Minnesota’s high court will weigh intervening in a partisan struggle roiling the state Legislature

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The Minnesota Supreme Court will hear arguments Thursday on whether it should wade into a partisan power struggle that has roiled the state House for over a week, with Democratic lawmakers boycotting the state Capitol to try to prevent their Republican colleagues from exploiting their temporary one-seat majority.

Although the standoff is unusual for Minnesota, lawmakers have resorted to the tactic many times elsewhere. They’ve even gone into hiding to prevent state troopers or sergeants-at-arms from dragging members back to their statehouse to ensure enough members are present to conduct business.

A complex chess game has been playing out since the November election resulted in a 67-67 tie in the House. The chamber’s top Democratic and Republican leaders worked out most of a power-sharing agreement, but the deal fell apart after a Ramsey County judge ruled that the Democratic winner of a Roseville-area seat didn’t really live in his district. That meant the session would start with a 67-66 GOP majority pending a special election to fill that seat, which is expected to restore the tie because it’s a heavily Democratic district.

Gov. Tim Walz initially called the special election for Jan. 28, which would have limited the standoff to about two weeks. But the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Democratic governor set the date too early because the seat, vacated by a retiring lawmaker, didn’t officially become open until the Legislature convened last Tuesday. Walz said Friday that he’d probably reschedule it for early March, at least seven weeks away, the earliest he could under the law.

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David Schultz, a political scientist at Hamline University who specializes in election and constitutional law, said the dispute might make for interesting political theater but it’s no way to govern.

“From a spectator’s point of view, it’s great. From a political science professor or law professor’s point of view, it’s a question I should ask on an exam. But from the public interest point of view, it’s absolutely horrible,” Schultz said.

The state’s highest court will tackle the broader dispute Thursday when it hears oral arguments on petitions by Democrats to declare that a quorum under the state constitution and other rules is 68 members present — a majority of the seats — and that everything the GOP has done since convening last week is legally invalid. House Republicans argue that the required quorum for the House to organize itself, elect a speaker and appoint committees is just 67 — a majority of current members.

House Republican leaders said in a filing Tuesday that the Supreme Court should respect the constitutional separation of powers and leave it to lawmakers to find a solution.

“The parties to this dispute, and Minnesota’s voters, have all the tools they need to resolve it themselves. Judicial interference is unnecessary and unwarranted,” their attorneys wrote.

Schultz said he doesn’t think either side is on particularly strong legal ground. Democrats and Republicans alike have taken actions that have contributed to the impasse, so neither is blameless, he said.

The professor predicted that the high court “more likely than not” will rule that the House lacks a quorum. He said the justices also could — and he thinks should — decide both sides’ hands are dirty and decline to step in.

Schultz said it’s an “open question” whether House Republicans have the power to round up absent Democrats and force a quorum of 68. And Schultz said he’s not sure that Republicans would really want to do that anyway.

The fear of being hauled in has subsided a bit among Democrats, who argue that their chamber is not legally organized yet and that Republicans therefore don’t have the legal authority to order the sergeant-at-arms to round them up.

But House Democrats reaffirmed Tuesday that they’re ready to stay away until Republicans agree to go back to the previous power-sharing deal and, crucially, promise not to try to unseat Democratic Rep. Brad Tabke, who won a seat by just 14 votes in a swing district where the GOP would stand a good chance of winning a low-turnout special election. Republicans have refused to give that assurance, even though a Scott County judge declared Tabke the legal winner last week.

The top House Democrat, Melissa Hortman, of Brooklyn Park, conceded Friday that Minnesota’s rules are “rather genteel” and probably don’t allow the sergeant-at-arms or state troopers to dragoon lawmakers back to the Capitol after all.

Hortman, who was speaker for the previous six years when Democrats controlled the House, said she’s even asked the sergeant-at-arms in the past what they can actually do to round up absent members.

“Like, are you going to go bear hug somebody and bring them on in?” she recalled. “And they’re like, ‘Well, we’ll try their cellphone.’”