Bonus Episode: Breaking Down the GOP Winning Control of the Minnesota House

[00:00:12] Welcome to The Breakdown with Brodkorb and Becky, a weekly podcast that breaks down politics, policy, and current affairs. I'm Becky Scherr.

[00:00:18] And I'm Michael Brodkorb.

[00:00:20] We are back with a bonus episode this week and pleased to be joined by Kurt Dought. Dought served in the Minnesota House from 2010, including serving as Speaker of the House for four of those years.

[00:00:30] Speaker Dought is here to join us as we are coming to you with breaking news. Over the past few weeks, we have discussed the residency issue in House District 40B, which includes Roseville.

[00:00:39] Today, a judge ruled that Curtis Johnson, the Democrat candidate who has announced the winner of the seat on election night, does not meet residency requirements.

[00:00:48] With Speaker Dought, we will break down the judge's ruling and subsequent action by the Supreme Court. We will get into what this means for the seat itself, Speaker of the House, and the 2025 legislative session that is just weeks away from starting. Thanks for joining us and enjoy the show.

[00:01:03] We are very excited to have you on the podcast for the first time. We've talked about you a lot, and I am very pleased to have you.

[00:01:10] I think you weren't on Becky when I was on the podcast.

[00:01:15] I think that's what I was.

[00:01:16] It was the first time with all of us.

[00:01:17] Yes.

[00:01:19] And perfect person to be on here. We're going to tap into all of your expertise, but I want to start by setting the table here about what is going on.

[00:01:26] So we've talked about the seat and what the ongoing legal issues going on here, but today the district court judge Leonardo Castro ruled that Curtis Johnson did not meet the residency requirements of the six months living in the district prior to the election, that he is ineligible to serve as the representative for 40B, and he is enjoined from taking the oath of office and acting as a member of the House of Representatives.

[00:01:50] In his opinion, it was pretty compelling. He wrote, obtaining a lease and changing your voter registration does not satisfy this requirement.

[00:01:58] Meaningful physical presence is required to show genuine intent to reside in the district. The people of 40B deserve no less.

[00:02:06] Now, Speaker Dill, you have, in your time in the House, we were just talking about it, you've had some experience with residency challenges, but talk to us a little bit about what this means and why this is important for our legislature.

[00:02:17] As folks know, and I'm sure you've talked about it a lot in the past, the legislature came up tied on election night, 67-67. We have an even 134 seats in the House, so it's possible. The last time that happened was 1979. Excuse me. 78? 79. 79.

[00:02:34] 78.

[00:02:35] 78.

[00:02:36] 78.

[00:02:36] election going into the 79th session. And according to our constitution, it takes 68 votes to pass a

[00:02:43] bill. So that means that every bill that passed would have to be bipartisan. At least one member

[00:02:48] of the other party would have to vote for something in order for it to pass out. That

[00:02:53] constitutional requirement does not apply to other votes, electing a speaker of the house,

[00:02:59] setting house rules, all of the other procedural things that the house does. Only there is a

[00:03:04] constitutional requirement for 68 votes to pass a bill. And so the reason that's important with this

[00:03:11] vacating the seat now that the Democrats will have 66 seats going into the first day and the Republicans

[00:03:16] will have a one seat advantage with 67, which means in the first order of business is electing a speaker

[00:03:22] of the house. So the Republicans will be able to elect a speaker of the house. That vote will likely

[00:03:28] stand for the full two-year period. The reason that's so important is, and the reason I say that

[00:03:34] is it will be, you have to have a majority of votes to overturn that vote later, right? To call for a new

[00:03:40] election or to overturn that. It means we're probably set up for a fairly bumpy session and it will become

[00:03:47] a very, for those who are procedural nerds and like to watch that stuff and watch the house rules,

[00:03:52] I would assume there'll be a lot of maneuvering and trying to figure out how can we gain some sort

[00:03:56] of advantage and how can we, you know, take advantage of a member not being here or something

[00:04:00] to try to sway this back in our direction. But the reality is if the Republicans can elect a speaker

[00:04:05] on the first day, that speaker will likely be elected for the two-year period. And the speaker has a lot

[00:04:12] of power, right? The speaker appoints all of the committee chairs. The speaker appoints all of the

[00:04:16] committee members. The speaker sets the staffing allotment for both caucuses. The speaker signs all the

[00:04:24] bills and claims and pays all the bills. There's a lot of power that goes with being speaker in the

[00:04:28] state of Minnesota. If the Republicans have that advantage on day one, I would certainly recommend

[00:04:33] that they elect their speaker. And I think everybody realizes that they will. I don't think there's any

[00:04:38] question about that. It's what happens after that, right? If the speaker, there's been some

[00:04:43] agreement that they would have an even number of members on each committee and that they would have

[00:04:47] co-chairs on each committee. If we have one Republican speaker, they get to make that decision.

