Incoming Minnesota Legislature will be most diverse ever

Minnesota's incoming Legislature will be the most diverse ever, with several history-makers in its ranks.

When lawmakers convene in January, Democrats Leigh Finke and Alicia Kozlowski will be the state's first transgender and nonbinary legislators, respectively. Zaynab Mohamed, Erin Maye Quade and Clare Oumou Verbeten, all Democrats, will be the first Black women to serve in the state Senate.

DFL Sen. Bobby Joe Champion will be the first Black Senate president. Across the aisle, state Rep. Lisa Demuth will be the first woman and person of color to lead the House Republican Caucus.

"As the demographics continue to shift — to get more diverse, to get younger, to get more inclusive — conversations that have been going on for 100 years, they will look different. And the outcomes will be different," Finke said. "Those outcomes will be more inclusive and more thoughtful, simply because those demographics are in the committees."

The 2023 Legislature will look very different from the last after 71 new members were elected to the 201-member body. There will be no more divided government since Democrats maintained control of the House and flipped the Senate. And for the first time, three of the four legislative leaders will be women: DFL House Speaker Melissa Hortman, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Kari Dziedzic and Republican House Minority Leader Demuth.

Women will outnumber men 19-15 in the Senate DFL, giving the caucus its first-ever female majority. However, there will be only three women in the 33-member Senate Republican Caucus, down from seven before November's midterm elections.

"It is disappointing that we went from seven down to three," said state Sen. Karin Housley, R- Stillwater. "We had some great, great female candidates, and it's just disappointing that their voters chose differently."

Housley noted that two of the three women — she and Sen. Julia Coleman — will serve as assistant minority leaders. "We will continue to represent women and all the people of our districts at the Capitol," Housley said.

The gender makeup of the state House will be 79 men, 54 women and one nonbinary person. The number of women increased slightly from 51 in the previous session.

Demuth said she will take a collaborative approach as House GOP minority leader and seek to "make sure that all voices have a chance to be heard."

"I think hearing each voice and having input is very, very important," said Demuth, who is biracial.

Of the 201 incoming legislators, caucus staff said 35 identify as people of color — more than ever before.

Increased racial diversity means discussions that haven't always happened in years past will occur this session, said Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis, who co-chairs the Minnesota House People of Color and Indigenous (POCI) Caucus.

"Whether it's through housing or environmental justice or, of course, police accountability and our incarceration system, making sure that any policies that we're putting forward in those spaces are actually to the benefit of those who have been most harmed," Agbaje said.

Membership of the DFL-aligned House POCI Caucus has grown to 20 people. Among House Republicans, at least three members identify as people of color, according to a House GOP spokesman.

The incoming Senate DFL will be the "most diverse caucus in Senate history," caucus spokesman Marc Kimball said. Ten Democratic senators are people of color; Mohamed, one of the first Black women in the Senate, will also be the youngest to ever serve in the caucus at age 25.

In the Senate GOP caucus, two members identify as people of color: Eric Lucero, who is Latino, and Steve Green, who is Indigenous.

Openly LGBTQ representation at the Capitol has more than doubled, from five people last session to 11 members next year, according to the LGBTQ Victory Fund. Finke said members have already formed a queer caucus.

"There has been a dearth of successful legislation around LGBTQ rights since marriage [equality]," Finke said. "We need to do a bit of catching up. We need to ban conversion therapy, pass Logan's Law [addressing issues with same-sex couples' parental rights] and then put some real protections in for gender expansive people."