DFL residency case has thrown Minnesota legislative session into doubt. Could it have been avoided?

The partisan standoff between Democrats and Republicans in the Minnesota House might never have materialized if the DFL would have backed a different candidate in a Roseville-area election.

The DFL’s decision to support Curtis Johnson’s candidacy for a safely blue Roseville-area House seat has haunted the party since a judge ruled in December that Johnson didn’t live in the district and was ineligible to take office. That ruling turned a 67-67 tie into a 67-66 advantage for House Republicans, prompting GOP lawmakers to back away from a power-sharing agreement with the DFL.

“It’s a colossal screw-up. It would be costly even if it weren’t tied,” said former DFL House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler, who used to help recruit and campaign for candidates in his leadership role. “If you have people who live in the district who are running, why would you be supporting people who don’t live in the district?”

House Republicans are now holding floor sessions and committee hearings on their own, while Democrats are boycotting legislative proceedings until a special election for the Roseville-area seat is held and presumably returns the chamber to a tie. Last week, the Supreme Court invalidated the special election scheduled for Jan. 28, pushing the date out further and potentially extending the stalemate at the Capitol.

Residency issues have caused problems for both parties over the years, though none has had such widespread consequences.

“Why take the risk?” said former GOP Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, who was also involved in her party’s candidate recruitment and vetting. “We all had a House tie on our bingo card. This was a very real possibility.”

State law requires a candidate for the Legislature to have resided in the state for one year and in the district they hope to represent for at least 180 days — roughly six months — by the time of the general election.

The judge found that Johnson, who easily won election in November, lived in Little Canada, not the Roseville apartment he rented to establish residency in the district.

“Johnson’s failure to maintain a residence in District 40B for the entire six months prior to the election was a deliberate, serious, and material violation of Minnesota election law,” Ramsey County Judge Leonardo Castro wrote in his 32-page order that barred the Democrat from taking office.

Johnson, who did not respond to a request for comment, had owned and lived in a home in Little Canada since 2017. He rented the Roseville apartment last year while he said he and his family searched for a “forever home” in the district.

Castro noted that Johnson never hooked up internet service to the apartment even though he works remotely. Based on the totality of evidence, Castro found that Johnson spent “scant time” in the apartment until Oct. 15, when his Republican opponent Paul Wikstrom released an ad questioning his residency.

Democrats were aware of Johnson’s residency issue well before Wikstrom raised it. But they trusted him to move into the district within six months of the election.

“I talked to him at some point in the lead-up to the Senate district endorsing convention and said, ‘You have to for real move to the district,’” House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman said in an interview. She added that Johnson said he signed a lease for the Roseville apartment in March, and Democrats had no reason to believe he wasn’t living there.

“We don’t spy on our members. We don’t do ankle bracelets,” said Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park. “We all think we know something about our candidates, and we may not.”

Local party units, which endorse legislative candidates, will likely start looking closer at residency, Hortman said.

Delegates at the April endorsing convention where Johnson won the DFL’s backing were also aware of questions about his residency, said Bill Fox, treasurer of the Senate District 40 DFL. They still chose to endorse Johnson over Shoreview resident David Gottfried, who’s now running for the seat in the special election.

“The delegates were aware that Curtis needed to move to District 40 to be fully compliant with the law, and those questions were asked, and he did rent an apartment in [District] 40,” Fox said. “Nobody did the surveillance that … Wikstrom did to prove he was paying rent on an apartment that he wasn’t living in.”

Fox said delegates knew Johnson well from his time serving on the Roseville school board and involvement in the community. Before legislative boundaries were redrawn in 2022, he said, Johnson’s Little Canada home was located within the district.

“It was the redistricting that caused Curtis to not live in that area,” Fox said. “It’s not like some interloper from some other place was coming to represent us. This was someone we know who happened to live on the wrong side of Rice Street.”

Johnson also had the support of former state Rep. Jamie Becker-Finn, who endorsed him to be her successor in District 40B.

In an interview, Becker-Finn downplayed her support for Johnson’s candidacy. Like Hortman and Fox, Becker-Finn said she had no reason to believe Johnson wasn’t living in the Roseville apartment.

“Obviously this could have been avoided, but a lot of things had to happen to get to this point,” she said, adding that Johnson should have been more honest about his living situation. “A lot of people had to make a lot of decisions, and a lot of people have responsibility.”

Democrats have argued they’d be in this standoff regardless of the residency case because Republicans have not promised to seat another DFL representative, Brad Tabke of Shakopee, over questions surrounding missing absentee ballots. A judge recently upheld Tabke’s 14-vote victory in the district.

But it was Johnson’s residency issue that first prompted Republicans to back away from power-sharing negotiations with the Democrats.

Residency issues have cropped up for both parties over the years, including a 2018 state Supreme Court ruling that then-Republican Rep. Bob Barrett couldn’t seek re-election because didn’t live in a rental property he owned in his district.

Local activists built a case against Barrett to take to court, leaving campaign materials and a stick outside of the rental property that weren’t touched for days. In court documents, they noted the house was sparsely furnished and didn’t have internet, cable or trash pickup services. Barrett accused Democrats of harassing his family for years, including “peeking in our bedroom windows, sitting in a car at the end of our street and setting up spy cams.”

Former GOP House Minority Leader Marty Seifert, who was involved in candidate recruitment, said Republicans relied on the vetting process from local political units to determine if the candidates they endorsed actually lived in their districts.

“It’s been mostly an honor system,” he said. “You would think that the endorsing conventions would do their jobs and the nominating committee would vet it, but at the end of the day they are put together loosely and they have various standards.”

Seifert said both parties would benefit from requiring proof of residency in the legislative district, such as photo ID, in order to run for office. The Legislature passed a law that took effect this year making that a requirement.

Koch, the former GOP Senate majority leader, said Republicans didn’t just rely on the local vetting process when she was serving — they asked their own questions of candidates.

“Question number one is: Where do you live? And we would look up their addresses, too,” she said. If a candidate lived just on the edge outside of a district, she said, they just had to “suck it up” and walk away.

“You just gotta have a tough talk, that’s it,” Koch said. “I don’t think it pays to mess around.”