[00:04:52] And that person can decide if they want to have just Republican chairs of all the committees.

[00:04:56] They can decide if they want to change the number of members on each committee. They can even change

[00:05:01] the committee structure. And I've got some ideas on a committee or two they might want to add.

[00:05:05] It's a very big, this is a very big decision. And even though it still takes 68 votes to pass a bill,

[00:05:11] the Republicans can't pass legislation without at least one Democrat.

[00:05:14] Having the position of speaker is a very big deal.

[00:05:18] Absolutely. And it says, we had Representative Niska on, leader Niska earlier, just a couple

[00:05:23] weeks ago. And he, I was not aware of the 68 required votes needed to pass something.

[00:05:29] But I do think this is fascinating. So as rules say, right now we could go in election,

[00:05:34] our session starts just in a couple weeks. So they go in and 67 votes on the Republican side

[00:05:39] would be enough. So 67 votes we can elect. And understanding that at this point, it's looking

[00:05:45] like that will be speaker designate Lisa Damoth, who will be the one to ascend to that seat and be

[00:05:51] elected there.

[00:05:53] That's a, you know, the speaker designate, I'm not sure who is using that or came up with that.

[00:05:59] And I'm not sure that's actually the technically correct term. Every time I hear that, I,

[00:06:02] and you're not the one that did it. But I keep saying neither one, we really technically don't

[00:06:08] have, unless they have an agreement on shared power, we really don't have a speaker designate

[00:06:13] right now. There is not a majority in the house. Today we do. After this decision, I think we have

[00:06:20] a speaker designate.

[00:06:21] And I think they've been operating under that. Hortman and Damoth were both.

[00:06:26] Yeah, I've noticed that other people have been using that term and technically it's not correct.

[00:06:29] Yeah. I will just say, I flagged it for someone earlier and I didn't want to be a know-it-all,

[00:06:34] but you are in this category, a know-it-all. Respectfully, you are in this category. And so

[00:06:40] I've been, I haven't tried to raise the issue, but I did flag it earlier and say, I got some

[00:06:45] questions about that.

[00:06:46] Even when the caucuses went in and held their leadership elections, they, each caucus

[00:06:52] elected a leader. Neither one of them elected a speaker and neither one of them elected a speaker.

[00:06:59] They elected a majority leader. They elected a speaker and a deputy leader, or excuse me,

[00:07:04] a leader and a deputy leader. That's what both caucuses did with the final agreement to iron

[00:07:09] out. Would those people be co-speakers and co-majority leaders or how would that work?

[00:07:14] And I don't think that, I don't, it was never released publicly that they came to an agreement

[00:07:19] on all of those things. But anyway, sorry.

[00:07:23] No, I love that. And I want to get a little bit in because you said that there are those people

[00:07:27] that love the procedural rules and all of that. That's where I'll say, raise my hand and say I'm

[00:07:33] one of those people because I think it's one of the places that in politics, it's like a chess match,

[00:07:38] right? It's where who knows more and who knows how to navigate through this. Some people can look at

[00:07:43] some of the stuff surrounding all of that as shady. I look at it as a very, a way to be smarter than

[00:07:50] the other people in the room. And so this is one though, I've seen a little bit of chatter and I

[00:07:53] saw a tweet from you on Twitter or on X about whether there are some kind of funny, is there

[00:08:02] some funny business that can happen? Can Wall's call a special session is something that, that is

[00:08:07] done here in lame duck before the next session takes place. Could something, is the next house

[00:08:13] bound to this house's rules? How does that work? Can you walk us through a little bit of,

[00:08:17] from your perspective, what that looks like?

[00:08:20] So I think it started with former majority leader, Ryan Winkler posting that on Twitter

[00:08:25] X. I still call it Twitter. What did you say?

