Who is Republican Lisa Demuth, Minnesota’s first House speaker of color?

Minnesota Rep. Lisa Demuth made history on two fronts Thursday, becoming the first person of color and the first female Republican to lead the 134-member House.

Demuth, who lives in Cold Spring, said at a news conference that both milestones are an honor, “but I look forward to the day that it will no longer be a surprise or an unusual thing.”

Thursday in the House chamber, Secretary of State Steve Simon and Demuth shared a prolonged handshake on the podium when he handed her the speaker’s gavel after the 67-65 vote in her favor. (One member didn’t vote, and one seat is vacant.) Demuth and Simon had been at odds since Jan. 14 over whether the House could legally convene with just 67 Republicans present as DFLers boycotted.

Addressing the House as speaker for the first time. Demuth said, “The significance of this great honor doesn’t escape me.”

She promised to lead with integrity, respect and a focus on delivering results. “They expect us to rise above the politics and to find solutions together and to prove that government can and will work for them. Minnesotans are counting on us,” she said.

Demuth pledged that her door will always be open, and she encouraged colleagues to lead with integrity and a focus on their love for the state. “We can debate vigorously while seeking common ground,” she said.

The Paynesville native, who turns 58 on Monday, took over as the leader of the GOP caucus from former House Speaker Kurt Daudt, of Crown, in November 2022. Elected to the House in 2018, Demuth had been an assistant majority leader to Daudt.

“My style of leadership has always been very collaborative, wanting to work together,” Demuth said Thursday.

For the 2023 and 2024 sessions, Demuth was minority leader, countering Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park. Hortman said Thursday that she and Demuth had a good working relationship until the recent dispute over who would run the House.

As a leader for the past two years, Demuth has been seen as an open, friendly presence who is simultaneously a fierce, informed advocate for the party.

When the 2023 session ended with Republicans yelling in outcry over a massive spending bill, Demuth was at the forefront, sharply denouncing the DFL tactics at an impromptu press conference outside the chamber with Republicans huddled behind her.

On Thursday, she spoke about mending fences and working together again. She said she also considers her election to a fourth term as a state representative an honor, being just one of 5,000 Minnesotans to ever hold a seat in the House. “There is an awe when you walk in,” she said of the House chamber.

While campaigning for office, Demuth said she’d find herself on the doorsteps of families she knew as a child in Paynesville, near her current home in Cold Spring in central Minnesota.

Before her election to the House, she was elected as a write-in candidate to the Rocori school board in 2007 and re-elected twice.

Demuth, whose mother is white and whose father is Black, said her parents eventually moved to south Minneapolis, where she spent her teen years. She graduated from Bloomington’s John F. Kennedy Jr. High School in 1985, has four adult children with six grandchildren and another due in a few months.

After high school, Demuth went straight into the workforce, buying and managing commercial properties.

Her husband, Nick Demuth, is president of Avon Plastics in Paynesville. Their last name rhymes with Namath, as in Joe Namath, the NFL Hall of Fame quarterback.

Demuth said she and her husband live on a lake and enjoy spending time on the water and with their nearly 14-year-old yellow Labrador retriever, Marley.

When she has time, Demuth said she likes to read historical fiction, especially Kristin Hannah. She’s a baker with a favored family recipe for sugar cookies. In times of stress, she reaches for spicy foods such as chips and melted cheese with hot peppers.

As a busy legislator, Demuth said she brings her own lunch every day and it’s always the same: a peanut butter sandwich on 12-grain bread with butter, no jelly.

After the final round of negotiations Wednesday night, she said she was so hungry that she sprinkled cayenne pepper on tuna and ate it out of a can. On a call with her husband, she said he informed her that he’d prepared and set aside Tater Tot hot dish for her to bring back to her apartment next week.

She’s consistently downplayed her historical status, saying she believes she’s earned the position on merit.

In November 2022 when she took over to lead the caucus, Demuth said, “I don’t need to check a box.”

Back then, Demuth said she had a different approach to her leadership than Daudt.

“What you’re going to see from me is the desire to work with the Democrats when there are reasonable provisions that we could agree on, but there will be no hesitation of standing against those policies or ideas that come across both in committee and on the floor that would hurt Minnesotans,” she said.

On the potential for working with DFLers, she said then, “the conversation is wide open.”

She also said then that her collaborative approach extends to fellow Republicans. “As a leader, I’m not going to come in and say, ‘Here’s our priorities, now get behind them.’”

At the time, she defined her ultimate goal and measure of success: reclaiming control of the House for the GOP. The party came close enough for her historic selection as speaker.