A Break Down About the Ongoing Minnesota Legislative Standoff!

[00:00:12] Welcome to The Break Down with Brodkorb and Becky, a weekly podcast that breaks down politics, policy, and current affairs. I'm Becky Scherr. And I'm Michael Brodkorb. We are kicking off the week with a live show less than 24 hours before the start of the legislative session. Or has it already started with the big news over the weekend? Any chaos that we thought was going on related to the Minnesota House of Representatives has been amplified over the weekend with a secret swearing-in ceremony for House Democrats that was held off-site on Sunday.

[00:00:41] Today, we are going to break down what happened, why it happened, and what it means for the 2025 session, and, to be frank, the future of Minnesota state politics. We will get into some of the controversies surrounding the swearing-in and seating of House District 54A's candidate, Brad Tapkey, a race that we have covered to discuss the missing ballots and potential new election.

[00:01:01] And we will briefly hit on the joint statement from the Minnesota Senate, who came to a power-sharing agreement for the time being, leading up to the special election on January 28th to fill the seat vacated by the recent passing of Senator Kerry Dietzik. Thanks for joining us and enjoy the show. Michael, was secret swearing-in 48 hours before official swearing-in on your bingo card for 2025? It was not. And I want to, first of all, I want to apologize for the technical difficulties. We were trying to do this on a different platform.

[00:01:31] We had some slight issues, but we're figuring it out, and I am completely and totally to blame. But I'm somewhat to blame because I wasn't expecting to do a live show today. I was hoping that today would be a holy day because the Vikings are in the playoffs. But apparently, we can't have nice things in Minnesota. No, this was not on my, let me say this to you.

[00:01:51] I had had a conversation with someone about the possibility of, what I had said was that what needed to be asked was, would, it was originally posed, the question I posed as opposed was, would Steve Simon participate? Would he do a joint, would he commit to only doing one swearing-in ceremony? And my point was to say that I thought there was a possibility of some type of shenanigans, and those would be evil shenanigans.

[00:02:21] And so I did not expect this type of what occurred on Sunday to happen. And so I'm disappointed. I'm outraged. I think it's a violation of a lot of things. But most importantly, today should be a celebration day for the Minnesota Vikings because they're in the playoffs. And now we're forced to do a live stream. Yes. Let's break down what actually happened for anybody who may not be aware. Sunday evening, Blois Olsen put out a tweet that said, quote,

[00:02:48] Sources tell me House DFL members were sworn in by retired Judge Kevin Burke at the Minnesota History Center this afternoon. So this is, we talked a lot last week about first day of session, Tuesday, January 14th. That is when members were supposed to show up and get sworn in. A lot of controversy around whether Democrats would show up because of Republicans claiming that 67 members gives them the majority.

[00:03:15] They were going to elect a speaker, conduct business for the next two weeks as though Republicans have the majority, which in my view they do. But we'll get into more of that or listen to last week's episode. So Democrats were threatening to not show up on day one, potentially not show up for the first two weeks to session, claiming that they would still be conducting business, still be meeting with constituents, touring in their districts, all of this sort, and waiting until that special election in that Roseville seat where there was the residency challenge of Curtis Johnson.

[00:03:44] And what is right and why we are right now sitting at 67 Republicans, 66 Democrats. We'll chat through a little bit of the quorum details in a second, but I want to stay focused on this secret swearing in. So it was, there was no notice to the public from all we have seen, no notice to the press, no press involved. It was held after hours at the Minnesota History Center, a retired judge who was, said he was contacted late last week by the speaker,

[00:04:13] her speaker, Speaker Hortman or former Speaker Hortman or her office about this. And my initial thought is, as I read this, as I was checking out at Target, we talked last week, I'm under the belief that this, the optics we talked a lot about, the optics of this not being good for the Democrats, not showing up where Republicans would be in the chamber, all of that. But this, but the Democrats had potentially were striving to take the high ground, right?

[00:04:41] That they were saying that the constitution, the statute, everything supports them. This is supposed to be what the will of the people wanted. They were abiding by all of the rules, having the high ground here. And while explaining is losing in a lot of respects, they had an argument to be made if they wanted to make that argument, right? And this, I just feel like, swipes that right off the table.

[00:05:05] And any argument of high ground and Republicans illegitimately power grabbing and anything of that sort is just bonkers. Two days, 48 hours before a private swearing in for my, really in the argument of just so they can get paid, right? So they're, so they can get paid. So Brad Tapkey can be seated as Republicans were threatening not to seat him or swear him in, or acknowledge his win in 54A, because that's still pending.

[00:05:34] This is just, I just can't, what is the win here? Why is, what is going on? So based on your reaction, I think you're surprised. I'm so surprised. I don't get it. I don't get under, I don't get the precedent. I see so many threats from it. I see so many different things of why this is not allowed, not okay, should not be granted. It's just wild to me. Yes.

[00:06:00] This, I have to say to you that there was a, the possibility of Steve Simon and that was, and I'm not trying to disparage him in any way, but I just, in the interest of answering your question fully, I had some discussions with the people saying, look, would Steve, as a possibility, as some hypotheticals. And I was, we were gaming this on. I said, it'd be interesting to see if Steve Simon would commit to only doing one swearing in ceremony.

[00:06:25] They raised that as the possibility of, do the Democrats just try to blow off the entire procedure? And do they, do we set up dueling type of scenarios? You'd be, Minnesota has unfortunately a rich history of Democrats and Republicans not agreeing. In fact, we had two constitutions passed in part because of Democrats and Republicans not agreeing on things. This is a very substantive escalation.