[00:08:27] He's a troublemaker, but a good, I mean, he's a troublemaker. It's been on our podcast.

[00:08:31] He's a smart guy though. And he's an attorney. He's a very smart guy. And he was, I was,

[00:08:36] I sat across at the microphone and was his rival for a few terms. We have, but we have a good

[00:08:42] relationship, but an adversarial relationship nonetheless. And so he, his point was that the governor

[00:08:47] should call a special session and right now, and the house should change its house rules

[00:08:53] to say that it took 68 votes to elect a speaker. Here's the problem with that. And I think I say

[00:09:01] that one legislature can't bind the next. That's been proven over time. That's why each legislature

[00:09:06] has to pass its own budget. And so one legislature can't pass a spending and provision and bind the

[00:09:13] next legislature to that. That, that question has been solved. The constitution does allow the house,

[00:09:20] each house of the legislature to, or each body, each house of the legislature to set its own rules

[00:09:25] and organize itself. But here's the problem. Even if they did that, and I think the house generally

[00:09:30] follows the previous session's rules, but on the first day when you go in, one of the items of

[00:09:35] business is you adopt rules, right? You elect a speaker and then you adopt rules. And typically,

[00:09:40] historically we have adopted temporary rules and then those just had effect until we could work out

[00:09:47] what the permanent rules would be. Sometimes we would just adopt permanent rules on the first day.

[00:09:51] If Ryan would pick up his rule book, he will see that on the front covers of his rule book,

[00:09:55] it says permanent rules, but it also says for the 23, 24 legislative session by any of recession.

[00:10:01] It doesn't mean, but here's the reason why his point, and he is absolutely grasping at straws,

[00:10:07] which tells us, and it gives us an indication that the Democrats know what creek they are up without

[00:10:13] a paddle because they don't have a lot of options here unless they can get a court to overturn this.

[00:10:18] And the reason I say that, the reason what he's saying doesn't matter is the house itself determines

[00:10:24] and judges its own rules. So if you disagree with a rule, a member stands up and says,

[00:10:31] point of order. The rule says this, and we need to follow that.

[00:10:34] And the speaker makes a ruling and says, the house rules say that we need 68 votes. And a Democrat has

[00:10:42] risen and said that we need to follow these, that these are the permanent rules in the house

[00:10:46] and whatever. A Republican can stand up and say, I move to overturn the ruling of the speaker and

[00:10:51] request a roll call vote. And there's going to be 67 Republicans that vote for whatever they want.

[00:10:56] And there's going to be 66 Democrats that vote for whatever they want. At the end of the day,

[00:11:01] the house judges its own rules. And if you have more members, if you have more butts in seats on

[00:11:05] the first day, you will win the votes. So there's no question that the Republicans will be able to

[00:11:10] elect a speaker regardless of whether they want to try to call a special session to try to preempt

[00:11:16] Republicans from gaining the advantage that they actually, Democrats gave it to them.

[00:11:22] Jamie Becker-Finn recruited a candidate to run in that district that doesn't live in the district.

[00:11:26] They knew what they were doing. She recruited this person to run. They knew exactly what they

[00:11:31] were doing. And they were trying to skirt the rules, right? And they got caught. So they put

[00:11:35] themselves in this. They have only people they have to blame is themselves.

[00:11:38] And I think that's something that you've seen a couple of people talking about, but I don't think

[00:11:42] that we've seen enough. This is a mess of their own making and they got to, they made their bed,

[00:11:46] so they got to lay in it. And so any, anybody frustrated and upset, especially because we do know

[00:11:51] this is, it's a DFL seat, right? And the likelihood of a Republican taking this seat is not, this,

[00:11:56] Curtis Johnson won by almost 30 points. It's not a seat. So like how, I'm sorry, and maybe offensive,

[00:12:03] but how stupid are you? How silly that they could not find in all of this district, somebody legitimate

[00:12:10] to fill it. It happens. It does happen. It, we had it happen back, I forget what year,

[00:12:15] but Bob Barrett in Chisago County. I suppose it was right after the, let me think about this now.

[00:12:22] I think it was 14. It would have been after the 12 election.

