Democrats win Minnesota state House special election, setting up shared control of the chamber

Democrats won a Minnesota state House special election Tuesday night, The Associated Press projected, restoring a tie in the chamber and putting an end to a months-long power struggle in the state legislature.

The win in the reliably Democratic 40B state House District, in the northern suburbs of St. Paul, means that control of the chamber will be tied, with Democrats and Republicans each holding 67 seats — and that a power-sharing arrangement reached between the two parties in February is likely to continue.

According to the AP’s projection, Democrat David Gottfried defeated Republican Paul Wikstrom in the special election.

The special election was scheduled after a state court ruled that the Democrat who’d won the race in the district in November, Curtis Johnson, had failed to meet residency requirements and couldn’t be seated. (Johnson defeated Wikstrom in November). Johnson’s exit had given Republicans a temporary one-seat majority in the state House.

Gottfried’s win prevents Republicans from being able to more robustly counter Democratic priorities in the state’s government, with the Democratic Party currently holding the governorship and a narrow one-seat majority in the state Senate.

Tuesday’s special election is the latest chapter in an unusual drama in Minnesota legislative politics that has included a Democratic walkout that turned into a weeks-long boycott of the legislative session, as well as the court ruling that kept the seat empty for months.

Republicans came up with a plan to take control of the chamber after they got their temporary one-seat majority following the court ruling against Johnson. But state House Democrats staged a walkout in January to deny Republicans the necessary quorum to move forward with that plan. The party’s lawmakers declined to show up for the first day of the legislative session on January 14. (Later, the state Supreme Court blocked Republicans’ attempt to convene their own session).

State House Democrats boycotted the chamber for close to three weeks.

In February, Democrats and Republicans settled on a fresh power-sharing arrangement that presumed Democrats would win the March 11 special election and result in a 67-67 tie in the chamber.

Under that deal, Republican state Rep. Lisa Demuth will be the speaker for the next two years. The parties agreed to co-chair the state House’s committees, with each committee requiring an equal number of Democrats and Republicans.

Another part of the deal was that state House Republicans said they wouldn’t take action to remove Democratic state Rep. Brad Tabke, whose narrow 14-vote win in November was called into question when election officials discovered they’d accidentally thrown out 21 absentee ballots without counting them.