How committee structure in Minnesota Legislature will shape 2025 session

Legislative leaders announced this week who will chair committees in the next session, appointments that will shape the tenor of debate in the Minnesota House that will almost certainly be evenly divided in a rare tie between DFLers and Republicans.

Bills are typically debated and amended in at least one committee before going before the full House for a vote. In a typical year, bills could pass out of committee on a partisan vote. But the two caucus leaders, Rep. Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park and Rep. Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, say committees will consist of an equal number of representatives from each party. And next year’s rules will require a majority for a bill to pass out of committee — and not just a majority of the representatives present. For example, on a 14-person committee, eight representatives will have to vote for the bill, even if not all 14 members are present for a vote.

“So that we’re not playing the ‘who went to the bathroom’ game or, ‘whose car got stuck in the snow’,” Hortman said. “That was part of the problem they encountered in 1979,” the last year the House was tied.

Instead of trying to find a partisan advantage at any opportunity, Hortman and Demuth said they both want to work on a bipartisan basis.

When a bill comes out of committee, Hortman said, it will already have bipartisan support. She compared the process of finding bipartisan agreement on a bill in committee to conference committees during divided government. When the DFL controlled the House and Republicans controlled the Senate from 2019 to 2022, Republicans and Democrats had to come to agreements on bills, she said. She and Demuth are confident that can happen again.

In a normal year with one party in the majority, the majority party would appoint representatives to run committees. But this year, each committee will have two co-chairs, one from each party.

Hortman said the plan is for the Republican and Democratic co-chairs to each lead about half of the committee meetings, setting the agenda for the day. Maybe that will mean a week of DFL-run meetings followed by a week of Republican-run meetings, she said, but more likely the partisan co-chairs will alternate days.

Demuth and Hortman said they worked together to decide how many committees there would be and which subjects they would work on. The caucuses appointed committee co-chairs independent of each other. Demuth said she was focused on seniority and subject-area expertise.

One exception to seniority is the Rules and Legislative Administration committee. The Republican co-chair of that committee is Rep. Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, who was elected to his second term this month. Demuth explained that Niska will co-chair that committee because the Republican caucus elected him their deputy leader.

The Rules committee will be co-chaired by one of the more powerful Democrats in the House: Rep. Jamie Long, DFL-Minneapolis. Long is one of three representatives on the DFL’s “organizational team” working just under Hortman.

With the two parties unlikely to find much common ground on policy legislation, most expect the main action of the 2025 legislative session will be the biennial budget, with a chance to pass a bonding bill to borrow for major one-time spending. Because Minnesota requires a 60% supermajority to pass a bonding bill, the process is typically more bipartisan.

Recommendations for bonding go through the Capital Investment Committee, which will be co-chaired by Rep. Mary Franson, R-Alexandria, and Rep. Fue Lee, DFL-Minneapolis. Lee chaired the Capital Investment Committee last session, and Franson was also a member.

“The legislative process is all about finding compromise that can work,” Hortman said.

“We are ready to get to work,” added Demuth.