[00:12:25] The 12 election would have been in new districts, right? After the 2010 redistricting,

[00:12:29] and you run in those new districts in 12. And I think it must've been in that 14 election.

[00:12:34] And so the Democrats challenged it. They had, I think they had set like a game camera in the

[00:12:40] driveway. So they were catching anytime somebody went in and out and they had put like tape or

[00:12:44] something across the door. So they knew nobody had entered the door and they took pictures through

[00:12:49] the windows of no furniture in the residence. It was pretty obvious he didn't live there.

[00:12:53] And there was a new law that we had put on the books. And this is the part that I'm a little

[00:12:59] foggy on. This, his case was the first time that we had tested this new law. Um, and I actually

[00:13:05] advocated. So the courts did exactly this and it's what law prescribes. There is really no other option.

[00:13:11] The law is very clear on how to handle this situation. This judge acted very appropriately.

[00:13:16] He vacated this call. So there'll be a new election. The reality is I actually advocated for

[00:13:23] changing this law because there's a, for, if you're really a rules nerd or geek, you could game this.

[00:13:29] Like we could have run somebody against Melissa Horpkin in her district and, and you don't have to have

[00:13:36] won the election, right? You could do it. And unless they changed this sense,

[00:13:40] but back in Bob Barrett's case, this was the case. You could challenge the residency. So we could

[00:13:45] have put up a candidate against Melissa Horpkin in her race. We could have challenged our, and that

[00:13:50] person didn't live in her district. We could have challenged that person's residency and the judge

[00:13:54] would have stopped the election and called for a new one that would have happened in February.

[00:13:57] So for the first 45 days of the session, we would have, Melissa Horpkin couldn't have been seated.

[00:14:01] Right. And I think they might've fixed that, but the judge handled this situation absolutely

[00:14:07] perfectly. This is exactly the way they were supposed to. And I don't see a scenario. I think

[00:14:11] we've learned that the Supreme court now maybe has said, they're not going to take this case up,

[00:14:16] but even if they did almost impossible to overturn this, they have to find that this person lived in

[00:14:22] his district and they can't use any new evidence to do that. So there will be a special election.

[00:14:26] Now this candidate will not be able to run because the court is, they're going to have to find a new

[00:14:31] candidate that lives in the district and then win the seat. So if, well, hold on, Michael,

[00:14:36] that's technically true, but I don't know. I don't know the details of this case. You have to

[00:14:42] have lived in the district six months before election day. So this new election will have a

[00:14:47] new election day. And I don't know if his residency was challenged just at the beginning of that six

[00:14:52] months or if it was for the whole six months. So there's a potential, there's a potential shot

[00:14:57] that this person could qualify, but I don't think it's possible. And would he be, do you think that

[00:15:02] they would mean, that would be tough for him to come back? And if he comes back and wins, boy,

[00:15:06] oh boy, talk about being unpopular on the school bus. I think your point is very valid. I think this

[00:15:12] person will not qualify to run in this election in the special, unless for some reason, the special

[00:15:17] wasn't called until much later, but the governor is required to call the special session. If the vacancy

[00:15:24] happens during a legislative session and before, I think it's, there's a certain date in April,

[00:15:29] the governor's required to issue the writ of special election for no less than 35 days later

[00:15:36] than the writ. And the writ has to be issued within 22 days, right? Of the beginning of the

[00:15:42] legislative session. So you're looking at two months that this could sit empty.

[00:15:46] Does this, and my question to you, Speaker Darin and then also Becky, does this in any way,

[00:15:50] now that we know that there's, that they've lost one of these seats, that it's been vacated and

[00:15:56] they're numerically down a number. Does this change any of the negotiations of the power share

[00:16:01] agreement or are the Republicans now just, we're in control here at the white house? They're,

[00:16:06] they just pulled an, they're in charge. I think they're in charge, right? At least for that first

[00:16:11] 60 days. And, and I think that 60 days can be manipulated because that 22 day thing at the

[00:16:16] beginning says that, that the, the legislature has 20 days or 22 days that they can review the,

[00:16:24] the court's finding. If they decide they're not going to review it and they issue that

[00:16:29] determination sooner than 22 days, the governor can issue his writ sooner. If I was the Republicans,

[00:16:35] I'd be gaming this and saying, we're going to make sure to run the clock out on that 22 days so that

[00:16:39] you can't fill it until the last possible moment. And the governor, to that point, yeah,

[00:16:43] the governor probably could call it slightly sooner than 35 days, but it's very difficult.

