Lori Sturdevant: A Minnesota lesson for the U.S. House quagmire

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Watch the Minnesota Legislature for a few decades and one sees a plethora of political possibilities. Something I saw in 1980 might offer today's U.S. House — stuck for the past two weeks without a permanent speaker — a clue about how to restore the chamber's functionality, and maybe even its respectability.

Return with me to Jan. 22, 1980 — the day that a Republican minority determined which DFLer would become the speaker of the Minnesota House.

The House was tied 67-67 in 1979, and via a painfully negotiated power-sharing deal, Independent-Republican Rod Searle of Waseca served as speaker, while DFLer Irv Anderson of International Falls chaired the Rules Committee.

This awkward arrangement ended with the May 1979 expulsion of one Republican for an alleged campaign law violation and a special election that replaced him with a DFLer. DFLers started the 1980 session with a skinny 68-66 majority.

Anderson seemed like a shoo-in to become speaker. But when I popped my head into the office of IR Rep. Bill Schreiber the day before the 1980 session convened, he advised me not to be too sure about that.

A variation on the expected script was being written, he disclosed. A second DFLer, Fred Norton of St. Paul, the respected chair of the House Appropriations Committee, had agreed to allow his name to be placed in nomination. That meant that there would be three speaker candidates — Anderson, Searle and Norton.

"You get to know people on the other side and you see who is a reasonable, kind person trying to do the right thing," Schreiber explained last week as we tripped down memory lane. "Let's just say Irv wasn't a favorite in our caucus."

When the drama unfolded on Jan. 22, a slow, tense roll call produced the initial tally: 66 Searle, 45 Anderson, 23 Norton; 68 votes were needed for election.

Before Chief Clerk Ed Burdick could announce those results, Searle rose and asked to change his vote from Searle to Norton. The move was a signal to other Republicans. One by one, they too changed their votes.

When all the switching was done about 45 minutes later, the count Burdick announced was Norton 75, Anderson 42, Searle 16 and John Rose, 1. (That was a protest vote by Rep. Doug Carlson of Sandstone, who disliked "getting into bed with the DFL.") Norton had been elected with 26 DFL and 49 Republican votes.

He would serve as speaker for the 1980 session, then be back for one year in 1987 before becoming an appellate judge. Anderson also got to be speaker for three sessions in the 1990s. When he was dumped the second time, his own caucus gave him the boot.

In the press alcove on the House floor that day in January 1980, Gene Lahammer of the Associated Press, the Capitol press corps' numbers maven, had been keeping count of the votes. "Take a good look at this," he said, showing me his copiously marked tally sheet. "You'll never see the likes of this again."

Sadly, Geno did not. He died on Labor Day this year.

But I think there's a chance that in coming weeks, I will see something similar in the U.S. House. That body's majority continues to be unable to elect a speaker to replace the ousted Kevin McCarthy with Republican votes alone.

Whether the House opts now for a temporary arrangement or something more durable, it looks as though some votes from the Democratic minority will be needed to get the House in motion again, and soon. Only the House's most anti-government fringe can much longer tolerate keeping Congress dead in the water.

To be sure, getting today's Republicans to accept a shared-governing arrangement with Democrats won't be as easy as it was in 1980 in Minnesota. Schreiber noted that the Legislature had only adopted party designation in 1974. Extreme partisan loyalty was rarer then. Legislative campaigns were run primarily on shoe-leather, not big-money donations steered by parties. Many legislators felt they owed their electoral support more to civic organizations like the Jaycees than to their political party.

But Schreiber believes that today's elected officials still care deeply about their state and country. And he thinks they may want to know this: "I paid no political price for helping to elect a DFL speaker — none whatsoever, as far as I can recall."

I'd say that the longer the impasse lasts in the U.S. House, the more likely it becomes that a political price will be exacted from those who refuse to reach for a bipartisan solution.

Lori Sturdevant is a retired Star Tribune editorial writer. She's at lsturdevant@startribune.com.