[00:06:52] And the reason, and I'm somewhat shocked by it. If you take a step back and just say, okay, how did they pull this off? 66, 67 house members plus staff plus family members that knew plus admin. It's fair to say that a couple hundred people were probably involved in this type of political scheme. And I think that's, I think it really smells.

[00:07:17] I think it really smells and we'll go through, kick through some of the list, but I think that the Democrats lost any high ground when they did a secret swearing in ceremony. And I would be very hard pressed to see what their justification is. Now I was asked by a bunch of people, why do you think they did this?

[00:07:38] And the only one that I could come up with is we can talk about it more, but I'm hard pressed that there's a moral ground that they can take for doing this because one of the, one of the frustration. And I've been looking for a source on this and there has been some discussion about not seating representative TAPKey. I'm not aware that it has been publicly declared that representative TAPKey would not be seated. So let's start there for a second.

[00:08:03] There is a court process in place, that court process as the time of we were recording this podcast. I don't believe there's been an answer yet from that judge. And so the house Republicans, and I think legislature, I think there's a process that's been put in place, which is the court process. When you go to court and you decide to pursue that, that is a legal avenue by which to do this. And by all accounts, there can be disagreements on whether people think TAPKey won or not.

[00:08:31] But I think it's very fair to say that the Republicans are committed to a process and they've taken it to court. And the argument that I remember hearing from people and from guests and from Julius and other people that we had on was to say, look, the Republicans are trying to preemptively do something. They're taking, by not seating TAPKey, they're violating outside of the procedures. Let me just say to you, I don't think that's true. The House, the membership of the House and the Senate gets to be decided by the membership.

[00:09:01] Now, that's independent of what decision they should make. But Minnesota has conflicting and there are statutes and there's procedures and there's the Constitution and things that in some ways, they're a bit in conflict right now. I know that may be difficult, but if you've ever seen the movie Crimson Tide, which is one of my favorite movies, which also has a little bit of a political standoff, it's a political drama. There's a disagreement between Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington.

[00:09:30] And not to ruin it, but the ultimate kind of determination is they were both right and they were both wrong. And in this particular situation, I don't think anyone has clean hands anymore. I think that this has escalated. It's escalated to a pretty serious point. And I don't think any of the rhetorical statements that have been made so far justify what the House Democrats did. Completely agree.

[00:09:57] And I do want to get into the TAPKey situation a little bit further in a minute. But I want to point to part of the House Democrats. So this came out on Twitter from sources, which, to be honest, the fact that it actually got through the swearing in and it was an hour or two later before this came out, as you mentioned, 100 or so people that knew about it is actually impressive. I think it's 200 people. Yeah. So impressive that it wasn't, like, tweeted out by the child of a member or something.

[00:10:26] But they acknowledged it last night and put out a press release this morning. They pointed to one of the reasons that this is allowed is because there are multiple instances of representatives being sworn in at a time other than the first day of session. Now, that is true. Yes. From everything that I have seen context-wise, historical context-wise, which none of this was included in the press release, they simply point to the fact.

[00:10:51] Was in particular one situation in 1979 where a member was sworn in on the same day as swearing in who was in the hospital. That seems like a pretty valid exception to the rule. Correct. And there are also special elections where members get sworn in all the time. There's exceptions and there are rules. And 66 members being sworn in by a retired judge. 67. 67. No, because they didn't have- Oh, 66. Yeah, 66. That's correct. I'm sorry.

[00:11:21] By a retired judge without a single member of the press invited. Now, it's not like a lot of business gets done at this, but it's the secrecy. It's the cloaked in secrecy side of things that just highlights how shady this is. Yes. And I just- Go ahead. No, go ahead. And I just- And I just- I really never once has-

[00:11:47] Last time, my thoughts are so all over the place because I'm just like, it literally is just hurts my insides. With Julius, I talked a lot about my concerns of precedence and what all of these actions from this session are setting. The not showing up for two weeks, the writ of special elections being done, misused and done at a different time. All of this has this historical context for the future, right? So here, this is where I get to because-

[00:12:16] The state statute is pretty specific, 3.05 on organizations at noon of the day appointed for convening the legislature. The members shall meet in their respective chamber. It goes on to talk about the Secretary of State getting sworn in, all of that sort. My real issue here is, where does this stop then? So if this is allowed to be done before the first day of session, it's not done-

[00:12:40] I think it would be different if it was done on January 14th at the Minnesota Historical Center and there would be a different argument to be made or the day after. The fact that it's being done two days in advance of the start of the session, what guardrails are now on this for allowing another majority or minority party in the future from conducting themselves in the same way? What is to say how far in advance they can do? If two days is allowed, is a month allowed?

[00:13:07] When we have a late session start in February and the election's in November, can they start in January 1st just to get more work done and only swear in one party and they can then work and conduct themselves? Is it only because it is the minority and then are they acknowledging that it's the minority party because it's okay because it's 66, not 67 or 68? I just- It just literally- What guardrails does this then lead? If we allow this to happen, what is able to be done next session?

[00:13:37] And what does it mean? How many members? Is it 66 is the max and you can't go to 67 or 68? What if you have 72 and you really want to get something passed because you want to do it before a session and then do some evil shenanigans then? It just- You can't pull the- I just had to stop on the show. We're live. You can't pull the shit, man. This is just- No, it is- And it just looks so crappy and shady.