[00:16:49] What was your point, Michael? I want to just say, I want to remind our listeners because I had

[00:16:53] thought, and I don't want to presume for Becky, but I had thought that's when it was, if they lost

[00:16:58] one of these seats, that there would not, I didn't understand the 67 to 68 to remove the speaker to

[00:17:04] 67. And so the 60 days. So when you say 60 days though, to our listeners, I want to, can you remind

[00:17:10] them again that during the, that mathematically the Democrats will come back potentially up to 67.

[00:17:16] It'll be a 67, 67 tie, but it will be, it will require 68 votes to remove the Republican speakers.

[00:17:23] So there will be a Republican speaker for two years.

[00:17:25] Correct. Yeah. And I'm a little less knowledgeable on what it takes to remove a speaker,

[00:17:29] but I would say it this way. It likely, it would take a new election. So the same,

[00:17:35] if someday there's a Republican that had a medical issue or died or heaven forbid, whatever. And

[00:17:43] maybe two months from now or three months from now or whatever. And the Democrats have a little

[00:17:47] advantage. And one day during session, they have a majority. Potentially they could call for a new

[00:17:51] speaker election and they could have a new speaker election and elect a new speaker. I'm a little foggy

[00:17:56] on what the process is there. And I was just perusing through state statute and the constitution and

[00:18:01] the house rules. And I couldn't find anything. As one does. I don't. As one does on a Friday

[00:18:05] afternoon. Yes. A very average Friday afternoon. I don't think, I don't think there's a requirement

[00:18:10] that you can't have another speaker election, but it would take a majority of votes the same way the

[00:18:15] first speaker was elected. So you could have this gaming. That's the reason I said at the beginning,

[00:18:19] if the Republicans take full advantage of what they were given, and I would expect them to.

[00:18:26] And you think they should.

[00:18:27] And I think they should. If they take full advantage of what they were given. And the reason I

[00:18:31] say I think they should is because I know Democrats would. I know full well if the roles were reversed,

[00:18:36] Democrats would absolutely do it to us. So there's no reason we shouldn't take advantage.

[00:18:40] And we're going to have more votes on the first day of session. So we should absolutely elect a

[00:18:45] speaker. That speaker should elect Republican committee chairs, not co-chairs, but Republican

[00:18:50] committee chairs. And they should fix the committees a little bit. They should take one Democrat off each

[00:18:55] committee and have a majority of Republicans on committees. Now, if you do that, and the further you push,

[00:19:00] because they do have an agreement that they'd have co-chairs, and they've all been notified,

[00:19:04] and they've all been notified of what committees they're going to be on. But really, those things

[00:19:07] don't take effect until the first day of session when the speaker issues, once the speaker's elected,

[00:19:13] the speaker issues those memos to say, I am appointing these people committee chair, and I'm appointing

[00:19:18] these people to these committees. The further you push, the more adversarial it gets, right?

[00:19:24] And the more Democrats are going to be looking for an opportunity to game the system later. And that

[00:19:31] means if you get into this situation, I think the Senate realized what this looks like for the last

[00:19:36] few years because they had a one-seat majority for a couple of different times in the last few years.

[00:19:41] You have to have every butt in every seat every day without exception. Because if somebody doesn't

[00:19:46] show up, you've got trouble, right? And the other side now has an advantage.

[00:19:49] And especially in this case, it's if one person doesn't show up, you've got a problem on either side.

[00:19:55] How difficult is that to manage?

[00:19:56] It's almost impossible, right? We have one of the top 10 largest house chambers as far as membership

[00:20:03] in the country. And we have the largest Senate in the country with 67. And the more you get,

[00:20:09] things happen, right? Kids get married, somebody gets sick, people die, loved ones die,

[00:20:15] you have to go to a funeral. There are times when people need, now, if you've got the speaker also

[00:20:21] sets when we're going to session every day, right? So the speaker could maybe plan and, but there's a

[00:20:29] lot of work that goes into managing that, right? It's hurting cats.

[00:20:32] Now, Speaker, two questions I have. First, I want to chat a little bit to Michael's question of the

[00:20:38] gaymanship kind of this breakdown, because I agree. I think Democrats would 100% take advantage of this.

