnson didn’t live in his district and couldn’t take the oath of office.
The 67-66 edge pending a special election to replace Johnson prompted Republicans to back away from power-sharing negotiations. To prevent Republicans from taking power without an agreement, Democrats have boycotted the first three weeks of session to prevent a quorum.
While the stalemate in Minnesota is unprecedented, legislative ties are fairly common across the country. Since the 1960s, there have been more than 40 instances of split legislative chambers in other states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). The legislative bodies in Montana have been tied five times, in Alaska, four times, and Michigan has had three ties.