[00:14:03] I don't understand how 66 members, all of those staff, the hundreds of people involved, allowed this to proceed and think this is a good idea. Yes, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it. Right. And I think that's where I'm at on this is that I think that there's been some issues and I understand that, but let's say I've been thinking a lot about what I was going to say about this particular issue because I'm going to be very interested to see what the justification is for doing this. And you're going to hear a lot of cockamamie,

[00:14:34] probably a lot of cockamamie ideas as to what the justification worth is. But let's just establish something. But 66 members of the Minnesota House of Representatives organized a swearing-in ceremony done. That is pretty- I don't think that there's any precedent for that whatsoever for that to be done. Now, we were joking. We had some conversations with Representative Niska about this, talking about Bill's being- Bill authors hiding themselves about moving into the state capitol.

[00:15:03] I looked into what I learned in my first year of government class in college was accurate. It's been done. What you're talking about here is 66 members of the legislature deciding to do something, to take away something, or to not participate in something that I think it's difficult to unring this bell. Because what it establishes is it establishes a lack of commitment to the institution. And that's what I think is the problem here. People can disagree. Look, I disagree. Look, so let's lay out a few points here.

[00:15:32] The House and the Senate get to decide their own membership. Whether or not they seat Brad Tapkey or not is independent of whether they have the authority to do it. The House and the Senate have the authority to police their membership. We can go back. Both of us can go back in history and find examples of where this was done. And so we can go back and find a quote-unquote justification for doing some of this stuff until we're blue in the face. The question is, is it right? And I honestly believe that I think that this is a bridge.

[00:16:01] This was a move that they could. I think there's questions as to whether they could do it. But no one was answering if they should do it. If they should do it. And that's the concern I have is because if you think about this, you've just let me just go back for a second. And let me put on my democracy hat for a second. You decide to run for the legislature and you commit yourself to being a part of a partisan.

[00:16:26] You commit yourself as a partisan to be a part of an institution where your job is to decide what's best for your district, the state. And you've committed yourself to participating in that debate. That debate should be happening in the full light of the cameras and on discussions. Now, I respect and appreciate as a former legislative staffer the need for legislators to meet sometimes and have discussions and negotiate things and hammer things out and have those type of discussions.

[00:16:54] But this was a substantive, I think, swipe at the decorum, the ability of Republicans and Democrats to work together. A substantive escalation. Again, I'm hard pressed to find an example of where someone said that Brad Tapke wasn't going to be seated. Now, we can have a discussion and I think we're I hope to have a full podcast episode about what's going on in 54A.

[00:17:18] Some of the election stuff, because I think there's I have a lot of concerns with misinformation, but election misinformation is one of them. And so I wanted to go through and have a discussion about that. But the truth of the matter is that Democrats have just circumvented the process. They've carved out their own and doing something in secret like this is, boy, they better.

[00:17:39] I'm really struggling to figure out what the what will be the credible justification for doing this, because the only one that I can think of because I was asked, why would they do this? And the best thing that I could come up with is. By having the privates by having a private swearing in ceremony, what they are providing is they are providing, in essence, the ability for Republicans in front of the cameras tomorrow to go out on a rant.

[00:18:06] Not to say that they shouldn't, but go out in a rant in front of the cameras and on full display, maybe come on, maybe be upset about what the House Democrats did. There is a difference between committing the act without the transparency of cameras and the reaction being caught on camera. How many times when I was playing hockey, did someone take a cheap shot at me? I took a shot back and the ref only saw the one thing that I did. The same kind of rule applies.

[00:18:33] And so the House Democrats have acted in a covert way. They've taken what I would argue to be an official act in a covert way, an act that is a part of the legislative process that is normally done in full display with people, Democrats, Republicans and the public being able to view that.

[00:18:52] And by doing it in private, when there's this contention, and if they don't participate tomorrow, the possibility is, and this is truly the only scenario that I can think of where from a PR standpoint, it can make sense. Again, I'm not saying do it, but they could be providing a runway or a bunch of space for Republicans to come unhinged on the floor tomorrow in front of the cameras. And then what the public sees is they see the reaction that the Republicans are giving.

[00:19:20] Like when I was playing hockey and someone would poke me with a stick and I would take a swing back, the ref would just see the swing sometimes. And that's what I think the trap that Republicans could be setting themselves up for is if they go to the floor tomorrow and are undisciplined with their message and they're undisciplined with their rhetoric that they might be providing Democrats. We just have to see how it goes. But that's the only scenario. And I'm not saying it's right. That's the only kind of PR thing that I could say, OK, but I don't know.

[00:19:49] I don't know that I still I don't know that I would have recommended your take. No, I completely agree. A few things to hit on to start. I think that if we're looking for some sort of understanding of what they get out of this or what the Democrats, why they were motivated to do this, I would agree. I think the top key seating swearing in as one of them. I think that it's very potentially so they can get paid and get their benefits and use staff.

[00:20:18] All of things that were in question, if that there were arguments being made that the swearing in triggers that ability to get paid to get your benefits and et cetera. And you're right. The Republicans have been very cohesive on messaging. I'm very impressed, very proud of what they've done, how they've come forward, how they've presented themselves using laws and rules. Some members have been. Yeah, some members. There's always broke. But for the most part, I think it's been great.

[00:20:46] But I do want to hit on kind of your democracy side of things. You had tweeted last night, and this is quoting your tweet. Somebody replied to you and basically said, well, I mean, nothing really gets done there anyways. Why does it matter? And you said democracy.

[00:21:15] And it was really something that had been rolling around in my head, too, because we're not going to I'm not going to go super far over this bridge. But this is something that we've seen Democrats or some Republicans from Harris is shot about a lot over the last six months is Donald Trump and his threat to democracy. And Republicans are going to tear down democracy as we know it. And he's going to overrule the Constitution and do all of these things.