[00:20:43] I can see Republicans trying to have an olive branch here or there, trying to find some place

[00:20:50] that they're conceding something to try to make it a little easier. But that's also going to be

[00:20:56] tough. If you really want to take advantage of this, you have to take advantage of it. And I think over

[00:21:00] the last two years, from my perspective and everybody, different legislative members and staff

[00:21:05] we've talked to, what we saw from the Democrats is Republicans really being left by the wayside,

[00:21:10] right? Their bills weren't being heard. Their testifiers weren't being heard. They were really

[00:21:14] left out of the process in general. So do they owe anything?

[00:21:18] Yeah, they called the question and cut off debate in this last... I was pretty proud during my 13 years

[00:21:22] in the legislature, a little more than 13 years, the question was never called one time while I was in

[00:21:27] the legislature. It was called in the session immediately before I was there, and it was called

[00:21:32] in the session immediately after I left. But when I was there, the question was never called,

[00:21:37] which... Why is that significant? Explain to our listeners. Well, if you call the question, it cuts

[00:21:42] off debate. And we have a rich tradition in the legislature of allowing the minority to speak. You

[00:21:46] don't have a lot of power. There's a lot of power in being speaker and a lot of power in having

[00:21:50] the majority, and you control a lot. But what the minority does have is their voice. So I think

[00:21:57] it's considered bad form to say, we're going to do whatever we want, and we don't even want to hear

[00:22:04] your opinion on it, right? It's one thing. Everybody knows when you have the votes, you're

[00:22:08] going to do whatever you want. But to say to somebody, and we're not even going to let you

[00:22:12] talk about it. We're not even going to let your voice be heard on it. We're just going to cut you

[00:22:15] off and move on to the next thing because we don't even care at all what you think. That's a tacky

[00:22:19] thing to do. And it's been... There were times when I thought the question was going to be called,

[00:22:24] and I would always tell the speaker when I was minority leader, I would always tell the speaker,

[00:22:29] let's... Why don't we just take a break and cool off and let's talk and let's figure this out?

[00:22:33] Because I just think it's bad for the institution to disrespect the minority in that way.

[00:22:38] Becky calls the question a lot on this podcast. She really drives me crazy. And our listeners

[00:22:42] were projected to it, but she still does it. So maybe she'll stop.

[00:22:45] Becky, if I'm talking too much, feel free to call the question on me.

[00:22:48] Never. I do have one more question, and I might be putting you on the spot because I don't know

[00:22:52] if things have changed since you've left. But during COVID, obviously there were rules in

[00:22:57] place for proxy voting and virtual voting from afar. Do you know if any of those still stand

[00:23:02] that might be able to assist and benefit Republicans from what you said of having those 67 or has that

[00:23:08] all been eliminated? They did make some changes to it, it's my understanding, but it does still

[00:23:13] exist. Democrats still were allowing people to vote remotely and they changed the process,

[00:23:18] I think, a little bit. So it's not exactly the way it was during COVID, but you still are allowed

[00:23:23] to vote remotely. That was never a thing before COVID. And I had advocated that it shouldn't be a

[00:23:29] thing. And I think you could make a case that it's unconstitutional. Nobody ever really challenged

[00:23:36] it during COVID, but I made the case at the time because the constitution says that the legislature

[00:23:42] shall meet in the seat of government. And if you are not in the seat of government, and I think you

[00:23:46] can make an argument, well, the meeting has happened there. You're just virtually joining it. I don't

[00:23:50] know. But I, yeah. So to your, to the heart of your question, could the Republicans use that to

[00:23:56] their advantage if they do have to have somebody at a funeral to be able to call in from the church

[00:24:02] basement during the reception afterwards to, to cast a vote potentially. Now the Senate does

[00:24:07] something different. And remember, the Republicans are going to be able to adopt rules on the first day

[00:24:11] of session. And they should, they should set up the rules to, to benefit themselves during this

[00:24:16] situation, but they should also honor the house. I'm not saying they should completely set up a

[00:24:20] disrespect people and take advantage. But the Senate has a rule that allows more proxy voting,

[00:24:27] where if Michael's a representative or Senator, and I'm a Senator and I'm at home, I can tell Michael

[00:24:33] what my vote is. And he can stand up at the end of the vote after they've closed the board and say,

[00:24:37] a doubt votes, I, or whatever. And that becomes an official vote and gets recorded. I actually think

[00:24:43] that one is probably more questionable on the, on the legalities of it or constitutionality of it,

[00:24:49] because you're not hearing the person's like in the house, you have to be on video and they call

[00:24:54] the role. They, the clerk will call your name and then you say, I, people can hear it on the tape.

