We’re fighting against Trump’s playbook in the Minnesota House

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of guest commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

For ten days, Republicans lawlessly presided over the Minnesota House, holding sham elections and fake committees. There was no violence, but as the Minnesota Supreme Court’s ruling made clear — they had no constitutional or legal authority to do so. Some reacted to the House Republicans' unconstitutional actions with annoyance, amusement or even indifference, failing to see their actions in the context of this perilous moment for American democracy.

As a national voting rights lawyer with a front-row seat to the first Trump administration, I immediately recognized the House Republicans’ actions for what they are — an experimentation with the same authoritarian tactics mainstreamed by Donald Trump. It’s the Trumpism playbook: Ignore legal limits, break established norms, commandeer institutional resources, pressure institutional actors to accommodate and dare others to stop you.

It’s no accident that Republicans are pushing the boundaries of Minnesota’s democracy at the exact moment as Donald Trump ascends to the White House, flaunting his hostility to democratic norms and any legal limits on his authority. In order to protect democracy, we must see House Republicans’ actions in the context of broader democratic backsliding. Every action, nationally and locally, brings us further down the road toward an anti-democratic society and everyone has a role to play in halting this backslide.

On the first day of session, after Secretary of State Steve Simon adjourned the House for lack of a quorum, Republicans brazenly ousted Simon, unconstitutionally appointed Lisa Demuth as speaker of the House, and commandeered House staff and public communications infrastructure. They didn’t use force, but this amounted to a legislative coup, even if it was the “Minnesota Nice” version. To be clear, the GOP had a lawful path to challenge Simon’s quorum analysis in court. But instead of legally pursuing their far-fetched constitutional interpretation, they waited until Simon left the rostrum and seized power for themselves. That’s not how things work in a democracy.

And though the Supreme Court struck down their unconstitutional ploy, House Republicans continue to abuse power and employ tactics popularized by Trump. They are threatening to steal an election they lost by refusing to seat a duly elected representative, Brad Tabke. Still, Republicans persist. While denying a lawful state election is unprecedented in Minnesota history, it’s lockstep with Trump’s playbook.

Also alarming is how vulnerable our institutions are to these anti-democratic tactics without precedent in Minnesota. For ten days, House Republicans illegally commandeered the House; conducting sham floor sessions, fake committee hearings and bogus bill introductions that looked to the public like “business as usual” when in fact, they were anything but. Despite the active constitutional challenges and the governor’s determination that the House is not constitutionally organized, some still showed up to participate in sham committee hearings and were unintentionally pulled into the fraud being perpetuated on the public and our democratic institutions.

In some ways, this foreshadows the more dangerous erosion of guardrails that we’re seeing right now in Washington, D.C. Business leaders, politicians, lobbyists and even foreign leaders who once warned of Trump’s threat to democracy, now sit beside him, smiling, pledging to help carry out his agenda, or quietly change their policies to avoid angering the leader who has promised revenge on those who don’t obey. It bears repeating: This is not how things are supposed to work in a democracy.

It’s important to recognize what is happening here at home for what it is: a dangerous attempt to push legal limits, violate norms and distort Minnesota’s democratic process. Only weeks into Trump’s second term, the democratic backsliding has already started to feel more like an authoritarian landslide. We cannot afford to follow the same path here at home.

As Minnesotans, we cannot accommodate these Trump tactics or let others normalize or sanitize the threat. Our rights and freedoms are only as secure as the power of the people to protect them for everyone. Our democratic institutions are only as strong as the people who will hold the line to defend them. And that will take all of us.

Emma Greenman is a national voting rights lawyer and a member of the Minnesota House (DFL-Minneapolis).