[00:21:41] Now, there's a difference between the January 6th insurrection and this for sure. And I want to make clear that I understand that difference. But I go back to if we don't stop here, where do we stop? If you can just overrule what the rules and the statutes and the Constitution say to have it your way, to do whatever shenanigans you want to do and pull. Is this there is some of democracy at play.

[00:22:10] There is some of what our state and nation is founded on. There is something at play and at risk here from my perspective. And that's really, again, what this whole situation has really irked me about is because it's not, again, just about eight more days at the legislature or two more years of power or all of this. It's what does this mean for next session and six sessions from now and 50 years from now?

[00:22:38] If you can just do whatever you want to do because you think you can do it and you can point to one aota of one member getting sworn in at bedside of the hospital to allow your 66 members to pull something like this. It's really concerning. Yes. And I think it's important for us to separate the historical example you had of the one individual and the random spatterings where we have of special elections. It's pretty common for there to be a special election.

[00:23:07] And sometimes those members are sworn in, sometimes in the midst of sessions, sometimes randomly, depending on what the calendar works. And but to let's just put this in the proper context. 66 members of the House of Representatives, along with staff and others, coordinated this and pulled this off. And I will to me, it's a pretty substantive broadside and attack on our democratic institutions. If you think that you can organize like this and do this, why run for the legislature?

[00:23:37] Why run? Because my concern is, I think as to your concern is, too, is that this is just now that again, it's also like that line from Jurassic Park. Your scientists were so concerned about if they could do it, they didn't stop and say if they should do it. And should they have done this? No, I don't think they should have done it. Again, let's go through this list. The House has the ability to police their membership. I have not seen a definitive statement that Representative Tabke was not going to be seated.

[00:24:07] The House has the and the courts. There is a process to challenge the election. And they have. Now, just because the House has the ability to not see Tabke does not mean they should not seat Tabke. And that's another discussion. But the House has that authority and the Senate has that authority. If you want to change that authority, then change that authority. But I think it's pretty difficult to think that the Republicans have not committed themselves

[00:24:36] to the degree which this stems from 54A, that the Republicans haven't laid out, I think, a process that is least bound in some sense of reason and laundry. Again, they have this is the process that has existed. What's new to this season? What's new to this legislative session is 66 members of the Minnesota House of Representatives

[00:24:59] deciding to hold a secret swearing-in ceremony rather than take that fight to the public where they've been elected to do. You know where the debate's supposed to be? In the front of cameras and where the public. When someone says to me last night on social media, what did I miss? I miss democracy. I miss the ability to see the functioning of our government. That's the checks and balances that we have. The public is part of the checks and balances to see and to observe and what was done.

[00:25:29] And that was denied by the Democrats. And I'm really upset about it because I think as someone who spent over 80 days this past election cycle talking about democracy and the need for it, I think the Democrats in this state that participated in this need to get a lesson on it too because that was undemocratic what they did. And I think it's a shame. I think it's going to escalate the situation. And I think that the Democrats and there are opportunities for them to regain the moral high ground.

[00:25:58] But right as of today, they have lost it. And this is a substantive escalation. Absolutely agree. We talked a little bit. We poked a little fun at Julius last week for his use of the word illegitimate quite a bit. But that was the Democrats have been claiming that not just Julius, House Democrats and leadership claiming that this has all been an illegitimate power up by Republicans moving the way that

[00:26:23] they've moved between the thinking or claiming that 66 or 67 is a quorum, which we'll get back to you in a minute, and the tap key stuff. So to break down the tap key a little bit more, because I do think this is interesting. As you mentioned, no ruling has come. But there is Republicans saying that they potentially have the right or they have the right to act. Hortman has said she anticipate that tap key was sworn in on Sunday as well.

[00:26:49] So if we're looking at this as a power grab, you're now looking at a situation where there was accusations that Republicans were not going to seat him because, as you mentioned, they have the authority to authorize their memberships. And Democrats also choosing to validate something that they don't technically have the right or ability to validate. So the power grabbing, it again, just washes away any messaging and potential win that they

[00:27:17] thought that they had here by doing this. If that's one of the main reasons is to swear in and see tap key, you just flipped every argument against yourself that you've been making for the last week. And sure, let me give you my take on the seating of tap key. I think that the house and look, I think that we're seeing the system break down and we're seeing the rules interpreted in a way where this is dysfunction. I am concerned and about the precedent of this.

[00:27:45] And I think that's the danger here is that I think that what the Democrats have done, I am concerned about what happens down the road. I can concerned about what happened. And this is a, I've become someone who is interested and was why I made the stakes I did in this last election cycle, Becky, is that I'm interested. I'm someone who is interested in kind of the governing of the state, the politics that gets gummed up and messy. And it's on that kind of that, that roller coaster or that kind of merry-go-round that's

[00:28:15] just spinning all the time, whether it's gummed up or spun up or whatever, stopping at some point. And I think that we have a merry-go-round and we have that spinning right now. And it's really been propelled and it's been escalated to my question is what's the off ramp for people, right? What's the off ramp in this situation? The Democrats escalated the situation in a way. Now, my honest take on the seating of TAPC is I get a little, I do not think, I think

[00:28:42] that there are legitimate issues about how that election was done. And I'm going to reserve larger comment on that to a future show. But what I do believe, so we can discuss a bit today is this, is that Republicans, I don't believe if, I don't think that just because Republicans cannot see TAPC that they just should do that. I think that there can be and should be an examination of the issues.