[00:24:59] So.

[00:25:00] I want to just also make an observation. There seems to have been, and please disagree with me,

[00:25:05] both of you, if you think I'm wrong, but there seems to have been an uptick in the Republicans'

[00:25:09] legal game in the last couple of years. There was a challenge, Becky, we had Ryan Wilson on,

[00:25:15] he had wrote an, he ran for state auditor and he had responded to my op-ed. I know he's been involved

[00:25:20] in some of these cases and there's been some other attorneys too, but there was a challenge

[00:25:23] to Trump being on the ballot that was dismissed. We had a legal case recently regarding representation

[00:25:29] on, for, for judges or for election judges in Hennepin County. And that was one, I know Ryan

[00:25:35] Wilson was involved in some of that behind the scenes, but there's really been an uptick in

[00:25:40] the Republicans' legal game in this state because this was a significant victory. And I got to also

[00:25:46] say it was before you were elected when I was research director at the state party, you might

[00:25:50] have been on the executive committee, you might have remembered this, but we did a bunch of legal

[00:25:54] challenges related to residency. And I remember we didn't have the technology and it was just,

[00:25:59] it was a distance issue in time. We didn't have the ability to document. And the way that,

[00:26:05] some of these cases have happened and having looked at these cases now with that kind of lens,

[00:26:10] again, I'm not an attorney, but having researched some of those cases, the evidence was pretty

[00:26:15] overwhelming in this case. And my compliments to the legal team, hearing my partisan hat here,

[00:26:21] because there seems to be an uptick in the Republicans' legal game.

[00:26:24] So I want to make two points. The first, I don't want to diminish the attorneys on our side,

[00:26:28] but we have some really talented young attorneys on the Republican side of which Harry Niska is one of

[00:26:34] them. But there are others and they do a really great job. I think a little bit on the second

[00:26:38] point is, I think the Democrats have gotten a little sloppy too. I think they're pushing the

[00:26:43] envelope. I think they're getting too comfortable thinking that Minnesota is this Democrat majority,

[00:26:47] and they're doing things that are questionable. They're doing things that not even a Democrat

[00:26:51] appointed Supreme Court is willing to say, we're going to overturn that. And interestingly enough,

[00:26:57] on this case, it's not just the good legal work, but remember, all of this evidence had to be collected

[00:27:04] before the election, before we knew it was a tied election, right? So somebody was onto this.

[00:27:09] Takes a lot of discipline.

[00:27:11] And didn't know how important that was going to be until election day. Kudos to everybody involved.

[00:27:16] This is, and Democrats have nobody to blame but themselves. They were sloppy,

[00:27:21] and this was stupid, and they deserve it. And it's going to cost them for two years.

[00:27:26] Wow.

[00:27:27] And Melissa Hortman will likely lose her speakership over this.

[00:27:31] Wow. I want to thank you both for coming on today and doing this. And I just got to say,

[00:27:36] this is, what a great day to have a podcast. This is obviously historic.

[00:27:40] Yeah.

[00:27:40] To be able to have, to be able to connect with you, Speaker Down, and Becky to come on and talk,

[00:27:44] for you guys to make time today. I just really appreciate it. You're such a resource,

[00:27:48] speaker down. And we look forward to having you back again. And Becky, thank you so much for making

[00:27:53] time today to do this. This was just a wonderful episode before the holiday break, and I just,

[00:27:57] before the Christmas break. And I wish you both say travels over the holidays. We want to thank

[00:28:01] you for listening to this bonus episode of The Breakdown with Brock Corwin-Becky. Before we go,

[00:28:06] show some love for your favorite podcast by leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or on the platform

[00:28:10] where you listen. You can also visit our website and follow us across all social media platforms

[00:28:15] at BB Break Pod. The Breakdown with Brock Corwin-Becky will return next week. Thank you so much. Have a great weekend.