[00:29:08] If the election system broke down, then should Representative TAPC be the one that gets punished for that? I don't know the answer. But what I do know is that any solution requires Republicans and Democrats to be working together. And the message that we heard from Democrats was the apparent discussion about not seating Representative TAPC, which had not been formed. I have not seen a caucus position and I've not seen a definitive decision has led them

[00:29:36] to do two things that I think are important to note. Their decision, number one, they made the decision to not to, they had decided that they would not potentially show up. And I think it's pretty clear now that they're not going to show up, but that was the bomb that went off last week was okay. Democrats are not going to show up next week. The second is now they participated in a full swear. They've sworn them. They've arranged for a secret swearing in ceremony.

[00:30:01] And if your argument is that Republicans were talking about doing this, they haven't done it yet. And there's a court process in place and we can all sit and disagree about the process, but when the Republicans are operating and they're going to court and there's discussions being had to me, that's not someone operating outside the boundaries of the rules. And what I think the house Democrats have done here have created a new set of rules, but how they're choosing to operate. And just because they can do it doesn't mean they should.

[00:30:32] Well said. I completely agree. I think it is, I guess I just to put a bow on the tap case situation. It is just, I don't know the intricacies. I know that legal cases take a lot of time. Where is this ruling? I mean, what's the holdup here? Either are we having a new election or are we not? I think it means that the judge decides to hand it down to tap. Republicans should out of that, but such a tight vote, it would warrant a special election. I think that's spot on.

[00:30:59] Julius, our friend Julius, you can't just decide to not see the member of the opposing party. Where does it stop? Republicans do it now and then cry a foul when something happens. This is the point I would make to Julius. I'm not aware that Republicans have made the decision not to see tap. I have been asking for consistently a definitive statement because I like to have fact-based conversations. Where has someone said that Tavke is not going to be seated? Okay. And I can't see an example of where that is, where that's happened.

[00:31:26] And so there is a process in place and the house gets to seat their membership. And I think that there are legitimate election issues about what happened in house district 54 act that are worthy of discussion. Does that mean that Brett Kapke shouldn't get seated? No, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that at all. But what I'm saying is let's try to leave this situation better than when we found it. And there's a clear opportunity for here for there to be some discussions about the roles

[00:31:56] and the procedures and are they inconsistent and do they overlap and does it create these types of situations? You know who suffers in all of this? You and I do. And the general public does because government is not going to be functioning. And that's just a shame. And both sides are to blame for it. I do want to, before we close out this conversation about what is going on leading up to tomorrow's session starting.

[00:32:22] I just chuckle because does the swearing in that happened on Sunday mean sessions has begun? Who knows? But when we chatted last week, there was kind of a question in the air about what Secretary of State Steve Simon's office was going to say when it comes to the actual quorum. Republicans were reading it as majority of those elected, which is of 133, would allow 67 Republicans to be a quorum. We had walls supposedly backing the Democrats on their decision to not show up.

[00:32:51] We were waiting to hear what Simon says because Simon is the one that does the ceremonious swearing in on the first day of session. I get chuckled. The decision that we got, I think it was on Friday from Secretary of State Steve Simon to Leader Hortman and Leader Damath was, one quote is, after extensive research and consultation with nonpartisan experts, I conclude that the Constitution and state statute that define the majority needed for a quorum in the House of Representatives is 68 members.

[00:33:21] If there are not 68 members present, I will have no authority to take any further action and will adjourn. So he, on Friday, the kind of what we had was Secretary of State says, if we have 67 members, sorry, you cannot conduct business. You cannot elect a speaker. You cannot do committee chairs. We will have no temporary rules adopted. There's absolutely nothing done. Sayonara, see ya in two weeks when we can have 68 members, which would have been after

[00:33:49] the special election in House District 40, now I'm 40A, 40B, Roseville, right? Now, House Republicans have responded and said just today, so on the 13th, since all of this chaos, they have responded and said, we are writing in response to your communications with us in the meeting on January 8th and letter dated January 10th, expressing your current

[00:34:16] plan to join your political allies in this attack on our democratic institutions. In your January 10th letter, you assert that the rule grants you the power to obstruct the House from organizing if only 67 House members, elected House members comply with a legal requirement to meet in the House chamber. Both your interpretation of the quorum requirement and your asserted unilateral authority to control the House are mistaken. Very strongly worded letters, a letter to Secretary of State Steve Simon.

[00:34:45] I will say, unlike the Democrats' press release, this one does actually have a point to statutes and constitutional citations, but there are two main points that the House membership put forward to Secretary of State was that on January 14th, 67 members of the House will constitute a quorum. And two, as a ceremony of presiding officers, you lack authority to make any final rulings on unilateral action. So now, we have the Secretary of State saying, you don't have quorum, you need 68.

[00:35:14] We have the House Republicans saying, you don't have that authority, it's 67 is quorum. Where do we go from here? So my question to you is, where's your take on the 67 versus 68? I believe that 67 is quorum. From my readings of, we went into it a little bit last week, the temporary rules, which preside that Mason's rules are the overall dictating, so what the House is operating under until they

[00:35:40] adopt permanent rules, is that the majority is what is the majority of the elected body at this point. The elected body is 133 due to some evil shenanigans that went on in the Roseville seat and the failure to have somebody that was an actual resident there. That's to no fault of the Republicans. That is to no fault of the Minnesotans. That is the situation at hand, that there was a candidate who did not reside in that seat or was found to not reside in that seat who is not elected.

[00:36:08] 133 members are currently elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives. Thus, a majority is 67 members. I've eaten up and bought everything that the House Republicans are saying. I feel like they have a lot of case study to point to, a lot of precedent to point to. I think that the statutes that they cite and the historical context of this from two other times that this was a situation, to me, seems to lay out the argument that 67 members in

[00:36:38] a body of 133 does indicate a quorum. What's your take? This is where I'm hung up on, is when we had Representative Niskan, he said 68 was needed to pass the bill. How do you get, so I understand the issues between quorum and other types of stuff. So it was 68 that was needed to pass something. And so the argument, I think the assumption that was made, and please, and I don't want

[00:37:04] to make this assumption, but please push back, is when he said 68 members are needed to pass something and you could get by with 67 electing a speaker, I think the assumption that was made was that there was more than 68 people in the chamber when 67, when you could get to the 67 vote for a speaker. In that scenario, yes, because that answer on the 67, I think is predicated on the belief, and I think it's a fair belief, that Democrats would actually show up.

[00:37:34] And so when you take them out of the, when the Democrats make this decision to remove themselves from the equation, mathematically, I think they put the House in a situation where they can't get stuff done. Now, yes, I've seen situations where people have been elected with less than 68 votes. That is, but there, a quorum has been established.

[00:37:58] And so my argument is, I'm a little fuzzy on why in this scenario you need 67, but in others you need 66. And I think the reason why on the 67, the reason why the 67 votes is in essence, people are willing to go along with that, is because it's based on the belief that there is a full complement on the other side, that there's 133 or 134 House members. And so already you've, it's built in that you've already made quorum.

[00:38:28] My thoughts, and please somebody correct me if I'm wrong. I do encourage you again to go check out at Harry Niska, it's N-I-S-K-A on Twitter, has been tweeting a lot of this stuff out. Two, two points I'll make is I do understand or my understanding of it is that the 68 votes needed to pass legislation is something that is verbalized and written in, I don't know if it's the constitution or statute or where. I believe that there is a place where that is written.

[00:38:57] 60, the number needed to elect House speakerships or House leaderships is not. And so that is where this kind of messiness comes from, is that is not something that is laid out verbally written in any situation. However, I do, I love people that are bigger political nerds than I am. Obviously, there's a lot of folks that have been digging in the archives and there was an

[00:39:25] article, I don't even remember the year that it was from, but that Harry and Walter Hudson and other members have been pushing where an amendment was adopted back in the day. And the article picture looks pretty old, as it must be true. It tries to verify or attempts to show that there was an amendment to be offered or adopted to clarify this situation, that if people just can't not show up, right? Matt, that doesn't, you don't just got to take your ball and go home and sit there and

[00:39:54] the game doesn't get to go on. And so there was a difference between the majority present and the majority elected than the overall majority. And so from all, everything that I've seen, I feel like the Republicans are on the right side of this. Ultimately, though, I don't know what happens tomorrow when you have 67 House Republicans walking into a chamber with the belief and understanding that they do constitute a quorum and that the Secretary of State does not have the authority to tell them otherwise.

[00:40:24] And the Secretary of State, who is, for all intents and purposes, tomorrow acting speaker, is doing the business of the Minnesota House to swear in House Republicans and anybody else who potentially may show up, which I don't believe is anybody. But like we're, that comes to a head at some point, right? Like who is sitting behind the speaker's microphone? Who's conducting this?

[00:40:51] Can House Republicans just go get retired judge and pull them up there so they can do the business? Again, I don't know where that retired judge and how he gets the authority to do what he had, was able to do last night. So I, it just is, this is where I think we're, I'm very interested to see what happens tomorrow when this House is supposed to convene because there's two very differing of opinions here. No, there absolutely is two very opinions. And what I think we're missing, a couple other things I would say about Simon's role tomorrow.

[00:41:21] So I would say that Simon has a constitutional, he has a role in statue and he has a, and just because he has that role, that does not mean it's not official. I would not call Simon's role ceremonial. I think he has a role. The boundaries of that role are yet to be defined, but if something is in statute, if something, if there is some, that I would consider that to not just simply be ceremonial. Now, let me give you an example of what I think is ceremonial.

[00:41:50] If I throw out the first pitch at a baseball game, I don't get to go to the manager after I throw out the first pitch and say, you want to know what? I think you got an inning in me. I'm going to stay out here on the mound. That's not, that's, that is a ceremonial function. Okay. If I ceremonial throw out the first pitch, I don't get to agree to repeat again. I don't get to say to the manager. I think I got a good inning and let me stay out here and do this longer. That is a ceremonial role. I think that Simon has an official role tomorrow. The question is he using his official role?

[00:42:19] Is he operating outside of the bounds of his official role? And I got to tell you something, this just doesn't feel right. And if it doesn't feel right to me, I think it's, I don't think it's right. And I think that we need some grownups to slow this. I think we need some people committed to deescalating the situation and getting big people, getting things back to business and have there being some function. This is a required, there is an expectation that there is a bot that Republicans and Democrats can work together.

[00:42:48] And when you have this level of organization going on to try to circumvent and escalate the ability for Republicans and Democrats to work together, I think you've lost all ability to operate in good faith. I think you've lost the ability to all operate in good faith. And that's my concern right now. I agree. I think this morning we did hear Leader Hortman say that her and Leader Damath had negotiations

[00:43:14] scheduled for this afternoon, so we should hear a little bit more. Cass, his official role should not be partisan. He speaks for all Minnesotans, not just Democrats. Exactly. And I think that if you listen to this podcast, Michael and I have both expressed our admiration and our fans of Secretary of State and Steve Simon, how he's conducted himself. I think that he has largely stayed above the fray and not gotten into the partisan politics.

[00:43:41] This situation is, maybe it's also the echo chamber and too close to it that I am, but it's hard not to see. And obviously reading the Republicans' House letter, it's hard not to see some partisanship come in there. I think we will see a little bit more from Secretary of State Steve Simon's office between now and noon tomorrow. I wouldn't be surprised if we heard something from Governor Walz or his office in the next 24

[00:44:08] hours, but it is a wild west out there. Yes. And I think ultimately, I think we need, again, I'm trying to be consistent. And I recognize that everyone has different roles. That Secretary of State Simon has a role, that the Lieutenant Governor has a role in the Senate, that there's House and Senate members and there's differing opinions. But what we agree upon is we agree upon to work at the table together.

[00:44:35] And when someone goes out and organizes a secret swearing-in ceremony, they've committed themselves to secrecy and not working across party lines. And the bottom line is, as I think the expectation is that these should be, and I will say this to you, because my point when we were on with Julius and Speaker Hortman had mentioned the possibility of Democrats not showing up, I'd said, I don't like the optics of it. I think that they have a responsibility to show up.

[00:45:05] And that was before they conducted a secret swearing-in ceremony. And I don't like it. I simply don't. I think if you have a justified position, you should make it publicly. You should make it in the presence of the cameras. And let's have that debate. The Republicans and the Democrats have differing positions in court documents regarding Representative Tapkey's race. They're not having discussions with the judge and with people, which would be inappropriate in private.

[00:45:34] They're not colluding privately. You have a responsibility to throw information out to the public. You can't have ex parte discussions when you're in a court proceeding. And so the House and the Senate or the Republicans and the Democrats in challenging what's going on in House District 54A, they're required to submit petitions to the court. They're required to submit briefs to the court. They're required to do those things to the court. They're required to submit that information and be public about it.

[00:46:00] Why didn't the House Democrats decide to speak out and let it be known that they were doing this? Because they're trying to get away with something. And it's a shame because I have been someone, particularly this last election cycle, who believes that Democrats and Republicans working together and having a vibrant two-party system is where the state needs to go. And it's best for democracy and it's best for our country. This is a step back, and I'm really disappointed about it.

[00:46:30] One last thing that I'm going to share here is just a breaking news tweet that I just saw that during her press conference this afternoon, DFL leader Hortman admitted that their campaign arm paid for the room rental for last night swearing in. And that also seems a little sketch. It does. And it shows the level of partisanship here. Again, just because you can do it doesn't mean you should do it.

[00:46:55] And I'm certainly, just because Republicans have the opportunity to not seat Representative Tabkey or they can police it doesn't mean they should. The bottom line is what needs to be happening here is grownups and we need to be appealing to our better angels. And this was a massive escalation and I'm just really disappointed by it. I'm really disappointed by it. But the fact that the campaign arm paid for it leads me to believe that that really calls in a number of questions about what they were doing there. Agreed.

[00:47:23] I'm having a slight technical difficulty on my end. I'm going to throw it to you to kick off our last little segment here talking about where there maybe are some adults in the room and playing nice in the Minnesota Senate. Yes, the Minnesota Senate in the midst of this massive standoff that the House is engaged in, the Minnesota Senate announced that they have reached an agreement under the temporary tie that they have because of the passing of Senator Dietzik in the Senate District 60 presidential

[00:47:52] election, which is on January 28th. The agreement was passed as a resolution, will be passed as a resolution tomorrow on the first day of session. It was a joint release by caucus leader, by Senator Aaron Murphy, Senate Majority Leader Aaron Murphy and Republican Leader Mark Johnson. Murphy was quoted as saying, quote, the temporary 33-33 tie in the Senate posed unique challenges for the body and required a unique solution.

[00:48:17] Under these terms, we can begin the work of the 2025 session, avoid gridlock and uphold the best of this institution. Kudos to the Minnesota Senate. And because in this particular instance and in this scenario, they, on the day of it, there couldn't have been a starker contrast. There could not have been a starker contrast in message. Johnson went on to say, starting the 2025 session with a 33-33 tie means we have an opportunity to build trust and respect as we navigate these circumstances.

[00:48:47] I think that's really impressive. Agreed. They lay out some of the points that there is going to be each caucus leader will appoint a co-presiding officer. They will agree with who convenes each day. Each committee will have joint chairs. And with gavel sharing determined by the chairs, there's going to be equal representation of DFL and GOP in committees. No changes to the Senate rules through 2025. And this is in place until there are 34 votes to end the agreement.

[00:49:17] It's just, you couldn't, the fact that this came out when all of this stuff in the Senate, I'm sure the Senate staffers are just like, praise the Lord, we're on this side. We started a little bit late because of my technical difficulties. So if we can stay on a few minutes longer, if that's okay with you. But the timing of it is just amazing. It really is. You can't, this is like a, you can't write this better. Why do you think, why do you think the Senate can operate that way and the House is in such

[00:49:46] chaos? Obviously it comes down to the change from 67-67 to 67-66. Again, I think that there is just the understanding that it's no longer tied. And for some, obviously the Democrats believe that it's still tied. The Republicans don't believe that. And so it's just how you look at it, how the cookie crumbles, if you will. And the Senate is choosing to move forward here.

[00:50:12] And I think, again, the House is just in a different situation than it is. Things could all change. Of course, we still have the pending court case for Senator Nicole Mitchell. They did push to have that move to after session. That was just introduced or a petition was just made to the court on Friday. So no answer yet there. But it's going to be interesting.

[00:50:35] You and I have taken, I think, have tried to engage in a pretty responsible tenor about discussing and policing some of these issues. Not wearing our partisan hats up front as much as we should be. But the truth of the matter is that in this particular instance, I'm pretty disappointed. And no one really cares if I'm disappointed. But I have to tell you that the secret swearing in ceremony is a pretty substantive escalation in this.

[00:51:03] And I know that there's going to be a desire that there should be a proportional response to what was done. But I do hope that cooler heads prevail, calmer heads prevail. And I do hope that there is a way in which to get this resolved so that people's work can get done. I think that's the best platform.

[00:51:23] But I think that there are a number of people that I spoke to yesterday, people from the media, Republicans and Democrats, who were pretty taken aback and were like, what just happened? Because I think that there's that kind of shock effect. And then there's also the type of that there's that shock effect. But then it's also, OK, what does this mean long term? Because we have a tied Senate right now that's temporarily tied.

[00:51:53] We have a house that's very divided from that's mathematically divided. And is that a real powder keg right now situation? And how does this get resolved and people move on? I think that this is a Minnesotans like to believe. Minnesotans like to believe that we have this really great reputation of how we function in government.

[00:52:15] And while I think a lot of people should be impressed by what the Senate did yesterday, what the House, what's currently being what's currently going on in the House is pretty sad. It's pretty sad because I think that this is going to escalate the situation quite extensively. One hypothetical to pose to you. So we started the show with you talking about how some conversations that you had been having was about whether there would be potentially two different swearing-ins.

[00:52:43] Do you think this would be as much of an issue if, for say, the House Republicans got sworn in at noon tomorrow and House Democrats did a 1230 across the street tomorrow for a stay of session? That was not private and was still advised to the press, etc. I still think it's bad. I think it's bad to not recognize what you signed up for.

[00:53:12] You signed up to be a member of the legislature. You signed up to meet. You signed up to have discussions. I understand and respect and appreciate that when we get to the end of a legislative session that there's going to be legislative leaders are going to have to talk. We have we have there's multiple levers of government, multiple wheels of government, multiple layers of government, some that are occupied by Republicans, some that are occupied by Democrats. I want the system to work, and sometimes that requires there to be some private discussions.

[00:53:35] But the organization of 66 House members to participate in a secret swearing-in ceremony in the manner in which it was done, I think, is a substantive escalation. It would have been an escalation if they announced that they were doing it. But the fact that they did it and didn't announce it, I think makes it less I think it makes it much more difficult for Democrats to claim that they're committed to the institution and what they're doing is about preserving and upholding democracy when you just did what you just did.

[00:54:05] I think there's a lot of questions about it. I think that Democrats stay. I think the governor should be asked. I think Secretary Steve Simon should be asked as to whether they support this type of because and I would say to you, if the Republicans. If there's if depending on what happens in this court case, I think if there's partisan activity at the legislature, again, my position is just because the Republicans have a temporary majority, a temporary statistical lead.

[00:54:32] That does not mean that they should ultimately decide not to see Representative Brad Patkey. Representative Tapkey should or should not be seated based on the merits of the issues. But when we're starting to weaponize swearing in ceremonies and we're starting to organize, get hundreds of people to organize covert swearing in ceremonies, pretty difficult to make the claim that you're committed to the institution of democracy when you're engaging in those types of shenanigans. Well said. I don't disagree.

[00:55:02] What happens? So tomorrow, what do you think happens? Are you planning to get sworn in for anything tomorrow? I am not. Anything? No. But I do know a couple of judges active and retired. So I guess if I want to, I can just make that happen at any point. I'd like to be a deputy of something like a sheriff, like something like a little badge that says deputy. I'd like something like that. If I get sworn in for something, I'd like that. But I want it to be official. I want it to be meaningful. And I certainly wouldn't do it in secret. I certainly wouldn't do it in secret.

[00:55:31] I think it could. I think tomorrow is going to be before we as we're closing out here. Let me just ask you a few rapid fire questions. Do Democrats show? Is it your impression that Democrats show tomorrow? No. So you don't think they show tomorrow? I do not. And the reason they don't show is because if there's a member in the chamber, that gets them passed. That gets them the math. That gets to that magic number of 68.

[00:55:56] Even if we have differing opinions on 67 versus 68, what you and I can agree upon or what I think everyone agrees upon is if there's 68 in the chamber, that's a quorum. Right. And so you think that there's no Democrats in the chamber at all. I hope one goes rogue. Welcome. Welcome to the right side. Come on over. The water's nice. Yes.

[00:56:19] So as we're playing this out, then the scenario is that Democrats stay out of the chamber until there's a majority, until there's a power sharing agreement. Which I don't think Republicans, I guess I've seen crazier things. But at this point, I don't know that Republicans are ready to move in that direction until our hand is forced on January 28th. Yep. All right. Becky, we're going to do another show this week, a recap.

[00:56:47] Probably not live, but we'll do a recap show breaking things down because there's going to be some fireworks tomorrow. I'm going to be in a safe distance from the state capitol tomorrow and I will be safe at home, but I will not be there. There will also be some fireworks tonight. Skol, baby. That's right. The Vikings, as we mentioned earlier, the Vikings are playing tonight. That's why I'm dressed in full regalia right now, getting ready for the Vikings game tonight. And I can't break it until it's out, but might be something in the Star Tribune later tonight for me.

[00:57:16] So pay attention and I'll certainly be sharing it and be open for discussion. And we'll have a, we'll have another show this week, breaking down some of the stuff in the aftermath because things are going to get spicy. Right, Becky? They certainly are. And we are here to talk about it. I appreciate your patience when I had the technical snafu. And I will work to be better at not the live stream fumbles. But we want to thank all our listeners for listening to this episode of The Breakdown with Broadcom and Becky.

[00:57:42] Before you go, show us some love for your favorite podcast by leaving us review on Apple Podcasts or on the platform where you listen. You can also leave a review on our website at BBBreakPod. The Breakdown with Broadcom and Becky will return this week. It's that exciting. We will return this week. See you soon. Bye. Bye.